I'm not too familiar with the Australian duo The Presets; before a few weeks ago I had never heard of them. Their music sounds pretty cool, albeit a little generic. Anyway, there's this really cool photographer Casper Balslev (who I found out about through Radiohead on their blog. His work was posted on this awesome website that has all different forms of art, but mostly painting and photography). His photos are pretty gritty but very cool..this series is my favorite. So, turns out this guy has also directed a few music videos. And they're pretty damn beautiful. (Even Hatesphere's slow motion headbanger video Floating manages to pull off some sort of visual grace.)

Here's the video of The Presets' song This Boy's In Love:

Watch it here.

by Jordan Coughenour
Special to iVoryTowerz

Broadway's reputation has always been synonymous with the glitziest, gaudiest and most over the top production values known to the stages of this country. Especially in this age of the Blockbuster Musical (of which I have previously written), in which an Addams Family and Spiderman musicals are planning to invade by spring of 2010, audiences on the Great White Way expect their ears, mind and eyes to be blown away by the spectacle. So, it is particularly notable when, in this era, shows that work magic with the most basic accessories in sound and set are successful enough to draw the attention of both theatre buff locals and curious tourists.

Last season's Passing Strange, written by and starring Los Angeles rocker Stew*, was one of the most perfectly formed examples of minimalism in modern musicals. With only a few black chairs, and an exuberant light wall, the show managed to bring both vitality and urgency foreign to contemporary musicals. Even though it was far surpassed in statues by In the Heights at the 2008 Tony Awards, Passing Strange stripped away the glitter of Broadway and instead simply told a compelling story with a cast as energetic as any seen since the first months of RENT. Although Passing Strange closed prematurely, Spike Lee took interest in the play’s depiction of the black artistic experience, and filmed the show over the course of two evenings. The film will air in 2010 on the public television network’s Great Performances.

It seems to be a surfacing trend that one or two musicals each season will have the guts (and possibly lack of funding) to mount a spectacle-less production. The short-lived, Off-Broadway originated [title of show] played for just around three months last summer, to little success except among a die-hard community of theatre aficionados. The real subdued star of the 08-09 year is the first major revival of the 1970’s free-love musical, Hair. The show, which until the second act remains essentially without a plot, could easily be transferred to the New York streets where the action onstage is meant to take place. Without set changes, and costumes that could easily have been purchased at the nearest vintage store, Hair functions similarly to Passing Strange, and even [title of show] by relying on the energy and passion that the cast passes to the audience, in the place of visual décor. The most affecting moment of Hair was one that could hardly be controlled, though was not at all unexpected by the cast. During the curtain call reprise of the well-known, and somewhat generation-defining number “Let the Sunshine In,” the co-stars of the show invited audience members to come onstage. While this action usually results in flamboyant high school drama queens and hesitant children strutting their wares, during this particular opportunity, the stage was instead rushed by white haired baby boomers, who hip swiveled along with the cast, and belted out the entirety of the lyrics as if it were still hip to wear bell bottoms and flowers in your hair. The shameless enthusiasm and youthful vitality of what moments ago, were merely onlookers, echoed the infectious power of theatre without the constraints of elaborate overproduction.

*Stew is the abbreviated name of singer-songwriter Mark Stewart.

(The promotional poster is for Passing Strange. To see a video preview of Passing Strange, please check the clip below.)

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by Rick Rockwell

Alright, any album that starts with a song entitled “Kitty Litter” immediately has this critic’s attention.

Thus opens Placebo’s sixth album Battle for the Sun: a 13-track outing that veers from grungy, post-punk stylings to experimental indie rock. (The electronic bonus track version comes with an additional track, “In a Funk.” The limited edition box set also includes yet another bonus studio track, “Wouldn’t It Be Good.”)

Battle for the Sun plays like a raw open wound of emotions after a particularly bad romantic breakup. Brian Molko’s lead guitar jangles and screeches with anxiety. The lyrics vary from anger (“The Devil in the Details”) to spiteful revenge and finally to the painful aches of emotional recovery (the updated glam-rock on “For What It’s Worth,” the first single).


Musically, Placebo has sharpened its sound on this release. While Meds (2006) seemed like an audition for the spot as band most likely to succeed Radiohead as the kings of alternative rock, most of Battle for the Sun is straightforward rock. Although the band includes a song “Ashtray Heart” which is a salute of sorts to Captain Beefheart, most of Battle for the Sun seems focused on crafting well-honed songs and less on pushing the alternative musical boundaries. (In the 1990s, before its first record, Placebo actually played some concert dates using the band name Ashtray Heart.)

Perhaps this musical focus is meant as the band’s assault on the U.S. market. A well-known success in Europe and the U.K., Placebo is far from a name act on this side of the Atlantic. Placebo certainly has as much to offer or more than popular U.S. favorites such as Fall Out Boy or The Killers. For instance, the track “Julien” certainly has radio potential with its well-crafted use of strings and a strong hook. Molko’s guitar work on the track is also reminiscent of the best of Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins. But likely, U.S. radio programmers will again pass on this material: it is over their heads.

Tracks like “Kings of Medicine” strike home not only with brass arrangements but also interesting lyrical wordplay using alcoholic beverages as the key metaphors. This is a trademark for Placebo, which has often used drug and alcohol references (including the band’s name choice) to make larger statements. Although Battle for the Sun may actually be a battle for notice in the U.S., it is another strong release from Britain’s answer to Seattle and the grunge movement of the 1990s. And for those who may think Placebo’s time has passed, just sample one track: “The Never-Ending Why.” On that number Molkos’ buzzsaw guitar provides a counterpoint to the sonic barrage of layered backing vocals, synthesizers, and even a toy piano (which has become a bit of a signature for this era’s indie rockers).

The recommendation: cue this one up; it is so much more satisfying than any of that wimpy pop or emo that tends to dominate the airwaves these days.

(The promotional photo of Placebo is © copyright Joseph Lianes and is made available for use through Vagrant Records, Placebo's U.S. record distributor. Placebo will begin its world tour on June 12 with an appearance in Finland. To see the video for the single "For What It's Worth," please check below.)

For What It's Worth

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(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

from Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Welcome to MAMMA!

We are a group of middle-aged mothers who want our every son and daughter to grow up and be able to marry a nice girl or boy — or boy or girl.

Yes, we’re talking same-sex marriage — marriage equality — so gird your loins and join us. You don’t have to be a MAMMA to be part of our family.

Some of us have gay children, gay relatives, gay friends, and we all treasure our civil rights enough to fight for them, like a mother for her babes, except we do battle with literature and poetry, images and discussion.

In fact, joining us means making an effort to talk about same-sex marriage with people who don’t support it. If that’s a scary thought, not to worry, Sweetie. MAMMA’s here to help. Visit us to learn how: www.mammasformarriageequality.com.

We might be profound or profane on occasion, pert or pedantic, prissy or pissy (too many ‘p’ words to keep that going), but whatever else we are, we are passionate about equal rights for all.

Even nose pickers. Now just imagine if folks tried to prohibit nose-picker marriage. We wouldn’t have enough mouths left to feed all that misinformation — no, homosexuality does not equate to pedophilia, it’s not contagious, your kids cannot be converted by their gay teachers and it’s not a chosen lifestyle! Hmm, do you suppose nose picking is genetic, too?

Anyway, yes, we are passionate about equal rights for all — especially in Fallbrook, where California’s anti-same-sex marriage ballot measure, Prop. 8, passed in November 2008 with 67.9 percent of the vote (compared to 52.3 percent statewide). That’s 11,298 voters whose hearts and minds can be changed to extend equal rights to all — as can hearts and minds across the country. Think of our effort as a little attitude adjustment.

Or we could just turn same-sex marriage opponents gay by close association. (Yes, of course that’s a joke! If you take life too seriously, Dear, you won’t have any fun at all.)

We will try anything, though, whatever it takes to jog memories of the poignant U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s and encourage folks to step beyond their fear, to internalize our nation’s heroic invitation to diversity — and our charming knack for becoming better for it.

To keep this effort vibrant — and heart- and mind-changing — please submit suggestions for content to your MAMMA. We’ll post new content as often as our motherly duties allow. Original poetry, short fiction or essays; videos and images; anecdotes, articles or links to other folks’ content worth sharing — send it all! The more ways we deliver our civil rights message, the more hearts and minds we will change in support of marriage equality.

We have some treats for you, to kick off MAMMA:

1. For those in Southern California, on Wednesday 10 June at 6:00 p.m., Fallbrook’s Writers Read has a poetry and prose reading in Fallbrook, Come Out of the Closet and Read! Closet writers, folks already out of the closet; come one and come all.

In recognition of the California Supreme Court’s recent failure to rule in favor of marriage equality, we encourage sharing work about living gay or having a LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender) family member or friend in your life.

2. For the rest of you, a couple of videos (please check below). First, if you have not seen former Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent statement at the National Press Club, or if you’re dying to see it again to better analyze his every nuance, here it is for your viewing pleasure — or obsession. Some folks are critical of his parsing support for same-sex marriage by relegating that freedom to the states to offer or withhold, rather than supporting federal legislation. But remember the source — this is Dick Cheney we’re talking about. This is a pretty darn good thing. MAMMA recommends sending the Cheney video to everyone you know who opposes marriage equality and tolerates Cheney. Hmm. ...

On the lighter side, we offer up Stephen Colbert's parody of the National Organization for Marriage "Gathering Storm" ad. MAMMA recommends sending this video only to folks with a sense of humor.

So, enjoy the videos, talk about them with others — and join us in supporting marriage equality at www.mammasformarriageequality.com.

(The graphic is provided by MAMMA and used with permission. Please look for the Colbert and Cheney videos below.)

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This week, the underground podcast provides the perfect soundtrack for your summer vacation. No, nothing trippy here. Instead, plenty of C major smiles. The patented eclectic mix travels around the U.K., stops briefly in Central America, and even lands in New Orleans (in the French Quarter, no doubt). Along the way, the music covers more than 50 years of sounds (and that's not including the origins of the Louis Armstrong cover). Not only is there a hefty dose of pop and power pop (isn't that the official music of summer?) but you'll also find new wave, classic rock, and heavier sounds too. Rock on and enjoy!



(To stream or download this podcast, please click here.)


Playlist

"Brighton Rock" by Queen
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Panama” (altered) by Van Halen
"Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson
“Glad" (live) by Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood
"Sweeping the Ashes" by Serena Ryder
"I Gonna Break His Heart" by Toby Lightman
"Meet You in the Middle" by Joan Osborne
"Rock'n Me" by Steve Miller
“It's Alright” by Big Head Todd & The Monsters
“Happy” by Even the Sun
Jeff’s New Wave: “She Can't Dance” by Marshall Crenshaw
“You, Me and the Bourgeoisie” by The Submarines
"Thirteen" by Big Star
"Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie" by Eddie Cochran
"Summer in the City" by The Lovin' Spoonful
Cover Me: "West End Blues" by Allen Toussaint

(Mp3 Runs - 1:15:48; 70 MB.)

(The photo is by mistress_f of Rome, Italy via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Emily Norton
Special to iVoryTowerz

Back in Nashville again, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover a heart for Africa outside the non-governmental organizations of Washington, D.C. However, I did not expect to find it where I did. I’ve kept tabs on local musician, Bela Fleck, the acclaimed banjo player extraordinaire, ever since my dad had the honor of hosting Fleck for a practice session at our house. Naturally, I was thrilled when my father told me about Fleck's latest project, the musical documentary, Throw Down Your Heart, directed by Sascha Paladino. The idea for the film was birthed from Fleck’s desire to trace the history of his beloved banjo back to it roots. Soon, however, the project developed into something even greater than he could have expected. During his five-week long trek through Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali, he forged relationships and collaborated with African musicians to create forty tracks of music (eighteen of which are on the record for the movie).


Fleck made the trip in 2005, but the film has taken three years to edit and is currently making its run through small film festivals around the country. In an interview with Nashville radio station Lightning 100 (WRLT-FM), Fleck mentioned that he’s now working to get the documentary more widely distributed on the big screen and on television. Regardless, he predicts the DVD release for sometime in October of this year.

Even more important than the history of the banjo, Throw Down Your Heart drives at a theme that deserves notice: we (as in the Western World) need a perspective change on how we view Africa as a whole. Yes, there is violence, disease, and poverty there. But, if we singularly focus on these negative aspects, we run the risk of devaluing the worth of a remarkably rich continent. For a wealth of great music and vivid people and places, check your local indie theater for Throw Down Your Heart.


(The photo of Bela Fleck playing in Africa is © copyright Argot Pictures which allows its use with the proper credits. To see a schedule of screenings for the film, please go here. To see a trailer for Throw Down Your Heart, please check below.)

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Good-bye.


David Carradine

(1936 — 2009)


"I seek not to know all the answers, but to understand the questions."






(The photo of David Carradine is © copyright Jano Rohleder; the photo was taken during an appearance in Germany by the actor in 2005. The copyright holder allows use of the photo with the proper credit. Please see The Los Angeles Times for Carradine's obituary. To sample a portion of the series pilot for Carradine's popular Kung Fu television series, please check below. For a retrospective on Carradine and Kung Fu please see: "I Seek Kung Fu in the Traffic of Life.")

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by Jeff Siegel

When I was in college, Muddy Waters played five minutes from where I lived. I didn’t go, because I was young and stupid and figured I’d have many chances to see him play. He died a couple of years later, and I never did see him live.

So when Koko Taylor swung through Texas several years ago, I made sure to see the show. That it was an hour from my house and that it was on a weeknight didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

That’s the first thing I thought of when I read that Taylor, 80, died on Wednesday. I had been lucky and smart enough to see a legend go through her paces. Because Taylor, the first woman to succeed in the very male-dominated world of the Chicago blues, was a legend. All you have to do is listen to one song, whether it’s her classic version of “Wang Dang Doodle” or “Young-Fashioned Ways,” from 2007’s Old School, and it’s clear that she could more than hold her own with Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon.

This is an incredible achievement, and not just because the music business mostly treats women as disposable sex objects. It’s because the blues, and Chicago blues especially, is about men and how they have been emasculated by a system of racial and social injustice. The best Delta blues, like Waters’ “I’m Ready” and Wolf’s “The Red Rooster,” are howls in the night by black men who are desperate to be seen as something more than what Jim Crow says they are. Which means the songs are about sex — the rooster imagery is obvious, and Waters’ isn’t getting ready to go to a tea party. (That younger African-Americans have never understood this used to drive Dixon crazy, and he always insisted, until the day he died in 1992, that the blues was just as potent at the end of the 20th century as it was in the middle.)

So how does a woman fit into this? By doing what Taylor did — by being good enough and patient enough to make her own space. Her songs, many written by Dixon and including “Wang Dang Doodle,” deal with the issues that the Chicago blues deals with, but from a woman’s perspective. It’s an amazing achievement. “Wang Dang Doodle” is about getting drunk and picking up women, and Taylor completely turns it around.

Taylor was also a band leader of great repute, another part of the Chicago blues tradition. Waters’ band included Little Walter, the greatest harp player who ever lived, and usually had Dixon on bass. Wolf’s band featured Hubert Sumlin, probably the best guitar player most people have never heard of. Taylor’s band on Old School, her final record, is tight and rocking, with guitarist Criss Johnson and harpist Billy Branch doing exactly what needs to be done when it needs to be done. If you have to go, there are a lot of worse ways than with Old School as your legacy. Taylor will be much missed.


(The promotional photo of Koko Taylor is from Alligator Records. To see a video of Koko Taylor singing "Wang Dang Doodle" backed by Little Walter and Hound Dog Taylor circa 1967, please check below.)

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by Suzie Raven

Two names dominate American League pitching this year: Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals and Roy Halladay of the Toronto Blue Jays. They have both been outstanding in 2009 and are tied with league best 8-1 records. Even though Halladay is tied with Greinke for the league best number of wins, doesn’t mean he has been pitching as well. Greinke stands out in 2009, with no sign of slowing down.

As June gets underway, Greinke holds an outstanding earned run average of 1.1. Johan Santana of the New York Mets posts Major League Baseball's next best ERA with 2.0. This means the next best pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) allows almost twice as many earned runs per game. While Halladay’s 2.63 ERA is no slouch, nothing compares to Greinke’s current numbers.

Halladay has built a reputation of strong, consistent pitching over his ten-year career with the Blue Jays. He had 20 win seasons in 2003 and 2008, with an ERA of 3.25 and 2.78 respectively. He also posted an impressive 2.41 ERA in 2005. With his inconsistent history, it’s easy to say that Greinke still needs to prove himself over a couple of more seasons before the two can be compared.

Greinke had a good, although not standout season in 2008, posting a 3.47 ERA as he struck out 183 and walked 58. He’s pitched enough innings this season to prove his 1.1 ERA is indicative that he will have a standout year in 2009. Recent outstanding performances include a complete game in the Royals 6-1 victory over the Detroit Tigers. Greinke didn’t give up a single walk that night, but struck out eight.

Even more impressive than Greinke’s statistics is how many pitches he has in his repertoire. The best pitchers in baseball have two stand out pitches. Greinke has four: a slider that Tiger’s manager Jim Leyland refers to as his “put-away slider,” along with pinpoint control of his curveball, fastball and change up.

Batters can’t stand in the batters box waiting for Greinke’s weak pitch. It doesn’t exist. That’s why Greinke is posting the best numbers in baseball right now, and why he is going to continue to out-pitch even MLB’s most consistent stars.

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by Phil Kehres

After over a month of some of the most memorable playoff action ever seen, the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals are here. This year’s matchup pits repeat Western Conference champions the Los Angeles Lakers against the upstart Orlando Magic, who are making their first appearance in the Finals since the 1994-95 season. Despite having unceremoniously dispatched the league’s best team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Magic will enter these Finals as decided underdogs, and for good reason.

The Lakers took care of business against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals, knocking out star forward Carmelo Anthony and crew in six games despite losing a game at home. The Lakers looked lackadaisical at times, but Kobe Bryant carried them to a dominating Game 6 win and guaranteed L.A. some extra rest before the Finals. This was, for the most part, expected. What took many people by surprise, however, was the Orlando Magic’s decisive 4-2 series win over the previously dominant Cleveland Cavaliers.

Orlando came to Cleveland, where the Cavs had gone 39-2 over the regular season and 4-0 in the playoffs to that point and stunned them with a one point victory in Game One. That set the tone for the rest of the series, which was about as tight and memorable as a six-game series could be, save for Orlando’s blowout victory in Game Six. Game Two saw one of the most dramatic shots in NBA history as LeBron James beat the buzzer to give the Cavs the one-point victory. For the most part, though, Orlando simply outplayed the Cavaliers the rest of the series. The Cavs, despite leading the league with 66 wins in the regular season and possessing both the league MVP in LeBron James and Coach of the Year Mike Brown, just matched up poorly with Orlando. In fact, if you were to construct a fantasy team with the sole purpose of beating the 2008-2009 Cleveland Cavaliers, it would be the 2008-2009 Orlando Magic. Cleveland had no answer for Orlando’s dominant center Dwight “Superman” Howard, who spent most of his time dunking and the rest of it whining about foul calls. Orlando was also remarkably hot from the three-point line, the team’s trademark. Cleveland's smaller guards couldn’t contain Orlando’s big, athletic shooters — and even Orlando’s decidedly mediocre role players played like stars while Cleveland’s bench fizzled. This is not to take anything away from Orlando, which played inspired basketball and certainly deserved to win the series. The Lakers, however, are a deeper and more balanced team than Cleveland.

L.A. boasts myriad athletic big men like center Pau Gasol and forwards Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum who will match up better with Howard and Orlando’s forwards Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis. And that Kobe Bryant guy is no slouch either (though he remains the second best player in the world).

I’m not one for predictions usually, but I don’t see this going more than six games, in the Lakers’ favor. L.A. is just too deep and too experienced, and Orlando’s hot shooting has to cool off eventually. “Superman” and his crew will have to wait another year for a chance at a ring — but next year, they’ll have to go through an even hungrier, angrier and battle-tested LeBron James to get there.

(Phil Kehres also is the co-author of Excuse Me, Is This Your Blog? He also contributes to Fear the Sword, a blog about the Cleveland Cavaliers of the Sports Blog Nation.)

(The NBA Finals begin tomorrow, Thursday, June 4. To see the schedule of NBA Finals games on ABC, please go here. To see a highlight reel of Kobe Bryant's best plays of the 2008-2009 season, please check below.)

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by Rick Rockwell

For years, those of us who are fans of Elvis Costello* have wondered what would happen if our singer-songwriter idol would just slow down. What would happen if he could just focus on a project and craft it perfectly? Would he produce another classic like his work with The Attractions? Something close to Armed Forces?

Well, those are outsized expectations. Costello’s latest, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane, his 35th studio album (counting collaborations and U.K.-only releases) seems like just another of his annual releases: solid and workmanlike but nothing that burns the house down. That hasn’t happened for a Costello release in more than 20 years. Last year’s Momofuku with The Imposters, an attempt to get back to his punk/new wave roots was another good but not great record. So Secret, Profane and Sugarcane is no surprise.


Besides, Costello has his new family with jazz singer Diana Krall, including his two-year-old twins, his talk show on the Sundance Channel (Spectacle, which is mostly a bore), his commercials, his film cameos and his touring schedule. Is it any wonder his albums sound more like side projects rather than his central focus?

Secret, Profane and Sugarcane finds Costello working with T-Bone Burnett, the former sideman for Bob Dylan (The Rolling Thunder Revue) who has become one of the preeminent music producers of our time. Burnett** was the force behind Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand, which took home album of the year honors at this year’s Grammys. Burnett last teamed with Costello on 1989’s Spike. But this time out, Burnett seems more firmly at the rudder. The sound is more of the rootsy country and folk variety that Burnett mastered with his soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou, an album that has gone platinum eight times over in the U.S. and was the Grammy-winning album of the year in 2002. Costello hasn’t gone this far country since 1981’s Almost Blue.

And like that record, this is an interesting experiment but far from perfectly crafted. This is not another Raising Sand. Although, Burnett does pair Emmylou Harris with Costello on “The Crooked Line,” to get some of that same feeling (Burnett also co-wrote that number with Costello along with “Sulphur to Sugarcane”). Harris and Costello together throughout this release would have been a dream, as their only number together is one of the album’s best tracks. Another gem is something you’ll only find on the electronic bonus-track version of the album: a zydeco version of the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale.” More of this type of experimentation would have made Secret, Profane and Sugarcane essential Costello.

Burnett gives the project his best shot, assembling a strong group of bluegrass musicians as a backing band and pushing Costello into other interesting musical places. (Costello’s collaborations with Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint and opera star Anne Sofie von Otter all show Costello is willing to experiment in various musical forms, and usually with good results. But often these projects play more as larks rather than serious fare.) On this record Costello includes a song he co-wrote with Loretta Lynn (“I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came”) along with acoustic covers of his own material, both “Complicated Shadows” and “Hidden Shame” (originally penned especially for Johnny Cash to cover). But Costello and Burnett recorded the album over just a three-day span in Nashville, and at times it has a dashed off quality.

Given the musicianship of this assembled crew, the end result is Secret, Profane and Sugarcane is a good record. Pleasant. This is worth cueing up while reading. But Costello’s music was once about motivating a generation or at least moving people to get up to dance. And Secret, Profane and Sugarcane is a reminder that those days are gone. Costello pays that no mind. In the lyric for “Dirty Rotten Shame,” Costello sings: “I recall the good old days / But thankfully, they’re gone.” Still, some of us think that’s a shame.

*Elvis Costello is the stage name of Declan MacManus.

**T-Bone's full name is Joseph Henry "T-Bone" Burnett.

(For more on Elvis Costello, please see: "Elvis Costello: A Retrospective.")

(The promotional photo of Elvis Costello is from Lost Highway Records. Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes will begin their world tour in Red Bank, NJ on June 9. To see Elvis Costello perform an abbreviated version of "Sulphur to Sugarcane," please check the video below.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

In a valiant effort to join my husband in one of his rituals, I recently girded my loins and settled into the serial viewing of an evening’s news shows. I was set on ignoring the racist and misogynistic slurs against President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. I planned to zone out as the strategically matched, aesthetically pleasing male and female co-anchors blathered segues from story to story. I even committed to withholding my normal rant that the commercials require reducing the television volume three or four bars. But, despite my intent to remain unresponsive, I was wholly unprepared for the revelation that hugging among teens is a phenomenon — and a bad one according to some schools.

