Sunday, September 14, 2003

John Cash, RIP

Johnny Cash sang that he wore black for the wretched of the earth: hungry children, victims of injustice, victims of hate, and all of those without a defender. He was recording songs by Nine-Inch Nails at the end of his career. He sang Gospel. He sang Country. He sang Folk. He sang in a unique way. There was not another like him. He walked the line. If this be (fair & balanced) tribute, so be it.


[x NYTimes]
September 14, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Everyman, With a Voice
By PETER GURALNICK

Only those who were there at the beginning can remember how different he really was. The records, when they first started coming out on the Sun label in 1955, in the immediate wake of Elvis Presley's success, sounded "so unusual," said the Sun session guitarist, Roland Janes, "that I never would have dreamed he could have even gotten a record played on the radio. But he set country music on its ear."

It was the voice that compelled attention from the start. It was a voice that the founder of Sun Records, Sam Phillips, compared to the blues singer Howlin' Wolf's in its uniqueness, the unimpeachable integrity and originality of its sound — but it was the conviction behind the voice that allowed Johnny Cash to create a body of work as ambitious in its scope as it was homespun in its sound.

He carried that conviction with him from the time he first entered the tiny Sun studio in Memphis in the fall of 1954. He was just out of the Army, selling home appliances door to door, and playing with a trio of musicians barely conversant with their instruments: a guitarist who played one note at a time because he didn't know any other way to do it; a bass player who had just switched over from guitar and had not yet learned to tune his instrument; and a steel guitar player who would drop out of the picture altogether before they even made a record. They worked and worked until, after nearly six months, they finally came up with something that reflected the honesty, originality, above all the kind of spontaneity and emotional truth (as opposed to technical, or even musical, perfection) that both Phillips and Cash particularly prized. This "low-tech" approach was the perfect vehicle, certainly, for the plain-spoken quality of Johnny Cash's message. But the method of delivery doesn't come close to explaining the majesty, or ambition, of his art.

To understand that, one has to factor in the power of imagination. John Cash ("Johnny" was Sam Phillips's bow to the marketplace) grew up in the federal "colony" of Dyess, Ark., "a social experiment with a socialist set-up, really," as Cash described it, "that was done by President Roosevelt for farmers that had lost out during the Depression." One of his most vivid memories of Dyess was the day that Eleanor Roosevelt came to town to dedicate the library, a momentous occasion not simply for the glimpse it afforded of Mrs. Roosevelt but for the opportunity it subsequently afforded him to indulge in what would become a lifelong passion for reading. He read James Fenimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott in particular at that time, and everything he could find on the American Indian — not so much to escape as in the spirit of discovery. And he carried this exploratory spirit with him into the world, a world in which he achieved a degree of celebrity and fame far beyond anything that he might ever have imagined, and long past the point that most people would gladly have settled for the simple definition of success.

He used his success, in fact, to provide a voice for the downtrodden, for lost souls and lost causes that might otherwise have found no place in the American Dream. He used his knowledge and passion for every sort of music — for the blues of Robert Johnson, the gospel music of his fellow Arkansan, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Texas folk songs collected by J. Frank Dobie — to set out in new and inventive directions of his own. And when he got a network television show in the late 60's, he not only presented such unlikely countercultural figures as Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger to a predominantly country audience, he also regularly incorporated a vivid lesson in musical and social history in a filmed sequence called "Ride This Train."

His imagination took him along widely divergent paths. There was, as he often remarked, no safe harbor for the creative soul. He was tormented by demons that he could not always control, but he never sought excuses. He simply sought truth.

This was what continued to give Johnny Cash's music relevance over the years. Through imagination he possessed a gift for empathetic transference; unlike many artists he was able to take on other voices and make them his own. His music celebrated the power of the individual, but his emphasis on directness and simplicity made a complex, and sometimes contradictory, message accessible to all. His, as Sam Phillips once said, was the truest voice, because it was so irremediably his own — but it was a universal voice, too, for the very way in which it incorporated a constant sense of striving and struggle, an irreducible awareness, and embrace, of the human stain.

Peter Guralnick — author of an acclaimed two-volume biography of Elvis Presley — is working on a biography of Sam Cooke.

Copyright © 2003 The New York Times Company

(Fair & Balanced) Dave Barry for President

My mind is made up! I am supporting Dave Barry for President in 2004! My electoral history is marked by futility — my sole winning vote was Jimmy Carter in 1976 — and a vote for Dave Barry would keep the string intact. There is a Dave Barry for President Web site. This makes a helluva LOT more sense than the choices between W and one of the Seven (Nine?) Dwarves. At least Dave Barry makes sense to me! Even his nonsense is more entertaining. Fair & Balanced got me. If this be (fair & balanced) demagoguery, make the most of it!


