Tea, Occupancy, and A Seat at the Table

Been watching the whole political morass with great interest.  Also been tempted a hundred times to say my peace here, but I'd probably be repeating myself.  Things are heating up, though, so thought I'd throw down and see if it stuck.

I've been watching with some interest the coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York and elsewhere.  I've also noticed a very basic similarity to the Tea Party movement, of which I consider myself a part.  You have to look past the peripheral things, though.  That includes most of the coverage.  Media from both sides of the political spectrum paint the OWS people as left-wing Socialists; Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to djinn up fear, and NPR to rally their own.  The same groups were painting all the Teabaggers as right-wingers, because they called for smaller government, lower taxes, and the Koch brothers were paying Sarah Palin big bucks to go talk to them.

But I think both movements go much deeper than this.  I think the core was revealed on Fox News the other night when they were panning the OWS crowd.  There were signs saying all kinds of different things, but the thing that caught my eye was a modified American flag, with corporate logos in place of the stars.  To me, that said it all, and that flag could just as easily have been waved at a Tea Party rally.

From the right, the Democrats seem to bend the knee mostly to labor unions and minorities.  From the left, the Republicans do the same to big business.  And to a great extent, both views are correct.  Not that there's anything wrong with labor unions, minorities, or big businesses.  Most of us work for somebody else; labor unions made it possible for the average person to do that work for a fair wage; and advocacy for minorities has gone a long way toward leveling the playing field in the most diverse culture in history.  These are all good things, and I don't think the average Democrat or Republican would disagree.

I can't help but think about how much things have changed in my own lifetime.  I can remember state Governors standing in front of their constituents promising, "Segregation now, segregation forever!"  I can also remember every three years or so the entire automobile industry being closed down by strikes, as well as airlines, etc. etc. etc.  Unemployment was always 10% and was always going to be.  Both sides won so many victories that all those things have changed.

So the Democrats present themselves as the party of minorities and the working man, but honestly, do their programs really mean progress for those groups?  When the same things have stopped having results decades ago?  Now, it's not about getting the worker a fair wage and benefits, it's about increasing Union membership.  And the Union workers make far more than anybody else, and the industries that are heavily unionized are priced out of any hope of being able to compete.  And as far as minorities go, the main argument seems to be whether or not illegal immigration is actually illegal or not.  If you think it is, then you're a racist?

It seems that anyone who gets power gets right to work abusing it.  Big business has re-written the Golden Rule to read; "He who has the gold makes the rules."  Unions have themselves become big businesses.  And if you're not a member of a minority, you're not supposed to have any rights at all.  They prop up the government from both sides and hog all the seats at the table where the decisions are made.

That is the commonality between the Tea Party and those who Occupy Wall Street; they, WE, want a seat at the table.  We want REAL solutions to all those problems, not just solutions that pad the advantages that a few already have.  We don't want to fear and hate the other side, we want to help them.  We want the Conservative Republicans to explain to the African-American and Hispanic communities how supply-side economics are advantageous to them, too.  And the Liberal Democrats should explain to the CEOs how fairness and honesty would benefit their bottom line.  It's actually true, you know.

It's not the government that needs to compromise as much as it is the Tea Partiers and the Wall Street Occupiers.  We should all get together and recognize the common ground we share.  Then, maybe, just maybe, we could get the politicians AND the media to shut the hell up and listen to US for a change.

Yes

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now; Yes is my all-time favorite band. And it’s my blog, and I’m going to write a really long appreciation of them. And here it is. So thank you very much for your time, it’s been nice to see you, and I’ll write about something interesting real soon, I promise.



Are they gone?



Good. Not that I wanted them to leave, but I did want them to know what they were in for. The rest of us, the small little clutch of us, can now get down to some Yes.



Yes is the name of a British progressive-rock, or art-rock, band whose heyday was the 1970’s. They are, amazingly, still around. You don’t get to hear much about them these days. Classic-rock radio doesn’t play much of their stuff, except their one big hit single, 1984’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” But if you’re a fan of prog-rock, you know of them and either love them or hate them. Either way, they are the center of the Prog universe.



Yes, The Band



Vocals – Jon Anderson, Trevor Horne

Guitar – Peter Banks, Steve Howe, Trevor Rabin, Billy Sherwood

Keyboards – Tony Kaye, Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz, Geoff Downes, Igor Khorishov

Drums – Bill Bruford, Alan White

Bass – Chris Squire



In the now more than 40 years of the band’s existence, the two names always associated with the band are Jon Anderson and Chris Squire. Jon is on all but one album and Chris did not participate on the two released under the ABWH name. Other than that, the band has always included both of them.



Jon has one of those unique voices. He’s not a high tenor, he’s a soprano. He’s also the chief lyricist for the group, although the others all get their turns. Especially Squire. Trevor Horne was brought in for 1980’s “Drama” after Jon and Rick Wakeman left. He went on to be a top-flight producer.



“Drama” is also the one album that Geoff Downes plays on. He and Horne were The Buggles, now most famous for having the first video ever played on MTV; Video Killed the Radio Star. Kaye and Wakeman are the only keyboardists to each be on more than one Yes album. Moraz, Downes, and Khorishov got one each. Moraz went on to play for the Moody Blues in the ‘80’s and also has many solo works. Downes went with Howe in ’82 and formed Asia, and is still leading that band. Don’t know where Khorishov is.



Peter Banks played guitar on the first two albums, but Steve Howe is the man everybody thinks of as Yes’ guitar man. The band more or less broke up around ’80 or ’81. When it reformed, Trevor Rabin took over the guitar chores. Billy Sherwood co-produced their ’96 live set, “Keys to Ascension,” and because co-guitarist with Howe for two albums following.



Bill Bruford was the original drummer, and returned for ABWH. He is widely regarded as the superior of the two, but Alan White is no slouch. Bruford went on to play for King Crimson and do a number of solo and session projects. White is an alumnus of John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, and also recorded and performed with George Harrison.



That leaves Squire. He has a reputation as being a bit of a flake. He’s the guy who’s always late for rehearsals and sound checks. But he is also one of the most influential bassists in the history of rock music. He’s a virtuoso musician, a dynamic performer, and a very good songwriter.



Yes, Periodically



- The Beginning (1968-1969)



Yes (1968)

Time and a Word (1969)

(Anderson, Banks, Kaye, Squire, Bruford)



Their first two albums, and their most forgettable. From the early ‘70’s to the present day, the only song from these albums that ever gets played live is the second album’s title track. It’s a pretty little tune, but most of the rest is experiments that needed a lot of help, or attempted radio songs.



- Classic Yes (1970-1980)



The Yes Album (1970)

- minus Banks, plus Howe

Fragile (1971)

- minus Kaye, plus Wakeman

Close to the Edge (1972)

YesSongs (1973)

- minus Bruford, plus White

Tales of Topographic Oceans (1973)

Relayer (1974)

- minus Wakeman, plus Moraz

Going For the One (1977)

- minus Moraz, plus Wakeman

Tormato (1978)

Drama (1980)

- minus Anderson and Wakeman, plus Horne and Downes



This is the Yes that older fans remember. The music was experimental and bombastic. Steve Howe flew his guitar over the top of everything like a hummingbird on steroids. Wakeman ruled over the world of the recently invented synthesizer like Bach on acid, and if anything Moraz was even wilder. They were four virtuoso musicians playing their asses off all the time, all in support of Anderson’s keening vocals.



With no hit singles and little if any radio airplay they packed stadiums and sold millions of records. Their compositions became longer and more daring all the time. The album cover artwork of Roger Dean became iconic, and the Dean-designed logo was everywhere. The critics hated them as much as the fans loved them.



And then, with Tormato, they stumbled. The follow-up, recorded in Paris under the working title of “The Golden Age” fell apart completely and was never finished. Squire brought in the Buggles, and mixing some of Golden Age with some of what was supposed to be the next Buggles album, Drama was put together. The revamped band was well received in Britain, but the American tour not so much. After that, they called it quits.



- The In-Between Years (1981-1983)



Classic Yes (1981)

YesShows (1982)



It’s said that Squire put together Classic Yes, a compilation that even included songs from the first two albums, and YesShows, culled from live tapes that include performances by Moraz. Wakeman embarked on a solo career that he’d begun after Fragile. Howe did some solo albums, but his real highlight was being a founding member of Asia, which became very big indeed.



Squire also teamed up with White on an abortive project that came to be known as XYZ. The ex-Yes bassist and drummer did some sessions and rehearsals with Led Zeppelin’s guitarist and vocalist, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. This was after the breakup of that band following the death of drummer John Bonham. EX Yes and Zeppelin; get it?



The band all did their own solo albums between Relayer and Going For the One, and Anderson jumped headfirst into his new solo career. Besides recording under his own name, he teamed up with the man who was his alternative choice to Moraz for Relayer; a Greek keyboard virtuoso named Vangelis. There are a number of Jon And Vangelis albums out there, all very interesting.



- YesWest (1984-1994)



90215 (1984)

9012 Live (1985)

Big Generator (1987)

Talk (1994)

- all Anderson, Rabin, Kaye, Squire, White



Around 1983 Squire and White started working on a project they called Cinema with Trevor Rabin. Yes has always been quintessentially British, but Rabin was South African and Cinema’s base of operations was California. Squire suggested bringing in Tony Kaye to play keys, reuniting two of the original Yesmen. Kaye hardly played on the sessions, leaving most of the keyboard work to Rabin, but happily joined them on the road and cashed his checks.