Where have I been, lo these many — apparently naïve — years? With my head up the armpit of an inappropriately affectionate hugger? Have my countless embraces the subtle precursors to sexual harassment or — horror! — the authority-challenging pursuit of excessive displays of affection?

I learned that term when I couldn’t stand the news anymore and got up to research this phenomenon of affection that made it from a feature in The New York Times to my coast’s evening drivel. Our local high school’s 2008-2009 Student Handbook says, “Excessive display of affection is inappropriate on school grounds or at school sponsored activities;” the Band Room rules preclude everything but handholding; and violations have consequences:

1st offense — 2 hrs of Thursday school
2nd offense — 4 hrs of Saturday school
3rd offense — 1 to 5 days of home suspension, parent contact Ed. Code 48900 (k)

The referenced education code says a California public school student can be suspended if he or she has been really bad — violent, in possession of a weapon or drugs… disruptive of school activities or defiant toward a “valid authority.” Hmm, hugging on a par with violence?

Oh, the idiocy of it!

My daughter attended a charter high school where public displays of affection (PDA) were de rigueur — same and opposite sex. So I called Kate for a reality check. She’s now 20, not much removed from her high school years.

Me: Honey, did you hear about the problem with hugging?

Kate: What?

Me: Hugging.

Kate: What? (Lots of background noise.)

Me: HUGGING! Apparently it’s a problem with teens. It was in the news. Some high schools have prohibited it. One put a time limit on it: Two seconds max or you’re out.

Kate: Whaat! People should be embracing the fact that kids are open and warm with each other instead of being hostile and hateful — like the adults who are persecuting them. This is one step closer to The Handmaid’s Tale. This is really offensive to me. My friends and I, everyone I knew in high school, boys and girls, hugged each other to say hello. It’s not like we were trying to get off. We were being friendly. It’s a human thing to do. This isn’t the dark ages. It’s not like we’re whipping out sex toys and going at it. It’s just saying hello. There is a difference!”

Kate was with a couple of friends in a coffee shop, probably surrounded by folks hugging unfettered, and her friends were equally passionate about PDAs.

Vartuhi: This is why people hate Americans! I’ve been hugging my friends since junior high, so I really don’t understand why this is an issue. We watched [the video] and we all thought we were back in the 1950s, where these moronic problems were an issue to people — it’s puritanical! It’s sad that people think it is an issue when there are actual issues they should be dealing with — teen pregnancy, drugs, violence, all the budget cuts in schools.

Ariel: So much of kids’ socializing is on the computer, texting and Facebook and stuff, parents should be glad their kids can connect in person — hugging is a way to compensate for all that. If kids are hugging, it’s filling a social, emotional and physical need. There are so many things the schools should be focusing on, like sex education. [Hugging] is a way for kids to learn to be comfortable with their own bodies and other people’s bodies, without being sexual.

These gals are smart. They represent three well-populated and distinct ethnic groups for whom teen hugging has long been healthy and normal — and they know a violation of the human right to express affection when it whops them upside the head.

So that’s it. I’m not taking it anymore. It’s time for a revolution! I’m marching over to Fallbrook High and organizing a hug-in. I guess I better start with the WASPy kids.

(Editor's Note: This is an abridged version of this piece. The original, unabridged version can be found at Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing. Ms. Gressitt regularly cross-posts her writing with this blog.)

(The photo is by kalandrakas of Fujisawa, Japan via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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Does someone detect a little swagger on the underground podcast this week? When the mix includes bands like the Rolling Stones, the Wailers, the Velvet Underground and Nine Inch Nails, of course there's a not just a little bit of rock 'n roll attitude in the house. And don't forget The Beatles. But this is not all classic rock. There's plenty of edgy underground content too, including a request for the the influential but little known band The Monks. And the mix includes a hefty dose of new material but also touchstones from the past: more than 40 years of sound find their way into this program. The content ranges from ska, reggae and punk to heavy metal and also includes proto-punk, alternative rock, and folk. Rev up your motors because this one speeds along with its own special sneer. This program is especially designed for a convertible with the top down and the speedometer over the limit. Rock on and enjoy!



(To stream or download this podcast, please click here.)


Playlist

"Let It Rock" (live) by The Rolling Stones
"Kingston 12 Shuffle" by Bob Marley & the Wailers
“Save the World, Get the Girl" by The King Blues
Jeff’s New Wave: “867-5309/Jenny” by Tommy Tutone
"Refuse Angels" by Crocodiles
"I Hate You" by The Monks (request)
"I Can't Stand It" by The Velvet Underground
Cover Me: "Waiting for My Man" (live) by The Tom Robinson Band
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Dehydrated II” by Pestilence
"Not So Pretty Now" by Nine Inch Nails
“Punk Sandwich” by The Dixie Dregs
“A Day in the Life” (live) by Jeff Beck
“Run for Your Life” by The Beatles
"My Favorite Year" (live) by Tom Paxton
"Gratitude (for Curt Flood)" by The Baseball Project
"I am Here" by John McCutcheon

(Mp3 Runs - 1:16:58; 71 MB.)

The program includes songs with explicit lyrics.

(The photo is a promotional still from The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando; the film is distributed by Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Pictures.)


DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Rick Rockwell

It’s never pretty when critical darlings fall off that special untouchable pedestal. You can just hear the anguished cries, the breaking glass.

The latest example: Grizzly Bear and the band’s new release Veckatimest. It seems like everyone from National Public Radio to the alternative rock press fell in love with the band’s last release Yellow House.

Not this time. David Malitz in The Washington Post savaged the record as boring and pretentious.

Actually, much of Malitz' take on Veckatimest is correct. He analyzes the sound and explains it well. He just doesn’t like what Grizzly Bear has produced this time. The band has sinned. They did not meet his expectations. As if critics set the musical agendas of bands and songwriters.


What the reviews of Veckatimest reveal is the closed-minded nature of rock criticism. In that world, certain rules for music are the vogue: songs shouldn’t exceed five minutes; songs that are quiet and introspective are suspect; and anything that references progressive rock must be attacked relentlessly. Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest fails on all counts. The fact that Grizzly Bear has the temerity to sonically reference Gentle Giant (on the track "Dory") or King Crimson (check the chord progressions on "I Live With You") means they have committed a cardinal sin in the church of rock music criticism.

James McGrory at The Georgetown Voice also calls Grizzly Bear boring. McGrory actually likes Veckatimest better than what the band has produced in the past, but he calls their style of chamber pop empty. To his credit, McGrory is consistent; he has never praised the band.

Such criticism is frustrating to read. What if McGrory and Malitz had been handed Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon when it was new? What would they make of that record? Not to say that Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest rises to Pink Floyd’s level, but many of the same techniques employed by Floyd to make a classic rock opus are what Grizzly Bear is using too. The band's examples for such experimentation are not only Floyd, and the Beatles, but also the Beach Boys.

Malitz calls Grizzly Bear precious for trying to emulate the Beach Boys. Actually, what Grizzly Bear has pulled off on Veckatimest is a pretty bold trick, as some parts of this third full-length studio release from the band echo Smile-era Beach Boys ("Two Weeks" especially). If Brian Wilson is listening, he should be smiling. Members of Grizzly Bear could be his musical grandchildren.

But Grizzly Bear is doing more than finding an artistic way to update Wilson’s signatures by adding in progressive rock flavors and then using indie rock sensibilities to make it all hang together. The opening track to Veckatimest, "Southern Point," not only gives a nod of respect to Radiohead but throws in some jazzy orchestrations for a pleasing twist. “Fine for Now” shows Grizzly Bear can also create layers of dynamic music that recalls their chamber pop contemporaries, the Decemberists.

Is Veckatimest a great record? No. Perhaps this is also why critics are reacting negatively. They have charted Grizzly Bear’s progress on their personal musical spreadsheets and the band should reach a particular level of achievement by the third record. But Veckatimest is still very good, perhaps even a slightly better record than Yellow House. However, that doesn’t cut it when the critics are creating their own virtual echo chamber for what should be adored and what should be trashed.

Fans of Grizzly Bear will likely shake their heads and wonder what the critics are talking about. Which is why that old Latin phrase applies when reading any criticism: caveat emptor.

(For a review of Grizzly Bear's EP Friend, please go here. For a short review of Yellow House, please go here.)

(The promotional photo of Grizzly Bear is from Warp Records. The band continues its world tour with a concert date in New York City, tonight, Friday, May 29. To see Grizzly Bear's video for "Two Weeks," please check below.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

“Am I weird?” the teenager asked, balancing an old Ann Coulter book on her head, amid the bookstore’s discount stacks.

“You ask that as though weird were a pejorative,” her mother said. “You don’t want to be normal, do you? Do you want to be like everyone else?”

“I know what ‘pejorative’ means, and, as for being normal, which that word is not, I think I’d just like to fly under the radar.” She shrugged and Godless slipped from her head, landing face up on the industrial carpeting.

“Yikes!” her mother stepped back. “Now, that woman is truly weird. The wrong kind of weird, the kind that verges on evil.” She looked almost serious.

“Hey, why would she wear low-cut stuff with a cross?” The girl picked up Coulter and traced her plunging neckline and the cross pointing into her cleavage. “She hardly has breasts, anyway. So, like, is she really evil?”

“She doesn’t deserve breasts, and she’s the closest thing to evil there is because she pretends to believe the outrageously divisive things she says for the purpose of inciting fearful people to reject the unfamiliar — people who are different, opposing ideas, whatever — and to look to her for bullshit passing as comforting fact.” The mother took a deep breath.

“Huh? What are you talking about? Why do you always talk like that?” The girl balanced another book on her head while exploring Coulter’s character in her book jacket.

“Okay. She’s not really evil, but… let’s just say she’s full of shit. She’s full of shit because she tells fearful people outrageous shit, knowing it’s shit, and manipulating them into buying her shit.”

“We just learned about that, that thing you just did.” The girl flipped through the Coulter book, looking for more inappropriate pictures. “It’s called circular reasoning.”

“Well, Coulter has mastered it, that and the absurdly profane. After President Obama spoke at Notre Dame University’s commencement, urging pro-choice and anti-abortion folks to make nice, Coulter suggested that next year Notre Dame have an abortion performed live on stage, and that the 'president throw out the ceremonial first fetus, like on opening day in baseball.’”

“Yuck! She’s gross!” The girl dropped Coulter on what she figured was her pulpy little ass. “Hey! If you look at it from this angle, the title looks like ‘Goddess.’ Do you think that’s intentional?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” her mother snickered. “Once you’ve contracted a severe case of superiority complex, you’re much more susceptible to delusional omniscience.”

“Really, do you have to talk like that?” The girl looked at her mother through the 3-D glasses she’d found in the book now perched on her head. “Don’t you want people to understand you?”

“Not always, but I’m okay with my kind of weird. Coulter has never written about a substantive issue she didn’t slander with superficiality.”

The girl continued to ogle the downed idol at her feet. “Well, I don’t know who she frickin' is, but she looks like she’s trying to sell a book about religion with, like, sex. Not that she looks so sexy. Actually, she looks kind of bitchy. Why don’t you just say she’s a bitch? People would get that.”

“One can only hope they do,” her mother said.

“But do you think there are people who are really evil?” The girl looked around, still sporting the 3-D glasses.

“I don’t know,” her mother said. “Even the most horrible people always seem to have at least a hint of humanity. I’m sure even George Bush loves his kids.”

“Jeez. Bush isn’t evil.” The girl squinted at Coulter’s image to see if the 3-D glasses would make her breasts any bigger. “He was just too stupid to be president.”

“Okay, just kidding about Bush. Dick Cheney’s actually the almost-evil one, with his fear-mongering crappola.”

“So, you’re saying, like, even Hitler must have done something good at some point in his life?” The girl stuck the 3-D glasses in a copy of Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex, which seemed funny, but she wasn’t sure why, so she didn’t mention it.

“Well, yes, probably, although it pains me to say so. Maybe Hitler once helped an elderly woman across the street or wiped his pee off the toilet seat.” She picked Coulter up from the floor. “So, even this nitwit could have the capacity for truth and love,” the mother said unconvincingly, returning the book to the discount stack.

“Well, anyway, so am I weird or what?” the teenager asked, balancing the paperback edition of A Thousand Splendid Suns on her head.

“You’re my favorite kind of weird, Sweetie; you’re wonderful.”

(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

(Political graphic © copyright DarkBlack and used with permission. For more material like this, please see DarkBlack's blog.)

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by Jeff Siegel

Dean Singleton's media empire is extensive, and he is generally regarded as one of the few newspaper moguls whose business might survive — and even thrive — in the 21st century. So why does Singleton's plan for the future look like nothing more than a new coat of paint on an old, beat-up house? It's not so much that his strategy revolves around charging for content on his newspapers' websites, which isn't going to work. It's that charging for content is a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem. And if Singleton doesn't know any better, what does that say for the rest of the newspaper business?

A couple of disclosures first: Singleton briefly owned The Dallas Times Herald when I worked there 20 years ago, and there are those of us who still blame him for its demise in 1991. Also, I am a part-owner of a smallish, neighborhood-themed magazine group in Dallas, where we compete against a variety of mainstream media (MSM), and so some might think I have a financial interest in seeing the MSM go out of business.

In one respect, The MediaNews plan, which was leaked to the Poynter journalism Web site, has much to recommend it. The report says: “Finally, we are not significantly extending the reach of our audience, as our online products too closely resemble the newspaper, and thus fail to meaningfully reach the next generation of readers.” That’s about as true a statement as has ever been written concerning the Mainstream Media.

The report does gives too much credence to what the business calls community journalism or user-generated content, where the people who read the news also write it. I know — first-hand — that this is impossible to make work. But much of what it outlines makes sense, based around the recognition that Singleton’s papers have something no one else has — unique content and a brand to deliver it.

Because, in fact, that's much of what we're doing in Dallas. Several years ago, we realized that our company would not survive as a print-focused business. Though we had always had a digital component — a website, e-mail, and blogs — but they had been secondary to the print effort. So, in 2005, we started the process to become completely digital. We beefed up the website and added a variety of editorial features, including videos and podcasts, and our readers can see the entire magazine online (and yes, we still deliver it, just as we have since we started in 1991). In addition, we are experimenting with a host of advertising and marketing initiatives, because we understand that traditional magazine advertising is not going to be enough in the digital age. And this has not been easy, especially in the middle of a recession.

The one thing we're not doing is charging for content.

I understand why Singleton, and so many other newspaper companies, are grasping at this straw. They need cash — badly — and this is the cheapest, easiest and quickest way to get it. But charging for content doesn't work. It assumes not only that readers will pay for internet content that they have always had for free, but that charging can generate enough revenue to make a difference. Anyone who believes that needs to re-load their Excel spreadsheet. The Wall Street Journal, which is about the only member of the MSM that has had any success charging for content, earns somewhere between $50 and $75 million a year from on-line fees. Its parent, Dow Jones, had revenue of more than $2 billion in 2008. Dow Jones’ owner, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, doesn’t break out figures for its operating units, so the comparison is rough at best. But it’s also obvious that if that's the best The Wall Street Journal can do, why does anyone else think they can do better?

The newspaper business will save itself only if it approaches its problems from a 21st century perspective, which means looking past the cheap, quick and easy fixes. Look for new-style marketing and advertising solutions. Focus not on the newspaper, but on the delivery system. Can the industry generate revenue through devices like Amazon's Kindle or Google's next innovation? Is there a way to charge internet service providers a licensing fee in exchange for access to newspaper Web sites?

Otherwise, Singleton — and his colleagues — will keep closing newspapers.

(The graphic is from radicalgraphics.org, which offers its material for free.)

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(Regular blogging will resume again Tuesday after the holiday. Kit-Bacon Gressitt's regular Sunday commentary will run later in the week. Photo by BL1961 via Flickr, using a Creative Commons License.)


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How about a little punk rock to enliven your Memorial Day holiday weekend? Nothing like a little protest as we remember the fallen. Somehow the punk movement looks all the more wise despite its underlying nihilism given what has happened in the more than 30 years since it exploded on to the cultural scene. The underground podcast gets punky just about every week, but this time out, we provide an extra special dose. For those who want more than music to mosh with though, we also throw some progressive metal, folk, and indie rock into the mix. Raise your fist. Strike the appropriate sneering pose (one that will scare Dick Cheney off the national stage). And strap on your Doc Martens. This one goes right for the throat. Rant with us. Dance with us. Rock with us. But, of course, enjoy responsibly.




(To stream or download this podcast, please click here.)


Playlist

"Teenage Lobotomy" by The Ramones
"Horseshoes and Handgrenades" by Green Day
“Another State of Mind" by Social Distortion
"Death or Glory" by The Clash
Jeff’s New Wave: “Girl U Want” by Devo
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Oblivion” by Mastodon
Cover Me: "Wild Thing" by X
"We All Shine a Light" by Cracker with John Doe
"The Modern World" by The Jam
"Turn Tail" by The Young Knives
“I'm Sorry, Baby, But You Can't Stand in My Light Any More” by Bob Mould
“Fly One Time” by Ben Harper & The Relentless 7
“11:11” by Rufus Wainwright
"I Don't Want to Talk About Love No More" by Amy Rigby
"Letter Home" by Susan Levine
"You're Not Broken" by Sera Cahoone

(Mp3 Runs - 1:18:36; 72 MB.)

The program includes songs with explicit lyrics.

(The photo shows the mosh pit at the now-defunct Washington, D.C. club The Bayou circa 1990 for a Ramones concert. The photos is by bog_king of Bethany, WV via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license. Bog_king publishes the online musical and cultural blog Vanguard Party.)


DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Phil Kehres

As the conference finals begin in the National Basketball Association (NBA), it's time to reflect on why the Boston Celtics won't be repeat champions. After barely escaping the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the NBA playoffs, the Celtics fell in another seven-game series to the Orlando Magic. The loss of superstar forward Kevin Garnett to injury proved to be too much to overcome, even for the defending champs. However, though they failed to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics further proved themselves as a deep and talented team that will likely contend for years.

The absence of Garnett, part of Boston’s Big Three (which also includes forward Paul Pierce and guard Ray Allen), ultimately led to the demise of the Celtics. But without him, several others stepped up and helped the Celtics go deeper than many expected. Guard Rajon Rondo emerged as a legitimate star and a nightly triple-double threat. Forward Glen “Big Baby” Davis hit several big shots, including an astounding buzzer-beater to give the Celtics a 3-2 lead in the series. Even back-up center Kendrick Perkins got in the game, holding Orlando’s monster center Dwight Howard to a fairly quiet series. The Celtics may be going home early, but they won’t be left without hope for next year. A healthy Garnett back in the starting lineup could see this team deep in the playoffs for years to come.

Before we look too far into the future, though, let’s take a look at the four other teams that are still in the dance. After beating Boston, Orlando gets the right to play the East’s number one seed — the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavaliers have been the best team in the playoffs so far, going 8-0 in the earlier rounds to earn themselves a spot in the Eastern Conference Finals. (Orlando handed Cleveland its first playoff loss on Wednesday, May 20 in the opening game of the conference finals.) Orlando will be the best team the Cavaliers have faced so far, however, and this series is far from pre-determined. Orlando’s sharpshooting forwards Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu can shoot the lights out on a good night, and they help spread the defense to allow Dwight Howard easy shots on the inside. For Cleveland to advance, they’ll need someone other than forward LeBron James to step up and keep the Magic’s three-point game at bay.

In the wild, wild Western Conference, favorites the Los Angeles Lakers will face their toughest challenge yet in the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets are playing the best basketball they’ve played all season, with superstar forward Carmelo Anthony playing out of his mind and veteran guard Chauncey Billups, nicknamed Mr. Bigshot, at the ready. Like the Magic, the Lakers are coming off a seven-game series that had no business going seven games. L.A. defeated Houston, which was without star center Yao Ming after Game Three. The Nuggets are a much better team than Houston, and, despite L.A.’s home court advantage, expect a dogfight. (The Lakers won Game 1 of the series on Tuesday, May 19, with Kobe Bryant leading the way with 40 points for the Lakers. The second game tips off tonight, May 21.)

LeBron vs. Kobe doesn’t seem like as much of an inevitability as it once did, but you can bank on two stellar Conference Finals series to carry us into the summer.

(Phil Kehres also is the co-author of Excuse Me, Is This Your Blog? He also contributes to Fear the Sword, a blog about the Cleveland Cavaliers of the Sports Blog Nation.)

(To see the schedule of NBA playoff games on various cable TV networks, please go here. To see a powerful dunk from Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic in the team's Game 1 victory, please check below.)

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by Jordan Coughenour
Special to iVoryTowerz

There's something indecent about having to explain an infatuation with a band to a few cynical music snobs, when legions of screaming teenagers present a staunch argument as to the passion with which the group is worshipped and idolized by millions. I've always happily surrounded myself with the sort of people with whom I may jointly debate for hours regarding the idiosyncrasies of Astral Weeks (by Van Morrison, for the uninitiated) or the merits of using vinyl in the contemporary age. But sooner or later, the subject of contemporary artists will come up in our discussions, and I know it will be nearing the time when I should summon the deflector rays and prepare my resistance. Even though I feel I may speak somewhat eloquently on the evolution of 20th and 21st century music, I have never sought to disguise, that at heart, and in the capacity of my lungs to scream for an extended period of time, I am a fangirl.

I've sighed at Clay Aiken, pondered on the brilliance of Green Day and in what I consider to be my crowning achievement in fandom, sang along with thousands of tweenage girls at a massive outdoor Jonas Brothers* concert. It's unnecessary to say that I am alone in these many infatuations, or that they lack in recognition. No less an authority than Lady Gaga** compared the worldwide obsession with the JoBros to that the Beatles faced in their prime. Still, showing allegiance to any of these artists is an effectual black mark against the legitimacy of one's musical preferences. As soon as Hot Topic or Claires begin selling tacky plastic jewelry with a singer’s face on it, any existing credibility of the group is immediately washed away. Simply because their music has spoken to a younger generation who feel powerfully enough about it to latch onto it with any means possible, a group can go from being called innovators to posers before their album even hits the shelves. It’s not as if these so-called sell-outs have any less devotion to their music simply because they choose to sell records rather than auction off their assets. It’s clear from his recent Rolling Stone interview that Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong eats and breaths vinyl and guitar riffs. And even though their allegiance to The Mouse† may do them few favors as they get older, the Jonas Brothers’ ability to understand and play to the devotion of their young fanbase has continued to serve them well. What these bands, and their young (typically female) devotees have in common is a recognition that while giving in to The Man may be regarded by purists as losing touch with the music, it is also a quick and effective way to spread a powerful message, as well as make some serious cash. Always choosing the album less traveled may lead one to discover musical intricacies and harmonization never to be fully appreciated by the Suits of the world, but it also results in the absence of a gratification in passion and art only the sound of thousands of screaming teenage girls can offer.

*Sometimes referred to as the JoBros, to the uninitiated.

**Lady Gaga is the stage name of Stefani Germanotta a singer and songwriter who has written songs for Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls, among others.

†Disney produces a Jonas Brothers television series and the multimedia giant has supported the band's career.

(To read a review of the new Green Day release, 21st Century Breakdown, please go here.)

(The promotional photo of Green Day is from Warner Brothers Records. To see Green Day play a live R-rated version of "Know Your Enemy" from 21st Century Breakdown, please check below.)

KNOW YOUR ENEMY (LIVE)

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by Rick Rockwell

Tori Amos is searching for a new equilibrium.

The news: she hasn’t found it yet on her tenth solo studio release, Abnormally Attracted to Sin.

Some may remember Amos as one of the female singer-songwriters who ruled ‘90s alternative radio. But like her contemporaries Alanis Morissette and P.J. Harvey, Amos is finding the new millennium a bit tougher to navigate. Unlike Harvey’s recent success, Abnormally Attracted to Sin and the over-wrought concept album project American Doll Posse (2007) show how much Amos has lost her musical compass.