Posted on Sun, Sep. 14, 2003
Staying fair and unbalanced for the election season
by
DAVE BARRY

People often ask me: ''Dave, as a leading candidate for president yourself, can you be unbiased when you write about the other candidates?''

Yes. When I believe that my opponents are wrong, I will point that out. But, by the same token, when I believe that my opponents are having carnal relations with livestock, I will point that out, too. ''Fair and balanced,'' that is my legally trademarked motto.

So today I'm going to analyze the presidential campaign, which, in accordance with our constitution, is taking place exclusively at picnics in Iowa and New Hampshire. Voters are lured to these picnics by free food, unaware that presidential contenders are lurking in the bushes, dressed in plaid shirts so they will appear human. A voter will be about to chow down, only to find himself suddenly locked in the death-grip handshake of, say, U.S. Rep. Dick ''Dick'' Gephardt, who commences to explain his views on pension reform. The voter nods thoughtfully, although what he's thinking is: ''When he lets go of my hand, I can eat my bratwurst.''

''Dick'' is one of approximately 78 leading Democratic contenders who've been going from picnic to picnic in a dense candidate clot. The only thing they all agree on is that they're wayyyyy smarter than President Bush. They watch him on television, frowning the way he does when he's trying to say a big word like ''appliance,'' and they think: ''How come he's holding press conferences with Tony Blair, and I'm lurking in these bushes covered with bratwurst juice?'' It drives them crazy, inside their clot.

As I write these words, the front-running Democrat is a surprise newcomer named Howard Dean, who is the mayor of Rhode Island or something. It doesn't matter. The important thing is: He's new! He's hot! He's on the Internet! He's got Martin Sheen! Above all, he's not ''Dick'' Gephardt! We in the news media currently love Howard, and we will actively promote his candidacy until we receive word from News Media Conspiracy Headquarters that it's time to crush him like an ant.

Let me say this to my fellow news mediums: When we decide to pick a new front-runner, we should take a hard look at Florida Sen. Bob ''Bob'' Graham. Really. I've known Sen. Graham for more than 20 years, during which I've interviewed him on a number of issues, and I've always found his answers to be thought-provoking. The specific thought they provoke is: ''Huh?''

Here's a true example. Ten years ago, I found out that the last remaining accordion-repair training program in the United States, located in Winona, Minn., was closing, leaving our nation's vital accordion resources dangerously dependent on foreigners. I called Sen. Graham's office, and he got on the phone personally. In rapid succession, he made the following statements, which I swear I am not making up:

• ''Just last night I ate at an Italian restaurant which, like thousands of other Italian restaurants across America, is now without music, because their accordion is in disrepair and has been returned from Winona, Minn., with postage due.''

• ''We are preparing an anti-dumping order against Liechtenstein, which has become the center of accordion repair on a global basis and has developed some ferociously anti-competitive practices.''

• ''I don't know whether the actual use of nuclear weapons is called for, but I do think we need a credible military threat.''

Back when Graham was governor of Florida, I asked him what he planned to do about the issue of harmonica safety. Without hesitation, he gave a two-minute speech, with statistics, proving that all of Florida's harmonica-related deaths were actually the fault of the previous governor. Really. And now he's running for president! If we in the news media don't do all we can to promote this man's campaign, we are even stupider than I thought.

In conclusion, I want to extend my sincere best wishes to all of my opponents, Republican and Democrat, and to state that, in the unlikely event I am not elected, I will support whoever is, even if it is Sen. John Kerry, who once came, with his entourage, into a ski-rental shop in Ketchum, Idaho, where I was waiting patiently with my family to rent snowboards, and Sen. Kerry used one of his lackeys to flagrantly barge in line ahead of us and everybody else, as if he had some urgent senatorial need for a snowboard, like there was about to be an emergency meeting, out on the slopes, of the Joint Halfpipe Committee. I say it's time for us, as a nation, to put this unpleasant incident behind us. I know that I, for one, have forgotten all about it. That is how fair and balanced I am.