The sessions were going well, but Rabin was doing most of the lead vocals and even he realized they needed someone better. Chris Squire made a cassette of the rough mixes and took them to Jon Anderson. Jon liked them and agreed to join the band, on one condition . . . that they change the name to Yes. He added some lyrics and re-recorded most of the lead vocals. The title came from the album’s Atlantic Records catalog number. The only number-1 single of the group’s career, “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, led it off.



- ABWH (1989-1991)



Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe (1989)

Union – (1991)

An Evening of Yes Music, Plus – (1994)



You will note the overlap in these two periods. At some point after Big Generator, somebody realized that there was a whole ‘nother band’s worth of ex-Yes people not playing Yes music. YesWest’s second studio album wasn’t received as well as its first and it also raised lingering tensions within the group. Anderson rang up Bruford, Wakeman and Howe and suggested they get together. Bruford allegedly only came on the condition that he receive equal credit without having to contribute any writing.



They were originally going to record and tour under the name Yes, but Squire sued, saying that he should own the name as he was the only member who’d been on every album. YesWest were horrified at the prospect of two Yes’s touring at the same time. The courts eventually ruled in favor of Anderson, essentially giving him ownership of the name.



Unfortunately for him, they had to deliver an album and book a tour faster than the courts could make their decision. So eschewing their long-standing relationship with Atlantic records, they signed with Arista as ABWH. The album and tour tickets sold well, actually outstripping those by YesWest’s Big Generator.



Further problems developed when both bands returned to the studio. It began to look like neither new album was going to be finished, so Anderson, who was singing on both, suggested they combine forces. The result was Union, with Yes swollen to 8 members. The album and subsequent tour were a big hit.



“An Evening” was released by Arista to fulfill ABWH’s contract obligations.



- The End (1995-Present)



Keys to Ascension, vol. 1 and 2 (1996)

- Anderson, Howe, Wakeman, Squire, White

Open Your Eyes (1997)

- Anderson, Howe, Sherwood, Squire, White

The Ladder (1999)

- Anderson, Howe, Sherwood, Khorishov, Squire, White

KeyStudio (2001)

- Anderson, Howe, Wakeman, Squire, White

Magnification (2002)

- Anderson, Howe, Squire, White

and various compilations, live albums, and boxed sets.



A-a-and . . . that’s about it. Yes left Atlantic after “Union” to sign with a succession of independent labels and haven’t made the album charts since. Their concerts still sell out, and most of their back catalogue is still in print, but they’re not a force any more. Plus, the members are all in their sixties now. Anderson and Wakeman have health issues that keep them from touring. The last trip of the classic lineup was in 2002, and they were great.



But Wakeman’s son, Oliver, took Dad’s place for the last trip to the states, and the leader of a British Yes tribute band took Anderson’s place. Even their website is suffering from neglect. It’s a shame that they’re just going to fade away, but there are worse things.



Yes, Categorically



The One – YesSongs



This is a live set from the tour in support of “Close To the Edge.” Bill Bruford quit the group between the recording sessions and the beginning of the tour, but still appears on a couple cuts. Alan White reportedly took the job on two days’ notice, and did a phenomenal job. It is a collection of excellent recordings of great performances of some of their best music. In most cases, better than the studio versions. If you’re going to have only one Yes album, this is the one.



The Important Ones –



The Yes Album – The one where Steve Howe joined. Peter Banks was forced out shortly after the sessions for “Time and a Word,” which upset a lot of the group’s fans. When they heard “The Yes Album,” they got over it real quick. Howe’s contributions to the songwriting are as striking as his guitar playing.



Fragile – Tony Kaye preferred organ and piano to synthesizers, which still had a lot of bugs and limitations. But the sounds were popular, and so he, too was forced out. His replacement was a former member of the Strawbs named Rick Wakeman. “Fragile” was as gigantic a leap as “The Yes Album” had been before it. Songs like “Roundabout” and “Heart of the Sunrise” are still great, but most striking were the little vignettes each member contributed. It’s like they were playing with their new toys, seeing what they could do with them.



Tales of Topographic Oceans – The first studio set with new drummer Alan White. Their compositions had been getting more and more sophisticated. With Topo, they took this to the extreme with four compositions each taking up a full album side, all turning on a central theme. The whole thing is based on an extended footnote from a Yoga book. Deep, baby, deep. This is the lynchpin of a sub-period known as The Topo Years, which ties together “Close to the Edge,” “Relayer,” and the song “Awaken” from “Going for the One.” Pilloried in the press, but at the time their best seller.



Going for the One – The return of Wakeman! It was a hugely hyped event, both as a recording and a tour. Nobody really disliked what Patrick Moraz brought to the group on “Relayer,” but Wakeman is an icon. He had fallen out with the rest of the band as much over lifestyle as music. Wakeman is a working class Brit into beef and beer, while the rest experimented with vegetarianism and drugs. He didn’t like Topo, and on that tour the rest of the band insisted on playing only the new album. So when it was over, he left. When Anderson played him rough demos of “Going,” he came back. Listen, and you’ll see why. The Squire-penned “Parallels” and Topo-inspired “Awaken” are highlights.



90125 – The first YesWest. The group was dead and gone, and then this! It came right at the peak of the ‘80’s hair-band craze, but still stood out from the pack. It sounded so different from any other Yes album, but still had Jon Anderson’s vocals on top. It was more sophisticated than anything Ratt or Poison or Def Leppard did, but tapped into that vibe. Rabin may have been a small step behind in the shred department, but had more imagination than any of his contemporaries. Their best selling album, and one of their best.



Union – The last Yes album to sell in significant numbers. A lot of serious Yes fans hate it now, but it’s really pretty good. If you know them, you can tell which songs were ABWH and which were YesWest. Even so, various players went to great lengths to play on the other group’s songs and it comes together pretty well. The tour also drew well, and there’s supposed to be a DVD that’s excellent. Now you know what to get me for Christmas.



The Other Best Albums –



Close to the Edge – The follow up to “Fragile,” this takes the promise of the former and explores it. The title track takes up all of one side, and the other side is two great tunes, “Siberian Khatru” and “And You And I.” Great stuff, and still one of my favorite albums. Anderson said at the time that the inspiration for the title track was a dream he’d had about carrying an amplifier in his arms through a forest and walking into a pool of quicksand. All three songs get excellent live treatments on “YesSongs.”



Relayer – This follows the same format as CTTE; long piece on one side (Gates of Delirium) and two shorter-but-still-long songs on the other. “Gates of Delirium” is based on Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” in case you were wondering. Patrick Moraz proves that Rick Wakeman isn’t the only person who could play synth like a sumbich. My favorite moment is a point about ¾ of the way through “Gates,” where they’ve been soloing, then stop and Alan White takes the beat onto the snare. He pounds away and drags the beat down, and then with no apparent cue the rest of the band jumps back in. Brilliant! Take that, Bill Bruford!



The Hidden Gems –



Drama – This album, and the accompanying tour, were not as well received in the US as in England. Plus, time has softened the hearts of many a Yes fan. It’s a really good album, even if it is one of their darker ones. Up to now, the group dynamic had been that Anderson always, eventually, got his way. That, and the virtuoso competition between Howe and Wakeman had driven the music. With them gone, Squire and Howe had the chance to assert themselves. Geoff Downes proved to be a brilliant musician, even though his style is much more subtle than Wakeman’s. And while no one, Horne included, believed the former Buggle to be the superior singer, Trevor Horne stepped up to the plate and gave it his best shot. He went on to produce 90125.



ABWH – It’s striking to listen to this back to back with its immediate predecessor, YesWest’s “Big Generator.” While Generator is a fine album in its own right, it sounds heavy and cumbersome next to ABWH. The latter is light and springy, with a wide dynamic range. It’s like comparing a bulldozer to a race car. Even the much-maligned “Teakbois,” a calypso-inspired Anderson song, gets you moving.



Talk – Proof that the bulldozer could really tear it up. The last YesWest album, almost as good – and in some ways, better – than 90125. This was the product of one really great idea and one really bad one. The great one was to give Trevor Rabin free rein to do pretty much whatever he wanted. He crafted a set of really good, inventive, imaginative songs. The bad idea was to leave Atlantic records and sign with a small, independent label. I don’t know if Atlantic dropped them or if they left on their own, but Talk became one of the best albums that nobody ever heard. After the commercial success of “Union” it’s a shame that this, so much better, got ignored.



The Ladder – The story of this begins with the reunion in 1996 of the Classic Yes lineup; Anderson, Squire, Howe, White, and Wakeman. They recorded the massive 4-CD “Keys Of Ascension” project in California with producer Billy Sherwood. Most of it was live, but there were also studio sessions. More on this later.



For whatever reason, they then bid Wakeman goodbye. Sherwood had already been working on a project with Squire and White, and they invited Anderson and Howe to help finish it up. That became “Open Your Eyes.” More on THAT later.



After this, with two guitarists and no regular keyboard man, they hired a young fellow named Igor Khorishov who had worked on the “OYE” studio sessions, making the band now a 6-piece. This group went into the studio with producer Bruce Fairbrother to record “The Ladder.”



The Worst –



(These are the albums you should wait to add to your collection until you have all the others.)



“Yes” and “Time and a Word” – The first two. I’ve only got the second one currently, and have only listened to it a couple times. The first one, I’ve heard a couple times as well. They’re all right, I suppose. To be honest, if you like Yes even the worst stuff is pretty darned good. With these two, there is the promise of things to come. Their songwriting and vocal harmonies improved dramatically in the following albums. And while Peter Banks is really a fine guitarist, I’m yet to hear anyone suggest that they should have kept him and not hired Steve Howe.



