[LEMONS]
2.24.2004
Notes From A Conference Room Floor

Cokie Roberts

She's fantastic. I respect her. Don't get me wrong. But she's been going on about the 2004 election for half an hour now, and I'm pretty sure that she's not going to talk about anything else--unless she really changes course here in the next five minutes. And I'm wondering. Was Cokie *really* the best choice to kick off a security conference? She began by telling some joke about how she was comfortable talking about this because she worked with so many hacks, attacks, and, um, I forget. It was lame. And then she felt the need to explain it. And to tell us that Ralph Nader was a Trojan Horse. Get it? Trojan Horse? And then she threw in the obligatory joke about Al Gore inventing the Internet. And then talked politics for half an hour. Interesting, but, who gives a wet wombat?

So.

What did I learn? Dubya's going to be re-elected. The Senate is going to probably go Republican. The House is going to be overwhelmingly Republican, thanks to the redistricting (a program hatched by Newt). And President Bush will never propose a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Never. Or at least, not until after he's re-elected. You heard it here first.

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Andrew Sullivan:

The president launched a war today against the civil rights of gay citizens and their families. And just as importantly, he launched a war to defile the most sacred document in the land. Rather than allow the contentious and difficult issue of equal marriage rights to be fought over in the states, rather than let politics and the law take their course, rather than keep the Constitution out of the culture wars, this president wants to drag the very founding document into his re-election campaign. He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens - and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself. The document that should be uniting the country will now be used to divide it, to single out a group of people for discrimination itself, and to do so for narrow electoral purposes. Not since the horrifying legacy of Constitutional racial discrimination in this country has such a goal been even thought of, let alone pursued. Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth.

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2.19.2004
Hip-Hop is Corny. What's Next?

Hip hop is corny. Not to mention commodified, pre-packaged, corporate drivel. Sure, there's still great stuff out there. Fantastic albums that make you move, that make you think, that make you connect with the divine and the sublime. But when was the last time you heard a hip-hop song and thought, "wow, well that's something completely different"? Even the underground sounds vaguely like something I've heard before.

Don't get me wrong. I still listen to hip-hop. I still enjoy hip-hop. I still buy a few hip-hop albums every year. Even the big stuff. Pass that Dutch, shake your stuff. And I have bona-fides. Maybe. I grew up listening to hip-hop. Two of the first cassettes I ever bought were "Kings of Rock" and "Radio." I saw NWA play live, supporting Straight Outta Compton. I saw Slick Rick. I saw De La Soul. I saw LL Cool J. All on the same tour. I listened and listened and listened, and never thought it was weird because I was white (though I never would have dared to make it myself).

But then MTV fucking killed it. They massacred it sometime around 1995, just after picking the last bits of flesh from the decomposing carcass of the 1980s indie/alternative music scene. Slate thinks Kanye West can save it. But then, Slate is written and read by a bunch of stodgy old white guys like myself, who prop up the status-quo rather than smash it.

I disagree.

Hip-hop is bloated and fat and old. It is, for the most part, nothing more than a commodity to be sold by the music industry to nimrods who believe that--like listening to hair metal in the 80s--they are somehow rebelling. Somehow different. Somehow cutting edge. That curse words, and gun references and staccato beats, banned fromm their parents minivans, give them a sort of street-cred by proxy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hip-hop isn't dead. Nor will it be any time soon. And every once in a while, revolutionary artists will come along and shake it up, make a difference, make a stand. Hip-hop hooray. But just as it became impossible for punk to regain its roots once Nirvana broke, so, too, did Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z detroy what DMC, BDP, PE, GMF and KMD had wrought. Even if only by the virtue of mastering that which they did not invent.

