Month: November 2023

“Sgt. Pepper” was unquestionably the most innovative pop record of the last century. It was brash, irreverent, and optimistic; it combined new and old art forms in a way that had never been seen before. With the exception of the remarkable “A Day in the Life” and “When I’m Sixty-Four,” however, the individual songs have not worn that well. When was the last time you heard “Lovely Rita?” What about “Fixing a Hole?”

“Magical Mystery Tour” was the complete opposite. The individual songs are among the best that Lennon and McCartney ever wrote, but the album as a whole is gloomy, largely because of the preference for cellos over guitars. There are a few duds, too. The public never completely embraced it, in spite of its brilliance.

And then there is “White Album,” which once again took the band in a completely different direction. This time, the concept, for the most part, is parodies of a wide range of musical forms. The cellos are gone; guitars are back. And the record, unlike its predecessors, is mostly outward looking, sarcastic, and angry. That was undoubtedly due to two things. First, as we know, the band members weren’t getting along; second, it was 1968. There was a lot out there to piss you off.

To me, “White Album” is George Harrison’s finest moment, not as a writer–that was “Abbey Road,” to which he contributed two truly great songs–but as a performer. His guitar is the driving force behind the record. He deserves more credit for the album’s success than he generally receives.

I was a Steely Dan fan when I was growing up, but an ambivalent one, for two reasons. First, the icy perfectionism of the music was enjoyable, but hardly uplifting; second, the lyrics didn’t contain a scintilla of idealism. It appeared to me that Becker and Fagen were celebrating the self-destructive lifestyles of bohemian characters for no obviously good reason. I mostly set the records aside.

On further reflection, I was mostly right about the music, but wrong about the lyrics. It is obvious to me now that Becker and Fagen were acting as journalists, not evangelists for the demi-monde. They pointed out, not just the hypocrisy of establishment figures, but the hollowness of the lives of self-indulgent losers and criminals, as well. There is, in the end, nothing romantic about the criminal lifestyle that is worth emulating.

Take “Deacon Blues,” for example. The lines in the song are clear and elegant. The protagonist is a wannabe bohemian who has come to believe (at least he says he does–whether he actually ever gets the nerve to act on it is another matter) in the supposed romance of life on the fringes. The song in no way glamorizes his decision. Are Becker and Fagen simply describing him and leaving judgment to the listener, or are they openly contemptuous of him? You can make the case either way.

For millions of years, people lived to the rhythms of the seasons; they rose with the sun and went to bed when it went down. Then man conquered distance with the railroad, and darkness with artificial light, and the old way of living didn’t work anymore. Time was reorganized, and clocks, not the sun, came to rule our lives.

Today, instead of adjusting our habits and our schedules to accommodate the changing length of the day, we adjust the clocks twice a year. An artificial construct designed to solve a problem is actually our boss. That’s deeply weird, when you think about it.

As a retiree, I’m happy to live a hybrid life. I can’t avoid the clock altogether, but I wake up with the sun regardless of the season. I’m happy to do so.

The deadline for a deal on a CR is only two weeks away. Will Speaker Mike crash the car to prove to the far right that he can, or will he trade on his credibility with the extremists to keep the lights on?

It’s obviously disheartening to know that a white Christian nationalist is in a position of power in the House, but his ideology matters less in this instance than his personality and his leadership skills.

I think he will draw back from the brink. From what I’ve seen, he understands perfectly that he has to satisfy the moderates as well as his right-wing friends if he wants to accomplish anything and keep his job. That should deter him from following his instincts and creating chaos.

For now, anyway.

Some left-leaning commentators are celebrating the UAW’s apparent victory over GM, Ford, and Stellantis. This could be the beginning of a shift in power away from large corporations and towards working people, and the beginning of the end for the dollar store economy, right?

The pandemic should warn us that there are other possibilities, including the following:

1. The companies protect their profits by jacking up prices, and consumers pay them. Increased inflation is the result.
2. The companies jack up prices, but consumers refuse to pay them, and buy cars built with non-union labor. Profits fall, layoffs ensue, and the companies don’t have the funds to facilitate the change to electric vehicles. Tesla and the Japanese car companies are the big winners here.
3. The companies don’t jack up prices, profits fall, and there is no money left for the conversion to electric vehicles. The pace of the conversion slows as the companies beg for relief from government timetables.

None of these is a victory for working people or the nation as a whole. History tells us that only government action, typically in a massive crisis, causes major redistributions of wealth. A few union victories aren’t going to do the trick.

To borrow a phrase from Xi and Putin, Trump and Bibi used to be as close as lips and teeth. Today, Trump is much more critical of Bibi than he used to be. Why?

Because Bibi has to live in the real world, and it is Biden, not Trump, who commands the aircraft carriers off of the Israeli coast. Bibi has embraced Biden because he has no choice. Trump, being who he is, will never forgive him for that act of disloyalty.

Oh, well. He still has Putin’s unconditional support, and that’s what really matters.

Biden goes to Israel, hugs Bibi, and does his consoler-in-chief thing. He sends aircraft carriers to deter Hezbollah. Thereafter, he spends most of his time warning the Israeli government about the dangers of throwing temper tantrums and killing innocent civilians. Having established an enormous amount of credibility with the Israeli public, his concerns are difficult to ignore. His initial gesture was genuine, but was it also a tactic?

Yes, and it is working. Will he get any credit for it from the public, either in America or throughout the world? I doubt it.

One hears two responses to the exit strategy question from the Israeli government. The first is that power in Gaza will be given to an outside group of technocrats, or the PA, or the UN, or some group to be named later. The second is that Hamas is a group of Nazis, and the story will end the way World War II did, after the unfortunate but justifiable deaths of thousands of civilians. Is this a workable strategy?

Option 1 is an exercise of wishful thinking; no outsider is going to come in and save the Israelis from the costs of an occupation. If you accept the World War II analogy, you are implicitly tolerating the need for a lengthy and expensive occupation. The Israelis would prefer to avoid that.

Barring a switch to the “cut the grass” strategy discussed in my last post, the fact is that Israel will be faced with two options at the end of the war. The first is an occupation of indefinite length; the second is a political initiative that would actually seek a reasonable solution to the Palestinian problem. The second choice is obviously the better one from an American perspective. Is it plausible? It would actually make the war worth fighting, but if push comes to shove, Bibi will undoubtedly pick occupation over the two-state solution.

Zack Beauchamp thinks the current Israeli campaign is unfocused and ultimately impossible. He suggests that the government should give up the massive air bombardment and rely on probing commando raids to capture or kill the Hamas leadership and free the hostages. The alternative of wiping out Hamas altogether begs the question of what happens next; on that point, the government lacks any kind of viable plan. Is he right?

It is true that limiting the scope of the campaign avoids the question of who runs Gaza when the war is over. It is also true that doing so will result in a Hamas recovery within, at most, a few years. It is a slightly more intense version of the usual Netanyahu approach to “cutting the grass.”

I doubt the Israeli public will tolerate the yard guy tactic this time. But how does the story end if the war isn’t limited? I will address that in my next post.