Tormato – Some very good songs on this follow-up to “Going For the One. Unfortunately, the relationship between Howe and Wakeman had devolved into them trying to one-up each other, and it hurt the songs. The middle break on “Release, Release” was so weak they felt they needed to dub in crowd noise to pump it up. And yet, the album contains pieces like “Onward” and “On the Silent Wings of Freedom.” It’s really a pretty good album, unless you compare it to all the rest.



KeyStudio – The 1996 sessions for Keys to Ascension were eventually released as two two-disc sets, mostly live and each ending with a few studio pieces. These were later put together on one disc called KeyStudio. It should be a masterpiece, seeing that it’s a reunion of the Classic Yes lineup. And, among most die-hard Yes fans, it is received as such. But it’s not. It’s funny how the same group of people can hate ABWH and love this lead turkey. This might be the worst album ever released under the Yes name.



Open Your Eyes – The follow-up to Keys, this might be the most controversial album in their entire catalog. Have you ever had one of those snacks that you didn’t really care for, but kept going back for? Yeah, it wasn’t bad, maybe I’ll have one more, and the next thing you know the bowl’s empty. This album is like that.



The engineer and co-producer of Keys was a California gentleman named Billy Sherwood. He hooked up with Chris Squire and Alan White for a side project named Conspiracy, much as Trevor Rabin had for Cinema more than a decade before. The feel of the whole album is leaden, even the quiet acoustic bits. And yet there are some good melodies and fine performances. It’s just that most of the good ideas wind up in songs that feel unfinished.



The most striking thing is how simple and dead Alan White’s drum parts are. It’s hard to believe the man who recorded “Gates of Delirium” on Relayer also played on this. There’s nothing for him to do, fer cryin’ out loud!



Most fans hate this record, because it compares so badly to the rest of the catalog. But a few love it, thinking it represented a bold new direction for the band.



Magnification – So far, this is the last Yes studio album, recorded in 2001. They were without a keyboard player at this time because Igor Khorishov insisted on misbehaving on the Ladder tour. So they hooked up with an arranger they knew and tried a new idea; integrating a symphony orchestra with a rock band. Yeah, I know, not exactly a new idea, but one that arguably had never been done really well. You can trace the roots all the way back to Phil Spector. The Moody Blues’ “Days of Futures Past” and Deep Purple’s “Concerto” are probably the best-known examples.



Yes wanted to see if the seams connecting the two could be made a little smoother. Musically, it actually works pretty well. The orchestra isn’t just playing what the keyboard player would have; they actually tried to create arrangements that combined all the instruments into one unit. The tour worked out pretty well also. The charts were sent to a number of symphony orchestras around the world, and then Yes rolled into town, did a rehearsal, and then the concert. It’s captured on DVD if you’re interested.



The biggest problem is that the album is kind of sleepy. Not heavy and cumbersome like “Open Your Eyes” or “Big Generator,” but just slow. There are a few great songs, but most of it is pretty forgettable.



And this is the note that they seem to be ending on. As mentioned before, Anderson and Wakeman’s health keeps them from touring with the band. Yes is on the road as I write this, but with Howe, Squire, and White supplemented by Benoit David on vocals and Rick Wakeman’s son, Oliver on keys. They’re also playing smaller and smaller venues. In 2002 they played the Whittemore Center in Durham. This time they’re at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, a hall about half as big.



Since “Magnification,” there have been a pile of live albums, DVDs, and compilations released. It’s as if they’re tying up all the loose ends before shutting off life support. There is creative output, but only as individual members. It’s like a well-skipped rock that goes and goes and goes, and will finally one day simply go ‘schlick’ and slip beneath the surface.



I’ve seen Yes live four times in all. The first was the day after my 22nd birthday, Aug. 14, 1977, at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine. As you might have guessed, it was a memorable evening. They were touring in support of “Going For the One,” which I consider one of their two or three best albums. It's also the tour in which Rick Wakeman returned.



A year later I saw them again, this time at the old Boston Garden. “Tormato” tour. This was the tour when they started playing in the round. They had a rotating stage that revolved once every minute. The PA was suspended over the stage, and it is the only band that ever managed to sound good in Boston Garden. This iteration is captured on the DVD, “Philadelphia 1979.”



I also saw them in 1980 in Springfield, Mass. It was the Drama tour, with Trevor Horne and Geoff Downes filling in for Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman. Yeah, it wasn’t the same, but it was still damned good.



In 2002 my wife got me a ticket – one ticket; she wasn’t interested – to see them at the Whittemore Center. Wakeman had returned yet again, and there was talk of an album, but it’s never materialized. I went with no small bit of apprehension. We had seen the Moody Blues a couple years earlier, and while it was a very good show it was also obvious that the remaining members of the band couldn’t have done it without four or five ‘professional’ musicians supporting them.



This was not the case with Yes. There is something powerful about a band of excellent musicians at the top of their game. That power filled the hall that night. No compromises were made whatsoever. On the contrary, they breathed new life into songs that in some cases hadn’t been played live in twenty years or more. They even dug out “South Side of the Sky” from Fragile, which was impossible to perform live when it was new, and “Gates of Delirium” which Wakeman didn’t record. They played for over three hours, and it was a triumph.



I wished I had made the effort to take somebody with me. It was a glorious evening. I was struck by how many parents my age and younger were bringing their kids. They say it’s a bad sign when most of the cars in the parking lot are Volvos, but I didn’t care.



The most heart-breaking thing to me is how little respect they get outside of their own fan base these days. They are regarded as the worst offenders of an offensive era. In the ‘70’s there were hundreds of art-rock bands who dressed like Merlin the Magician and sang incomprehensible quasi-mystical words over complex music that probably owed more to Wagner and Beethoven than Bill Haley or the Beatles. If it hadn’t been for the success of YesWest, they’d probably be a trivia question now.



The fact remains that the words DID mean something, and the musicianship was without parallel in rock music. They, Yes and the others, pushed the envelope, and Yes’ music succeeded more than anybody else’s. And yet, in spite of their popularity and influence, they are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They seem to be as despised and derided outside of their fan base as they are worshipped within it. To me, it is the Hall’s loss.



If you’ve gotten this far, you probably deserve even more punishment. Here’s a link to a very good bio of the band on allmusic.com.



http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:difoxqr5ldfe~T1



It contradicts some of the things I’ve said, but it’s also got a couple of small inaccuracies. For instance, Jon Anderson doesn’t sing in falsetto. He doesn’t have to. His voice is really that high. Trevor Horne had to go falsetto a few times doing the older Yes material live, but he’s only human. Frankie Valli sings falsetto; Jon Anderson sings.

The Real Curse

Generations of Red Sox fans speculated that there was a curse on their beloved baseball team. The source of this curse was supposed to be Babe Ruth, who pitched for the Red Sox in the first part of his major league career but was sold to the New York Yankees and as an outfielder and hitter kicked off the century-long dynasty the Bronx Bombers enjoy to this day.

But I think I have determined the true instrument of the curse, and Sox fans will be dismayed to learn that it is one of the most beloved figures ever to don the scarlet hose. To better understand my line of thought, I need for you to formulate in your mind a quick list of the greatest players in the history of baseball. Quick, jot down the names of the ten best players you can think of. Here’s mine, right off the top of my head in the heat of the moment:

Babe Ruth
Ty Cobb
Ted Williams
Joe DiMaggio
Mickey Mantle
Jackie Robinson
Willie Mays
Hank Aaron
Cy Young
Lou Gehrig
Stan Musial
Dizzy Dean

Okay, there’s twelve of the all-time greatest, done in less than a minute. There will be some obvious names I’ve left off, but I’d be willing to bet that many of these same names showed up on your list if you have any knowledge of the game’s history. Remember, I’m talking about all-time all-stars, greatest of the great.

That means, to be honest, that Red Sox players are few and far between on this list. Let’s be frank, now, as much as we may love Yaz, Rice, Clements, Boggs, do they really belong on a list with DiMaggio and Mays? On my list, I have two. And one of them, Cy Young, was a pitcher who played with a number of teams besides the Red Sox.

That leaves one. One that played his entire career for the BoSox. And that one happened to have been born in 1918, the last year Babe Ruth wore a Red Sox uniform. And who passed from this mortal coil in 2002, the year before the ownership of the team changed hands. Which, as we all know, led to their first World Championship since . . . what year was that? And shortly, their second.

So, I hate to say it, especially as much regard as I personally have for the gentleman in question, but it’s a possibility that this gentleman . . . could be . . . may have been . . . the embodiment of the very curse he spent his career trying to overcome. It’s as if the Red Sox weren’t allowed to have a World Championship during the lifetime of the only other man to ever wear a Red Sox uniform that could be ranked on the same level as the Babe.

Of course, this is the 21st century, and I’m a grown man, AND a Christian, and I just don’t believe in curses.

Right?

And if I did, I would note that that curse must also affect the New York Yankees, the ultimate nemesis in the most storied rivalry in the history of sport. It should be noted that the Yanks never won a championship before the acquired Babe – and before the Splendid Splinter was born – and it would stand to reason that they should never win another after Teddy Ballgame passed.

But in fact they did just that in 2010. Their 27th. And if Ted Williams was the lynchpin of the curse, then that shouldn’t have been possible.

Whew. It was all just a coincidence, then.

Right?

House of the Rising Sun

I've been rediscovering a song that I have a big emotional attachment to. I've been away from it for quite a while, which is good, because I used to get terribly incensed whenever I heard The Animals' version of it.

I've talked to sources that insist the song comes from the 1890's, and was originally known as The Prostitute's Lament. Somebody told me once that it was written by Blind Lemon Jefferson, but that is unlikely. Apparently, the original author is lost in obscurity. The oldest recording of it I ever came across was on an old Best of Woody Guthrie record. The version was probably recorded in the '30's or '40's, and was about two and a half minutes long. To be honest, I don't remember much else about it.