It's a natural cycle in popular music. A genre forms in the streets and small clubs. Grandmaster Flash and Television. The mainstream doesn't go for it, but it percolates with the kids and slowly grows. Whodini and Black Flag. As it begins to become known, a few artists breakout with crossover hits.Metallica and Run DMC. A few popular if semi-avant garde artists from other genres co-opt it, respectfully. Louis Prima and Blondie. Then the record companies and MTV get wise, and go on the hunt for artists. Blink 182 and Nelly. They look for archetypes, and only develop those who fit the mold. Warren G and The Everly Brothers and Ratt and Limp Bizkit. Artists who aren't easily categorized aren't signed, aren't promoted. ICP and Lightning Bolt. And pretty soon, it's pure TRL. It's happened to everything from rock and roll, to punk, to ska, to house, to metal, to, well hip-hop. For some reason it took hip-hop an unusually long time to follow this timeline.

And it always leaves me wondering "what's next?" What's out there now that I'm too old and too cranky to know about? (And it doesn't count unless I don't get it. Unless 16 year olds love it and 35 year old music snobs--feasting on Pere Ubu and Tortoise and Godspeed and, oh, I don't know, Mos Def--are utterly dismissive of it. Unless the old fart bohemians think it's banal and derivative and beneath consideration, it isn't art.) What are the kids grooving to and moving to that the critics are calling unlistenable and somebody, somewhere is already thinking of how to exploit? Or have we reached the end of genres? Is there nothing left, aside from a further splintering, melding, and remixing of what's already out there? What?

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2.12.2004
After 50 Years, They Finally Get To Make It Legit

Lesbian couple wedded at San Francisco City Hall.

History was made at 11:06 a.m. today at San Francisco City Hall when Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon took their wedding vows, becoming the first same-sex couple to be officially married in the United States.

The landmark wedding, the first of many expected to be held at City Hall today, is sure to set off a legal challenge. City officials, in fact, rushed to issue the first marriage licenses to same-sex couples as quickly as possible for fear that opponents would seek a court injunction to stop them. Officials alerted only a handful of people that they were ready to act, wanting to keep it secret until the papers were signed and the "I do's'' were spoken.

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Dengue Fever: One Year Later.

One year ago, today, Harper, Nina and I were spending our last night together in Laos, on Don Det in the Si Pan Don (the four [si] thousand [pan] islands [don] in the Mekong River on the border with Cambodia). That afternoon, we walked to the West end of Don Det to a bungalow complex that overlooked the wide, muddy Mekong and ordered a couple of BeerLaos.

It was where we went every night--where many of the travellers on the island did--to watch the sun set into that river of five nations. I split off, and smoked with a couple of other Farang who were hanging out there at another table, watching the river traffic first pick up, and then die down as fishermen in longtails hurried to get home before dark. Then I walked with Nina (a friend from home who we had been travelling with for over a month) and Harper to an isolated platform that jutted out over the river. I wanted to get one last picture of the three of us, for Harper and I were heading to Burma by way of Bangkok the next day, while Nina had extended her visa to stick around in Laos. As the sun began to drop, we sat down on the wooden platform, and grinned into the blinking light of my camera. I don't know for sure, but I imagine I did what I always do when I'm looking at a camera with a timer, and quoted Rasing Arizona, "We're set to pop here, honey."

And as the camera flashed, and caught that last Laotian sunset, I noticed my lower back hurt, presumably from sitting on the ground so much, and I thought that it would be nice to get back to Bangkok and sit in chairs again for a few days.

Of course, it wasn't sore from sitting at all. By that night, Harper and I were completely debilitated with a mysterious fever, our bodies and bones screaming in pain, and 500 miles from any sort of healthcare. It was Dengue Fever, and we had to make a mad dash to get back to Bangkok across hundreds of miles in conditions that would have been barely tolerable even if we feeling our best.

