The Almighty Dollar

Recently, I heard a news program on the radio posing the question, “What are we going to do with all the silver Sacajawea dollars?” Nobody’s using them, apparently, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. When was the last time you used one?

The problem, I am told, is that people don’t use coinage over 25 cents or that paper money is easier to use. That answer, though, just begs another “why.” I know why, but it doesn’t have anything to do with paper vs. metal.

Hardly anything you can buy costs a dollar or less. A twenty oz. pop is typically $1.50, and a candy bar is a dollar now, the bigger ones more. And forget about the days when a gallon of gas cost less. Countless items used to be priced at a dollar or less, but are now more. Why congress didn’t realize this in 2007 when they minted a couple billions of these coins, I can only guess. I mean, it’s kind of a cool coin and all, but…seriously? Are we still minting these things and losing money? How can you lose money while making money? That’s a paradox a robot can’t even solve!

But I have an answer to the problem of what to do with them all. Make the silver dollar Sacajawea coins worth $2.00. 

Time to accept the monetary reality we’ve created for ourselves—and time to accept that the almighty dollar, to quote Devin the Dude, “ain’t what it useta be,” and that “hobos useta aks ya for a dollar, now the mothaf—-s aks ya for three” (Waiting to Inhale, 2007). Of course, you’d still have the paper dollars, but now, you’d have a perfect use for all those coins. The Sacajawea coin program could actually prove useful, instead of a boondoggle.

Maybe my economist friends will say, but wait! You can’t just do that! That’s currency manipulation. Maybe I can’t, but I know They can, and They often accuse the Chinese of doing this. But we’re warned that when none of these coins have been circulating, and then, suddenly, they become part of the money we all use, it’ll cause inflation. True enough, but why not take an equivalent value of paper dollars out of circulation. Men will have plenty of reasons to keep that change jingling in their pockets (to the inexplicable annoyance of their wives), and less cash giving them reasons to go to the chiropractor. Problem solved.

(Okay, it probably isn’t that simple.)

A Second Spin: The Dingees’ Crucial Conspiracy (or “Fired for Behaving Like Punks”)

It’s been ten years since this album’s quiet release. I picked it out of a bargain bin at a Christian bookstore for six dollars. I was sixteen, yet within the first five seconds, I could tell this album was a nightmare to market for Tooth and Nail Records, whose bread was (is…?) mostly buttered by the youth of evangelical America. In those first five seconds, I heard a can of spray paint shaken and sprayed—aural evidence of vandalism.

Suffice it to say, it was the last album the Dingees (g pronounced like a j) released on Tooth & Nail—although they had two previous on BEC, another branch of the same company—and judging from the lyrics, things didn’t end well. And, while I don’t have any insider information, I can reasonably guess at generalities to say that the Dingees, a ska-punk band, were dropped for—heaven forfend!—behaving like punks.

The genre “ska-punk” is a generality at best. They dabbled in a bit of everything, from straight-up reggae, to dub, to hardcore, to rock ‘n roll, in addition to ska and punk. Indeed, HM Magazine wrote that they were but “a fading memory” of third wave ska. But let’s not argue over semantics. Let’s get down to brass tacks about why they were dropped. The Dingees were dropped for at least one, but perhaps up to all four, of the following reasons:

1. Anti-record company / not profitable
2. Not Christian enough
3. Paranoid about the government
4. Ska was on the way out, anyway

From track one, this band tries to walk the line between speaking their minds and cloaking their intent in possibly Christian, yet possibly subversive, positions (at least, to neo-con America) both spiritual and political. If only the reviewers could understand the lyrics—lyrics which, according to Dan Bell, didn’t come with the promo CD. Which is a bummer, because the lyrics are one of this album’s strengths. My copy has something else that the promo CD didn’t have: a hidden track. Bell declared that there were no hidden tracks, but there most definitely is one, not at the very end of the album—as is customary—rather, in the middle. More on that in a moment. Without the lyrics, Bell was at a severe disadvantage and couldn’t give this album the shrift it deserved.

This absence wasn’t an accident. The album cover looks like Soviet propaganda, and that wasn’t an accident either. The title reads “Work! for the Crucial Conspiracy,” and at first glance, one might imagine that the band had a free-market-friendly stance on politics. The marketers tried to sneaky-Pete this album into conservative homes, hoping the conservative father would nod his head in approval and never think about the album again, his dividends being more pressing.

But ’tis a ruse. This album has a liberal, pro-proletariat stance all the way. Let’s just examine a few tracks and their lyrics.