The version that Eric Burdon (of The Animals, who gets erroneous credit for writing the song) heard was from Bob Dylan's first album. Dylan actually stole the arrangement from Dave Van Ronk, who was playing it in Greenwich Village and had planned on recording it himself until it showed up on Dylan's album. That version has eight verses. Burdon took the five he liked best, which brought it down to a better length for a single.

Burdon also changed the subject of the song from female to male. "And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy . . ." No, dammit, it wasn't. Many a boy with enough money for a good time came and went from the House of the Rising Sun, but it was poor girls for whom it was the ruination. Also, for your information, Frijid Pink did yet another arrangement of the song in 1969, that rocks the socks off the Animals' version in my humble opinion.

Here’s an interesting piece on the song from the BBC’s website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A12460772

Enjoy.

Simon and Garfunkel

It has been my pleasure of late to re-enjoy one of the favorite acts of my youth. It kind of kicked off when a friend gave me a book of Paul Simon lyrics that they got on sale at a local Borders store. This got me digging around my CDs and cassettes, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it. Looking back, they had an amazing career and a substantial influence.

You must remember that we’re talking about an act that only put out five albums, and one of them never sold in significant numbers. They were signed by Columbia during what James Taylor refers to as the “Great Folk Scare.” This is the same folk movement, inspired by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, that gave us Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and like most movements a thousand pretenders that sank without a trace. Do a google search for Inman And Ira and see what I mean.

Anyway, Paul Simon and Arthur Garfunkel had a hit single back in high school, performing as Tom And Jerry. Simon went on to do a stint at the fabled Brill Building, along with people like Carole King. When folk music started showing up on television shows like Hootenanny and the folk-protest movement looked like it was going to displace rock ‘n’ roll, Paul got together with his old classmate in 1963 and recorded Wednesday Morning 3 AM.

But this proved not to be the path to stardom after all. Simon continued on performing and writing, but Garfunkel returned to suburban New York and got on with his life. Paul eventually pulled up stakes and moved to England where he tried to get his music career jump-started.

Fast forward to ’65 or ’66, where some enterprising Columbia A&R man took a track off the pair’s album and overdubbed a small rock band. The song was called Sounds Of Silence. Record company execs liked what they heard and released it as a single. Next thing they knew, an act they had released two years previously suddenly had the number one single in the land.

While the company was cobbling together an album from various Simon demos and bits of Wednesday Morning 3 AM, they talked the duo into coming back together and giving it another go. The Sounds Of Silence album ended up being one of the biggest records of Beatles-dominated 1966, and a pair of stars were born.

Part of the appeal of Simon and Garfunkel was that they embodied the intellectual, poetic vibe that made Bob Dylan so popular, but with a lot more musicality and considerably more mainstream attitude. They were the safe Dylan, so to speak. It was music aimed at a specific demographic; college students from New York City. This turned out to be something a lot of middle class kids aspired to in the mid 60’s.

The next album, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme, brought this to the fore. It was the first opportunity since Wednesday Morning for Paul and Artie to craft some new music, and now they had a mandate and some money to work with. Enter producer Roy Halee, and the unit was complete. Listening back to it now, the album had some remarkable arrangements. Now in 2010 it’s hard to imagine a time when bass and drums were not obvious choices, but you won’t hear much of them on S&G albums.

Lyrically, Paul’s songs from this period come off as being a little pretentious. They show us a world right out of The Graduate. It’s for the sons and daughters of cocktail-sipping suburbanites who’ve sent their offspring to the finest schools to prepare them for more of the same. These offspring walk around in expensive coats and berets, books of poetry tucked under their arms. Some stanzas from “The Dangling Conversation” sum it up nicely:

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we’ve lost

Ick. C’mon, Paul, get a real job, wouldja?

Yes, we speak of things that matter
With words that must be said
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?

And yet, it’s really a very pretty song that sticks with you even if the words sometimes seem just a little precious. One must remember that Paul Simon was probably one of the preeminent acoustic guitarists of the ‘60’s, and along with Roy Halee’s arrangements and production these albums sound great. Paul is also remarkably generous in giving Artie some great songs to be the lead singer on, including some of their biggest hits.

And, Paul was also aware of his own perspectives and wasn’t afraid to poke fun at himself. A great example of this is “A Simple Desultory Philippic,” which artfully skewers his own muse. It makes reference to everything going on around them in 1967. The whole album is swimming with cultural and now-historical references that really make the era come alive, up to and including the album’s final track, “Silent Night/7 O’clock News.” At the time it was chilling. Now, it’s a litany of names that anyone my age never thought they’d forget, and discover they had. References to Lenny Bruce and Richard Speck are joined with the eerily prophetic words of “Former Vice President Richard Nixon,” saying that the war in Vietnam could last “another five years.”

This album was followed in ’68 with Bookends. The album was recorded and mixed in between tours and other commitments, but it’s a clear leap forward from Parsley Sage etc. Paul’s songwriting was maturing quickly, especially in regards to his lyrics. Here’s some lines from “Punky’s Dilemma.”

Wish I was an english muffin
‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster
I’d ease myself down
Comin’ up brown

I don’t care, I love stuff like that. Songs like this and “Hazy Shade of Winter,” which the Bangles would later do an excellently rockin’ version of, were great. And he could still do the sensitive, beautiful stuff they were most famous for and that Artie’s voice was best suited for. The album may have been velcroed together piecemeal, but it’s still great.

They finished up their dual career with arguably their best work, Bridge Over Troubled Water. The title kind of said it all. Their friendship had really ended before Sounds of Silence, but there was money to be made and audiences to be wowed. Hearing yourself on the radio is pretty cool, too. Still, it was getting to the point that they couldn’t stand to be in the same room together. They decided to do one more album and call it a career. Both intended to continue on as solo acts.

Paul was again generous in giving Artie the lead on what would turn out to be their biggest hit ever, the album’s title track. If Garfunkel by himself was going to fail, he had no one to blame but himself because you couldn’t ask for a bigger gold star on your resume.

The album is startlingly good all these years later. Gone is the pretentiousness of Parsley Sage. Firmly in place are the brilliant Halee arrangements. A lot of it sounds damned odd to modern ears, but all of it sounds great. Even the slightly ragged flute duo doubling the vocal line on “El Condor Pasa” come off as haunting.

And the 1967 edition of Paul Simon would not have hesitated to write a tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright, but it would not have been as touching or beautiful as what the 1970 edition came up with. And as often happened with his best stuff, Art did a masterful job of singing the lead. Even the throwaway tunes like “Baby Driver” work.

Personally, the song I keep being impressed by on this album is “The Only Living Boy in New York.” This strikes me as the song that was missing from Bookends; the soft beautiful rambling little tune that would have made that whole album gel better. On this one, it tends to get lost. It’s also the one 40 years later that I come back to.

The penultimate tune was their tribute to their biggest influence; a live version of the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love.” And just when you think they couldn’t follow that, Simon throws on another little gem called “Song for the Asking.” A little peck on the cheek on the way out the door.

Simon hit the ground running, doing a self-titled album that coughed up two hit singles. There Goes Rhymin’ Simon did the same. For his third solo album, 1977’s Still Crazy After All These Years, he teamed up for one song with Garfunkel. The song, “My Little Town,” was released simultaneously on both their solo albums. This was the only glimmer of light for Artie’s solo career. Around the same time they did a reunion tour, but no album came from it except for the live one following the tour. They have occasionally repeated the reunion, but basically they just don’t like each other. They only do it because of public pressure, and it’s the only way Art can get in front of a real audience.

And as of 1986, people have finally stopped asking Simon about reunions anyway. For all his success as a solo artist it was always the hanging question; when are you getting back together with Garfunkel? In ’86 he went to South Africa and did an album that came to be called Graceland. It was a landmark event in pop music and it proved once and for all that he simply doesn’t need Art Garfunkel. Graceland reinvented and redefined Paul Simon forever.

My brother, Rett, got to meet Art Garfunkel once. He said Art came across as self-absorbed and arrogant, convinced of the supremacy of his talent.

In between Tom And Jerry and Wednesday Morning 3 AM Paul wrote a song called “Red Rubber Ball” that was a hit for a group called the Cyrkle. The song sucks. It just shows that, even for Paul Simon, it’s possible to suck.

In the mid and late 60's, Simon and Garfunkel were part of a select group of acts that defined the era. They weren't as big at the time, or as influential in the long term, as the Beatles, Stones, and Dylan. But they did lead the second rank. They kept the flame burning that the Everly Bros lit for harmony duos, and stretched the envelope musically.

They are definitely worth a listen. I personally would recommend starting with the Greatest Hits collection released in the '70's. Not every song on it was a big hit, nor did Columbia use the original studio versions of every song. The versions they did pick are striking in their differences from the original, and the whole collection works on a level that most Best Ofs don't. They left off certain singles in favor of things like a live version of "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" that is so much better than the version on Parsley Sage. Even if you've got all five of the original S&G albums, this one is worth having. And if you don't have anything of theirs, then there's no better place to start.

The Greatest Guitar Player in the World

A good friend of mine, Jim Ingraham of Thornton, NH was cleaning out his record collection. There were a ton of albums (you know, those big, black CD’s) that he wasn’t playing any more, and he knows that I collect, so he very graciously donated them to my ridiculously large library. So bit by bit I’m going through and playing them while I putter in my music room.