I'll never forget it. I'll never forget that mad dash back, crammed into songtheaus and trying to find someplace within myself where the pain wasn't so bad. Looking across at Harper who was in the same horrible condition. I'll never forget sitting on the steps of a Thai Bank in Ubon Ratchathani, holding a weak and too-thin Harper in my arms as she cried from the pain and the misery and the wonder and hopelessness, worrying in the back of my mind about what we might have and whether or not we'd be able to get to a hospital. I'll never forget waking up in the middle of the night on the train, biting my pillow so I wouldn't scream, climbing down to the bunk below so Harper could wipe down my feverish skull with wet rags. I'll never forget writhing in pain at the D&D Inn--I've never actually "writhed" before and never fully comprehended what it meant until my body began to make the semi-unconscious movements trying to escape the constant pain--while Eminem blared all hours of the night and day on Thanan Khao San below us. And the rash. That Godawful rash. Never before have I been so profoundly ill. So miserable.

It's all like yesterday. I can hardly believe it's been a year.

When you're travelling, you feel like you'll do it forever. It goes on and on. And then once you get home, you begin to recognize the sad fact that you will not. It's disorienting, and I miss the new adventures of the road every day. Here, the days slip by in an unending current, and time seems mightily accelerated. I miss travelling in an uncomfortable style. For all the terror of coming down with some mysterious tropical disease when you're isolated from healthcare, for all the discomforts of the buses, the mosquitos, the straw-filled mattresses, the lack of familiar sights and comforts, the frightening sight of masks worn to ward off SARS, travelling appeals to me in a way nothing else does. Every day is new. Every moment is now.

I miss you, Su, Nid, Thep, Muu, Lek, Mai, and Meu. Sabaii dii, mai? I miss you even more, Mr. Deng. I miss playing cards with you in the evening, and going out in the Mekong with you in your boat to cast nets for fish. I miss taking my meals with you in the evening, and watching your son Dipoy play with knives and lighters, until you look over at him proclaiming "Oh-My-Gott," and run to scoop danger from his litttle hands. Sabaii dii, bao, Mr. Deng, sabaii dii, bao?

Tomorrow, we're flying to San Diego, and then we're taking a public bus down the coast of Baja. It won't be the same, but it will be enough for now. Enough for now.

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2.10.2004
Your Unemployment is a "Good Thing"

I don't think Bush feels our pain:

The movement of American factory jobs and white-collar work to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time, even if it causes short-term pain and dislocation, the Bush administration said yesterday.

The embrace of foreign 'outsourcing,' an accelerating trend that has contributed to U.S. job losses in recent years and has become an issue in the 2004 elections, is contained in the president's annual report to Congress on the U.S. economy.

"Outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade," said N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, which prepared the report. "More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."

Poverty is the new prosperity, yo.

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2.3.2004
Terror! Live at Ten!

FoxNews drives me absolutely bonkers. Not because it's conservative--Hell I enjoy the "infotainment" of Rush Limbaugh sometimes and can appreciate the journalism in the Weekly Standard--but because it's all spin and sensationalism masquerading as news. It bothers me as a Serious Journalist, in the same way that doctors are bothered by faith-healers. (Or at least like a web designer is by my site.) I've never understood how rational people - and I know many who do - can watch it.

But the thing is, when I do watch FauxFoxNews, I can see it's appeal. It's akin to watching Friday the 13th, or a Janet Jackson halftime show. Sure, it's a train wreck, but all that gore and twisted metal and unexpected boobies are just so damn entertaining, in a terrifying, end-of-the-world sort of way. FoxNews gets you worked the fuck up. Damn the facts, it's a scary world! Muslims! Democrats! Taxes! Environmentalists! Show me some more! I'm ready to roll, motherfucker!

This was certainly true of the ricin story, which happens to coincide with an important day for the Democrats. The buzz is that the Grand Old Party is getting a little antsy about all the free press the Dems are getting, particularly as most of them are bashing Bush and not each other. Pictures, of course, are worth a thousand words. Or in my case, 3000 words. So I'll shut up now, and let the screen shots of front pages from a few major news sites--taken several hours after the ricin story broke--do all the talking.

(click to enlarge)


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