American Doll Posse was supposedly a thematic departure from Amos’ past and the singer noted she wanted a complete change of approach from that point forward. Now, after dumping her record label (the new record is distributed through Universal Republic Records but Amos remains independent of a full label contract) too, Amos seems to be looking for the comfort again of her past sound. Abnormally Attrtacted to Sin is the tepid result.

Surely, of the album’s 17 tracks (a deluxe online edition includes an extra “Oscar’s Theme,” which is actually one of the album’s better songs) Amos has penned a handful of winners, but nothing on the order of “Cornflake Girl” or “God” (both from 1994’s Under the Pink). The song “Police Me” is an interesting sonic reference to those times with its edgy guitar breaks and lyrical references to a “storming blackberry girl.” The album’s first single “Welcome to England” (Amos resides in England and holds both American and British citizenship) includes Amos’ idiosyncratic, staccato vocal style underpinned with Mac Aladdin’s razor-sharp guitar accents, but the song simply meanders, like a walk along the cliffs of Dover. The end result is pleasant, but a bit lightweight, despite its lyrical foundation about seduction. Or perhaps it really is just a small complaint about the British weather, as the lyrics use that as a conversational swing point (“…You better bring your own sun / sweet girl. / You gotta bring your own sun….”)

From the opening minor chords of “Give,” and Amos’ plaintive vocals, Abnormally Attracted to Sin sounds more like a harrowing voyage than a descent into decadence. Oddly, the arrangement of “Strong Black Vine” with its thick string arrangement and pounding drums lifts just a bit too much from Led Zeppelin’s classic “Kashmir.” Amos’ attempts at a sexy growl in her delivery can’t save the song from its over-produced self-indulgence. Like the lead single, some songs (“Flavor” and “Fire to Your Plain”) just move lazily and seem like forgettable trifles. Others (“Ophelia”) are dour explorations of Amos’s black moods or the moods of her alter-egos.

However, sometimes that dourness finds just the right cathartic note. “Maybe California” is one of the album’s best tracks and its mix of moody melancholy works perfectly. There are other songs of note too. Disguised as a mother’s conversation with her son about girls, “Mary Jane” is a humorous ode to cannabis. “Not Dying Today” includes a nice musical hook set on a percolating beat. And “Starling” is a fine bit of British folk, especially with Amos’ use of Matt Chamberlain’s restrained snare drums dialed down underneath the main mix. (Amos self-produced the album, and her husband Mark Hawley was one of the two sound mixers on the project.) But there aren’t enough of these moments.

Although Abnormally Attracted to Sin is a sprawling statement of independence and another experiment with creating lyrical novelettes, ultimately it is all too much. Like some artists, Amos needs a producer who will help her select her best tracks and lock the rest away. Clocking in at more than an hour and 12 minutes (without the bonus track) and with only about a third of its songs up to Amos’ usual standard, the real sin here is Amos’ extravagance.

(The promotional photo of the cover for the new Tori Amos release is from the artist's myspace page, where Abnormally Attracted to Sin is streaming for a limited time. Amos begins her world tour on July 10 in Seattle, WA. To see the video for Amos' "Flavor," please check below.)

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by Suzie Raven

The United Nations uses negotiations to try to bring peace to the Middle East. Ahmad Tuba and Raany Tal use boxing.

Tal, an Israeli Jew who owns three gyms in the Tel Aviv area, noticed Tuba, a Palestinian Arab who lives near Nazareth, when scouting for young amateur fighters to train almost six years ago.

Jews and Arabs in the Middle East often do not speak with one another, but Tuba has been training with Tal ever since the two first met. Five days a week, Tuba spends two hours each way on five different buses to get to Tal’s gym. Tal has spent time with Tuba’s family.

Their relationship is an anomaly and has helped break down barriers in people around them. It also led to Tuba’s professional debut at the Legendary Blue Horizon in North Philadelphia last week. Tuba won a unanimous four round decision against Baltimore's Vincent Batteast. Obviously, Tal wants Tuba to win fights, but the social ramifications are not lost on them. They also hope that the career of an Arab fighter with an Israeli trainer will show the world that people with their backgrounds don’t have to hate each other.

It’s sad that neighbors feel an intense hatred towards each other based on a conflict that their governments have not been able to resolve. World leaders are obviously not making tangible progress in the conflict, but people like Tuba and Tal prove that religion should not preclude friendship. Everyone deserves a fighting chance.

The columnist who broke their story on these shores, Annette John-Hall of the Philadelphia Inquirer said it best: “They have broken down barriers where high-level talks have foundered. Just another example of how sports can serve as the world's greatest ambassador.”

Tal and Tuba have forged a relationship despite all odds. Their example proves that religious differences and decades of harrowing conflict do not have to end in hatred between people. They have put us one step closer to peace in the Middle East.

(Photo by januszek of Poland via stock.xchng.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Recently, I sat at my desk, committed to adding 2,000 words to my mediocre American novel manuscript, but I just wanted to clear out my e-mails before getting started.

The first one asked me to save newborn buffalo, but I didn’t want to think about their wobbly little legs, shattered in a stampeding frenzy.

Then Amazon suggested, based on my previous purchases, that I might like to order John Stossel's Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics, except what Amazon doesn’t know is that Stossel kind of gives me the creeps.

I could have read a joke about $7 sex. My husband has been traveling a lot lately, so I did, and then I thought maybe I shouldn’t have, but it was too late.

I could also have read an analysis of the poll to which 66 percent of women responded that being a mother is a woman’s most important role, but it smacked of some sort of confused misogyny.

Facebook sent me a birthday notice for someone I don’t know but whom I mistakenly approved as a friend before I figured out Facebook. But Facebook annoys me, so I deleted it.

I could have looked at what Verizon is charging to my credit card, but the purpose of automatic payments is to avoid acknowledging how much all this great technology costs.

The definition and etymology of “dissimulate” was enticing, and because I love words, I opened it, and now I fully intend to use “dissimulate” in my 2,000 words. I am not dissimulating.

There was another Facebook request, from another stranger who wanted to be my friend, but I’ve learned that lesson well.

Salon.com sent an article about the state politics of stem cell research, but I figure with Barack Obama in the presidency, and my cells in California, I don’t have to worry about it.

Someone forwarded a poem called “Crowning,” published in The New Yorker, and, because it was a poem and in The New Yorker, I read it and it was lovely. And then I was surprised that I was surprised it was by a male poet. I’m a pig.

The Publishers Marketplace wanted to report all the new book deals this week, but I didn’t get a deal, so I didn’t open it, although I’ll try to be pleased for the writers who did. Bastards.

Composer and violinist Mark O’Connor wanted me to buy his Americana Symphony CD, but, although I love his work, the economy is “not getting worse as quickly,” so I didn’t.

Message!Products was pitching a sale — 25 percent off — but I just replenished my pro-choice checks, so I didn’t bite, but I did wonder why they always announce a sale just after I’ve received my order.

I didn’t want to plod through a Human Security News report because I didn’t want to know about the dozens killed in Mogadishu, the 700 militants killed in Pakistan, the 106 children who died in shelling in Sri Lanka, the 50 people hospitalized after a girls’ school poisoning in Afghanistan, the 49 killed in Sudanese tribal violence, or the political prisoners suffering ill health in Myanmar (it’s really Burma), presumably including Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. Okay, I peeked, and it was exactly the agonizing news I expected.

The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) asked me to contribute to its effort to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Souter with a pro-choice nominee, but President Obama’s head is screwed on straight and NARAL is just trying to keep up with the anti-choice opposition to a pro-choice nominee. Of course the complacency of majority is ill advised, so I reconsidered briefly, until I remembered the economy.

I could have read STRATFOR’s editorial on "The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan," but I’d had enough frustrating news for one day, so I didn’t. Although I did feel a little guilty about that one, which resurrected the threat to the baby buffalo and their wobbly little legs, and then I was swamped by a swell of guilt.

So, I rescued the National Resources Defense Council's e-mail from death by deletion, clicked to save the newborn bison and read all about their terrible plight, and I wondered if I could work baby bison into my 2,000 pages.

But then I got another e-mail, asking me to ask President Obama to put an end to the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy for gays in the military, a policy akin to sanctioned lying, so I had to respond to that one, and then — oops, another e-mail.

(Editor's Note: This is an abridged version of this piece. The original, unabridged version can be found at Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing. Ms. Gressitt regularly cross-posts her writing with this blog.)

(The screenshot photo is by Spencer E Holtaway of London, U.K. via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Rick Rockwell

With the release of 21st Century Breakdown from Green Day, a year with a bumper crop of wonderful music just became notably stronger. Green Day’s eighth studio release is that good. The album not only solidifies Green Day’s place as the most significant punk band of this new century but this new release could likely end up as the best album of 2009.

Certainly, Green Day doesn’t explore any new ground on 21st Century Breakdown; some will likely criticize that. If you’ve heard the band’s other classics, you’ll know what to expect. However, if Dookie (1994) or American Idiot (2004) did not exist, 21st Century Breakdown would still come charging out of your speakers and capture your heart with its fine, enthusiastic songcraft and seem fresh. (“American Eulogy: Mass Hysteria/Modern World” actually plays not only as this album’s climax but as a completing couplet to American Idiot. Some might actually argue that 21st Century Breakdown is the intended sequel and bookend to American Idiot, but this new release stands on its own.) 21st Century Breakdown is a worthy successor to those other Green Day successes, if not the band’s entire catalogue.

This is an album filled with adrenaline and testosterone. The arrangements are mostly slashing guitars, sledgehammer power chords and marching Ramones-style blitzkrieg bops. (Despite its title, “Before the Lobotomy” is not a Ramones homage but rather a pop song infused with critical commentary. Check the lyrics: “Everyone’s reminded / Hearts are washed in misery / Drenched in gasoline.”) Yes, the band includes some ballads and quieter interludes, but mostly this is accelerator to the floor modern rock at its best. The album ranges from superbly crafted power pop (“21 Guns”) to blistering punk protests (“Horseshoes and Hand Grenades”).

“Horseshoes and Handgrenades” not only tops the anger meter but it announces Green Day’s intentions. Guitarist/singer/composer Billie Joe Armstrong spits out “I’m not fuckin’ around….” over a barrage of crunching guitars. Who says the spirit of the Sex Pistols is gone? The song also neatly genuflects not only to Patti Smith, but also to Van Morrison & Them. Several of the album’s songs actually point directly to Morrison’s “Gloria” for inspiration, partially because one of the album's recurring characters in its cycle of love songs has that name.

The bonus version of the album with its two additional tracks (the regular album has 18 tracks and clocks in at more than an hour and nine minutes of music) points to additional inspirations. Green Day’s cover of The Who’s “A Quick One While He’s Away” plays like a seven-minute mini-rock opera and tops the original. Although 21st Century Breakdown is less of an obvious concept album as was American Idiot, the songs blend together, many using the technique of searching an old radio dial; something that is lost in the modern age. Much of the album is at turns a deft commentary about modern media (the radio especially) or a bludgeoning rant (see “The Static Age,” which has a title that tells it all). While appropriating The Who’s sense for the dramatic album-long story arc or commentary (along with a sense for turning pop hooks into sturdy rock songs) Green Day also nods to its punk roots with a cover of Social Distortion’s “Another State of Mind.” There’s something to be said for keeping a solid foundation of hardcore punk that Social Distortion (of the 1980s California punk wing) represents.

Get ready because this album is worth every bit of the five-year wait since American Idiot. There are at least a handful of potential hits on 21st Century Breakdown (“Know Your Enemy” is the first single), and Green Day is ready to hijack your radio with as many of them as possible. Your part: turn up the volume.

(The promotional photo of Green Day is from Warner Brothers Records. Green Day will open its world tour in New York City on May 18. To see Green Day play an R-rated version of the title track from 21st Century Breakdown at a club date in Oakland, CA, please check below.)

21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN (LIVE)

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There's nothing like a sequel to give a program the stamp of success. This week the underground podcast goes western, as a sequel to the most popular iVoryTowerz Radio program ever: The Ecstasy of Gold. So if you like music with a western flair, settle in for plenty of pedal steel guitars, banjos and fiddles. But it wouldn't be an underground podcast without an eclectic twist. So you'll also find everything here from punk and metal to rockabilly and reggae. There's a lot more than just folk, country, country-rock and alt-country here. And the music covers more than 70 years of modern sounds. Jingle jangle your spurs, and, of course, enjoy responsibly.


(To stream or download this podcast, please click here.)


Playlist

"Hang 'em High" by The Reggae Cowboys
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Rawhide” by Dezperadoz
Jeff’s New Wave: “Take This Job and Shove It” by The Dead Kennedys
"Jeannie Needs a Shooter" by Warren Zevon
“Knoxville Girl" by The Outlaws
"Big Iron" by Marty Robbins
"South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)" by Patsy Cline
"Love is a Rose" by Linda Ronstadt
"Back to Austin" by Shelley Laine
“Mexicali Rose” by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys
“Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Asleep at the Wheel with Willie Nelson
“Go West” by Geraint Watkins
"Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key" by Billy Bragg & Wilco
"El Paso" by Don McLean
"Viva Zapata" by Link Wray
Cover Me: "The Theme from the Magnificent Seven" by Los Straightjackets
"3:10 to Yuma, Main Title Theme" by Marco Beltrami

(Mp3 Runs - 1:11:16; 66 MB.)

(The photo is from the National Endowment for the Arts and is in the public domain.)


DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Rick Rockwell

The answer to the title’s question: maybe.

But that possibility will come only through a difficult process. Director J.J. Abrams and his mostly new cast have given it their best shot with the new Star Trek feature, the eleventh film in the series. However, the problem is that old fans know the entire process is exploitive at its core.


First, some necessary truths: 1) this author fell in love with the series when it debuted in the 1960s; 2) this author has tracked the series and its spin-offs ever since; 3) this author believes producer Rick Berman ran out of ideas for the franchise in the mid-1990s, leaving several poor films (Nemesis and Insurrection) and various foundering television series (Deep Space Nine and Voyager), all with the Star Trek brand attached, in his wake. The final spin-off television series Enterprise was a poorly designed prequel. Although some critics say that series found its way by its third season, the damage was done. Star Trek had imploded on the weight of its inconsistencies and plot holes, propelled by the corporate greed that compels media corporations to wring one more cent out of once creative ideas. Many old fans had given up on what the new producers had done to the Star Trek franchise and the idea wasn’t attracting new audiences. The ratings for Enterprise were testament to that.

The corporate media — in this case Paramount Pictures which is owned by media giant Viacom – are aided in their greedy efforts by the mainstream media. (This theory, of course, is not new. Note: most major newspapers and television outlets are owned by the same corporations that push these products. Does it make sense for them not to aid in the marketing of their products?) Take, for instance, this essay by Hank Stuever of The Washington Post (owned by a multimedia company with concerns in magazines, newspapers, television stations and cable television, among others). Stuever argues that Abrams needed to “re-boot” Star Trek (why not just rewrite?) to reach new audiences and enliven the franchise.

Let’s apply some logic to this, as one of Star Trek’s key characters, Spock might. This idea at its core assumes the old fans don’t matter, or that they will buy just about anything with the Star Trek label, doesn’t it? Stuever’s argument comes from the same book as the newspaper executives who have been searching for their new audience for more than a generation. Meanwhile, as they tinkered with their product to find that elusive new (and younger) audience, they kept ticking off the old audience with the changes. The same can be said of television executives who also continue to redesign their product in search of ever younger or different audiences while the old audience grows more frustrated (and is also moving elsewhere beyond standard over-the-air television).

Credit Abrams, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and their young cast with trying hard. The new Star Trek film is fun. But try as they might with the intricate explanations and an interesting (if flawed) speech by original cast member Leonard Nimoy (Spock) at the end, the film falls apart about midway through. Abrams’ action film directing attempts to distract from the huge plot problems and the breakdown of character development. Throw in enough explosions, special effects and fist fights and maybe folks won’t notice, seems to be the philosophy. And many won’t. But this is not a great film. It’s not even a great Star Trek film. It doesn’t rise to the level of The Wrath of Khan, or The Voyage Home or even First Contact.

Was the $10 spent on the new Trek film worth it? Probably. Did the new stewards of this franchise need to create an alternate Star Trek universe using the hoary Star Trek devices of time-space singularities and time travel to wipe the slate clean and give themselves some creative elbowroom. Perhaps. But in the end, it seems like much of the philosophical core of the original series has been lost along the way. And this film consumer and former fan can’t help but feel just a little manipulated.

(To read about the media hype and reviews of the new Star Trek film, please see: "Who Needs the New Star Trek Movie? We Have the Reviews.")

(The promotional photo for Star Trek is from Paramount Pictures. To see a trailer for the film, please check below.)

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by Jeff Siegel

There is a tradition in rock ‘n roll that stretches from the early 1970s, when bands like Journey and Styx first appeared, though Survivor and Loverboy in the 1980s, to Bon Jovi in the 1990s. Call them, for lack of a better term, prom bands — that is, the bands that have the hits that get played at the high school prom.

Count Hedley’s Never Too Late (Fontana International) as a proud member of that tradition. The album, out today (May 12) on iTunes and as a CD on May 19, has all the distinguishing characteristics: The insistent choruses, the Top 40 radio hooks, the fuzzy, crashing guitars, and a lead singer who won’t quit. In this case, that’s Jacob Hoggard, the one-time Canadian Idol finalist who formed the band and fronted its first two albums, Hedley (2005) and Famous Last Words (2007).

Interestingly, this is not the kind of music that people familiar with those first two records (mostly Canadians, where the band has scored a number of hits) would expect. They were, if not exactly alt-rock, not nearly this cut and buffed. But Hoggard and crew pull out all the stops for Never Too Late. If he doesn’t sound like Styx’ Dennis DeYoung singing “Lady” in 1975, it’s not for a lack of trying. The title track, with its “Here’s to all the broken hearts tonight.... every girl and boy who lost their joy” is aimed squarely at the blue-tuxed, corsage and spaghetti strap crowd.

Will this album be Hedley’s crossover to the American charts? Probably not, though that’s obviously the intent here. The band understands the formula, but it doesn’t seem to have whatever it is that takes an ordinary band and gives it Styx-like success. Or even Loverboy-like success (see: “Working for the Weekend” in 1981), to use a Canadian example. The playing could be a little tighter, the lyrics could be a little sharper, and the production could be a little less obvious. The album comes closest on “Bone Shatter,” but it takes more than one song to be the heir to a tradition.

(The promotional photo of Hedley is from Universal Music Group. The band will play a limited Canadian tour, beginning June 20 in Belleville, Ontario. The band has a YouTube site, but Universal Music Group restricts the use of embedded video.)

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by Phil Kehres

A quick glance at the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoff bracket reveals a cursory appearance of symmetry. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Denver Nuggets are dominating the opposition and find themselves up 3-0 against the Atlanta Hawks and the Dallas Mavericks, respectively. The Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic are tied 2-2, as are the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets. There’s much more to these series than meets the eye, however.

As Cleveland strives to maintain its so far perfect playoff run, some would have you believe that the weakness of their first two opponents has been the cause for their success. While it’s hard to argue that the Detroit Pistons were anything but awful, Atlanta is no pushover. Make no mistake — this series is as lopsided as it is because of the Cavs' suffocating defense and balanced offensive attack. Though Atlanta has sustained some costly injuries, the Cavs have simply taken care of business. They have systematically demoralized their opponents on a nightly basis — a feat that the fellow powerhouse L.A. Lakers (more on that a bit later) haven’t been able to match. Despite those who say that Cleveland is at a disadvantage because they’ve yet to face a real challenge, NBA Coach of the Year Mike Brown and his Cavaliers would have it no other way.

The other series in the Eastern Conference finds an injury-plagued Boston Celtics team somehow managing to hang tough against the energetic Orlando Magic. With the Magic poised to take a 3-1 series lead on their home court, Celtics forward Glen “Big Baby” Davis nailed a buzzer-beating jumper to shift the momentum back towards the defending champions as they take the series back to Boston. You have to wonder how Boston hasn’t overdrawn its account in the good karma bank, but at this point, the Magic have to do some soul-searching. With Boston running out the dregs of its bench for substantial minutes each game, this series is closer than it should be.

Over in the Western Conference, the prolific Denver Nuggets have taken a commanding lead over the Dallas Mavericks, but not without controversy. Game 3 was won on a last-second three-pointer by Carmelo Anthony, who was clearly intentionally fouled by Dallas guard Antoine Wright prior to the shot. The missed call was so egregious that the NBA issued an apology after the game. Whoops. Dallas, now on the brink of elimination, has a redwood-sized chip on their shoulder that they’ll need to use to their advantage in Game 4 if they have any hope of challenging the red-hot Nuggets.

The most intriguing series going on is the contest between the defending Western Conference Champion L.A. Lakers and the Houston Rockets. The Lakers, favored to win the NBA title this year were stunned in a Game 1 loss at home. Games 2 and 3 got wild. Lakers guard Derek Fisher was suspended for body checking Rockets forward Luis Scola in Game 2 and Rockets forward Ron Artest was ejected from both games. The Lakers, however, recovered from their lackadaisical Game 1 performance to take both of the next two games and gain the momentum. Game 4 was proof that momentum in sports is a mirage. Down superstar center Yao Ming, who is out for at least the rest of the playoff with a fractured foot, the Rockets pasted the Lakers to ties the series up. Fortunately for L.A., the series is headed back to the Staples Center. Kobe Bryant and crew will have to pick up the pace. Playing this poorly against a Rockets team decimated by injury does not bode well for the Lakers' prospects in later rounds — should they advance.

Excitement abounds so far in these playoffs, and likely things won't cool down. The upcoming week could feasibly see both the defending Eastern and Western Conference champions sent packing. If Boston and L.A. manage to advance, they’ll each have to deal with beasts lying in wait.

(Phil Kehres also is the co-author of Excuse Me, Is This Your Blog?)

(To see the schedule of NBA playoff games on various cable TV networks, please go here. To see official NBA highlights of Glen Davis' sensational buzzer beater in the last Celtics-Magic game, please check below.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Today is the day we honor mothers, and in this great country of ours, marketing geeks nationwide have provided us myriad ways in which to do so.

For those with unlimited resources and abundant aversion to their mothers, there are some very nice travel deals that put the old lady and her European houseboy well out of sight and sound for an extended stay — the perfect gift for sucking up in abstentia while securing one’s inheritance.

For those who’ve learned to stop blaming their mothers for whom they’ve become — moneyed or not — there are plenty of less extravagant options, in keeping with our doddering economy, for letting her know of your undying gratitude.

Most facile, perhaps, is to send her flowers. And to make sure the token is deeply felt, the price of those precious carbon dioxide absorbers typically leaps skyward the week leading up to Mother’s Day. You want to honor the loins that bore you with a fragrant tchotchke? Be prepared to pay more than you would the rest of the year when Mom is just the babysitter.

If you actually want to be with your mother on her special day, and get a little more bang for your buck with some face time, you could take the little lady out for brunch.

And what an unfortunate drag that is.

Despite Google producing 1.08 million options, every adult with plastic and a mobile mother within commuting distance shows up at your local elder-friendly eatery at the same time. The pubescent hostess, who has yet to connect the dots from her backseat activities to motherhood, herds you to a table. The bedraggled waitress, a mother who at the moment has a deep and dangerous loathing of Mother’s Day, fills you up. And then you pay the bill and you’re herded out again, with a wilted red carnation pinned to your mother’s sagging bosom, next to the dribble of egg yolk, and her cheeks aflush from the supposedly free glass of cheap champagne that came with her meal — no substitutions, please.

Instead of the Mother’s Day special, you might try a nice book about bird watching or a World’s Best Mom mug or slippers to compensate for her poor circulation. Although devoid of originality, they do provide some tangible reminder that you are her progeny, and though she might have forgotten, you haven’t. Even one of the plethora of banal greeting cards might do: It will last a lot longer than flowers and there’s significantly more room to write a poignantly appreciative message to her than on that teensy card some florist fills out for you in the handwriting of a troglodyte. Sadly, though, the greeting card industry has yet to produce a reasonable rhyme for “mother,” which leads to insipidity and egregious grammar. (Of course, there’s “brother,” but that’s a relative distraction, and “smother,” which too strongly suggests a dysfunctional maternal bond).