A lot of this stuff is early Contemporary Christian music from the ‘70’s. Quite frankly, a lot of it has more historical value than musical, and yet there’s a freshness and energy that sneaks through the questionable production values. They may not have had enough money or skill to sound like Zeppelin or Tull or James Taylor, but they believed what they were singing.

I put on a record by a group called Love Song and set to work doing something, probably changing the strings on a guitar. I was letting the music be a background noise, not really listening to it. The singer sang, and than a guitar solo came in. I stopped dead in my tracks. The sound was so distinctive, it could only be one person. Out of the fog of concentration it had reached in and grabbed me. I picked up the album cover and scanned the credits, and sure enough . . .

Phil Keaggy.

There’s a story – apocryphal, but a great and widely told story none the less – about an appearance by Jimi Hendrix on the Dick Cavett show. At one point Cavett asked him what it’s like to be the greatest guitar player in the world.

"I don’t know," Hendrix is supposed to have said. "Ask Phil Keaggy."

Hendrix called the tune that everybody playing a solid-body electric guitar in the 1970’s had to march to. Either you embraced him and tried your best to sound like him, or you ran screaming in the opposite direction and tried your best to NOT sound like him. Either way, there he was planted firmly in the middle of every note on the neck.

Hendrix had re-written the book on electric guitar and amplification. Love him or hate him, he had a distinctive sound that influenced absolutely everybody in the field of rock. Personally, I think Carlos Santana put it best; Jimi’s music was "wider" than anyone else’s.

One of the few that managed to distinguish himself outside the pack was a young Ohio native named Phil Keaggy. He came from the same music scene that over the years gave us Joe Walsh, Alan Freed, The Pretenders and Devo. He lost two fingers at the tender age of four in an accident on the family farm, but it didn’t keep him from being a prodigy on the guitar. He stands five feet, four inches and at certain times his singing voice sounds remarkably like Paul McCartney’s.

He came to the public’s attention when he was still in his teens. The band he was fronting, Glass Harp, got signed and he dove head-first into the rock-star lifestyle. He was on the road and high on drugs when he learned that his parents had been killed in a car accident. It caused him to re-examine his life, and before long he became a Christian.

Glass Harp was getting ready to record its second album, and there’s a lot of talk about how the band ended. Some say that there was tension over Phil’s new lifestyle and message. Some say it was just everybody wanting to expand beyond the three-piece group’s inherent restrictions. Whatever the cause, after their third album they broke up.

From 1973 through the ‘80’s Phil’s music could best be described as Fusion/Jazz with vocals. The one exception was "Master And The Musician," his first all-instrumental album and still among his most highly regarded. His albums have never sold particularly well, but he did a lot of session work and had connections with most of the Contemporary Christian musicians of the day.

One album I would highly recommend from this era is a live set he recorded in 1977 with Second Chapter of Acts called "How the West was One." They were doing a West-coast tour, y’see. It’s a very well recorded example of his pristine mid-70’s sound. The live version of his classic, "Time" is not to be missed.

A pattern soon developed around Phil and his music. In Contemporary Christian music (also known as CCM) a big hit of the day would sell maybe 100,000 copies. Much less than that, and your contract didn’t get renewed. It’s a very unforgiving genre, but purely by necessity. After all, Christians have bills to pay, too, and there were no Michael Jacksons or U2’s to make big bucks for them. So every album had to sell well.

Phil’s did not, so it wasn’t long before his label dropped him. Another quickly picked him up along with the back catalogue, simply because of the prestige of having CCM’s only bonefide Guitar Hero. Fortunately for him, his concerts always drew well and that’s probably where he’s made most of his living. But as time has gone by, the back catalogue has gotten heavier and his albums >sigh<>

The big change came at the end of the ‘80’s with the release of "Sunday’s Child." He had done the fusion thing to death and was every serious guitarist’s secret vice; the bible thumper who burned the strings. But his audience was getting smaller and smaller and he was staring down the barrel of yet another dropped record company option. Sorry, Phil, we can’t afford you.

At any rate, he went into the studio and did something he hadn’t done for a long time; a rock and roll record. It was so good, so much fun, that it took repeated listenings to notice that there were hardly any guitar solos on it. Nobody minds, though, because it was his best album in years and still stands as one of his best ever. After that he dove headfirst back into the rock music he grew up with.

Recommended Listening:

What A Day (1973) – His first solo album, and still great after all these years.

Emerging (1977) – The Phil Keaggy Band, featuring keyboardist Phil Madeira. A great album, and it shows just how far from the Hendrix norm of the ‘70’s Phil went. Good songs, good recording. Its predecessor, "Love Broke Thru," had great songs but Buck Herring’s production made it sound stiff and flat. "Emerging" is much better.

Master and the Musician (1978) – You have to put this on, because even Phil refers to it. His first instrumental record. It was the sort of thing your label gave you permission to do, back in the day. It is really good.

Town to Town (1981) – This is much better than the record that followed it, "Play Thru Me." The differences between them are subtle. The former holds up better over time. Some of the songs on the latter are just a little twee. Town to Town just feels more relaxed, more natural. Especially good are the songs, "Full Circle" and the title track. Also really good is his rendition of the old hymn, "Rise Up, O Men of God."

Getting Closer (1985) – After "Play Thru Me," he got dropped by his label; Sparrow, I think. Phil wandered in the wilderness for a couple years, living off live shows and plugging away in his home studio. This period is captured in the album, "Underground, Volume 1." It’s got some very good tunes, but sounds very homemade. When he got signed again, his reply was "Getting Closer," and it’s a triumph. Energetic, great tunes, excellent production values, and best of all a guitar tour de force.

Way Back Home (1988) – An all-acoustic album, with themes reaching back to his childhood. A re-release on CD years later had most of the lead vocals re-recorded, which I thought was pointless. The original version I have on cassette is better. The CD also includes an extra piece that I suppose for total Phil devotees is interesting, but for my money breaks up the musical vibe too much. It’s snippets of an audio recording of a Keaggy family gathering, with Phil noodling on guitar recorded over it.

Sunday’s Child (1989) – There’s not enough one can say about this album. As I mentioned before, it’s the one that changed everything. This was Phil’s liberation. Not that the jazzy stuff wasn’t great, but this one feels more fun than anything he’s done before or since. Cameos by Russ Taff and Randy Stonehill and a couple of really good Mark Heard songs actually up the ante.

Find Me in These Fields (1990) – And his very next album was, in my humble opinion, even better. Just as much fun, but painted with a broader brush. Phil Madeira, the keyboard player from Emerging, and John Sfarzo, Glass Harp’s drummer, made appearances on this one.

Crimson and Blue (1995) – This was sort of Phil’s last shot at rock stardom. His record company at the time made a big push with this one, and even prepared three different versions of the album. Crimson and Blue itself was aimed at the CCM audience. Another version, Blue, had some different tunes and remixes of some others and was directed toward the secular world. Yet another offshoot, Revelator, was released as a special treat to the Phil fans. The original is the best, trust me.

Phil Keaggy (1998) – This one is more acoustic, and very Irish-influenced, and it’s great.

He has also done a number of instrumental albums, most of which find their audience in the New Age Music genre. There are also instrumental things like the hard rockin’ "220." If you’re a guitar player, file it with your Satch and Vai CDs.

I have seen Phil live, hmm, lessee, four times in all. The last time was around 1991 or ‘2 or so with my wife. He and Randy Stonehill were sharing the bill in support of Sunday’s Child and Find Me In These Fields and he kicked butt. They both did, actually. Lynn went to see Stonehill and I, of course, was there for Keaggy, and we both came away impressed with the other’s performer. Phil ran his guitars through a rack as tall has he is and from there into a Vox AC30.

Before that I saw him at Gordon-Conwell College in Mass, sharing a bill with Brian Duncan. Duncan was good, but the room and their sound system made him sound muddy. For some reason, Phil’s sound was much better, especially the vocals. Maybe I’m just prejudiced. This was around ’86 or ’87, in support of Getting Closer.

I also saw him at the Creation festival in Pennsylvania around 1987. Good show but kind of overshadowed by the whole festival atmosphere. He was one of the smaller acts on the bill, so he played in the afternoon.

The first time I saw him was in 1984 at California Christian Center in Sacramento, Ca. Four-piece band with a second guitarist. It was a good show, but funny in a way. You could tell it had been a long tour; they all looked tired. Phil came out and burned the frets for three songs to get the guitar players in the room excited. Then, he and the band shifted gears and we did some serious worship. Phenomenal show!

I was there with the friend who led me to Christ, Rick Nixon. We stayed until after so he could try and talk to Phil. We hung back while all the guitar players grilled him for about half an hour with the same babble of questions I’m sure he’s put up with for years; what kind of strings do you use, how high’s your action, what are those pickups, what guitar did you use on this song . . . It was endless and he looked very tired, but was very patient and kind.

As a sidebar, this is one of the things I like about Christian concerts. The artists generally take time at the end of the show to mingle with the crowd.

Anyway, Rick and I finally got our turn. Rick explained that the Lord had put on his heart that he should pray for Olivia Newton-John. Phil had recently done some magazine ads with Randy Stonehill and the British singer, Cliff Richard. Cliff had done a movie with O N-J. Rick asked Phil (are you still with me?) if Cliff had ever mentioned Olivia’s spiritual state of mind.

Phil took this in patiently, then gave us a look like he was waiting for the punchline. Then he realized that this young man was actually concerned about Olivia Newton-John’s salvation. He smiled, and said he was sorry but the subject never came up, but I think he was touched that Rick chose to ask that question of him. It was a nice moment, and I can tell you that Phil Keaggy is an honestly nice man.