© 2003 The Miami Herald

Maureen Tells It Like It Is

It gets worse and worse and worse. Worse, worser, worsest? How bad can it get? To hell with the UN. Now, we need the UN? Dead or Alive? Bring 'em on? Yet, the papers are full of W-defenders. Just yesterday, a former English teacher at Amarillo College — I wouldn't dignify him as a professor OR a colleague — wrote a love-it-or-leave-it diatribe Op-Ed piece in the local fishwrap against the W-bashers. According to this nut, only LIBERALS resort to pejorative descriptors: W, Shrub, Goodhair, and the like. What the hell do these wacked out characters deserve? Respect? Hell, they respect nothing but their own self-interest. I refuse to respect anyone who utters, I speak Mexican. or Misunderestimate. or Hispanically. or Not in French, or English, or Mexican. All of those utterances came out of W's mouth. The only time he made sense in an unscripted moment was when the sound system caught his aside to the Dickster at a campaign rally. Looking out at the crowd, W saw a NYTimes reporter who savaged him on the campaign trail. Said W to the Dickster: Look, there's so-and-so, a world-class asshole. Dickster replied: You got that right. In character, W should have said: Look,... a world-class nostril. We are living in an Alice-in-Wonderland world. Up is down. Right is left. Greed is good. Stupid is smart. And fine young people in Iraq are dying while W plays at being the POTUS. If this be (fair & balanced) revulsion, so be it.


[xNYTimes]
September 14, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Gunsmoke and Mirrors
By MAUREEN DOWD


WASHINGTON

This is how bad things are for George W. Bush: He's back in a dead heat with Al Gore.

(And this is how bad things are for Al Gore: He's back in a dead heat with George W. Bush.)

One terrorist attack, two wars, three tax cuts, four months of guerrilla mayhem in Iraq, five silly colors on a terror alert chart, nine nattering Democratic candidates, 10 Iraqi cops killed by Americans, $87 billion in Pentagon illusions, a gazillion boastful Osama tapes, zero Saddam and zilch W.M.D. have left America split evenly between the president and former vice president.

"More than two and a half years after the 2000 election and we are back where we started," marveled John Zogby, who conducted the poll.

It's plus ça change all over again. We are learning once more, as we did on 9/11, that all the fantastic technology in the world will not save us. The undigitalized human will is able to frustrate our most elaborate schemes and lofty policies.

What unleashed Shock and Awe and the most extravagant display of American military prowess ever was a bunch of theologically deranged Arabs with box cutters.

The Bush administration thought it could use scientific superiority to impose its will on alien tribal cultures. But we're spending hundreds of billions subduing two backward countries without subduing them.

After the president celebrated victory in our high-tech war in Iraq, our enemies came back to rattle us with a diabolically ingenious low-tech war, a homemade bomb in a truck obliterating the U.N. offices, and improvised explosive devices hidden in soda cans, plastic bags and dead animals blowing up our soldiers. Afghanistan has mirror chaos, with reconstruction sabotaged by Taliban assaults on American forces, the Afghan police and aid workers.

The Pentagon blithely says that we have 56,000 Iraqi police and security officers and that we will soon have more. But it may be hard to keep and recruit Iraqi cops; the job pays O.K. but it might end very suddenly, given the rate at which Americans and guerrillas are mowing them down.

"This shows the Americans are completely out of control," First Lt. Mazen Hamid, an Iraqi policeman, said Friday after angry demonstrators gathered in Falluja to demand the victims' bodies.

Secretary Pangloss at Defense and Wolfie the Naif are terminally enchanted by their own descriptions of the world. They know how to use their minds, but it's not clear they know how to use their eyes.

"They are like people in Plato's cave," observed one military analyst. "They've been staring at the shadows on the wall for so long, they think they're forms."

Our high-tech impotence is making our low-tech colony sullen.

"It's 125 degrees there and they have no electricity and no water and it doesn't make for a very happy population," said Senator John McCain, who recently toured Iraq. "We're in a race to provide the services and security for people so the Iraqis will support us rather than turn against us. It's up for grabs."

Senator McCain says that "the bad guys" are reminding Iraqis that America "propped up Saddam Hussein in the 80's, sided with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, told the people in Basra in '91 we'd help them get rid of Saddam and didn't, and put economic sanctions on them in the 90's."

He says we have to woo them, even though we are pouring $87 billion — double the amount designated for homeland security — into the Iraqi infrastructure when our own electrical grid, and port and airport security, need upgrading.

"If anyone thinks the French and Germans are going to help us readily and rapidly," he says, "they're smoking something very strong."

Mocking all our high-priced, know-nothing intelligence, Osama is back in the studio making his rock videos.

The cadaverous caveman has gone more primitive to avoid electronic detection, operating via notes passed by couriers.

We haven't forgotten all Mr. Bush's bullhorn, dead-or-alive pledges.

But he's like a kid singing with fingers in his ears, avoiding mentioning Saddam or bin Laden, or pressing the Pakistanis who must be protecting Osama up in no man's land and letting the Taliban reconstitute (even though we bribed Pakistan with a billion in aid). He doesn't dwell on nailing Saddam either.

His gunsmoke has gone up in smoke.

Copyright © 2003 The New York Times Company