Whether by default or natural inclination, some of us do reject the commercial crappola and go for the direct approach we’ve been lucky to inherit from the powerful women who bore us, the smarm-be-gone style of honoring our mothers.

Yo, Dear Mother of Pearl, we say, looking deeply into her wise and witty eyes, thanks for birthing us and bearing the seemingly endless pain we have caused you with such extraordinarily unconditional love and delightfully profane humor, targeting whichever offspring isn’t present at the moment.

Thanks for agreeing that most men are swine and not worthy of the many fine pearls we shouldn’t bother tossing before them. Thanks also for strategically ignoring that thought and pointing out to us when we found the right ones — just in case we weren’t recognizing them.

Thanks for taking our unrepentant children during the summers so we could recover from their daily discourse on what terrible mothers we are. Thanks for comforting us, while we wallow in the latest abject failure, with the prediction that one day we will pee in our pants laughing about it. Thanks for reminding us how exceptional we are when we feel like utterly mundane caca.

And thanks for teaching us both the heartening and horrifying aspects of motherhood, but holding back just enough of the truly sucky stuff to assure we would perpetuate the species.

Love,
Your adoring daughter

(The graphic was created with the aid of the Despair, Inc. Parody Generator.)

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by Jeff Siegel

I’m old enough so that I watched the original Star Trek TV series when it ran on NBC 40-some years ago. But this is not a cranky, middle-aged Trekkie post. This is a cranky, why aren’t movie reviews any better than this post?

Peruse the cyber-ether, and you’ll discover that the reviewers who are dissecting director J.J. Abrams’ entry in the Star Trek series apparently copied from each other’s papers. Or are using the same film critic software. Or attended cliche school on the same day. Because the reviews, for the most part, all sound pretty much the same. Somewhere, Pauline Kael is sobbing. (And yes, you’ll have to look up who she is yourself.)

• Abrams didn’t make a movie; he “rebooted the Star Trek franchise.” Even a Scottish review used the phrase.

• Abrams’ great skill as a director revolves around his ability as a mythmaker and his insights into pop culture. A variation on this theme was almost constant, and especially in both The New York Times and Washington Post reviews. It was enough to make me to look for my copy of Edith Hamilton. (Yep, have to look that one up yourself, too.)

• Those of us who were born before the first George Bush presidency are geeks, nerds and Trekkies. Which is to be expected, I suppose. And the movie is not your dad’s Star Trek. Or it’s not your uncle’s. Thankfully, I didn’t find anyone saying it wasn’t my grandfather’s Star Trek. And what’s with all these women critics relegating Star Trek to dads and uncles? I could have sworn, in those long ago days when we watched the reruns in my college dorm’s TV lounge, there were women with us.

• “Live long and prosper!” Thanks, L.A. Times. And Cincinnati City Beat. And they were really clever in San Francisco: “Kick butt and prosper.”

The best review I found, which treated the film as a film and not as a chance to write sociology-lite, get quoted in an ad, or parse sentences like a grammarian at Entertainment Tonight, came from Michael Phillips at The Chicago Tribune. Thank you, sir. Your work is much appreciated.

(Promotional photo of the new version of the Enterprise in Star Trek is from Paramount Pictures. To see a trailer for the 11th installment of the Star Trek franchise, please see below.)

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First, let's get this straight: the underground podcast sounds nothing like Album Oriented Rock (AOR) radio. Or at least nothing like any AOR from this planet. For the uninitiated, this podcast takes its cues from the freeform and guerrilla radio movements of the 1960s. But what would happen if such a station actually played some AOR music? Stitched through this playlist you'll find more than 30 years of of songs that have popped up on AOR radio and through this program you can hear the evolution of that form. Although, let's face it, this is still freeform radio with all the touches: special programming opens, quirky programming features, hosts that respect the music but who don't try to be comedians nor do they sound like homogenized robots, and finally the patented eclectic music mix. Besides the AOR classics, you'll find everything from heavy metal to bluegrass. And in between we sprinkle in neo-soul, alternative rock, indie rock, and new wave. So sing to the hits, but also bounce to the rest. Please, enjoy responsibly.


(To stream or download this podcast, please click here.)


Playlist

"Furr" by Blitzen Trapper
Cover Me: "Ticket to Ride" by The Billys
"Almost Cut My Hair" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY)
“I am Not My Hair" by India.Airie
"Cut Your Hair" by Pavement
"Goodbye to You" by The Veronicas
"The Warrior" by Patty Smyth & Scandal
"Zero" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Last of the English Roses” by Pete Doherty
“Last of the Small Town Playboys” by Dirty Pretty Things
“Last of the Famous International Playboys” by Morrissey
Jeff’s New Wave: “Crocodiles” by Echo & the Bunnymen
"Shine" by Collective Soul
"Whores" by Jane's Addiction
"Spellbound" by Lacuna Coil
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “9” by Mercyful Fate

(Mp3 Runs - 1:17:24; 71 MB.)

(Photo by haydnseek of Boston, MA via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)


DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Phil Kehres

Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez is the latest superstar to find himself embroiled in Major League Baseball’s ongoing performance-enhancing drug (PED) saga. Your first reaction might be “another one bites the dust.” But before we crucify him, though, let’s cut through the mock outrage and try to take a more nuanced look at the situation.

Ramirez was suspended for 50 games under baseball’s drug policy for taking the female fertility drug human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), according to ESPN, which based its story on as yet unnamed sources. Ramirez was quick to issue an apology that didn’t deny his use of the drug but rather claimed he was given a legitimate prescription for it and did not know it was on list of substances banned by Major League Baseball (MLB). Early reports noted that Ramirez might have been prescribed the drug as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. However, hCG is a drug often used to increase levels of testosterone in steroid users. This is the same stuff that Jose Conseco got busted for trying to smuggle into the U.S. It’s not hard to connect the dots. Ramirez won’t be able to pass this one off as “Manny being Manny.”

Though it seems obvious Ramirez knew what he was doing, there are more important things to take away from this most recent debacle. You’d have to be a world-class idiot to keep using after all the controversy that’s gone down in the past, and it seems Ramirez fits the bill. But though the disappointment is valid here, it’s a shame now the cavalcade of morons will have another reason to sound off with ridiculous ideas like deleting Ramirez’s records and calling for the invasion of MLB commissioner Bud Selig’s office by the U.S. military. Ramirez is guilty, yes, and he’s been suspended. Let’s not be so absurd as to act like he’s destroyed our national innocence.

Furthermore, this incident — the confusion surrounding the purpose of the drug, Ramirez’ passive denial of guilt — is proof that these things should be examined on a case-by-case basis. Ramirez is not Barry Bonds. He is not A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez). Ramirez was not outed for taking PEDs years ago when the rules were murky — this is now. His crimes are his own, and more clear-cut than those in the past. But it’s a fool’s errand to make blanket statements about the character of every athlete ever associated with PED use. These are complex issues that deserve better than the surface-level arguments fed to us by a bloated, failing mainstream media desperate for readership.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t damn Ramirez. I’m saying we, as a collective of sports fans and (nominally) rational human beings, need to get our damn facts straight before we grab our pitchforks and torches.

(The photo of Manny Ramirez is by shgmom56 via Flickr, using a Creative Common license.)


For more on steroids and performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball, please see these posts from the archives:

• "MLB Steroid Scandal: A-Rod Digs a Deeper Hole;"
• "Baseball Controversy: Steroids, Canseco & A-Rod;" and
• "Hypocrisy is the National Pastime."

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(Editor's Note: The author of this piece, Melissa Mahfouz is in the midst of her last week of college finals as she finishes her first year of college life.)

by Melissa Mahfouz
Special to iVoryTowerz

The song “I Love College” by rapper Asher Roth (the song is on Roth's new album Asleep in the Bread Aisle, released on April 20) is the epitome of stereotypical songs pertaining to 3 a.m. runs to the local pizza joint, sleepless nights without productivity, hour-long conversations about the meaning of life, and those crazy weekends you either can never forget or can’t quite remember. Welcome to college, a place of so-called “teachers and scholars,” piles of books and compositions on the most obscure, yet interesting of topics, infinite supplies of dirty laundry, and an omniscient love for life.

Aside from suffering from a massive, incessant inundation of information that you seemingly will never use again (for example: how to derive the standard deviation of a fish population in Mozambique), one can safely say that college life, without a doubt, is truly an unforgettable learning experience. The real is separated from the superficial, activism transcends passivity, epiphanies are reached in which one realizes that he or she is not supernatural and has faults, limits are learned (interpret as you wish), and most importantly, relationships are fostered with an array of individuals while enhancing oneself as a human being.

As the ride is reaching its end for those on the verge of graduation, and beginning for those soon-to-be infamous freshmen, I only advise to take advantage of the moment, because it soon will become a distant, yet nostalgic memory. Roth puts it best when he says that it’s an experience “we’d do all over again.” The song captures this experience so well.

(The promotional photo of Asher Roth is from SRC Records, a division of Universal Music Group.)

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by Rick Rockwell

Awesome! Cracker’s new release Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey is an adrenaline shot to the heart. What more could one ask of a rock 'n roll record but to instill a sense of revival.

Certainly, the title of the album puts a finger immediately on that pulse. However, anyone who has listened to any of Cracker’s previous nine studio albums knows this band comes with a skeptical squint and a satirical world view. So read the title as a commentary on the fact the world hasn’t changed much despite the declarations that we supposedly live in a time of hope.

The punk attitude Cracker has always had at its foundation bubbles up to the surface on this release. Starting with the first track, “Yalla Yalla (Let’s Go),” Cracker sounds like the Ramones, if only the Ramones had Ph.Ds. The song is a whip-smart story about the lecherous and hilarious reminiscences of an Iraq War veteran recounting stories of his ex-girlfriends. More Ramones influences spill forth on the equally hilarious “Hand Me My Inhaler.”

But the best punk song on this new release is “Hey Bret (You Know What Time It Is),” which gives a big middle finger to the topsider and khaki crowd. The song is written from the point of view of poor Latinos who are sick of the WASP hierarchy. On top of smoldering beats, singer/guitarist David Lowery protests: “We live like serfs / in this new feudal land / We pay the bills and fight the wars.”

Unafraid to take the intellectual high road, Cracker combines with punk icon John Doe (formerly of X) to good effect on “We Will Shine a Light,” a song about democratizing Pakistan and fighting al Qaeda.

Another great guest shot on Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey comes from Patterson Hood, the founder of the Drive-by Truckers. On “Friends,” Hood and Lowery sing a boozy country-soaked barroom duet that name checks and references Captain Beefheart.* What other band would have the guts to try that in an alt-country song?

One of the weaker songs, “Turn On Tune In Drop Out With Me,” the song the band has offered as the first single on the album, still manages to pack a lyrical dystopian punch. However, the song sounds like a derivative knock off of Everclear’s “I Will Buy You a New Life.”

But it is hard to mar the powerful impact of Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey, which is easily Cracker’s best release since The Golden Age (1996). And if there’s any doubt of that assessment, just cue up “I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right” about midway through this great record. The song packs a sonic punch with the best guitar solos from Lowery and lead guitarist Johnny Hickman on a record filled with gritty guitar workouts. That song alone will make you forget the crazy headlines of our times which the band is inveighing against for most of this release. And that’s the real enjoyment of soaking in the energizing musical rays of Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey.

*Captain Beefheart is the stage name of Don Van Vliet.

(The promotional photo of Cracker is by Jason Thrasher and is provided by Savoy/429 Records. Cracker will play St. Louis, MO on May 15, the next date on the band's tour of the U.S. To see the video for "Yalla Yalla (Let's Go)" from Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey, please check below.)

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by Phil Kehres

The second round of the playoffs for the National Basketball Association (NBA) is upon us. Despite a few upsets, things have shaken out rather uninterestingly in the Western Conference. It’s as if we’re all waiting for the inevitable: the Lakers’ campaign has been on ice since the first round began. The potential for drama in the Eastern Conference semifinals, however, is off the charts.

The number one-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers will take on the Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta’s first appearance in the second round of the playoffs since 1999. The Hawks’ balanced attack — led by guard Joe Johnson, forward Josh Smith and center/forward Al Horford — presents a bigger challenge to the Cavs than a Miami team comprising Dwyane Wade and a bunch of scrap heap players. Cleveland has the upper hand by virtue of their depth — and some guy named LeBron — but expect the Hawks to give Cleveland more trouble than the flaccid Detroit team the Cavs whitewashed in the first round. For the Cavs, this could be an excellent tune-up for an Eastern Conference Finals showdown with Boston or Orlando. If Cleveland gets sloppy, however, don’t expect the Hawks to lie down like the Pistons did. (For more on Cleveland's chances, please see: "NBA Playoffs: LeBron vs. Kobe? Inevitable?")


The other semifinal matchup in the East has even more potential. The Boston Celtics are coming off an epic series with the Chicago Bulls. Even without superstar forward Kevin Garnett, Boston is widely regarded as the favorite against the young, green Orlando Magic. The Celtics are the defending champs, the battle-tested veterans who tasted glory last year and still hunger — or so they say. Conventional wisdom says they’ll easily dispatch the upstart Magic, but perhaps the champs aren’t what they once were. The Bulls/Celtics first-round series will go down as one of the greatest playoff series ever. Lost in the hullabaloo, however, is the fact that the Celtics should have dismantled the Bulls, with or without Garnett. That the series even went seven games — not to mention the way the Celtics had to cash in on miracle after miracle for their wins — is proof that this Boston team is not deep or talented enough to repeat without Kevin Garnett. Orlando center Dwight Howard and his supporting crew of sharpshooters are light years ahead of Chicago at this point. The Celtics are in for a rude awakening if they think they can waltz into Orlando lollygagging for three quarters and expect guard Ray Allen to hit game-saving three-pointers every night.

The only thing we can count on at this point is that whoever comes out of the Eastern Conference is going to be the biggest challenge Kobe Bryant and his Los Angeles Lakers will face throughout the entire playoffs. Best get your game face on, Kobe, because none of these teams is going to go down easily.

(To see the schedule of NBA playoff games on various cable TV networks, please go here. To see official NBA highlights of the two playoff games from Sunday, May 3, please check below.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

In 2007, a wildfire blew into my little California town on the fickle winds of Santa Ana, and all of Fallbrook was evacuated. Reverse 911 calls alerting us to leave town went out to some neighborhoods but not all — and people who use only cell phones were out of the loop. Without personal plans for evacuation, many of us tossed whatever was at hand into our vehicles, leaving behind vital documents, medicines and priceless keepsakes. We tried to beat a swift path to safety, but were confused about where we were supposed to go. One public agency’s outgoing message directed us to an evacuation shelter that didn’t exist. Then the firefighting teams from far and wide that came to our rescue ran smack into incompatible radio systems, but the engines and strike teams did their utmost best. Erroneous reports of the fire reaching the center of town, of rampant looting, of the burning of one of our schools were not corrected for hours.

When we returned three days later, the camaraderie of crisis made for some hilarious and poignant stories, but we were sobered by one compelling lesson learned: Be prepared to take care of yourself in a disaster, because the organizations we count on could be overwhelmed. More significant disasters have revealed the same lesson, New Orleans’ wrenching encounter with Hurricane Katrina, not the least of them. (For another take on the government's response to Katrina, please see: "Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Katrina & the Cesspool of American Politics.")

And now there’s a new influenza strain lurking, swine influenza A (H1N1), that has flirted with pandemic status. So what’s a wannabe self-sufficient person to do?


Don’t panic is perhaps the best first advice, despite Vice President Joe Biden’s impassioned suggestion that we stay away from airplanes and subways, a suggestion that evoked the standard pokes. Actually, his advice is not so far off the mark: If you didn’t have to, would you board a plane or subway right now? And, when a pandemic inevitably occurs (those in the know say it’s “when” not “if”), mass transportation will likely be discouraged.

In planning for a pandemic, an effort long underway by our government, worldwide mobility is a critical factor: The World Health Organization reported that H1N1 has already reached 17 nations, thanks to the ease with which we hop into planes, carrying on nasty viral baggage with us. So preparing for the worst — and hoping for the best — is recommended throughout the chain of command, including President Barack Obama, because if H1N1 doesn’t cause a pandemic now, another more virulent wave of the virus could strike later, or a new strain could rear its ugly head. Unfortunately, pandemic planning is something far too few organizations have adequately addressed.

I worked in the healthcare industry until a year ago and couldn’t find one company in the supply channel that had a comprehensive plan for a pandemic scenario, despite government guidance to do so — and despite common knowledge that being prepared is a key indicator of successful emergency response.

The government certainly seems prepared for a pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has conducted an effective prevention campaign for years: cough into the crook of your arm, not on your hands; or cough and sneeze into a tissue; if you or anyone in your household has symptoms, keep your germs at home; and wash your hands like crazy. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) produced a VIP webcast last week, reassuringly taking questions from the frightened public. We have national and state stockpiles of antiviral treatments for influenza. And, according to brand-spanking new HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, manufacturers of influenza vaccines and antivirals stand ready to ramp up development and production upon request.

However, suppose we have a severe pandemic and the folks responsible for distributing influenza vaccines and treatments, those who ship them, and the airports and trucking infrastructures through which they pass, find themselves with employee absentee rates approaching the 40 percent figure projected by the government — and without plans in place for maintaining essential operations. Then extend that scenario to all industries.

Oops.

This is why planning at the family level is necessary; we must prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Know where to go for accurate information — the CDC avoids hysteria and denial alike; be prepared to work from home if possible, to care for sick family members, to avoid mass transportation; and follow CDC planning guidelines for families. You don’t have to go nuts, but you can go shopping for extra necessities to keep on hand — just in case.

And remember: H1N1 is not a food-borne virus. So when the first conspiracy fruitloop accuses the Obama administration of infecting pigs to create a pandemic to distract us from the economy, help out a slandered industry and plan on natural pork for dinner.

(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

(For another posting on the politics of flu, please see: "Texas, the Swine Flu & Secession.")

(The graphic is by Mike Licht from NotionsCapital.com via Flickr, using a Creative Commons License. To see President Obama's remarks on the H1N1 flu virus which opened his recent press conference, and the entire press conference, please check below.)

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Happy birthday, Pete Seeger! Pete Seeger turns 90 tomorrow (May 3), so what better time not only to play some Seeger but also to play some music inspired by one of America's great folk singers. There's plenty here to like, although not all of this program has the Seeger touch; the usual eclectic mix is here. (But we dedicate the program to Pete, among others, nevertheless.) The program ranges through folk, indie rock, new wave, power pop, and heavy metal. Plus the sounds cover about 40 years of modern music. So tip your hat to Pete, and, of course, enjoy.


(To stream or download this podcast, please click here.)


Playlist

"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" by Pete Seeger
"Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen
“Masquerade" by Sarah Nixey
"Fraulein" by Drunk
"The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)" by The Decemberists
"Free Fallin'" by John Mayer
“All That You Have is Your Soul” by Tracey Chapman
“Roll On” by J.J. Cale
“Reason to Believe” by The Beat Farmers
"Pink Cadillac" by Graham Parker
Jeff’s New Wave: “Keep in Touch” by The Romantics
"Driver 8" by R.E.M.
"Sister Jack" by Spoon (request)
"Ulysses" by Franz Ferdinand
Cover Me: "Rock On" by Def Leppard
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “ME 262” by Blue Öyster Cult

(Mp3 Runs - 1:23:05; 77 MB.)

(Photo of Pete Seeger by Anthony Pepitone, using a Creative Commons license; the photo was taken at New York's Clearwater Festival in 2007.)


DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Jeff Siegel

The minute that it looked — even remotely — that the swine flu was going to be a significant problem in Texas, Gov. Rick “Hell no, we ain’t forgettin’ “ Perry called in the federal government.

This was news, of course, because the Republican governor told an Austin audience a couple of weeks ago that the state could leave the union any time it wanted. But what does Perry do the first time there’s a crisis? Cry uncle.

So doesn’t Perry’s request for federal help — specifically, anti-viral medication and federal money to help for pay for the state of emergency that he declared last week — seem to put the lie to his earlier discussion of secession?

Not in Texas, which is something that the cyber-ether doesn’t quite understand. It has been twitttering (pun fully intended) over the past several days with the news of Perry’s “hypocrisy” and having more than one giggle at his expense. The Huffington Post raced to note the seeming faux pas, and a fellow named Rick Starr wrote a nice piece reminding Gov. Ain’t Forgettin’ about U.S. geography.

The problem, which you have to be here in Texas a long time before you completely understand, is that Texans of Perry’s political stripe don’t suffer from hypocrisy. If you’re always right — and they’ll be the first to tell you that they always are — then how can you be a hypocrite?

It’s perfectly rational for Perry to rip the federal government, yet still ask for help. What kind of Texan would he be if he didn’t? It’s significant that his opponent in next spring’s GOP gubernatorial primary, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, has been mostly silent about the secession talk and its swine flu aftermath. That might be surprising elsewhere, but Texas isn’t elsewhere. Here, you’ll get more votes ridiculing the federal government than your opponent.

And don’t worry — Perry isn’t about to change. Shortly before the swine flu hit Texas, and with the memory of secession still fresh, Perry moderated a panel in suburban Dallas that included three right-wing radio hosts, for what the governor called a “critique” of President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office. He got a standing ovation.

(The photo of Gov. Rick Perry is by Robert Scoble of California, who writes Scobelizer, via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)


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by Jeff Siegel

Freelance assignments took me to Wichita Falls and Houston recently, which meant driving more than 800 miles over a five-day period. And, given the pathetic state of radio (well-documented here on the iVoryTowerz blog), that meant I had to tune myself up.

What I listened to (and played very loudly once again):

• The Clash, London Calling: Still hip, still relevant, still political and still angry, and as much fun to listen to today as it was when it came out 30 years ago. This may be the most mature and sophisticated record any punk band made, and that’s a compliment. The Clash believed they could change the world with rock ‘n roll, and London Calling was their weapon.

• Emmylou Harris, All I Intended to Be: Dark, brooding and almost brilliant, this 2009 release is a look at aging and death and whether we’ve done as much as we could with our time on this earth. Harris cuts Tracy Chapman cold on “All That You Have is Your Soul,” which is not easy to do, and her duet with Billy Joe Shaver on “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” is spooky. (For a complementary take on this Emmylou Harris release, please see: "Music: The Best of 2008, So Far," and "Music: The Best of 2008, Rick's List.")

• Rockpile, Seconds of Pleasure. In 1980, this was supposed to be the seminal New Wave album, featuring Nick Lowe, New Wave’s poet laureate, and Dave Edmunds, its guitar hero. Which it wasn’t, and which disappointed those of us who were paying attention. It was too poppy and too pretty. Oddly enough, those qualities have helped the record age well, though I still prefer Lowe’s Labour of Lust and Edmund’s Repeat When Necessary.

• Van Morrison, Down the Road: Morrison wrote Tupelo Honey in 1971, and few songs captured the time’s hippie, flannel shirt ethos better. Most musicians never recover from a hit like that. But Morrison did, and has done some of his best work at a time when his contemporaries are retired or playing casino lounges. This 2002 release is introspective, as much of Morrison’s work is, but it also rocks. How many others can do that?

(For an earlier trip down Texas' highways with inspirational driving music, please see: "Road Music: Driving Texas' Interstate Highways.")

(The photo is by ajsmith227 of McKinney, TX via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license. To see Emmylou Harris play "Shores of White Sand" from All I Intended to Be on The Late Show with David Letterman, please check below.)

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by Phil Kehres

Kobe Bryant once was the best player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Now it seems he and the successor to his throne, LeBron James, are on an unavoidable collision course. Is the matchup of Bryant's Los Angeles Lakers versus James' Cleveland Cavaliers inevitable for this year’s NBA Finals?