The thing that, above all else, makes him worthy of the title I gave him up top is not just his skill. Lots of people have skill. It's his versatility. Over the years he has absorbed elements from an increasingly diverse universe of the guitar. You can hear snatches of Allan Holdsworth, Andres Segovia, Michael Hedges, and many others. And yet, he is distinctly, identifiably, Phil. Nobody sounds like Phil, and he can play any kind of music.

I don’t know if he’s actually got a record deal at this time, but he still records and performs prolifically. He also freely jumps back and forth between differing styles; vocal, instrumental, electric, acoustic, retro, post-modern, and anything else that tickles his fancy. The last few years he’s also been into looping, which uses multiple layers of delay to create compositions. He’s also presided over the reformed Glass Harp, which has released new music. For more information, and corrections of the things I got wrong, click on the title.

Open Letter to a Rich Person

Hi. There’s been a lot of talk about you lately. President Obama has decided that you’re being paid too much, and he is – or members of his administration, at least, are – cutting your pay. It may be up to 90%. And the scary part, from your perspective at least, is that most people seem to be all for it. Even people who are against it for moral/political reasons think you deserve it.

You may count me among them. The one thing that I think will make it stick is that it’s going to happen to rich guys whose companies took stimulus money. That gives the lender some say in things like that, like it or not. They can do it to Chrysler, but they can’t do it to Ford.

Your stockholders should have already done it, but they dropped the ball just like they did when they hired you to lead the company. If you’d done a job worthy of a big bonus, they wouldn’t be in the trouble they’re in now. I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. Consider yourself lucky that you have a job.

Why is this attitude so pervasive in American society? I’ll tell you, simply and succinctly; it’s because you’re an asshole. Think about that next time you go out to a restaurant, or the grocery store, or get gas for your BMW. Listen to the words that come out of your mouth to the people who serve you, get you things, hand you your change, ask you for more detail regarding what you want, and then smile and say, "Thank you, have a nice day."

Day after day I have had you and people like you look me in the eye and call me stupid, or say something that shows you think I’m stupid, in spite of my education and experience. I know my job, and I hope I’m not guilty of sinful pride when I say I’m pretty darned good at it. When you come up and spout gibberish and I don’t leap into action, it’s your fault. Your explanation of what you want makes no sense to me. When I come back with questions that you have to actually think about, it’s because I want to give you what you want and I’m trying to figure out what that is. Coming back with the same gibberish, only louder, does not expedite the process.

You seem to forget that you need us, and we don’t need you. You ought to carry that thought around for a while. Your ability to be an asshole with no negative repercussions relates directly to the amount of money you have, and nothing more. You don’t seem to realize that your attitude toward the people that feed you, clothe you, and get you things to amuse you is reprehensible. Try to imagine what your life would be like if you woke up one morning and your bank account was empty. Your job was gone. The things you own are being repossessed. By 10 in the morning, you’re standing beside the road with the clothes on your back. And the rest of us are going about our business with no more cares than the night before. We don’t need you.

We grow the food. We pick it. We transport it to places where people will buy it. We build the store it’s sold in, and the truck that brought it. We clear the land it’s built on. And if you and your kind were to vanish tomorrow morning, we’d manage without you. We were growing, traveling, and building long before there were any banks or corporations.

But what about you? If we were all to disappear, who would bring you your latte? Who would make it? Who would harvest the coffee beans and milk the cow? Who would feed the cow?

None of us, really, doubt that you work hard. Or that you serve a useful purpose in society. We all have bank accounts, and take out loans, and we like the fact that if we buy a Chevy in Idaho we can easily get parts for it in Georgia. It’s people like you, managing these large organizations and their interaction, that make these things possible. You make and distribute the movies and music and TV shows we enjoy. You excel at the games we’ve invented, and it’s entertaining to watch you do it. We take significant amounts of our income and freely spend them to enjoy the fruits of your labors, and don’t begrudge you a dime as long as we get what we’re paying for. After all, we’ve got families to feed and bills to pay, and we hate getting ripped off as much as you do.

So when you come into the places we work so hard in and act like we’re ripping YOU off, we don’t like it. We’re not, usually, and your contempt is unjustified. You should behave better, and you should certainly teach your kids to. Have you ever seen them in line for food at a ski area? Have you heard the things they say to the people providing them sustenance? If my kids behaved that way, I’d discipline them.

Or do you even know your kids? Do you spend time with them, or do you shunt them off to schools and then in the summer shunt them off to camps? Do you send them postcards from the places you go, with two gushy sentences about how much you love them, while they deal with surrogate parents paid to amuse them for a month or two? Is that how you were raised? No wonder you’re an asshole.

Why not consider this; you’re in a Dunkin’ Donuts, or a Post Office, or a Mercedes-Benz dealership, or the place you store your boat, or a lift line at Loon Mountain. You need something. You come to a person who makes his living by getting you breakfast, or shipping your package, or making sure you don’t break your neck getting on the chair lift. Already, today, that person has served dozens, maybe even hundreds, of other people successfully. They’ve been doing it for a while, and they’re probably going to be doing it for a while longer. Maybe years. Maybe for life.
Try this; be nice. Smile at them. Thank them. Act, for two seconds, as if you appreciate their efforts, and maybe even care about them. Wish them well. Yeah, I know, you don’t care, but try and appear like you do. Just for two seconds. Believe me, they will remember you. They will mention it to others. It will give them a lift. It will even make them want to do their jobs better. And if it doesn’t appear to do that, it’s because so many people like you have been so harsh to them for so long, they’ve tuned it all out. So do it again. Don’t be pushy, just be nice. Keep it up, and it will eventually rehumanize them.

And, just maybe, it will rehumanize you, too.

And as for your pay, just suck it up. Those of us who make your life possible and get low to mid five figures for doing it would trade with you in a heartbeat.

A Few Thoughts on Health Care Reform

>sigh<

Okay, I can’t resist. Here goes.

Two big problems with the health care system in this country. 1) It’s expensive. 2) Not everybody has access to it.

1) Expensive

Watched my retired parents deal with the first problem. Medicine is expensive, and so are doctors. On the surface, it appears that putting both under control of the federal government completely solves the problem. The government sets the price. Every doctor and nurse in the country is now a federal employee, and Uncle Sam now owns the pharmaceutical companies.

1a) Expensive: Postal solution

We’re still on problem one, right? Expensive? Okay, there’s two ways to deal with that. Always two ways. >sigh< One is to make the health care system like the Postal System, my current employer. I’ve been with the company for 21 years, and have had a good close-up view of how it works from the inside.

The US Postal System is going through a very rough patch right now, as with the downturn in the economy and changes in the way people do things, we’re losing a ton of money. There is pressure from every side on this company right now. Our customers want us to keep our prices down and continue to provide the same service as before, or better. Each post office is under pressure from management to increase revenue and reduce costs.

There are some things that the USPS could do that would help, but we can’t get them done. For instance, we could close a bunch of small, unprofitable post offices that one could argue aren’t needed because they’re close to bigger, more profitable ones. But they’ve been there for a hundred years, and their handful of customers complain to their representatives in Congress and Congress says no, you can’t close them. Or, we could consolidate certain parts of the company and let employees go, but they’re represented by Unions, which complain to the politicians, and no, you can’t let them go.

So let’s say instead of a local Postmaster, I’m now the local Healthmaster, running a small clinic in a small town. The people in the town wish I was better equipped and staffed, because I can’t do things like appendectomies or other surgical procedures. The US Health System won’t give me the money I would need to have an operating room and keep a surgeon on staff, because there aren’t enough people in my area to pay for it. He’d be playing solitaire all day because there’d only be two or three surgeries to perform every week, and the OR would collect dust. As would the surgeon’s skills.

So I get promoted, and instead of running a level 13 clinic I now run a level 18 hospital in a larger town. They’ve got OR’s and surgeons, but they work like slaves because all these people from the small outlying towns have to come here to get anything besides Band-Aids and flu shots. And word just came down the pipeline from HQ that the cost-of-living increases we were expecting have been postponed for another two years because the economy’s taken a bad turn and an election year’s coming up.

That pipeline, which comes from District Management, says that I have to trim my expenses, because more budget cuts are on the way. Oh, and there’s been more complaints that people in my area are being told they have to wait because there’s a line ahead of them waiting to see their doctor, and can we speed things up a little bit? And no, you can’t have more doctors because you’re not budgeted for them and besides it’s harder to get them because no one wants to go to medical school any more because the local mailman makes more than a doctor these days.

1b) Expensive: the Military Option

The military is a former employee of mine, so I’ve got a little insight into its workings as well. In my case, the US Navy. The other way to manage a federal health care system would be to do it like that. Hand it a blank check and give it anything it needs. So now I’m no longer the local Healthmaster, I’m Major Clogston, Commanding Officer of the local clinic.

Sitting here thinking about it, there’s a lot to be said for this method. The Captain of an aircraft carrier doesn’t think about the price of gas when planes are shooting down the flight deck, burning enough jet fuel to light Seattle. Neither does the commander of that tank brigade. People complain about the Pentagon’s budget, but by gosh when you need them you’re glad you’ve got the best.

But the US Health Corps’ budget would dwarf the Pentagon’s. The US Armed Forces together have about 210,000 active duty officers. There are approximately 1.5 million physicians in the United States. And then there’s all the nurses, and paramedics, and EMTs, and janitors, and office staff, and kitchen help, and pharmacists, just like the Army has enlisted men.

But the blank-check caution-to-the-wind method is the only way you’ll get doctors and pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment companies to continue to develop and produce at the levels they do now. Let’s face facts; countries that have single-payer health care systems come to us for drugs and medical equipment, and their doctors come here to work because they can make money. If you have figures that show otherwise, please put them in the comments sections of this blog.