“Moving Underground” plainly announces their subterranean plans, and could possibly tell their story with T&N, although that is speculation about clandestine events. It could have been some other label. Nevertheless, the Dingees washed onto California beaches in 1998 in a swell of ska-punk bands, only to be washed back out to sea in a riptide of corporate paroxysms as mentioned. Most ska bands are now working like every other schmuck. And so with the Dingees. In 2001, the Dingees went underground and most people forgot about them, but they’ve been together ever since. The song “Moving Underground” may tell their story.

They came on up and take their place in my face
There talkin big and they got so much to say
They say ‘I’m really digging on that sound that you play.
Whattya say lets take it to another level today?
How’d ya like to be on the radio, Magazine, and movie and the TV show?
I’m a go getter got to get up and go. Meet me uptown this time tomorrow.’

So then we wonder should we do this thing.
We go on down to hear them promising
We’ll be living like the kings on all the money we’ll bring
Your every whim that you want, catered to every need
‘We could move ya out of the underground.
There’s just one thing it’s about your sound.
Even though we love it, it’s a little run down.
Let’s meet ya in the middle, let’s move ya uptown.’

So that tore it, they explain:

And that’s the last we never saw of them.
Domino keeps falling like a chain reaction.
You cannot beat em. If you think of joining,
Come back the back door is open.
We will be here in the underground, etc.

And that is the last we never saw of the Dingees until last year’s ambitious Rebel Soul Sound System.

On “Moving Underground,” there is a hidden track, as I indicated. It is a hardcore track, and I believe it is a middle finger raised to this record company, whoever it is.

CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE YOUTH

You try to shake me to the ground Jah strike fire and burn!
You think I haven’t been around?
Jah strike fire and burn!
Don’t let the deal be.
Jah will bury you!

It’s a big conspiracy. They hate youth and they hate me!

Dems fightin’ words, and I love it (and I’m a pacifist!). The balls, man.

But from another point of view, imagine the A&R guy who has gotta drop these guys. How does he market this stuff? He knows reggae and dub ain’t too many signifiers away from signifyin’ ganj’ to his market. What’s more, the Dingees weren’t too horn heavy, and they weren’t saturating their guitar tone with the requisite amount of distortion—and that’s what he’s paying them to do. In the end, he’s gotta be like, alright, fuck it, ska’s dead anyway. Let’s cut our losses and sell it for six bucks. I’m surprised T&N actually released it, frankly. Contracts, I guess…

Another red flag for this album comes during “Latchkey Kids,” when Pegleg sings, “I’m full of fire, never better never been higher.” Not necessarily a drug reference, but again, think of who this is marketed to and what it must sound like to mom who went to that reggae-fest in her twenties. They also call God Jah, and they didn’t have the same mission that  their Christian ska contemporaries had, such as the Ws, whose doctrinal stance in “The Devil is Bad” is palpable to the average two-year-old. Or consider the O.C. Supertones mission: “The Supertones’ main message is Christ and Him crucified. We want to help people understand certain doctrinal truths.” The Supertones, for the record, also wanted to “get dumb like Beavis.”

The Dingees seem less concerned about doctrinal truths than actual truths about the world and the people running it. They also sing for and about real people, living and suffering both at home and abroad. In “Dear Sister, Dear Brother,” the singer encourages us that “For every hardship, there’s a reason, but you’re not seein’ so you’re not believin’,” the line referencing Jesus’ words to doubting Thomas. “World’s Last Night” is my favorite track, being both apocalyptic and hopeful at once, as they sing, “We don’t want the end. We want the beginning. We don’t want destruction, but we know it comes before a new creation.” The Dingees weren’t obviously Christian, but the message remains. Nevertheless, the Christian music market wants obvious songs that repeat the name Jesus to leave no doubts about the singer’s ecumenical leanings.

The Dingees seem to take a stance against witchcraft and voodoo from a seemingly Christian standpoint. But it may be more complicated than that. In my teens, I remember liking “We Rot the Voodoo” for its eerie dub and spooky Theremin, but I thought it was about actual voodoo. As I creep closer to thirty, however, I’m inclined to think it really pertains to trickle-down economics, ever-maligned by liberals as “Voodoo economics.” It’s not particularly evident from the lyrics, which could also concern real voodoo—and there again, voodoo is not even a hop, let alone a skip or a jump, from Rastafarianism, another kiss of death for Christian music marketing. But since the track comes right after a song called “Ronnie Raygun,” it’s reasonable to assume that Reaganomics is what they’re really rotting. (I don’t know if they really even believe in voodoo. They are Christian, after all, and not Rastas, only one member being of the African American persuasion.) If one understands “rotting the Voodoo” as opposing the principals of trickle-down economics, it takes on a quasi-liberation theological bent, basing their ideals for organizing society as the earliest Christians, who shared everything, and considered the rich rich, not “job creators.” Jumping from Reagan’s economics to foreign policy, “Ronnie Raygun” deals directly with clandestine CIA ops conducted under his presidency, subjects ranging from Star Wars missile defense to extraordinary rendition (doublespeak for outsourced torture) and mind control.