Things are looking good for both the Lakers and the Cavs after dominating their respective first round opponents. The Lakers took out the Utah Jazz in five games, winning by double digits in each of their four wins and only slightly faltering in Game 3. The Cavaliers took the Detroit Pistons to the woodshed, completing the only first-round sweep, denying the Pistons a shot at their seventh consecutive appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals and driving the final nail in the coffin of a once-proud era of Detroit basketball. Bryant and James led the way for their respective teams. Despite the strong supporting casts, there’s no doubt these two heavyweights are calling the shots.

The Cavaliers have the more difficult path to the finals at this point. They will have to face a surprisingly well-rounded Atlanta Hawks team or the Miami Heat, led by rejuvenated superstar Dwyane Wade (Atlanta leads the series 3-2 as of this writing). Should they advance, the Cavs’ likely Eastern Conference Finals opponent is the other “Beast of the East,” the Boston Celtics. However, the defending champs are sans superstar Kevin Garnett and their depth has taken a hit due to injuries. The Celtics have also been tested by the “Baby Bulls” of Chicago in the first round, narrowly eking out a 3-2 series advantage (as of this writing) after three heart-pounding overtime games and what has been easily the most exciting series so far. Regardless, Cleveland’s path to the Finals will likely have to go through the Celtics, barring an unexpected second-round exit by either team. The Lakers simply haven’t been challenged in the Western Conference this year. While that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily sweep their way to the Finals, it’s hard to imagine a scenario that doesn’t find Kobe getting another shot at his first Shaq-less ring.*

While there’s no doubt that NBA execs are drooling at the possibility of a Kobe/LeBron showdown in the finals, there’s a more intriguing storyline here. It’s new wave vs. old guard. Bryant has been the game’s best for years, but James has finally surpassed him. If the Cavs can stay as focused and loose as they have all year, the championship is a very real possibility. There’s just one thing: Kobe’s Lakers are the only team to hand Cleveland a legitimate loss on their home court this season. If the seemingly inevitable happens, it will be LeBron’s chance to quash the remaining few doubters and claim his rightful throne as best in the game. But the difference between LeBron and Kobe is that LeBron has never been about himself first and foremost. His singular drive and determination to bring a championship to the city of Cleveland might be too much for even the might Lakers to handle.

*For those who have short memories or who do not follow the NBA closely, Kobe Bryant won three titles with Shaquille O'Neal (now with the Phoenix Suns) earlier in the decade.

(Phil Kehres also is the co-author of Excuse Me, Is This Your Blog?)

(To see the schedule of NBA playoff games on various cable TV networks, please go here. To see one of LeBron James' best plays from the series against Detroit, please check below.)

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by Emily Norton*
Special to iVoryTowerz

Having trouble picking your music festival this year? I am! The choices are endless, but I plan on doing one of the doozies. After the recent release of Lollapalooza's line-up, I have joined the thousands confronted with the choice between Lollapalooza of Chicago, IL (Aug. 7-9) and Bonnaroo of Manchester, TN (June 11-14). Every summer, teens and adults of all ages flock to both of these three to four day music heavens in search of jams of numerous eclectic bands.

Here’s the rundown: The headliners of both festivals are not quite my cup of tea, but if you’re looking for a flashback to the '90s, you’ll be happy at either (for example, the Beastie Boys are playing both). I’m more concerned with the smaller name bands that range from folk to hip-hop, and I must say, though Bonnaroo may have a few more than Lollapalooza, they are evenly matched. Often, artists at both festivals overlap, (notably, Band of Horses, Andrew Bird, Of Montreal, and TV on the Radio, to name a few), so it’s also important to focus on the vibe of the festival as a whole.

Here are a few particulars when determining the best choice:

• Time of Day: Lollapalooza shows start early! If you can’t stand to fry in the sun from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM, you may want to try Bonnaroo. Roo’s shows typically don’t start until later in the evening, so you can camp in your tent all day if you’re a night owl. However, you can still groove the night scene in Chicago. Many of the bars surrounding Grant Park have booked the artists and interesting collaborations for some intense afterparties and shows.
• 
  
• Versatility: Because Bonnaroo is a day longer, showtimes are a little more flexible. The headliners typically play lengthier sets as well. Bonnaroo should be commended for providing a unique experience; as a result of the later start, days can be filled with the provided silent dance parties (at the Silent Disco), comedy acts, and extra hours to get those psychedelics brewing. However, Lollapalooza certainly has it’s own upbeat flavor. The DJ tent, one of my favorite haunts, hosts dancers all day long at Lolla!
• 
  
• Setting: The most important thing to keep in mind is that the setting makes the show. Personally, I don’t think you could go wrong with either festival, but, do consider: am I urban or rural? The farmland of Bonnaroo suits the hippie camper who can go nights without rest. Lollapalooza’s all-day intensity leaves you with a high that deserves a night of sleep, or, if you’d rather, its Chicago chic also provides the hipster or glam** a night on the town to celebrate an incredible day. Seeing as I fall right in the middle, I guess I ought to just swing for both!

*Emily Norton is a veteran of both Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.

**A term for certain fashionable rockers which was current in the 1970s and is undergoing a revival.

(For another view of the Lollapalooza festival, please see a short series from last summer beginning with "Concert Review: Lollapalooza, Day 1 with the Raconteurs.")

(The photo of the entrance to the 2008 Bonnaroo festival is by rocknroll guitar of Tampa, FL via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license. To see Pearl Jam playing "Better Man" at Bonnaroo in 2008, please check below.)

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by Dan Aspan
Special to iVoryTowerz

As spring transitions into summer, some of the best sports action is taking place on ice. The National Hockey League (NHL) playoffs are underway, and there have already been some incredible games. First, the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins squared off in a rematch of last year’s Eastern Conference Finals. The Penguins got the best of the Flyers (as they did last year), coming back from a three goal deficit to win Game 6 and advance to the second round. I don’t have any allegiance when it comes to hockey, which makes these games all the more enjoyable. Being from Philadelphia, I was pulling for the Flyers to make a run. But I can’t deny the thrill of watching Penguins players like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. When you have two incredible players on a team like the Penguins do, it’s always going to be a challenge to keep up.

Then you take a look at the Washington Capitals and their exciting roster with players like Alex Ovechkin*, Mike Green, and Alexander Semin. After falling behind in their opening round series against the New York Rangers 3 games to 1, the Capitals have fought back to force Game 7 (tonight, Tuesday, April 28, in D.C.). If the other games of this series are any indication of what’s to come, this is a game you don’t want to miss.

As a huge baseball and football fan, I have grown to appreciate hockey much more in recent weeks thanks to the incredible talent of players like Malkin, Ovechkin, and others. Watching these guys fly around the ice and score unbelievable goals has created a huge sense of excitement that the NHL hasn’t been able to provide fans for years. As the Stanley Cup playoffs progress and the inevitable drama of sudden death overtime games unfold, the NHL will continue to reach more sports fans across the country and the world.

*If the video highlights of the Crosby and Malkin goals weren’t enough to get you pumped up for some playoff hockey, check out this insane goal by Ovechkin in Game 5 against the Rangers.

(The Capitals vs. Rangers final can be seen on the Versus cable network, along with the final between the New Jersey Devils and the Carolina Hurricanes. The full television schedule can be found here.)

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by Rick Rockwell

Some of the most intriguing aspects of Bob Dylan’s latest studio release Together Through Life are the Latin-inspired arrangements laid over a bluesy foundation. At times this mix gives the work a cinematic feel. At other times, the simple results are the answer to the question: what if Dylan decided to dabble with conjunto.


David Hidalgo, the leader of Los Lobos joins Dylan’s touring band and other key guests for this record and his presence spells all the difference. On the lead track and single “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” Hidalgo’s stabbing guitar solos recall the best of his band from East LA. Dylan’s shattered voice croaks out the despair-filled lyrics while the band cooks. Donny Heron’s restrained trumpet fills give the song the perfect smoky late night edge.

But perhaps Hidalgo’s greatest contribution to Together Through Life is his accordion work. Dylan, who self-produced the record, laces Hidalgo’s accordion throughout every track, which gives large swaths of the record a Tex-Mex or norteño atmosphere. With this technique the ironic closer “It’s All Good” acquires a zydeco flavor thanks to Hidalgo’s contributions.

One of the other great achievements of Together Through Life is that it unites the various strains of Dylan’s influence. Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers (representing the Tommy Petty/Byrds wing of the Church of Dylan) provides stalwart if restrained lead guitar throughout and his incendiary guitar duets with Hidalgo are set subtly underneath the main mix to provide a certain sonic tension to various numbers, especially “Jolene.” Also along for this long strange bluesy trip is Robert Hunter, the long-time lyricist for the Grateful Dead (representing the psychedelic wing of the Church of Dylan) who co-wrote with Dylan all but one of the album’s ten songs.

However, when Together Through Life isn’t loping along the border, shuffling through an after-hours East LA bar, or slow-roasting like a Texas roadhouse on a Saturday night, it evokes the sound of urban Chicago blues. Dylan has told interviewers he felt the quickly recorded album was searching for a groove more common with records released by Chess or Sun Records in the 1950s.

Dylan’s appreciation for the blues is evident on this his 33rd studio release. On “My Wife’s Home Town” Dylan and Hunter stitch new lyrics on to “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” originally from legendary bluesman Willie Dixon. (And notably, unlike others, Dylan and Hunter acknowledge Dixon in the songwriting credits.) Dylan’s cackling devilish coda to the song shows just how much fun the 68-year-old singer-songwriter had recording this album. “Shake Mama Shake” is another urban blues number that lives up to its title.

Although most of Together Through Life is a rollicking roadhouse toss off by the Bard of Rock, the last two songs on the album may have more weight. “I Feel a Change Comin’ On” could be read as Dylan’s acclamation of President Barack Obama’s political win and may be seen as a natural bookend to Dylan’s classic “Blowin’ in the Wind.” (However, note, Dylan and Hunter’s lyrics are far from upbeat: “Dreams never did work for me anyway / Even when they did come true.”) And then there’s the album closer, “It’s All Good,” which is Dylan with tongue set firmly in cheek singing satirically about coping with the world’s financial mess.

Although some have already written Together Through Life off as a fun but inconsequential Dylan release, the end result is just the opposite. By not trying too hard and having fun with the various elements of his craft, Dylan may have put together his most enjoyable album of the past decade. Dylan proves once again why he’s a master.

(The promotional photo of Bob Dylan is from Columbia Records. Dylan and his band will continue their world tour with a performance in Cardiff, Wales, UK today [Tuesday, April 28]. To see the official video for Dylan's "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'," please check below.)

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by Suzie Raven

Whenever my dad wanted me to try harder when we played softball in the backyard, he told me to quit throwing like a girl. I would get mad and wing it at him as hard as I could. As I got older and my arm got stronger, he said it to me less often, but he always knew it was an easy way to push my buttons.

Last week, twelve-year-old Mackenzie Brown proved what I’d been saying for years. Throwing like a girl isn’t a bad thing.

Brown is the first girl to throw a perfect game in Bayonne Little League. She struck out 12 of the 18 batters she faced, including the last six.

Since the perfect game, she has been interviewed on national television and watched her highlights on ESPN. She threw out the first pitch when the New York Mets played the Washington Nationals at the end of last week. If I were in her shoes, I would be beyond stoked to throw out the first pitch, but she’s obviously more level headed than I am despite being much younger.

She said that the best part of her week is "probably just being able to throw like that."

Baseball needs more girls like her, but next year, Brown will switch from baseball to softball so she can focus on her goal of playing collegiate athletics one day. She shouldn’t have to switch for the purpose of college if she prefers baseball. She’s proven that she can do more than just keep up with the boys. She obviously throws much better than most boys. Our society shouldn’t teach her there is something wrong with throwing like a girl.

(Photo by Matt McGee of Washington state via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

My mother is a child of the Depression: She throws out nothing.

We always knew this without ever consciously acknowledging it, because as children we were plagued a couple times a week by Mother’s lovingly prepared olios of leftovers. But the lesson of salvage Mother learned during the Depression became impressively clear when my siblings and I descended last week on our widowed mother’s home for the final accounting and dispersal of its contents.

We opened a lovely hatbox, anticipating a trove of fashion treasure adorned with feathers and veils and rhinestone studded hatpins. Instead, we found a hoard of decades old batteries, light bulbs for appliances no longer made, shoe button hooks with broken handles. The antique wooden box with hand-carved dovetail joints, oozing historicity and the hope of another era’s baubles, opened to a stash of carefully compacted plastic shopping bags from Foodtown. The bits of felt, fake gems and snippets of grosgrain ribbon with which Mother once created tally cards for the bridge clubs of yore were still tidily organized in the brittle lining of a faded cherry cordials box. A multitude of photographs — Ye gods!, as Mother would say — filled copious recycled containers: shoeboxes of forgotten brands, reused envelopes, file folders with thrice relabeled tabs. And fifty years of humor-filled letters and greeting cards reflected the gradual acceptance of scatological content in polite conversation (surely, our family pioneered it).

Nope, my mother throws out nothing.

We found an iron skillet full of bacon grease in the oven — ready for frying an egg or a chicken thigh or our favorite, creamed chipped beef. Six styles of black dance shoes, in graduated states of wear, rested in a closet, one for each of the last six decades, and a lonely Keds sneaker waited in a bathroom corner for Mother to happen upon a lucky match at a yard sale. The stubs of every check our parents ever wrote told the history of their cautious consumption, when they weren’t paying with the evermore reliable cash. A vintage milk box held — guess what — carefully compacted plastic shopping bags from Foodtown. And Mother held onto every card tablecloth she ever owned, whether hand-me-downs from her mother or later acquisitions. She even kept the quilted covers that went under the linen cloths to protect ladies’ dainty wrists from the table’s edge — neatly folded in a box from a dress shop long out of business.

As we harvested the house, it was sometimes hard to know what was a family treasure and what was the result of Mother’s penchant for yard sale and thrift store shopping. Should we really part with that little rug? Was it saved from a neighbor’s curb on junk day, before the garbage truck could haul it away, or was it made of our ancestors’ threadbare suits and camel’s hair coats a grandmother or great aunt cut into strips and braided into renewal? We worried about tossing all the plastic shopping bags released from countless caches while Earth Day was upon us. We fretted how we could possibly stuff eighty years of recipes and books and art and music and living into our four homes already filled with the fruits of contemporary consumption. And we occasionally bickered — not about what went to whom but about the proper style and order of the packing. Just like our parents.

Ultimately, it took the seventy-eleventh fingertip cut on the dreaded packing tape dispenser, and the consequent round of sobbing and laughter, to stop the desperate grasp for our parents’ life and face the exquisite loss of it. Father is dead and Mother’s delightful light is subtly fading, just a few decades before our own. No manner of memorabilia, no family heirloom cum childhood fort, no book with a hundred-years-old inscription will perpetuate our family. Our stories and aspirations, our love and anger, our sorrows and joys; these things cannot reside in objects.

But Mother and Father’s wisdom lives on — as we forgive each other our foibles, as we recycle with added vigor, as we take the previous generation into our homes and nurture them to their deaths, as we honor the ingenuity, love and humor that helped them survive the Depression by emulating those things today.

If nothing else, I hope our offspring learn the lesson that a plastic shopping bag, if they absolutely must use one, is actually packing material for china or throw pillow stuffing or a litter box liner — and that however downward the economy might spiral, we will always be rich in family. … Oh — and that laughing at elevator farts is far preferable to excusing them.

©2009 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

(The photo shows a family migrating from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California during the Great Depression; the photo is in the public domain.)

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Another trippy ride down the eclectic road with the underground podcast this week, after a week off while the hosts were journeying elsewhere. So the road is where our thoughts are centered. Sometimes the test of a good rock 'n roll show is to take it out the highway. We hope you'll road test this one. First though, let's check the map. The first exit looks like British folk rock which winds through progressive rock and indie rock. Don't miss that left turn into grunge. Then there's that big loop around new wave, punk, and post-punk. Finally, the home stretch has glam rock (in a "Jeepster," of all vehicles) and heavy metal. Don't set the cruise control because it seems you'll need to keep the accelerator punched manually for this excursion. Enjoy!


(Please click here to stream or download this podcast.)


Playlist

"Traveling's Easy" by Anne Briggs
"Mykonos" by Fleet Foxes
“The Story in Your Eyes" by The Moody Blues
"Detlef Schrempf" by Band of Horses
"I Still Want to be Your Baby (Take Me as I am)" by Bettye LaVette
"I Heard of a Girl" by Miss Li
“Doll Parts” by Hole
Jeff’s New Wave: “Don't Stand So Close to Me” by The Police
“Modern Girl” by Sleater-Kinney
“Short Fuse” by The Black Lips
"Viva La Resistance" by Hypernova
Cover Me: "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat" by Beck
"Jeepster" by T. Rex
"Vaccination Scar" by The Tragically Hip
"Unafraid" by Queensrÿche
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Seven” by Megadeth

(Mp3 Runs - 1:19:17; 73 MB.)

The program includes songs with explicit lyrics.

(Graphic by thomsimonson via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and a Google news search for “child abuse” produced the following articles — published over only three days.

Infant death suspect was awaiting trial in earlier child abuse:

• Dateline: Florida — A 27-year-old Davenport man who is charged with killing an infant in Osceola County on Monday was out on bail awaiting trial in an earlier child abuse case.

Man pleads not guilty in child abuse case:

• Dateline: Ohio — A man accused of strapping a toddler to a toilet seat pleaded not guilty to child endangering charges in Clark County Municipal court Monday, April 6.

Richmond woman pleads insanity in son’s abuse death:

• Dateline: California — A Richmond woman charged with murder, torture and child abuse in the 2006 death of her 8-year-old son has changed her not-guilty plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

Delta man faces first degree murder charges:

• Dateline: Colorado — Daven Beck has posted a $150,000 bond after being arrested on suspicion of murder in the first degree, child abuse resulting in death, and child abuse.

Murrells Inlet nanny gets probation for child abuse:

• Dateline: South Carolina — A Murrells Inlet woman on Wednesday admitted she abused a 5-month-old baby in her care and apologized to the child’s family before being sentenced to probation.

Child abuse arrest:

• Dateline: Florida — A 6-month-old baby is in critical condition after a woman allegedly shook the child severely.

DCF report documents tot’s severe beating, troubled mom:

• Dateline: Florida — An investigate summary compiled by the Department of Children and Families in the days following Faith J. Ray’s death indicates the 2-year-old sustained a severe beating, possibly over a long period of time, before being admitted to the hospital last December with fatal injuries.

Tampa father tortured child over porn, police say:

• Dateline: Florida — The allegation was horrifying: A father used water torture to punish his 10-year-old daughter for finding his pornography.

CCPD investigating after child, 2, at hospital with multiple injuries:

• Dateline: Texas — Police plan to interview a 2-year-old’s relatives and caretakers after doctors found the child had injuries consistent with abuse, Lt. Rebeca Schauer said.

Father charged with child abuse after 17 month old dies:

• Dateline: Missouri — A Bismarck man faces child abuse charges after his 17-month-old daughter died.

River Edge man charged with assaulting 13 year old:

• Dateline: New Jersey — The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office today announced the arrest of Yoon Park, 53, of River Edge, on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and simple assault.

Amantea pleads guilty to sexual abuse charge:

• Dateline: Iowa — A Norwalk man involved in a police standoff in February pleaded guilty to a child sexual abuse charge. Albert Amantea, 43, pleaded guilty April 6 to the charge of a lascivious act with a child, which is a class C felony.

Jury finds man "guilty" of child abuse; recommends life in prison:

• Dateline: Oklahoma — A Washington County jury has recommended that a Collinsville man — already serving 30 years in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for the sexual abuse of a minor child — serve life in prison for the child sexual abuse of a 10-year-old girl in 2004.

Mashpee student abuse charge probed:

• Dateline: Massachusetts — Police are investigating an alleged child abuse case involving a special needs student and a school bus monitor, Mashpee police officials said yesterday.

Principal charged with sexual abuse of 11-year-old girl:

• Dateline: Illinois — A 54-year-old principal of a far north suburban elementary school has been charged with the sexual abuse of an 11-year-old girl who is a student at the school. Investigators believe other victims may be out there and they are encouraging them to come forward.

Massena man pleads guilty to child endangerment:

• Dateline: New York — The owner of a Massena gymnastics school has admitted in court to child endangerment charges for offering alcohol and showing a pornographic video to underage girls.

There were many more articles — and the economy is aggravating the problem — yet despite their volume, I don’t recommend reading them. They are excruciating.

There is something you should know, though: As long as parental rights receive greater priority than a child’s right to live free from abuse; as long as we give parents, guardians, teachers, nannies, boyfriends and girlfriends another chance not to harm a child; as long as we hesitate to report our suspicions, these stories will be repeated endlessly. And the lives of beaten, starved, burned and raped children will continue to seep away into the hospital linens beneath them.

You can help: Report suspected child abuse and neglect by calling your local child protective services or child welfare agency or Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 800-4-A-CHILD (800-422-4453). All calls are anonymous.

For more detailed statistics on child abuse, please go here.

(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

(The photo is by Goran Zec via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Melissa Mahfouz
Special to iVoryTowerz

A few years after 9-11, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had been gaining credibility. His efforts to combat the Taliban and the opium trade, while dealing with neighboring Pakistan, were unprecedented. Yet, with the recent signing of a new Afghan law, Karzai’s respectability and credibility are reduced to nothing more than fragments, and further animosity between the Sunni government and Shi’a (or Shi'i) minority has come to fruition. Is this part of the Karzai administration’s divide and conquer tactics, to marginalize and disengage the Shi’a voice in Afghanistan?


As a caveat, this is not an attack on Afghan political culture, but rather the direction in which it is heading.

The premise of the controversial legislation that Karzai signed is primitive at best. Under the direction of the Afghan Parliament and the behind-the-scenes influence Shi’a cleric Ayatollah Asif Mohseni, Karzai signed a three-part bill severely limiting the rights of women. The law, applicable only to Shi’a Afghans calls for: 1) the right of the husband to coerce his wife into having sex every four days; 2) the requirement for women to obtain their husband’s permission to hold employment outside of the household; and 3) limitations for women who wish to wear make-up in public and leave the house without their husband. Although the law has yet to become public officially, the United Nations Development Fund has warned women about its contents. And thus the law has become the beacon of controversy and social uproar.

As Afghanistan has attempted to reach a level of development in education, poverty alleviation, and women’s rights, among others, this new law is certainly a setback. The bill is aimed at gaining the favor of the Ayatollah Mohseni to assist Karzai in the political spectrum, as the president is up for re-election. As has been customary for centuries, women are yet again being used as a political tool. Realistically, human rights groups will demand a public outcry on the basis of human rights abuses. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may yet verbally castigate the Karzai administration over this controversy. And the United Nations may take a similar course of action beyond its muted criticisms and alerting the human rights community. In the end, the law may not be affected, with miniscule, if any changes. (After women staged a bold protest in Kabul last week, Karzai asked his Interior Ministry to review the law's provisions again to see if it should be adjusted in any way.) This law is a litmus test for Afghan women to prove their strength. And we encourage you, sisters. I am not a raging feminist, but I am a human being, and this law is absurd. The law legalizes marital rape. Wow. Keep your voices yelling until they are hoarse, but do not be silent. We are with you at the virtual barricades.

(For similar postings, please see the series "The U.S. in Afghanistan & What the Afghans Want.")

(The photo of Aghan President Hamid Karzai is from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland from 2008; the photo is by Annette Boutellier of the World Economic Forum via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Phil Kehres

Have you ever gone out for a lovely day at the ballpark, hoping to take in a victory by your favorite team, only to be surrounded by oblivious wannabes wearing gear in support of teams that aren’t even playing? I suppose it’s not a big issue for most people, but it drives me nuts. It’s my biggest sports pet peeve. It’s a sports fashion faux pas, a crime against the integrity of real baseball fans.