And if you’re thinking that the military option is actually good, then I need to tell you something. When I was in the Navy, the striking thing that I will always remember about it was how much got stolen. We would have a working party unloading a truck full of food, and by the end of the day I would estimate a good third of it walked back off the ship, or went into somebody’s locker. And that happened with everything. Need a pair of pliers? A new toilet seat for your home? You name it, the base or ship or whatever has got piles of them lying around.

In my observation, I would guess that the people who work there steal a good portion of our military budget. The same thing would happen to a government-run health care system.

2) Access

I’m totally tired of all the hyperbole over how many people don’t have health insurance. If you show up at an emergency room, they have to take care of you. It’s the law. Then they send you a bill. That’s business. But you still get waited on, whether or not you ever pay it. I think everyone who thinks that health care should be free should immediately apply for medical school.

I agree with the people who say, whatever insurance system Congress and the President come up with should apply to them as well.

I would have less of a problem with what they call the public option if it were administered by the states instead of the federal government. There are a lot of advantages to state-level government programs, as I have discussed in other articles on this blog. Read them.

This brings us to Medicaid. Yes, there’s a lot about it that’s broken. So fix it! Here’s a link to a good article about Medicaid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

You improve Medicaid, you’ve solved the access problem.

3) Bullshit

That’s the biggest problem with the whole debate. There’s so much being said about reform that you can’t actually find out what the facts are. There’s 1100 or so pages of legislation floating around that nobody gets to see, or apparently can understand. Who writes this stuff?

Here’s an FYI fer ya. An insurance company is not a health care provider. It is an investment firm. Most of their profits come not from the premiums their customers pay, but from the investments they make with them. It’s like a bank. They don’t pay their staff and their light bill out of the deposits. Hell, they pay interest to the depositors! Then they invest the money on deposit.

But the government does not invest the money it gets from taxpayers. Whatever money the government pays to doctors and hospitals, it has to get it all from us. The next time a politician says they can do public option health insurance without increasing the deficit, you will know what a liar looks like.

And both sides are guilty. The people who owe their livelihoods to the current system are pulling out all the stops to fight the President’s reforms. Nothing breaks the back of a family’s finances quicker than a health issue. Have a heart attack, or get cancer, and you’re poor. There actually is an outcry for reform.

Unfortunately, the reforms being offered are all politically motivated. Special interest groups like insurance companies, AARP, drug companies and such are driving the debate for their own benefit. Left-leaning ideologues are trying to wrestle control away from corporations, but without thinking through what will happen when they do. They talk about tearing down an edifice of greed, but that same edifice serves millions of people. What will they replace it with?

The basis of what I’m trying to say is this; let’s not break the parts that work. You’ve got a better idea for a health care system? Fine. Start a company and sell subscriptions to it. Compete with the current options in the public market place. My suggestion for the government is to revamp and upgrade Medicaid. You come up with a way to have cheap doctors and drugs with no loss in quality, sign me up.

And for that matter, taking better care of yourself will go a long way in that department.

I’ll shut up now.

Matt Smart

I had the privilege of seeing the latest evolution of one of the finest musicians in New England the other night. It was at a benefit party/concert at King's Lumber's airfield in Wentworth, NH. Bob King and his partner, whose name I've sadly forgotten, played, and then me, and it finished up with Matt Smart's band. Bob and his friend were very good, and the audience was very kind to me, thank you very much. The benefit was for the Warren/Wentworth Ambulance Service.

The first time I met Matt he was about 19 and already sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughn. I don't mean just played the notes, I mean he did it with real soul. That was probably ten years ago, and he's done nothing but improve since.

He hung around with me and the band I was in for a while, back when Chris Sweeney and I were playing as The Flexibles. He liked the variety of music we did, but he's always been primarily a modern blues man. Last night I saw a more mature artist, but one who is still stretching out. He's left the SRV clone behind and is working more from a modern Southern Rock stance, channelling Duane Allman and Steve Gaines from latter Skynyrd.

He started the night on a Les Paul, but quickly switched to a Telecaster, which he's clearly more comfortable with. He's also taken the step of being this band's lead singer, and he's not bad. Al Boucher played great drums, and I believe the bass player's name was Fish, and he was very good as well. Plus, Bob King joined them on second guitar, but I don't think he's a regular member of the group.

As far as rock guitar goes, the only serious competition to Matt is Mike Bottigio of Cobalt Blue, and Mike's got about twenty years on Matt. Mike is simply incredible; a Hendrix disciple but with his own distinct voice. That is something that Matt doesn't have quite yet, but it's coming. He's an incredible player, but he hasn't hit that Carlos Santana/Phil Keaggy identifiability yet.

And yes, I know there are guitarists out there who have a lot more technique than Matt, Mike, or any other rock and roller. But if rock and roll is your music, these are the guys that everyone else in New England has to answer to. And dat's de name o' dat tune.

Filling Out Forms

There are many musical forms, although you might not be aware of that if your knowledge is limited to modern popular music. Oh, yeah, all kinds of forms.

The basic song form that is commonly used now is pretty flexible, which is probably why it’s so popular. You start out with a piece of a song. A verse, a chorus, maybe four lines, maybe eight, however it comes together. Aerosmith’s regular formula is to start with a chorus. Steven Tyler says that if you’ve got a good hook, you can write a song around it. It’s the same method that Merle Travis, the great Country picker, liked to use. He would take one line and write the chorus backward from that line, making it the final one. Then he came up with verses that led to that chorus.

AC-DC has simplified the process even more. Since the death of Bon Scott, the standard AC-DC song takes the title and repeats it four times. There’s your chorus. Some of Bon’s tunes used to be a little more free form, but the Brian Johnson era has been their most successful by a long ways.

There are four basic elements of music; melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. Those are all part of even a line from a song. You put together a group of lines, you have a verse or whatever. What you do with the lines, and the groups of lines, becomes the form.

Let’s say you’ve got a verse. Let’s write one, right now, all right?

Oh, baby
I love you
‘Deed I do
Really do

Whew! Look out, Lennon and McCartney! All right, there’s a verse. Let’s call that A. I don’t know what music you hear in your head for that, but let’s say it’s sixteen bars long. In the key of C, so the piano players can do it without any black keys. So it’s four bars of C, four bars of F, four of G, and back to C for the final four. Now, let’s do a second verse.

Oh, honey
Glad you’re mine
All the time
Dipped in slime.

We’re in a hurry, here. Same chord progression. Now we haven’t discussed a melody, tempo, instrumentation, or any of that. We have the basic rhythmic structure and the harmony, and that’s it. But that’s enough to show how a basic song is written. So we have pattern A, then we repeat it. A A. Now we need a chorus.

Baby honey mine
Guess that makes me yours
Gee, that’s really fine
Going? Shut the doors.

Keeping up? Okay then. Change the chord progression around a bit. Two bars of F, four of C, two of G, and repeat. That keeps it the same length as the verse, although it’s not necessary. But an important factor is that it ends on the V (five) chord, which leads back into the next verse. Oh, yes, there’s another verse. So let’s call this chorus the B section.

Right now, we have three parts to our song; A, A, B. Oh, all right, let’s just repeat the first verse and stick it at the end. Some great songs were done that way. Check out your hymnbook next time you’re at church. Of course, the sky’s the limit. We could do a lot more. Chorus again, then another verse, or write a third section and have that be the bridge. That would be C.

Let’s take a quick look at a popular, highly regarded song; Hey Jude, by the Beatles. It’s laid out like this:

Verse
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge, which is that na-na-na-nananana part.

Or, A A B A B C.

This is basically how songs get written. Sometimes it’s that mathematical, by people who know how it’s done. Sometimes it’s practically by accident, by people who get lucky. The standard song form is so ubiquitous now, it’s pretty easy for even an unschooled amateur to at least know if he’s done it right.

Let me give you an example. You’ve given a kid a ream of paper and told them they can draw anything they like. Sky’s the limit. So they grab a pencil and begin. They start off with pictures of family, pets, things they know. They put away the pencil and get crayons, colored pencils, water colors, oil paints, pastels, and so on. They move on to pictures from their imaginations, which could be things that don’t even exist or have any conscious meaning.

You would think that this kind of freedom, with this much access to materials, that the kid would be able to reach to the heights of artistic accomplishment. And yet, when you gather the pictures all together, you suddenly realize that they’re all 8 ½ by 11 inches and have a white background. All 500 of them.

It’s kind of like listening to the radio. Song after song, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, one after the other. Switch from classic rock to country to easy listening to alternative and on and on. Different styles, themes, sounds, but in basic ways all the same; all 2 to 4 minutes long, constructed from verses, choruses, and bridges.

This century has been an interesting one from a musical standpoint. On the one hand, every time you turn around there are different sounds available and they’re put together in different combinations. An orchestra of instruments has been divided, recompiled, reconfigured and added to with yet whole new orchestras of instruments. To the strings, horns, and percussions of old were added electronic synthesizers and differing systems of amplification and recording, as well as effect treatments.

And yet for all this experimentation with tone and timbre, with rhythm, harmony, and melody, the basic form of composition has settled into what can only be called a deep rut. A perfect example of this is the band "Primus," which has certainly stretched the sonic boundaries of what can be done with guitar, bass, and drums. And yet, most of their pieces are still verse, chorus, and maybe bridge constructions of three to five minutes.

It’s like having a fenced-in yard in which you keep a dog. The dog changes shape until it’s a caribou, a tiger, a gerbil, or a sperm whale, and yet the size of the yard never changes. And it still can’t break free. So now that you’ve seen the fence, here are some listening recommendations that might help you find a way out of the confines of 20th-century song form.