Most of you know exactly who I’m talking about, though you may not have paid attention before. If you don’t know, then maybe you’re one of them. They’re the east coast yuppies wearing the pre-faded Yankees caps at a Nationals-Marlins game. They’re the clueless girls in pink Cubs hats at Indians-White Sox games, who couldn’t tell the difference between balls and strikes but swear their undying loyalty to those “lovable losers.” They’re the obnoxious drunk fratboys in green, St. Patrick’s day-themed Red Sox caps singing “Sweet Caroline” a capella at an Orioles-Rays game. Each and every one of them is a wretched stain on the fabric of baseball fandom. I once went to a Pirates-Cubs game at Wrigley Field, where there was a guy dressed in a full Joe DiMaggio jersey. He stuck out even in the sea of khaki and polo shirts that make Wrigley so, um, historic. I don’t care if you’re Joe DiMaggio himself, there’s no excuse for that.

Now, some of you who are familiar with my opinions on sports will say “Wait a minute, isn’t that just a sign of loyalty and dedication, which you value in sports fandom?” The answer is no, and here’s why. One, I’d be willing to bet that at least 90 percent of people like this have no legitimate reasons to be fans of soul-sucking, evil, corporate shams like the Yankees, Cubs or Red Sox. No, having a brother whose girlfriend’s aunt’s co-worker went to Harvard does not give you license to cheer for the Sawx (in fact, I’d be willing to pay $1 to every one of these people who could actually present a logical explanation of the oft-lauded “Yankee Tradition” that doesn’t include the phrase “COUNT THE RINGS!!!” or who actually cheered for the North Siders before Wrigleyville became a hipster haven). Two, truly loyal fans who have a real appreciation and respect for the game know that rocking the gear of a non-playing team makes a mockery of our national pastime, even if the team on the field — for example, the Washington Nationals — is itself a mockery.

Other excuses for wearing non-playing team gear range from lame to laughable. My favorite is something along the lines of: “Oh, it’s the only baseball cap I have and I didn’t think it mattered, plus I needed something to keep the sun out of my eyes!” Weak. You know what you’re doing, Joe Bro. Man up and deal with the sun. Wear neutral clothes. Besides, that pre-faded Cubs cap with the 1908 logo doesn’t match your crocs and plaid shorts.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one way to deal with this idiocy. Institute a ticket tax. Add $10 to the cost of the ticket for people wearing any gear that supports a team not participating in that day’s game. Add $15 if that gear is in a color other than the offending team’s primary colors… $20 if that “off” color is pink, and $25 if it’s green and St. Patrick’s day-themed. That ought to get these heathens thinking twice about their egregious ballpark garb. Until Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig gets around to that, though, there’s nothing we can do but tip our (properly branded) caps to the unabashed obliviousness of these pseudo-fans.

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by Emily Norton
Special to iVoryTowerz

How well should a government know its people? The debate intensifies, The New York Times tells us, as law enforcement officials consider the ramifications of “expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted.” The government's argument: An efficient database would not only provide more accurate evidence, but also be an enormous time saving tool. “I’ve watched women go from mug-book to mug-book looking for the man who raped her," Mitch Morrissey, Denver's District Attorney told The Times. Morrissey isan advocate for more expansive DNA sampling. "It saves women’s lives," he said. Of course, this has sparked fuming from other criminal justice experts and groups supporting civil liberties, who see DNA testing as an enormous infringement on privacy rights and proof that the the nation is becoming what The Times called "a genetic surveillance society.”


If DNA records can prove a person is guilty, let us not forget that they can also prove a person innocent. However, it is not the government’s job to keep people tip-toeing around and looking over their shoulder; that would be antithetical to a free society. To quote from V from V for Vendetta: “People should be not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Fear is a root of mistrust; if a government mistrusts its people to the point of permanently scrutinizing citizens for the most petty infringements (sixteen states now take DNA from some who have been found guilty of misdemeanors), reciprocally, will this not birth a new wave of doubt amongst the populace? A DNA sample is a weighty and personal piece of information. Would you be comfortable, as The Times also asked with the government permanently holding your code after you mistakenly wrote an insufficient funds check? Now, that's something to ponder.

(The graphic of a DNA molecule is from NASA and is in the public domain; the graphic was discovered using the everystockphoto.com search engine.)

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by Rick Rockwell

First, a confession.

Throughout much of the 1990s, Depeche Mode provided the soundtrack for many of this writer’s nights. Especially, weekend nights. In clubs from San Pedro Sula to Mexico City to Los Angeles and Chicago and beyond, the Mode’s dark, throbbing electronic soundscapes proved to be the perfect backdrop. Violator, Songs of Faith and Devotion, and Music for the Masses are ingrained in the memory cells.

But Depeche Mode and this writer have both changed since that era. The disappointing releases of Ultra (1997) and Exciter (2001) ended the band’s days as one of the biggest in the world, although the stripped down, reformed three-member Mode is still a force to be reckoned with, if just for the band’s sonic legacy.

Right away, the first single from Songs of the Universe, “Wrong” has this electronic trio in superior form. Dave Gahan’s tortured and dour vocals recall the best of the band’s ‘90s sound. If the lyrics hadn’t been penned by the group’s principle songwriter Martin Gore, they might serve as a self-reflection on Gahan’s descent into heroin addiction, just one of problems that beset Depeche Mode and sapped the group of some of its creative force when it had reached the pinnacle of the music world. For those who remember Depeche Mode only as one of the lightweight synth-pop hair bands of the early 1980s and haven’t kept up since, “Wrong” shows off the minor key muscles the group developed with its evolution on 1986’s Black Celebration.

But the single proves to be a bit of musical slight of hand, because much of Songs of the Universe is far from the Mode in its prime. The standard album’s 13 tracks (the band is also releasing a deluxe edition with at least 18 tracks, hidden tracks, remixes, demos, and videos) and more than 57 minutes of music seem bloated and bifurcated. Some of Songs of the Universe is a throwback to light early Mode synth-pop: “Jezebel” with Gore singing lead is the most obvious example. Some is a nod to influences such as Germany’s Kraftwërk. Other numbers seem to be the band denouncing its dark, dangerous, decadent past. “Peace” is the most obvious example of this approach: although the sonic backdrop is foreboding at first, the lyrics are an uncommon (for this band) bid for serenity. Gahan sings: “I’m leaving bitterness behind this time/I’m cleaning out my mind….” But without that cathartic tension that often underpins the Mode’s work, the material falls flat as does the song and much of the rest of the album. On “Peace” think of a Depeche Mode making songs for yoga sessions, and you’ll get the atmosphere the song evokes. Gack!

Although that’s the nadir of the band’s 12th studio release, only a few other tracks rise anywhere close to “Wrong” in stature. Unlike most of the album, “Perfect” weaves in the Morricone-inspired guitar that the band bequeathed to an entire generation of indie rockers after Violator became so popular. The closer “Corrupt” (with its delayed reprise hidden instrumental) also has more of the band’s old lyrical and sonic sensibilities woven together into the fabric. But these moments play like afterthoughts.

If this is what growing older, more mature, and more level-headed is all about, one cannot dismiss Depeche Mode’s growth in a sane direction. Indeed, Depeche Mode may still be making music for people of this writer’s age to listen to after 2 a.m., but just a reminder that most of us are now asleep at that hour. Unfortunately, the Mode’s new music now works perfectly for accompanying that activity.

(The promotional photo of Depeche Mode is from the band's label EMI. The band will open its world tour in Los Angeles on April 23 with a special outdoor performance for Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC. To see the video for "Wrong," please check below.)

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by Suzie Raven

After playing only eleven games in 2009, the Washington Nationals managed to fall nine and a half games out of first place. It’s not that shocking for them to be that far out of first place in the National League East. After all, they finished the 2008 season at 32.5 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies. It’s just that it normally takes them a little longer to fall behind by 9.5 games.

Normally, the Nationals don’t lose their first seven games. They didn’t win a single game until last week (April 16), when the Phillies' struggling starting pitching gave them a little help. Joe Blanton gave up a three-run homerun in the first inning of that game. Normally, the Florida Marlins, also an NL East team, don’t go undefeated longer than any other Major League Baseball (MLB) team. The Marlins won their first four games before losing to the New York Mets. Their current seven-game winning streak gives them an MLB best record of 11-1.

The on-fire Marlins aside, what has pushed the Nationals so quickly into the major league basement? It’s their drastic lack of pitchers that has been killing them. They don’t have any stars in their bullpen and Shairon Martis is the only starting pitcher with a good outing so far in 2009. Martis got the Nationals their only victory in the first eleven games of 2009 and their last win of 2008, on September 23rd.

The Nationals offense has been impressive. Adam Dunn’s three-run first inning home run against the Phillies last week was his third this season. Josh Willingham, Elijah Dukes and Alberto Gonzalez also homered that night that the Nationals won. Earlier in the week against the Phillies, Cristian Guzman hit 5-for-5, with 2 RBIs and 2 runs scored and Dukes hit a homerun and an RBI double. It wasn’t enough, as they lost 9-8 to the Phillies.

The Nationals' offense averaged 4.9 runs scored per game in the team's first seven losses, which means the team wouldn’t be in bad shape if they had any support from their pitching staff. Being swept by the offensively impressive Marlins this weekend certainly didn’t help the Nationals standings. If their pitching doesn’t step up, this is going to be a long summer for Washington, D.C.'s team.

(The photo is by cruffo via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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(Editor's Note: This piece was prepared for the anniversary of the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the nation's deadliest domestic terrorist attack?.)

by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Ladies and gentlemen and children: See before you the crumbled concrete and teddy bears, the wreaths and forlorn love notes, the postcards and classroom projects, the flags and bobbing balloons, the flowers and final farewells to one hundred, sixty-eight souls. Blown from the earth with a single obscene gesture, they were three months, they were seventy-two years, they were one and twenty-three and thirty-six and forty-two and fifty-five and sixty-seven; good ages all, now etched static on stones in perpetuity.

Ladies and gentlemen and children: Look at their faces, unprepared to be memorialized, giggling from family photos; posing for graduation pictures; caught unaware in backyard barbecue snapshots; accepting awards for deeds well done; squinting through sunglasses and wind-whipped hair; smiling from beneath coquette eyelids; flirting with a future that will remain unlived.

Ladies and gentlemen and children: Do they now soar on the wings of eagles? Do they join celestial choirs, belting out the blues for those left behind? Do they rest safely where God is nigh? Do they fly wrapped in angels’ wings and draped in patriotic colors? Do they heed the solemn psalms we offer up, the precious quilts we stitch with tears, the “Taps” we sound in stolid sorrow?

Ladies and gentlemen and children: Do you know? Their memories will never leave us — children’s cries that faded before they could be found; a boot, impotent with only its warrior’s leg; the futile reach of a toddler’s severed hand; the sacrifice of a limb for life; the heart of one who would serve and protect gone limp as the baby’s body he cradled.

Ladies and gentlemen and children: Can you see? In the victims’ absence, a flag gently caresses a face of faith, memorializing last kisses never placed on loved ones’ lips. Children’s words, pure and simple, are searched for some serenity. Voices are joined to find a remnant of harmony in harrowed hearts. Hands are clasped, ribbons are donned and candles lighted to lead wounded survivors to comfort.

Ladies and gentlemen and children: Can we help but wonder just how great is the resilience of this human spirit? Can we help but question that a god would make such a day as April 19, 1995? And when the doubts are done, when grass grows where battlements once stood, can we find inspiration in the agony? Can we embrace the anguish of it all and fill the void with the wonder of hope and peace?

Ladies and gentlemen and children: Speak tenderly to the city and love each other well that darkness may not have its way.

Please visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.

Isaiah 40:1-10

(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

(The photo of the Oklahoma City memorial to those lost in the 1995 bombing is by R Doyle Bowman of Oklahoma City via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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Time to do a bit of spring cleaning and although there's no new version of the underground podcast this week, there's a fine one revived from the secret underground archives. Amazing what a little aging will do for a rock 'n roll show. This one, like a fine wine, has a different taste now than when it went into the bottle. Who knew then that Alison Krauss and Robert Plant would have the record of the year? (Although we had a great feeling about it from the start as recorded here.) And doesn't the request for the Dropkick Murphys take on new meaning at the beginning of a baseball season rather than at the end of one? This is a program filled with an uncommon number of requests, so grab it while you can because often these archival programs have a limited lifespan online. The usual patented eclectic mix is here, covering almost 70 years of music. We've got it all here from country rock to heavy metal. And in between you'll find some punk, power pop, alt-country, and even jazz-blues. Sometimes a program like this is better the second time out. Enjoy!


(Please click here to stream or download this podcast.)


Playlist

"How Long" by The Eagles
"Desperado" by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (request)
“Tessie (baseball version)" by The Dropkick Murphys (request)
"Glad" by The Swingin' Utters
Jeff’s New Wave: “Suspect Device” by Stiff Little Fingers
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Ace of Spades” by Motörhead (request)
"Good Times Bad Times" by Cracker
"Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
“Breathe” by Dan Bern
Cover Me: "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by Uncle Tupelo (request)
“Day Tripper (live)” by Cheap Trick
“Say Hello to Another Goodbye” by Linus of Hollywood
"Photograph" by Ringo Starr
"Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday
"As Time Goes By" by Harry Nilsson
"Too Hot to Sleep" by Eilen Jewel
"The Walls Came Down" by The Call

(Mp3 Runs - 1:16:36; 71 MB.)

(Photo of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. by izik of Washington, D.C. via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

Originally podcast as iVoryTowerz Radio No. 41.

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by Melissa Mahfouz
Special to iVoryTowerz

From a western standpoint, much of the reaction to this story will likely be: "Those Arabs are at it again. Typical behavior." From a moral standpoint, this story tears at the heart: another case of a minor attempting to attain a marriage annulment in courts in Saudi Arabia. The case finally managed to find its way to international headlines recently. But this case is by no means an isolated one, nor is it a recent phenomenon.

What's at issue are the rights of an eight-year old girl who is married to a man her elder by 39 years. The girl has been at the mercy of a Saudi judge for more than a year, with her case being invalidated due to a lack of what the judge called proper representation, as her mother is not her legal guardian.

This situation is a microcosm of a larger, far more complex and intertwined global epidemic. Regardless of the moral implications, the fact remains that girls, many of whom have yet to reach puberty let alone double-digits in age, are being appropriated throughout class strata as a business transaction. If a man owes a debt, he provides his daughter as a form of compensation. What was formerly a less prevalent practice has become ingrained in the modern-day psyche; it is viewed as immoral by a majority, yet relatively few preventative measures have had an effect. The practice continues.

The debate has come to revolve around whether or not such occurrences are culturally justifiable. Many would claim that in particular regions of the world, notably Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, legal and religious recognition of a marriage justify its consummation, regardless of age. Yet, from the western moral tradition, that's the epitome of barbarism. The question now becomes how international organizations should get involved. When does public activism transcend state sovereignty? The U.N.’s Human Rights Commission, along with a plethora of advocacy organizations, has denounced the practice of adults marrying child brides and demanded its cessation. Saudi Arabia has internally recognized the antagonism received from the international community, and gradually has taken action. But is the action too slow? As society continues to debate the practice, young girls continue to remain vulnerable to marriages forged with men who often surpass their age by several decades.

And by no means can the 21st Century's global citizenry claim ignorance. Information about preventative measures, as well as the cultural underpinnings of this practice, is accessible within the realms of a mouse click. What needs to occur is not pitchfork retaliation against foreign governments, but rather a grassroots movement, based upon factual data, to get the wheels in motion for those without a voice.

(For a posting on a similar topic, please see: "Kidnapping the Bride: An Old Tradition Returns.")

(Photo by Ranoush of Ismailyah, Egypt via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Jeff Siegel

The reason that the late, great Molly Ivins called Texas Gov. Rick Perry “The Coiffure” is because she thought his head was pretty much empty under his always impressive hairdo.

Perry, a Republican, demonstrated Ivins’ wisdom this week, when he told a tax protest crowd in Austin that Texas could secede from the union if it wanted. "Texas is a unique place," he said to reporters in Austin. "When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”

Then, because he is The Coiffure, he spent the rest of the day backtracking and insisting that secession was the last thing on his mind — all the while invoking the 10th Amendment, which has been part of the states’ rights argument since the Nullification Crisis in 1832 (when South Carolina insisted that it could nullify federal laws it didn’t like).

Honestly? Perry probably believes Texas could secede if it wanted to, in much the same way that George Bush believed in "Mission Accomplished." His belief is a reflection of three things:

• His incredibly cloistered world view, in which Perry has very little to do with anyone who isn’t very much like him in politics and socio-economic status. During a legislative debate here several years ago, about whether teachers needed affordable health insurance, Perry said they didn’t. They could get it from their husbands.

• His lack of a grasp of history, which is particularly common among Texans of his political stripe. During his secession comments, he quoted Sam Houston: “Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression." Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas, opposed secession in 1861 and was forced from office for opposing it.

• What looks to be a bruising GOP primary race for governor in 2010 against U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Hutchison is a popular, three-term senator who is seen as more moderate than Perry and who comes from the party’s more traditional Chamber of Commerce wing. Perry’s anti-tax statements, his continual criticism of the Obama administration, and his refusal to accept stimulus money are part of his attempt to secure his base among evangelicals, the Republican right wing and other fellow travelers.

The other thing to keep in mind about all of this is that Texans truly think they are at the center of the universe. The state, as I’ve said many times, is the only one that used to be a country, and this sense of difference still affects what happens here 165 years later. Am I exaggerating when I say Perry probably believes his talk of secession will inform debate in Washington? Probably not by much.

(The photo of Gov. Rick Perry is by Robert Scoble of Half Moon Bay, CA, the author of Scobelizer, via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license. To see a video of Gov. Perry's comments about secession after his tea party protest speech, please check below.)

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by Dan Aspan
Special to iVoryTowerz

Philadelphia and the sports world are in mourning this week after the sudden death of Hall of Fame broadcaster Harry Kalas at the age of 73. Just today (April 15) the Philadelphia Phillies announced a number of special memorials and tributes to the broadcaster who had provided play-by-play of Phillies games for more than 38 years.

Earlier this week in Washington, D.C., Kalas collapsed of a heart attack in the broadcast booth at Nationals Park just hours before the Phillies played the Nationals in their opening home game of the 2009 baseball season.

For anyone who is a baseball fan, especially a Phillies fan, as this author is, this is a sad time. I remember watching the Phillies on television as a kid, always waiting to hear that legendary home run call that Kalas made famous. Kalas clearly loved the Phillies organization and spent his life representing the team through his voice. (Kalas also became the primary announcer for NFL Films in 1977, and he called baseball and football on both radio and television through his career.) But he was more than just a Phillies broadcaster. He was a man who changed the way the game was called through his enthusiasm, his love of the game, and his dedication to detail. He is among the all time greats of broadcasting with Jack Brickhouse, Harry Caray, and Vin Scully.

Although this is a sad time for the Phillies organization, players, and fans, there is a silver lining. For the first time in almost 30 years, the Phillies won the 2008 World Series, and Kalas spent some of his last days in the booth calling games that were part of that championship. That must have been a highlight in his distinguished career. For those who don’t follow sports and who are unaware of Kalas’ contribution to the game of baseball, his passing may remain unmarked. But for baseball and sports fans everywhere, our personal flags will fly at half staff, as we remember one of the greatest voices in sports history.

(To see a video report from the Associated Press about Kalas' death, please check below.)

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by Phil Kehres
Special to iVoryTowerz

Recently, I did something I haven’t done in years. I put in a full day of work without ever once signing onto G-mail or G-mail chat, Google Reader or Facebook. It was one of my most productive days in recent memory. The age of instant Internet-based communication, automatic news feeds, status updates and micro-blogging presents a seemingly unlimited opportunity for advanced information sharing and networking. I just worry that in the race to be as “connected” as possible, we’re losing sight of things in life that really matter.

Online communication and networking tools like Facebook and Twitter have been a boon for keeping up with distant friends and family. RSS feed readers like Google Reader help people keep up with their favorite blogs and news stories without having to spend time on hundreds of different websites. These types of things are technical marvels capable of doing wonderful things. There is not a distinct dichotomy between real life and Internet life. Many people I know use these types of applications as supplements to enhance their lives – making plans on Facebook and staying up to date with friends, learning about breaking news and cultural trends. Some people I know, however, don’t have the slightest clue what to do with themselves when they’re not glued to the internet. This is what I fear for myself and people like me.

Even as I sit here trying to write this, I find myself constantly compelled to “take a break” and check my favorite sports blog and my Google Reader feed. I am repeatedly interrupted by e-mails buzzing through on my BlackBerry. Sometimes, I find myself more concerned with updating my Facebook status about what I’m doing rather than taking a step back and actually living in the moment. I spend hours chatting about superficial things with multiple friends on G-Mail chat rather than 15 minutes talking to one friend on the phone about something that matters. I get stressed out about the number of unread items on my Google Reader rather than paying attention to and digesting the news that is being presented. I worry that I’m becoming a victim of the Internet age, a thoughtless automaton drowning in a seas of useless info, losing touch with reality and growing more impatient and inattentive by the minute. I worry that it can become an addiction.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not speaking out against the Internet or any particular bit of technology. Hell, I wrote half of this commentary on my BlackBerry. It will show up in my Google Reader when it gets posted, and I will inevitably link to it on my Facebook page. All I’m saying is that it’s important to maintain perspective. The Internet and its applications have the incredible power to make our lives easier and help distract us from the mundane tasks of everyday life. We should never, however, allow it to water down our experiences or serve as a surrogate for real human interaction.

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by Emily Norton
Special to iVoryTowerz

The information seemed too absurd. I had to sit back for at least 20 minutes before I could begin writing this.

Though certainly not the first time such ludicrousness has emerged from the South, within the past month, Tenn. Rep. Joe Towns introduced a "decency" bill that "proposes a fine of up to $1,000 for publicly wearing pants 'below the person’s waistline ... in a manner that exposes the person’s underwear or bare buttocks.' "

Playfully deemed the "anti-crack bill" (although I prefer to call it the Butt Crack Bill; it has a nicer flow), this legislation swept the House Criminal Practice and Procedure subcommittee with little opposition. Towns said "people are tired of seeing the crack of folks' butts."

As entertaining and dialectically adorable as that may sound, the ramifications and implications of the bill are fairly involved. This saggy pants propaganda is steeped in discrimination. It is outdated, unfair, unrealistic, and targets a demographic that deserves a better image than the one this bill purports. To mark people as indecent in this fashion is demoralizing, unforgiving, and narrow-minded. Marking this expression of fashion as a correlative of crime is a superficial and reprehensible method of coding people as criminals.

Hedy Weinberg of American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee agrees: "We cannot criminalize a style of dress just because we find it distasteful," she said. "Banning saggy pants violates freedom of expression and promotes racial profiling."

If you value your right to privacy, your cute little g-string, or your freedom of expression, please raise your voice if a similar bill comes to your town. Surely there are more important things to focus our money and attention on. Bills like this not only indicate stagnancy and immaturity but also build walls of frightening and bigoted intolerance in other areas. They grin towards repressions already imposed and forecast little positive change in the future.

If a state government can enforce a dress code, what will come next? Ban the Butt Crack Bill!

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Possibly the most provocative and controversial underground podcast ever dealt with last year's class of inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As we know, in the modern media culture, every successful program deserves a sequel. So we offer this year's program with a new twist. Instead of one long rant about who shouldn't be in the hall, this year, there's balance: half of the program celebrates the good choices the hall has made (including a stellar class of inductees this year) and half offers up nominees for future selection. So this week, due to the historic nature of the hall, we lean a bit heavier than usual on the older material. Still the program covers 45 years of music and ranges from heavy metal to doo-wop. You'll also find glam rock, new wave, power pop, and rockabilly, sprinkled with a little classic rock for good measure. If everyone on this playlist is worthy of the hall, you know they'll get you rockin'. Enjoy!



(To download or stream this podcast, please click here.)



Playlist

“All the Young Dudes” (altered) by Mott the Hoople
Jeff’s New Wave: “Switchboard Susan” by Nick Lowe
"Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop'" by Little Anthony & the Imperials
“Nowhere to Run" by Martha and the Vandellas
"You Beat Me to the Punch" by Mary Wells
"Baby Blue" by Badfinger
"Magical Mystery Tour" by Cheap Trick
“You've Got to Hide Your Love Away” by The Beatles
“Hungry” by Paul Revere & the Raiders
“Riot in Cell Block #9” by Wanda Jackson
"Travelin' Band” by Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR)
Cover Me: "Forty-Four Blues/How Many More Years" by Little Feat
"Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by Alvin Lee & Ten Years After
"If 6 Was 9" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
"Dirty Mind" by Jeff Beck
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Enter Sandman” (live Ozzfest 2008) by Metallica

(Mp3 Runs - 1:23:43; 77 MB.)