U2

These guys hit popular music back in 1980 as if they just stepped off the mothership from another world. They wrote and played like they were just inventing music themselves. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. was the only trained musician in the group, and none of them knew how to write songs. They used this to their advantage and simply did what sounded best to them. I think it’s telling that Bono, upon accepting the Grammy award for Song of the Year for "Beautiful Day" laughed because the song had no hook. Check out their first album, "Boy," or middle period stuff like "Unforgettable Fire" and "Joshua Tree."

Frank Zappa

I could make a long list of rock songwriters who play around outside the norm, but nobody did it better than Frank. He considered himself more jazz than rock, and jazz has never really been comfortable claiming him either. He was actually more of a disciple of avant-garde composers like Edgar Varese and Aaron Schoenburg than any popular songwriters. The difference between Frank and his inspirations was that Varese, Schoenburg and their ilk made music that is all but unlistenable. They had to explain the intellectual basis for their music to get anyone to listen to it. Zappa, on the other hand, took the same intellectual groundings and made exciting, interesting, and sometimes even danceable records with it. His crude sense of humor was what tended to attract people’s attention, but the music was incredible. He made over fifty albums, and just about all of them are amazing, but some are rather difficult to stomach unless you’re really into toilet humor. I recommend "One Size Fits All," "Roxy and Elsewhere," "Freak Out," and "The Yellow Shark" for starters.

Progressive Rock

In the seventies there were a lot of bands that added synths and maybe a violin or a flute to standard rock and roll and called it progressive. Then, there were the real ones that rose above the pretenders. Groups like Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Jethro Tull, Genesis, Hawkwind, Nektar, Gentle Giant, and on and on. Extended composition was the order of the day, and album-length compositions were the coin of the realm. Plus, people came out of these bands after they broke up and stretched even further, usually in obscurity but the stuff is out there. Here are some of my favorite mind-stretchers:

Yes – "Close to the Edge"
ELP – "Tarkus"
Genesis – "Foxtrot"
Gentle Giant – "Power and the Glory"
Todd Rundgren – "Utopia"
Jethro Tull – "Thick as a Brick"

That’ll keep you busy for a while.

Jam Bands

As much as I dislike the Grateful Dead and Phish, the movement that grew in their wake has some pretty cool stuff. As a young songwriter, I was captivated by the notion that music moved in a linear fashion, but visual art like painting and sculpture was outside the boundaries of time. I contemplated the idea of music that could exist outside these boundaries. Then one day I realized that jam bands did this all the time. A good jam tune really had no beginning or end, just an endlessly revolving middle. Recordings do not really do this music justice, but even so I would direct you toward the work of Duane-era Allman Brothers like "Eat a Peach" and "Live at the Fillmore" for this genre at its best. Most good jam bands occupy a loosely-knot left field between country and blues. Just google "Bonaroo" for good links.

Jazz

That’s an awfully big area to cover. For our purposes today, look to Duke Ellington, especially "The Great London Concert" and his later bebop-influenced stuff. Also Miles Davis, who never stayed in one place too long. There’s also modern Free Jazz to consider. One particular album I would recommend for its sonic bravery is one from 1973 by guitarist John Abercrombie and keyboardist Jan Hammer, called "Timeless." It’s named that because they shied away from even using time signatures. Just about anywhere you go in Jazz, you’re going to find something interesting. Jazz was, and should still be, about breaking boundaries.

Classical

This is where the boundaries came from in the first place, in Western music anyway. The chromatic scale and the written language of music came from here. You would be hard pressed to find modern standard song form here at all! The deeper you get into the classics, the more inspiration there is to find. And many of these ideas have not even been scratched for use by a rock band. Just think of it; a whole palette of idea, just waiting for electric guitars and drums.

Film Score

Some of the most imaginative music of the twentieth century is used for background music in movies. Wanna get your socks knocked off? Put in a DVD of "Singing In The Rain" starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. Find the scene called "Broadway Melody." Now, close your eyes and ignore what’s happening on the screen. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then, I give up.

I can’t begin to tell you how many movies have good music in them. Most, really, to be honest, and hardly any of them just string together pop songs. You want to get really amazed? Then check out old Warner Brothers cartoons. I’ve got a CD of this music, composed by Carl Stalling, and it’s nothing short of brilliant. A songwriter or musician should listen to this and wonder how anyone could think of it.

So here’s hoping you find in this the inspiration to look beyond the three-minute song.

FDR And The Difference - part 1

This is the first of two, or maybe three, pieces intended to give a little perspective on the current economic downturn and the stimulus package.

One thing that keeps coming up is the comparison between the current situation and the great depression. I’m sorry, I should have capitalized that; The Great Depression. It makes me wonder if one day this will have a cool name that we capitalize. The comparison, of course, is ridiculous. But who knows? It’s young yet. I’m sure they didn’t come up with The Great Depression the same afternoon the stock market crashed, while brokers were still hurling themselves out of windows. It probably took a while to catch on.

This is where I have a little bit of an advantage. I, you see, am 53 years old. What that means is, while I personally missed TGD (The Great Depression), my parents had vivid memories of it. They grew up in it, and it colored everything they did for the rest of their lives. So when people go on about how bad it is, I agree that it’s not good, but don’t start comparing yet.

As I write this, in March 2009, unemployment is at roughly 8%. When I got out of the Navy in 1976, it was over 10% nationally and had been for some time. It also stayed that way for, well, basically into the second or third year of the first Reagan administration. And nobody was really sweating it, or comparing it to TGD. That would have been, thank you very much, ridiculous. Yes, it sucked. Yes, it took me six months, SIX MONTHS to get a decent job.

But during TGD, unemployment averaged 25%. That’s not two-point-five, that’s twenty-five. One in four people in the whole country were out of work. For ten years. And when it started, there was no Social Security, no Medicaid, no Medicare, none of that. People were losing everything they had, and getting put out on the street, and starving to death. Literally starving to death.

That is why people of my parents’ generation credit Franklin Delano Roosevelt with saving the country. New Deal programs like the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and NRA (National Relief Administration) put people to work when nobody else could. It quite literally saved the lives of millions of people.

It’s good to remember what kind of times TGD happened in. One of the results of the First World War was the overthrow of the Russian government by the Bolsheviks. There was a lot of fear in this, and other, countries that Communists were planning a revolution. The United States was an emerging world power, and Socialism was an exciting new idea that was making its way from theory to practice.

America responded by swinging hard right, leaving behind the idealism of Woodrow Wilson for the "normalcy" of Harding and Coolidge. Herbert Hoover was a hero during and after the war for leading the relief efforts that saved millions in Europe. He went on to be Harding and Coolidge’s Commerce secretary and rode that wave all the way into the White House. The Twenties were a boom time and government was very friendly with big business. It was Calvin Coolidge who said, "The business of America is business." The early days of the Hoover administration were a resounding "Amen."

And then, eight months in, came the crash. The government battened down the hatches and hoped that business would solve its own problems. It didn’t. Things got worse, recession became depression, and times were tough. Real tough. Soup kitchen tough. Riots in the street tough. A tent city sprang up on the National Mall in Washington, and it was dubbed "Hooverville."
Hoover actually began many of the programs that Roosevelt later got credit for, but it really took Roosevelt to get things turning around. The whole point of these programs was to give people a way to survive until the economy came back on line. Believe it or not, if you read what Roosevelt had to say on the subject, it was never intended for these relief programs to become permanent fixtures. More on this later, in another piece.

There were also a number of regulations that limited business practices that helped cause the crash. One of these regulations was the Glass-Steagall act, which separated commercial banks from investment banks. It was the repeal of this act in 1999, by the Republican congress and approved by the Clinton administration, that is one of the keys of our current crisis.

My folks were actually pretty lucky. Their families lived in the country. They had chickens, pigs, a cow or two, and a garden. My grandfathers were loggers, and everybody ate and stayed warm. Basically, if you could pay your mortgage and buy flour, you could live. In the cities, it was different. I’ve heard stories of kids who would steal a piece of fruit from the grocer on the corner, and the grocer never did anything about it because he knew it may have been the only thing they had to eat that day.

As the depression wore on there was a growing unrest centering in the cities of America. People who were scratching every day for that day’s food and shelter watched as Lenin was replaced by Stalin and the Weimar Republic gave way to Hitler. Hoover was a hero in 1928, but if he had won the election of 1932 he may have been the last President of the United States.

The cold truth that too few Conservatives are willing to face is that mankind is a fallen race. Businessmen, for all they do to keep the engine of capitalism humming along, are human beings too. They fall prey to the temptations of money and power, and strive to gather more of both to themselves even when it’s to the detriment of their fellow man. If you make it possible for them to gamble with other people’s money, more times than not they will. Business needs to be regulated by the government, at least to a certain extent.

The cold truth that too few Liberals are willing to face is that mankind is a fallen race. Politicians, no matter how idealistic they are when they start on the road of public life, are human beings too. They fall prey to the temptations of money and power, and strive to gather more of both to themselves even when it’s to the detriment of their fellow man. If you make it possible for them to take the power to make decisions and take risks out of the hands of creative, hard working individuals, they will. Government needs to be limited and decentralized, at least to a certain extent.

If these two sides of the coin, these two edges of the sword, are not kept in a careful balance, things go all out of whack. This country had tipped too far in one direction, and is now in the process of tipping too far in the other. But as bad as it is right now, it doesn’t begin to compare to the Great Depression. For that matter, it’s not even as bad as the period between Nixon and Reagan. So please, the next time somebody says this is the worst time since TGD, do yourself and everyone else a favor.

Laugh.