(Promotional photo of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is from the myspace page of the hall and museum.)

DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Melissa Mahfouz
Special to iVoryTowerz

Season one was a sensation; two and three were entertaining, but four was pushing it. Now, as American Idol (on the FOX network) reaches the close of its eighth season many, including this blogger, are hoping, nay praying that this former addiction finds itself a happy, immediate ending. Idol’s inception was a work of marketing genius in the entertainment world, yet its expiration date has been surpassed long ago. Now, quite frankly, the show is unbearable. No voice is any longer unique, no song its own artistic expression; been there, heard that. Enough is enough. If the program airs one more rendition of "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough," catastrophe may ensue.


Although the program maintains relatively high ratings, its originality has been diluted. Even the auditions have lost their hilarity. The show has evolved into an exasperating affair in dire need of innovation. Voices seem to fuse without versatility, songs are over-sung, and Simon Cowell’s hair continues to denigrate to a state of gray. Not to mention, the show has been plagued with its fair share of controversy, spanning from a faulty voting system to questionable contract procedures. Yes, Idol has catalyzed the career of several renowned artists, namely Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, and Jennifer Hudson, among a few others, but how many have made a truly lasting imprint in the music industry? Their names fade just as quickly as they appear.

If American Idol wants to keep its head above water, the essence of the show needs to be rekindled. A milieu of fashion excess, superficiality, and egoism has emerged into the forefront of a program that was once oriented to small-town America. True “American Idols” are nowhere to be seen; most are pre-crafted, egomaniacal vocalists looking for a hand-out. Pure voices are being drained by the over-rehearsed, and the show is in need of some real artistic expression. Final recommendation: The show needs to find its long-lost voice.

(For an earlier view of the program and a posting with a more acerbic tone, please see: "American Idle.")

(The photo shows pop singer David Cook, the winner of the seventh season of American Idol; the photo is by meagan383 via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Enchanted April, a film based on a 1922 novel by Countess Elizabeth von Arnim, opens to the dreary winter cityscape of a drenched 1920 London and captures the chance glimpse by dowdy hausfrau Lottie Wilkins of a newspaper advertisement for a small, medieval Italian castle to let on the shores of the Mediterranean. The unfolding and folding of the newspaper, Lottie’s desperate pursuit of the rental, and her ultimate blossoming amid the Italian wisteria and sunshine could eventually prove an allegory for the transition of U.S. newspapers — to whatever it is they will become. But for now, they mostly stagnate in the dismal downpour of winter’s remnants, unable to step back from the chilling splash of online media speeding past them.

Perhaps that’s overwrought — possibly a symptom of watching the film too often — but countless reports of the newspaper industry’s pending demise serve a steady dose of failure that’s as dismaying to subscribers as London’s winter runoff is to pedestrians sprayed by passing hacks. Recent stories have touted repeated rounds of layoffs at papers across the nation, reductions in employee benefits, forced furloughs, bankruptcy filings and the folding of entire newspapers or their print editions. The significance of what in 1964 captured the attention of 80.8 percent of U.S. adults is becoming as archaic as dial phones, and with only 48.4 percent adult readership in 2007, daily print papers might be supplanted by cell phone headlines.

I imagine nevermore adding to the choice newspaper articles my grandmother carefully clipped with her best needlepoint scissors and filed away for the oddly interested grandchild.

The thrill of opening the paper to the page where the accomplishment of a loved one or the stunning failure of a leader is printed in black and white permanence is passing with the last of our World War II vets.

The rush of responding to breaking news before press time, topping the competition with the perfect combination of brute force and literary finesse, is as outmoded as Adolphe Menjou’s waxed mustache in The Front Page.

An image like that of my grandfather ensconced in his favorite reading chair and The Baltimore Sun, unwrapping caramel squares softened by afternoon rays, might never again be witnessed by sweets-seeking progeny.

I mourn the loss of the most tangible indicator of our freedom, the free press, but then I remember: When my husband succumbed to a subscription offer from The San Diego Union-Tribune, I scoffed at his investing in a failing paper that endorses only candidates who ride elephants and covers only news in our outlying burg of Fallbrook that includes unnatural death and illicit sex. And I canceled my last newspaper subscription when I left the paper for which I worked.

Now, instead of my morning fix of newspaper and caffeine, I peruse online news sources and, ah, well, drink coffee, which, okay, is all just another version of my morning fix — but with more comprehensive coverage from more direct sources. Why read in a newspaper what the president said when I can visit his website and read it untouched by an editor? So, despite his wise-assery, satirical commentator Stephen Colbert is on target: “A newspaper is like a blog that leaves ink on your hands and covers topics other than how much you love Fall Out Boy.”

All I lack is local news, still, although San Diego is home to two blossoming ink-free publications focusing on the city’s local news, San Diego News Network and Voice of San Diego, which is oft referenced in the media and consulted by similar ventures.

Voice of San Diego Editor Andrew Donohue wrote in an email, “I love holding my newspaper on a Sunday morning, too. But the daily printed newspaper is looking like it's not viable financially in the long term.… [T]he internet is a fundamentally better place to both produce news and receive it.… People are culturally tied to the actual newspaper product. But think if you flipped what's going on now and we were going from an online media world to a paper one. What would be the outcry then? I can only get my news once a day. The editors have to trim the stories artificially to make them short so they fit in an arbitrary amount of space. I can't click through and read past stories so that I understand what's going on behind this story. I can't read the actual documents that this story is based on. There's only one photo and it's in black and white.”

Convincing readers to pay for online news might prove the missing magic ingredient in newspaper’s transition, but nonetheless, alas, I agree with Donohue. And now I’m going to go cheer myself up with Enchanted April.

(Editor's Note: This piece is an abridged version of the original, cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

(For more background on this issue, please also see: "Newspapers: Why They're in Trouble (It's Not the Reason You Think), and What They Need to do to Survive." )

(Photo by Matt Callow of Ann Arbor, MI via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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(Editor's Note: With a meeting between members of Congress and Fidel Castro to discuss the U.S. economic embargo, among other topics, this posting takes on added significance.)

by Dan Aspan*
Special to iVoryTowerz

Less than four months into his presidency, President Barack Obama is planning to loosen restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba. Obama plans to announce this action before the April 17 meeting of Latin American and Caribbean leaders at the next Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. Although Obama’s plan would not lift the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, it would be a huge step for U.S.-Cuba relations, and it could serve to ease the tension with a neighbor which has been known for its adversarial relationship with the United States. The embargo can only be lifted with Congressional approval, but Congress is considering legislation that could provide unlimited travel for Americans to Cuba. Additionally, leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said recently that he wants to use the April 17 meetings to “reset” his relationship with the United States. Despite some recent criticism of Obama, Chavez has indicated a desire to improve U.S.-Venezuela relations. (These days, Chavez is often the measuring stick for U.S. policy toward leftist governments in Latin America. His rhetoric is another way to measure the potential for warming relations between the U.S. and Cuba.)


This move by Obama is something United States foreign policy hasn’t utilized in quite some time: good judgment. Considering the upcoming meetings in Trinidad and Tobago, Obama’s plan is setting the tone for productive discussion among leaders in the region. Even Chavez, a man who is infamous for calling former U.S. President George W. Bush “the devil” at the United Nations in 2006, is indicating a move toward some positive strides in diplomacy. Chavez and Cuban President Raul Castro are close allies, and Obama’s move is also showing Chavez’ friends that the United States may be interested in diplomacy, something which wasn’t an option in the past. Obama’s plan also has the potential to provide a better relationship between the U.S.-backed Colombian government and its relationship with Chavez and other leftist leaders like Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa.

Although Obama’s plan, at this point, has not proven to yield any earth-shattering results, the implications it has for U.S. relations with Latin America are huge. It appears that the Obama administration has wasted no time in doing something that Bush struggled to do over the course of eight years: offer an olive branch to countries notorious for disliking the United States. At this point, all the world can do is watch for the news that comes out of the meetings on April 17. People will now monitor the progress of the U.S. Congress and its legislation regarding Cuba and other nations taking an adversarial stance toward the U.S. Turning adversaries into allies could be one of Obama’s biggest successes as president if he continues to put foreign policies grudges in the past and continues to promote diplomacy.

*Dan Aspan is the producer of Latinocast, a weekly podcast about Latin America.

For more background on Cuba, please also see:

• "Cuba: After Raul's Purge, Questions;"
  
• "Cuba: Raul Castro Officially Takes Command;" and
  
• "Predicting the End of Fidel Castro."

(The photo shows a portion of the popular Cuban three peso note and is in the public domain. To see Senators discussing legislative changes in the Cuban embargo, please check below.)

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by Suzie Raven

The University of North Carolina won the 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship game within the first few minutes of tip off. With 15:24 left in the first half, all five starters had already scored to give North Carolina (UNC) a 17-7 lead. Michigan State University never recovered, and could only get as close as 78-65 after UNC’s explosive beginning. This game set a record for the biggest deficit at halftime. Final score: North Carolina 89, Michigan State 70.

It was a fairy tale ending for the star players who almost decided to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA) this year. Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green opted into the NBA draft at this time last year, but ultimately decided to return. Lawson scored 21 points while setting a championship-game record with eight steals. Ellington scored 17 in the first half, tying a championship game record.

Tyler Hansbrough is the first Associated Press player of the year to return to college basketball since Shaquille O'Neal in 1991. It turned out to be a great decision. He improved his outside shot while finishing his degree. And got his National Championship. As he said in an interview aired on ESPN after the game, nothing beats that feeling. I agree, and I watched the game on television. I can only imagine how much better it felt to be on the court.

This year, UNC became the first team to unanimously become the number one rated team in the preseason, with many pundits predicting them to win it all. Even though they weren’t rated number one past the middle of January, Carolina’s decisive win fulfills the early prophecies. Dropping from number one in the regular season obviously didn’t matter.

Congratulations to the 2009 National Champions. It was a great season, a great tournament and a great championship game.

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by Rick Rockwell

Somewhere en route to his 33rd solo album, 63-year-old Neil Young turned into a grumpy eccentric uncle. Except this eccentric uncle still plays a mean guitar.

This grumpy middle aged critic appreciates what Young attempts on his latest release Fork in the Road, but like a wise guru at the top of a mountain, only half of what Young says here seems to connect, if that much.


On the positive side, the title track is almost six minutes of Young joking and riffing satirically; taking pokes at American consumer culture and the bosses who want us to buy the bread and circuses mentality. Young half sings, half talks his way through the song. Most of the lyrics don’t rhyme. But still it works. In one couplet, Young laments: “There’s a bailout comin’ but it’s not for me/it’s for all those creeps watchin’ tickers on TV.” Young’s attitude and crunching riffs pull the song out along with some of his historic rock references tossed into the seemingly off-the-cuff lyrical mix. Along the way, Young also takes a swipe at the audio quality of free mp3s (although he streamed this album for a time at his myspace page), condemns the modern navel-gazing blogging culture, and curses at the Iraq War, all for good measure.

Another highlight comes with “Just Singing a Song,” where Young and his lo-fi garage band lay down some licks that recall Zuma while Young admits, “just singing a song won’t change the world.” That’s quite a realization from the hippie-philosopher who penned “Southern Man” and “Ohio.” But Young has done more than merely sing songs. He’s one of the founders of Farm Aid, to boost small farmers and his LincVolt project aims at converting gas guzzlers into smooth gliding electric cars.

Unfortunately, that eco-project seems to have grabbed the main focus of Young’s muse and much of the album is an extended metaphor about cars. (This is why this stripped down 38-minute release includes a string of songs with titles such as “Fuel Line,” “Off the Road,” “Hit the Road,” etc.) Not since Trans in the mid-1980s has Young let the auto steer his music so and although the result isn’t that bad, it’s far from this rock icon’s best. “Fuel Line” is likely the worst of these with an over-produced chorus of backing singers and ridiculous lyrics. If this is a joke, like the title track, this time the humor falls flat.

Of the ten tracks here, less than half have that certain combination of intangible chemistry that makes Young such a wonderful musical alchemist (an ability to make mediocre material deep such as 1986’s Landing on Water or divine as with the grungy Freedom of 1989). After the tease of 2007’s Chrome Dreams II, perhaps this critic was expecting more.

Still, Young knows how to make a soundtrack for the news of the day. He did it in the 1970s and he’s still doing it today. His “Cough Up the Bucks” has a catchy guitar hook and simple lyrics (the chorus of “Where did all the money go?” becomes mesmerizing against the chant of the song’s main line) but seems a fitting soundtrack for the age of AIG anger.

So despite Young’s audiophile opinion of mp3s, the suggestion here is to cherry-pick the best cuts. At this fork in the musical road, perhaps the best advice is to leave the grumpy artist on his mountaintop wailing his complaints while we take the low consumer road. And perhaps that’s just what Young thought we would do and why he became so grumpy in the first place.

(For other posts about Neil Young, please see: "Music: Neil Young and the Elusive Archives;" and "Music Review: Neil Young's Chrome Dreams II.")

(The promotional photo of Neil Young is from Warner Brothers Records. Young plays the second date of his world tour at St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada on April 9. To see the video for the title track of Fork in the Road, please check below.)

Neil Young - Fork In The Road

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by Emily Norton
Special to iVoryTowerz

North Korea is like one of those unpredictable crazy ex-girlfriends. What I mean is the country is predictably unpredictable, deceitful, and will always come back to haunt us somehow. After launching its first nuclear test in 2006, could we really be surprised that North Korea unsuccessfully attempted to put a satellite into space that instead landed in the ocean and scared the pants off Japan?

While some weakly posit that the North Koreans are simply trying to race their South Koreans brothers to space, Washington seems convinced that the act of testing long-range missiles was an endeavor to keep us on our toes. It appears that North Korea is flexing its muscles. Even though it failed to accomplish its supposed mission to dispatch a satellite into space, in the process, the country did exemplify its capability to shoot long-range ballistic missiles. While this was of course not the labeled intent, it certainly raised eyebrows as to what else North Korea is developing behind its closed (and locked) doors.

Taking a break from a summit with European Union leaders in Prague on Sunday (April 5), President Barack Obama called for strong censure for this rogue state (acting with all the outrageousness of an ex-girlfriend), an act not only implying the real threat of North Korea, but also again raising the issue of nuclear noncompliance. While Obama's speech helped him recover momentum after recent criticism (his economic plans are a topic for another day), the situation still leaves me uneasy. In the president's words, “Now is the time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons.” However, I wonder whether or not is really best to “push for strong Security Council action." Will this reaction cause an escalation of North Korea’s potentially dangerous acts?

Let us not ignore the words of North Korea’s foreign ministry just two years ago: "Our military will continue with missile launch drills in the future," it added, insisting such action was "our legal right." I worry that we are playing into Kim Jong Il’s hands. Also its likely that an aggressive counter-strategy will not bode well for our important relationship with our economic partner China. As of now, China disagrees with our negative assumptions about North Korea’s “satellite launching” motivations. In essence, what will the crazy ex-girlfriend do next? And if China is her boyfriend, are we barking up the wrong tree?

(The photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il meeting with troops is from the North Korean Central News Agency and is in the public domain; the photo was released in August of 2008. To see a portion of President Obama's speech in Prague about the Korean nuclear question, please check the video below.)

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by Jeff Siegel

Once upon a time, there was a man who sent a midget up to bat. The midget walked, his team lost, and the owners wanted to throw the man out of baseball. The man invented the exploding scoreboard, the fans loved it, and the owners wanted to throw him out of baseball.

But what really ticked off the Lords of Baseball is that the man warned them — more than 40 years ago — about free agency and the financial dangers and changes that it would bring to the game. So they kept trying to throw him out of baseball.

Which is why, at the start of each baseball season, I hoist a cold one in memory of Bill Veeck — as in wreck, as he used to say. Between 1948 and 1980, Veeck owned three major league teams (one of them twice), made history when he signed 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to play for the woeful St. Louis Browns, and integrated the American League in the person of Cleveland outfielder Larry Doby.


How much fun was Bill Veeck? In 1975, he bought the White Sox for the second time, and even I paid attention. Why is that odd? Because I’m a Cubs fan, and our feelings toward the White Sox are better left unsaid.

Veeck did everything in his power to stop baseball from ruining itself. His manifesto (“You’d have thought it was the Communist Manifesto,” he would often joke) included interleague play, expansion to the West Coast a decade before it happened, an NFL-style television deal, free agency that benefited the game and not player agents, and a host of other, common sense improvements that have either been adopted or should be.

In 1961, Veeck wrote: “I am not saying that baseball is not a great game. It has to be a great game to have survived what we have done to it.”

That Veeck couldn’t save baseball, and that we have the mess we have today, can be traced to two things: The obstinacy and hubris of the owners, and Veeck himself, who was not the most diplomatic person in the world. Or as Ole’ Will used to say: “And just for the record, I have never called [the owners] s.o.b.s because I don't use that kind of language. A few other things I've called them, yes.”

Happy baseball, Bill Veeck.

(The World Champion Philadelphia Phillies will open the Major League Baseball season tonight, April 5 at 8 p.m. EDT with a game against the Atlanta Braves. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2. To see a portion of a documentary about Bill Veeck, please check below.)

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These days, there are plenty of reasons to be headed down that bluesy road. Maybe the economy has us in its grip. Maybe we are mourning the death of another rock station on the radio. Actually, we wouldn't be mourning that, but rather ranting about it. And this program is an abject lesson for the corporate radio programming-meisters of what alternative, progressive radio could sound like today. Believe it or not, this is how it sounded a long time ago. You take some classics, add new material, include some of the fundamental elements, and make sure you have some diversity in the mix. Voila. So yes, we have some rants here (as we are wont to do). And there's a musicology lesson or too. But more importantly, there's a lot of music here designed to chase your blues away: that's the reason the blues were invented, by the way. Okay, enough pre-show ranting. The eclectic mix this week includes, besides blues: proto-punk, indie rock, heavy metal, new wave, reggae, and various avant-garde sounds. Enjoy!



(To download or stream this podcast, please click here.)



Playlist

“Road Runner” by Aerosmith
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Five” by Machine Head
"My Mind is Ramblin'" by The Black Keys
“The Switch and the Spur/Keep It Clean" (live) by The Raconteurs
"Dragonfly Pie" by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Jeff’s New Wave: “People Call You Crazy” by Mick Farren
"Please Love Me" by B.B. King
"I Need Your Love So Bad" by Irma Thomas
“Better Left Unsaid” by Michelle Willson
“Leaving California” by PJ Harvey & John Parish
“California Girls” by The Beach Boys
"California” by Joni Mitchell
"She Comes to Me in Dreams" by Great Lakes Swimmers
"Fork in the Road" by Neil Young
"Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" by Bob Dylan
Cover Me: "The Harder They Come" by Joe Jackson

(Mp3 Runs - 1:27:38; 81 MB.)

Program includes songs with explicit lyrics.

(Photo by Kamal H. of Denver, CO via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Rick Rockwell

It’s not every day that a major rock station dies. So this response is warranted.

But it’s also not news to anyone that the Classic Rock radio format is dead. The death of WTBG-FM (broadcasting to the Washington, D.C. metro area), which billed itself as Classic Rock 94.7, just confirms this sad state of affairs.

There are many reasons why WTBG died. But the most obvious culprits are the big bosses who run corporate media. WTBG is owned by CBS, one of the corporate media behemoths. Corporate radio created the classic rock format in the 1980s as a way to market and control the underground and independent sounds that flourished on FM radio in the 1960s and 1970s. After a generation, the slow strangulation of creativity has finally reached its ultimate end. Many observers predicted this would happen long ago (as the former programmer of an independent FM rock station in the 1970s, this author included).

The death of WTBG is actually the final chapter in the death of WHFS, another rock station that changed formats in 2005. (WHFS became a Latin music station, and WTBG will now be called 94.7 Fresh FM playing pop; basically a Top 40 station.) WHFS was one of the legendary FM stations on the east coast. Not as important to underground FM as WXRT in Chicago or KSHE in St. Louis, but certainly of note. The suits at CBS moved some of the disc jockey refugees from WHFS to WTBG after that format change. But since 2005, WTBG has had three different classic rock formats and three different names (it was the Arrow, which became the Globe, which became Classic Rock 94.7).

Again, this is an example of the worst of corporate radio: if it doesn’t work, slap a new label on it.

This also confronts the fact that audiences hate change. Corporate bosses constantly try quick change fixes but such approaches rarely succeed in the long run. WTBG's audience was never sure in the past four years what it was going to get.

For a short time (less than a year) the station billed as the Globe tried a format mixing classic rock with alternative sounds from the 1980s and 1990s, plus some newer material. During that spell, the station was more creative than ever, and actually had a chance at reviving what little there is on the local airwaves that can really be called FM rock. But the audience did not respond quickly enough to the changes and the format shifted back to the stultifying sounds of the classic rock format.

Here is what is wrong with that format: it assumes that only songs that focus groups approve should be played. In essence, if the song was sung after the 1980s, it rarely has a chance on the classic rock format. And the same playlist gets used from Washington, D.C. to Seattle, Washington. This eliminates regional favorites. This eliminates new songs by the very artists the format supposedly celebrates. (For instance, the Rolling Stones are a staple of this format, but does any of their material from after 1990 get played?) This is not a new complaint. But if you aren’t playing new material (and creatively mixing it with older material) then by definition the format is hermetically sealed and stale to boot.

This year, Neil Young (a staple of classic rock too) and Bob Dylan (also a classic rock icon) will both release new records. They both have great new singles out now. This author challenges anyone to see if any classic rock station in America is playing those new songs.

If they are, then maybe there’s hope. But likely not.

Why then have people turned to satellite radio, or iPods, or podcasts to get the best rock? The obvious answer is radio stopped giving the music we need a long time ago.

(Photo by Léna Tritscher of Strausbourg, France via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

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We are a bit overdue to acknowledge our new media cousins this spring. Some may know that one of the co-editors of this blog also teaches journalism and media classes at American University. As part of that, we are planting the ideas of multimedia blogging with students. So from time to time, we see it as a duty to point you to the work of this young talent.

The results: the Latinocast weekly update of news from Latin America and the revival of the weekly student podcast Zero Degrees.

Some may know that the producer of Latinocast, Dan Aspan also moonlights here occasionally as one of our special writers, someone not part of the full-time writing cooperative. Please check out his podcast online and on iTunes.

You can also find the revived Zero Degrees podcast back online and on iTunes. This podcast is a weekly take on the news produced by a variety of students in a radio class at American University. The last time Zero Degrees was producing weekly podcasts it was heard by tens of thousands of listeners on six continents. Pretty good for a student radio operation.

Please give these podcasts a listen. Let us know what you think. Thanks for letting us practice a bit of blog plugging. We hope you don’t mind this cross-promotional announcement.


(Photo by dino_olivieri of Turin, Italy via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)


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by Phil Kehres

Guitar Hero: Metallica (rated T for teen, available on Xbox 360, Wii and Playstation 3)
Release date: March 31, 2009.

Guitar Hero: Metallica is an absolute must have for die-hard Metallica fans who own a game console. Speaking as one of those die-hard fans, there is simply no gaming experience that compares to cranking up the TV and shredding away on a classic ‘tallica tune. It’s a fun experience for casual Guitar Hero fans, too, but probably not worth buying unless you’re enough of a fan to know what you’re getting into.

Guitar Hero: Metallica plays like pretty much any other Guitar Hero game, which is to say frustrating and difficult at times but generally tons of fun. I won’t get too much into the nitty gritty of the game play here, as it’s par for the course. Like Guitar Hero: World Tour, it features full band play, the only real difference being the addition of an optional double bass pedal and “expert+” mode for drumming. What it comes down to is the music, and the music is fantastic — if you’re a Metallica fan. From Kill ‘Em All to Death Magnetic* (which is available as a download and is automatically playable if you had previously downloaded it for Guitar Hero 3 or Guitar Hero: World Tour), every one of Metallica’s albums is represented, and every one of them is an absolute blast to play. Also included are tracks from more than twenty other artists who have influenced or been influenced by Metallica, including Motörhead, the Foo Fighters, Bob Seger and Alice in Chains. The non-Metallica tracks are a nice addition, but not a major selling point by any means. There’s the requisite career mode, but there’s nothing there that’s out of the ordinary. Many of the features from Guitar Hero: World Tour have been carried over, including the ability to “quick play” a setlist of up to six songs. But really, it’s all about the rip-roaring, face-melting, double bass-pounding, thrashtastic metal.

On top of the music, however, the presentation is much better than I expected for a game focused on just one band. Menus feature artwork from album covers, and many of the band’s iconic concert venues are included as stages, including Tushino Airfield in Moscow, site of the band’s legendary concert played in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union . The game designers nailed the band’s signatures, from Robert Trujillo’s helicopter spin to James Hetfield’s menacing facial expressions and hand gestures. The graphics and presentation are better than any Guitar Hero game to date. There are also tons of extras, including a mode that allows you to watch the virtual band play a song of your choosing while facts about the song scroll on the bottom of the screen. A lot of work was put into making this game a true Metallica experience. This is thanks in no small part, I’m sure, to the heavy involvement of the band itself in the game’s creation. It is truly a game for Metallica fans by Metallica fans.

So what does all that mean for the casual gamer? Bottom line — buy this game if you love Metallica, no excuses. If you’re not a fan, play it at a friend’s house and pray to be converted, because you’re missing out.

Final verdict: 4/5

(Phil Kehres also is the co-author of Excuse Me, Is This Your Blog?)

*For a full review of Death Magnetic, please go here.

(Promotional screenshot of Guitar Hero: Metallica provided by Activision. To see a trailer for Guitar Hero: Metallica, please check below.)

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by Jeff Siegel

Kentucky’s unemployment rate is 9.2 percent. Only four states have a higher rate of homeless children. One out of six people in the state live in poverty and it ranks 48th among states in income and is the fifth-highest state in terms of the number of people living in poverty.

So what did the University of Kentucky do this week? Signed a basketball coach* to a $31.65 million contract.

I’ve heard all the arguments about this, dating to my days as a sports writer. And none of them wash. It doesn’t matter if, by some improbable quirk of fate, the contract, as some say, “pays for itself.” It doesn’t matter that the money used to pay the coach, as some argue, “can’t be used for anything else.” It doesn’t matter that the school’s athletic director claimed: “In the marketplace we operate in, to be the premium basketball program in America, you want the best coach and you must pay a premium price.”

The contract is disgusting. We’re suffering through the worst economic downturn since the Depression. People are being thrown out of their homes. The U.S. auto industry is perilously close to no longer existing. Yet school officials think it’s okay to spend that much money so Dick Vitale can mumble about how wonderful the team is.

Where are the university’s priorities? Certainly not where they should be. I’m just glad I don’t have to pay taxes to support such a corrupt institution.

*The University of Kentucky's new coach is John Calipari who had coached at the University of Memphis.

(To see a press conference with Coach John Calipari discussing his new job at the University of Kentucky, please check below.)

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Sometime late on March 31 as it turned into April 1 (no joke) this small boutique blog picked up unique reader Number 100,000.

So, on this landmark occasion, we want to extend our thanks to our readers. They are a special lot to come back here (the core group at least) time and again to get a sampling of our commentary on the cultural stew of life in the 21st Century. Sure, big blogs like The Huffington Post clear 100,000 readers in a day or two. But we don’t have millions to promote our blog and push it into the stratosphere of blogging numbers.

The truth is readership continues to accelerate. We reached our first 1,000 readers after a month. We cracked 10,000 readers after seven months. Here we are at the 30 month mark, and finally 100,000.

What we know about our readers is the audience has shifted. What began as a blog for a class at American University with mostly a university audience, after a few months shed most of those readers. After then acquiring mostly an urban audience around Washington, D.C. the blog has molted several more times. What remains of the D.C. Metro audience is now mostly in the Virginia suburbs. The main audience is now in California, although many of the blog’s writers remain clustered around D.C. And the blog also has more readers in New York than any of the areas around D.C. We’ve also developed significant international audiences in the U.K. (as many people read the blog in London as they do in D.C., now), Canada, Germany and Australia. Since this blog began, readers in 157 different countries and territories have dropped around for a read. Just this month, we found our first readers in Azerbaijan. This has truly become an international blog, although most of the audience is still centered in the United States.

So from the writers and editors here, thanks for checking in with us. We hope you come back for more than one read. And if not, well, it’s been a pleasure serving you up some thoughtful commentary all the same.

For the posts with the most readers on the blog please see:

• “TV Review: Flight of the Conchords;”
• “How the Media Massage the Pet Food Scare;” and
• “The Gamer's PHILosophy: Video Game Review, Fallout 3's Operation Anchorage Expansion.”

For the most provocative postings on the blog please see:

• “The Dave Clark Five: Who is Kidding Who?”
• “The Bush Recession: Economics, Oil & Corruption;” and
• “Music Review: Phantom Planet’s Raise the Dead.”

(The odometer photo is in the public domain.)

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by Emily Norton
Special to iVoryTowerz

I thought my friend was joking when she told me she was applying for the thirteenth cycle of America’s Next Top Model. (Debuting in 2003, Top Model throughout the year runs various show cycles of nine to 14 episodes that show a modeling competition with the competitors living in the same house a la MTV's Real World. Currently, the program is casting for its next cycle. Top Model is the top-rated program on The CW network.) When my friend mentioned she put her pictures in the mail that morning I couldn’t help but tell her, “Dear, you know I think you’re beautiful, but there is no way you’re over 5-foot-4!”

Naturally, I was shocked when she informed me that Tyra Banks (the program's host and executive producer) has decided to run a season for models under 5’7”. Such a thing is unprecedented.

Let’s be realistic. Models under 5’7” do not walk the runway. This wouldn’t seem such a big deal except for the fact that the runway = high fashion. America's Next Top Model Cycle 13 seems like a means to an end. It’s my impression that this mysterious notion of high fashion is the thesis preached daily to the women on the show. Sadly, the way things are now, even the loveliest of girls under 5’7” are rarely cast in more than commercial catalogue advertisements. The irony? The panel of judges on Top Model has consistently booted off girls who look like what the panel deems as “too commercial." In the modeling world, some experts tell us, the terms "catalog" and "too commercial" are often interchangeable with "too short for the runway.”

So, is this a step away from elitism and into the reality that those cute shorties are more prevalent than those gangly looking things we see chain-smoking and towering above the rest of us? I think not. My hypothesis: Top Model isn’t on top anymore. Some television critics say that Tyra’s girls aren’t booking the runway gigs post-show like they once did. America’s Next Top Model is slipping, and though I’d like to think that Tyra is trying to change the face of fashion to be a little more representative of the rest of America, more believably, she has just lit upon the perfect TV ploy to get her game back.

(The promotional graphic for America's Next Top Model is from The CW network. Auditions for the program's newest cycle have overwhelmed the show's producers at times. The video below is now infamous: showing the pandemonium of a crowd waiting to try out for the program in Manhattan in March.)

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by Rick Rockwell

Ever since the early 1990s, PJ Harvey has been making music with impact. Supposedly, her debut Dry (1992) was a favorite of the late Kurt Cobain, and certainly her songwriting and attitude gave the latter stages of grunge a boost. Even before her debut, Harvey was making music with John Parish in his band Automatic Diamini. Harvey and Parish have collaborated numerous times since, including the co-billed Dance Hall at Louse Point (1996). Also, Parish produced Harvey’s breakout To Bring You My Love (1995) and White Chalk (2007).

So from the start, there’s a sense of familiarity that floats about this second co-billed effort from Harvey and Parish, A Woman a Man Walked By.

“Black Hearted Love” the first single from the release, which kicks off the album, transports the listener back to the mid-90s when Harvey and Parish could do no wrong. The song is as incendiary as a hot coal smoldering: a dark, minor key tale of love and mortality scored by an orchestra of skittering, edgy guitars.

This sets the tone appropriately for what will follow.

And what follows is an experimental tribute to Harvey’s musical heroes. On many of the songs, Harvey’s vocals seem to be channeling other voices. In the past, she has damned critics for comparing her to poet and punk priestess Patti Smith, but her delivery on a number of songs certainly has Smith’s tonality. However, a closer listen reveals one of Harvey’s acknowledged influences: none other than Captain Beefheart.* Harvey has always wanted to sing and compose like a female version of that psychedelic-blues-rock artist, and she certainly carries it off here. The profane title track recalls Frank Zappa’s “Willie the Pimp” (which featured Captain Beefheart on vocals) or any number of tracks from Beefheart’s underground classic Trout Mask Replica. Harvey’s barking aggressive rant on “Pig Will Not” is a nod to “China Pig” from Trout Mask Replica if not various other Beefheart tracks, which use porcine imagery and canine vocal ferocity. (Harvey credits Beaudelaire’s “The Rebel” with inspiring the song.)

And then there’s “April” which recalls another of Harvey’s heroes, Bob Dylan.** Parish arranges the musical backdrop on “April” to accent this comparison, with Eric Feldman’s organ pushed forward in the mix (the album is engineered by Flood† a long-time collaborator with Harvey and Parish). The song would fit Dylan perfectly, circa Highway 61 Revisited. (Long-time Harvey fans will note she covered the title track of that Dylan classic on her grungiest release Rid of Me.)

After all this, if the listener gets the idea they are on one long musical ride back through the 90s with the center of the universe set at the mid-60s then they are likely appropriately grasping Harvey and Parish’s intent. Some critics seem unmoved by A Woman a Man Walked By, saying it is too familiar, not cutting new ground. Given the deep literary and musicological waters Harvey and Parish ask a listener to navigate on A Woman a Man Walked By, the best way to see this new release is just the latest musical island set on a wide panoramic sea these two musicians have been charting since they began performing together almost two decades ago.

And this new release is not easy sailing. Harvey’s lyrics and Parish’s soundscapes are disturbing and provocative. The album concludes with a bit of a musical couplet: the funereal “Passionless, Pointless” carving a lyrical death mask, while “Cracks in the Canvas” lapses into spoken word mourning.

To their credit, Harvey and Parish have wrought another multifaceted musical puzzle that will take many listens to completing unlock.

*Captain Beefheart is the stage name of Don Van Vliet.

**Of course, Bob Dylan started out first as Robert Zimmerman.

†Mark Ellis goes by the pseudonym Flood.

(Promotional photo of PJ Harvey & John Parish from Island Records. Harvey & Parish open their European tour with an appearance in Brighton, UK on April 15. To see the video for "Black Hearted Love," please check below.)

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by Melissa Mahfouz
Special to iVoryTowerz

What happened Brazil? Did you come to play? Where were those killer shots, rhythmic finesse, and unprecedented passing combinations that distinguish your country above all others in the world of fútbol? The game against Ecuador (played Sunday, March 29) was certainly a run for your money.

These are the qualifying matches among ten nations in South America for next year's World Cup to be played in South Africa. Four teams from South America are guaranteed a shot at the Cup and qualifying play continues through October. But Brazil (the only country to win five World Cups, with the last championship coming in 2002) slipped to fourth place in the qualifying standings with its play against Ecuador.

Qualifying matches are chaotic, and the 1-1 tie between underdog Ecuador and dominant powerhouse Brazil proved to be quite a contest. Brazil clearly was the expected winner, but the team lacked cohesion and its normally fluid passing was nonexistent.

Both teams came away from the tie with something however. Ecuador needed the points in the standings to give it a chance to qualify for a playoff to get to 2010's Cup. Ecuador squares off next against Paraguay which currently leads the South American group in the standings. And although Brazil only managed a tie, the team reclaimed its pride a bit; before this game it had never scored on Ecuadorian turf in a qualifying match.

Ecuador also deserves accolades for its much-improved World Cup bid. Having begun the qualifying round with a three-game losing streak, the team has pulled itself up by its bootstraps in efforts to have a seed in South Africa. Now the team has Paraguay to face, which will surely be a hard-fought game with precision being vital. As for Brazil, despite its current place in the standings, it’s expected that the team should advance to the tournament and entertain spectators with samba-esque field techniques. 2010, here we come!

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Last October, I posted a “No on Prop. 8” sign on my front gate — with staples spaced every inch along the edge to assure anyone who wanted to steal the thing would have to work hard for it. The general election came and went, but the sign has remained; not because of the staples, but because I am determined to keep it up until we overturn the California ballot initiative’s resulting constitutional amendment that denied marriage to the approximately six percent of our population that is gay. Okay, and because I’m a stubborn wench.

When I first put up the sign, I expected a neighborly frown or two in response, so I was pleasantly surprised when the UPS driver came to the door, rather than leaving a package in our designated drop-off spot, to tell me he likes the sign. And were I not suffering from middle-aged pee syndrome, I would have jumped up and down when a gal from the opposite side of the block, with whom I regularly swap mis-delivered mail, dropped off a letter and said, “I really like your sign. Thanks for putting it up.”


I was disappointed, though, when none of my local friends posted similar signs or bumper stickers. They feared the signs would be stolen and their property vandalized. And, indeed, when someone scribbled on my chili-red VW bug, in an effort to reverse the positive message of an Obama bumper sticker, I suspect my friends felt as vindicated as my self-satisfaction was diminished with each angry stroke it took to scrub the black marker from my car.

Nonetheless, while I can understand my friends’ discomfort, given the overt disdain some local leaders, media and letter writers in our town of Fallbrook, California regularly express for gays — along with immigrants, Democrats, feminists and any other designation they find threatening — I believe the failure to challenge prejudice perpetuates it.

So, the other day I ordered a bunch of “Don’t Be Gaycist” bumper stickers and, when they arrived, I taped one inside the windshield of my car and headed to the grocery store. As I puttered down the street, I automatically readied my hand for those little steering-wheel waves we toss in small towns, but to my dismay, instead of reciprocal smiles, my car and I received uncharacteristically averted eyes and even glares from folks who did not acknowledge the cheerful vibes we were putting out.

My wave hand instinctively withdrew to a self-protective posture, and I felt, well, I wasn’t sure what I felt, other than really, really uncomfortable.

I pulled into the Major Market parking lot, did my shopping and returned to my car.

That’s when recognition struck. As I put the gallon of extra-virgin olive oil and the phallic French bread in the passenger seat, it hit me like a ton of fear-fired bricks. I had made myself a target of the angry mobs of “God hates fags” sign bearers. I had thumbed my nose at the downtrodden masses virulently riled up by hate mongers into tying gays to barbed wire fencing and pummeling them into oblivion. I had stood up in proud declaration and rendered myself as vulnerable as a lesbian stumbling into the arms of gang-banging troglodytes who imagine their penises imbued with the power to screw gay women straight. I had plunked down my wheeled soapbox at the figurative Speakers’ Corner of Fallbrook and loudly offended the local populace by proclaiming them prejudiced against gays.

Oh ye gods, had I gone too far? Had my obstinacy overpowered my good sense? I knew what I was feeling: It was fear, and I wanted to get the hell home and remove the offending message before my obstreperous protest proved the death of me!

Except, well, I had to take pause.

The local populace is bigoted against gays to a disturbing degree. Prop. 8 passed with 52.3 percent of the statewide vote; in Fallbrook, it passed with 67.9. That’s a damnable number, and I have to wonder how many of the 11,298 Fallbrook voters it represents acknowledge their votes were discriminatory; I wonder how many people across the country would acknowledge the same intolerance. It’s a prejudice that cries for challenge of some sort or another, fear or no fear — and I happen to have just the thing for it.

I’m not taking the “Don’t Be Gaycist” sticker off my windshield; instead, I’m putting a few more on, and I’m encouraging my friends to do the same. Then we’ll practice ducking.

(Editor's Note: This piece is cross-posted from Kit-Bacon Gressitt's personal blog, Excuse Me, I'm Writing.)

For more background on this issue, please also see:

• "California: Prop. 8 Turns Back the Clock;"
• "Prop. 8: Sex & the Suspect Class;"
• and "Prop. 8: Protecting Marriage, Protecting Children, My Ass!"

(The political poster is by Shepard Fairey who has donated its use to organizations promoting gay rights and the repeal of Proposition 8. This version is from Join the Impact.)

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Aaahhh, temptation. Again, some might wonder if the underground podcast is converting to an AM/Top 40 vehicle. But those in the know, realize this is just another subversive diversion. What's in question this week is a certain type of music. Call it make out music. Call it smooch music. Call it the sound of seduction. However you may classify it, the music hits more than a few reflective romantic notes this week. Don't worry. Sit back. Relax. Let us help you find that proper mental groove as we lay down the patented eclectic mix. This week the podcast covers 40 years of soul, funk, metal, new wave, indie rock, folk rock, and just good ole straight up rock 'n roll. We hope this helps you set the proper mood. Enjoy!



(To download or stream this podcast, please click here.)



Playlist

“Are You Going to Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz
"Ernie's Jam" by The Isley Brothers
“It's Your Love" by Melinda Doolittle (request)
"I Can't Stop Loving You" by Kem
"Are You Ready?" by Sly and the Family Stone
"The Impression that I Get" by The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones
“Give It Away” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rick's Metal Shoppe: “Do What You Do” by Mudvayne
Jeff’s New Wave: “I Think We're Alone Now” by Lene Lovich
“Fields of Coal” by And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
“For the Price of a Song” by Marah
"Comes and Goes” by Les Savy Fav
Cover Me: "High School Confidential" by Puhdys
"Golden State" by John Doe with Kathleen Edwards
"Oh Lonesome Me" by M. Ward with Lucinda Williams
"Four Strong Winds" by Neil Young

(Mp3 Runs - 1:18:57; 73 MB.)

(Photo by Daniel & Carla of Bradenton, FL via Flickr, using a Creative Commons license.)

DISCLAIMER: The iVoryTowerz podcast is a non-commercial, non-profit program designed and used for educational purposes. Some of the material contained in this podcast is previously copyrighted but used with permission. Other copyrighted material is reused following fair use guidelines. Any copyright holders who do not wish to have their material used should contact the programmers directly at ivorytowerzradio@att.net and it will be removed. The programmers do not support filesharing and encourage listeners to buy music from the artists featured in this podcast.

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by Z*

While my compatriots are celebrating Nowruz (Persian New Year) munching on meat-loaded national dishes, I savor every bite of my crunchy homemade spinach salad sprinkled with roasted almonds and dried fruit with a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Yes, I’m a vegetarian and this week I proudly celebrated my first year anniversary of my myth-busting meatless diet.

At first, I decided to keep it secret. Part of it was my uncertainty that I could stick to my new diet. But more importantly, I did not want to be attacked by questions like, how do I get my protein, why did I decide to become a vegetarian, did I just realize how meat ended up on our plates, and why can I not simply enjoy being at the top of the food chain.

My secret did not last long and very soon people around me started campaigning against my decision. Led by my mother, my relatives formed a coalition that bombarded me with a conventional truth that people cannot survive without meat (especially not people from the Middle East or the former Soviet bloc). So in counter-attack I resorted to an excuse that proved to be the most effective: “I just don’t feel like eating meat, and once I do, I surely will eat it.” And they retreated.

What I find curious about my case is that my diet started solely as a conscious crusade against animal slaughterhouses. But later it evolved into complete meat aversion. Even when, while interning during the summer, I had to eat plain rice every day for lunch, I was not tempted to eat meat.

And there are too many good reasons not to become or stay vegetarian. For environmentalists, vegetarianism is a way to reduce greenhouse emissions, land and water overuse. For the health-conscious, a vegetarian lifestyle means decreased risks of heart and kidney disease among other benefits. Even urinary tract infections have been linked to meat consumption. (And let's not even discuss in any deep way the revelations this week about the mortality of those who favor red meat in their diets.) And then there is a third category of meat haters. These are the rarest kind of humans, whose attitude is best summed up by a distinguished Czech writer Milan Kundera in his famous novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

"True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals."

While I relate to all three types of reasoning to be vegetarian I also like it because it is more adventurous. The relative lack of variety of vegetarian-friendly products forces you to spend more time pondering what to eat. Now I enjoy hunting down tasty colorful recipes and even coming up with my own. Vegetarianism is easy and rewarding, you should give it a try.

*Z is from a country that made up the Soviet Union, and her writing on cultural and political matters could have a backlash when she returns home from the U.S., so she writes under a pseudonym.

(The photo is by jeltovski of Canada via morgueFile.)

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by Phil Kehres

Fallout 3 – The Pitt expansion (rated M for mature, available for download on Xbox Live & PC — Xbox 360 version reviewed)
Release date: March 25, 2009.

Fallout 3’s latest downloadable expansion, The Pitt, is a big step up from the last one, Operation: Anchorage. (For the full review of Operation: Anchorage, please go here.) The Pitt sticks to the strengths of Fallout 3 and expands on them, providing the player fascinating new areas to explore, unique non-player characters to interact with and difficult moral choices to make. Though the main experience lasts only four to five hours, The Pitt remains open to the player after completion of the main quests. Unlike Operation: Anchorage, then, the download is well worth the 800 Microsoft points (MS points: 800 = $10).

The Pitt is all about the story. After downloading it and booting up an old saved game from the Fallout 3 main game, the player will receive a distress call. Upon finding the source of the call, you’ll encounter a man named Wehrner fighting off a band of nasty Raiders. When the Raiders are defeated, Wehrner explains to you his dilemma: he has come from The Pitt — the post-apocalyptic wasteland version of Pittsburgh, PA — in search of someone to help him cure the mysterious diseases and mutations that are afflicting the citizens of The Pitt. The catch is that The Pitt is a city of slaves overseen by ruthless Raiders and their overlord, Ashur. Wehrner accompanies you to The Pitt, where you’ll have to disguise yourself as a slave to enter the city and search for the cure.

You’ll enter the city through a virtual send-up to the iconic real-life Fort Pitt Bridge. The Pitt looks a bit different than the Capital Wasteland of the main game, with more oranges and reds saturating the color palette. Plumes of fire and smoke billow from industrial furnaces and steel scaffolding dominates the skyline. Overall, though, it still looks and plays just like the Fallout 3 you know, which is a very good thing. The Pitt plays like a true extension to the main story rather than the linear one-off simulation in Operation: Anchorage. It excels everywhere the first expansion fails. You will encounter new characters with unique back stories, new enemies such as Trogs — former humans twisted into savage beasts by the deadly plague affecting The Pitt — and explore new areas like a slave-run steel mill. One of the quests even has you fighting for your freedom Mad Max-style in a cage filled with barrels of toxic waste.

The highlight of The Pitt, however, is the feeling of moral ambiguity that encompasses your character in certain situations. Without giving too much of the story away, suffice to say that you’ll be faced with some very difficult choices after you earn your freedom from slavery. The choices you make won’t affect the in-game karma meter, but the story is engrossing nonetheless. It feels like Fallout should, much more so than the shoot-em-up action of Operation: Anchorage. My only complaint is that the enemies in The Pitt are no match for a fully leveled-up character. The issue is minor, however, as you’ll be more focused on the story. This is not to say, however, that you won’t love mowing down mutants with new weapons and gear like the AutoAxe, a deadly, serrated rotary saw. Furthermore, you can actually explore The Pitt after the main story quest is completed, engaging in sidequests and interacting with characters. You can even leave and come back, a feature that makes The Pitt feel much more like a worthwhile investment than Operation: Anchorage.

The Pitt functions very well as expansion of the rich Fallout mythos. Gamers are rewarded with the requisite achievement points, perks and weapon and gear caches but, more important, are treated to a fulfilling gaming experience. I have no problem with shelling out $10 for this, especially considering the egregious prices we’ve been charged lately for trashy content.

Final verdict: 4/5

(Phil Kehres also is the co-author of Excuse Me, Is This Your Blog?)

(Promotional screenshot of The Pitt provided by Bethesda Softworks. To see a trailer for The Pitt, please check below.)

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