They don’t call me this for nothing.
Clueless to the fact I know something.
Clueless are the masses.
They’re better off staying paranoid.
They don’t know how true this really is
Pull my string, but no, I’m not talking
The polygraph I guarantee won’t be on the record

Ronnie raygun Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run

My brain is frozen numb from debriefing
Ignore the transmissions I was receiving
Does SDI have lasers beaming saucers in the sky?
Black budget unmarked helicopters
Chase me home and drop me off there
They call me in the middle of the night and
Tell me to return

Clearance majestic
Erase my existence
Alleged intimidation
Hypnosis mind control

SDI stands for Strategic Defense Initiative, the strategic initiator being Reagan. This all must have sounded like a bunch of nonsense to parents, since the song has hardcore vocals. But the message is quite clear in print—that is, if military boilerplate can be considered clear. Moreover, the conspiracy-obsessed skankers also are “outta mind with modern age,” as they declare in the first track, “Spraypaint (We Won’t Carry Over).” They shout,

We won’t carry over. We are the new. We move it on.
I’m outta mind with modern age, ultraviolent syndrome
Beware mad scientists are stealing chromosomes.
Experimental aircraft chemtrails across the sky.
Rain disease down on suburbia, burning lungs stinging eyes
Microcellular breakdown ’cause the cancer couldn’t wait
Early morning at the clinic methadone helps shake the shakes
For another ninety days, mother daughter alanon
Electroshock on blacktop, blown away oblivion.
US Army and the Navy, hovercraft on beachhead.
Anti-tank gun missile, meshing blood and bone and lead.
Past and present combined stress, psychadelic Vietnam.
Paratrooper won’t elaborate about the burning bombs of napalm.
Rust and blood and telecaster helicopter spotlight
Seven-forty-seven shot straight out the sky
National security global emergency
Civilizations unraveled seams
Bionic build titanium broken bones and x-rays
Couple cans of neon spraypaint, half a dozen razorblades
Propaganda posters clinchin’ tight around my brain
No synapse can make connection. No idea can cause change.

The aforementioned reviewer claimed the album would lift people spiritually, and I believe certain tracks do, but this is about as pessimistic—not to mention antagonistic—a view on US foreign policy as any of Fat Mike’s or Mick Jones’. The Dingees released this before, but in the year of, 9-11, and the ensuing ten years have shown this album incredibly relevant. Rather than being informed strictly by the X-Files, which the band openly declares an affinity for, Pegleg’s rants seem informed by academics, such as Dr. Chalmers Johnson, a former Cold-warrior and CIA consultant, turned in his old age a soothsayer of US imperial collapse.

They were relevant then, as now. Americans may be kept in the dark, as “Ronnie Raygun” would have it, but the light burns brightly for those in countries the U.S. occupies—and so for the Dingees. I wonder how this album would have fared had it been released after Wikileaks’ revelations.

The band announced their most recent release would be free online. This decision, I believe, was more influenced by Christian musician Keith Green than to Radiohead, for Pegleg had read No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green. Keith Green advocated giving away music—especially music based on the Gospel—for free. He also had a rather literal view of Jesus’ commandment to sell all of one’s possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, a radical verse that rarely gets underlined in evangelical Bibles.”Dear Sister, Dear Brother” reminds us that

Man, fellowman is not your enemy
The world strikes out on us universally
And do no gasp at death of celebrity
Ours is not a life of futility
Do not stand ahead of each other
Dear sister, dear brother

and “World’s Last Night” directly quotes the Bible, paraphrasing Romans 8:38,

Neither death nor life nor angels, no height of heaven, no depth of hell, and no created thing, now or soon to come, can steal away [the love of God]

This album departed crucially (get it?) from their first couple albums. To look at it, it seems like a concept album, the album artwork featuring the band standing in conspiracy theorist darkroom, UFO pictures on bulletin boards, etc. The idea, from the record company, I think, was that we weren’t supposed to take all that conspiracy theory stuff seriously. But the band really did, and it shows. I dunno if they believe in aliens, either. They make no reference to them in their songs.

Critics marked the Dingees out for fans of Operation Ivy, Rancid, the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers–and all those bands white guys like, but there is plenty of Jamaican evidence all over this album. They could very well have drawn comparisons to Lee “Scratch” Perry or Desmond Dekker as much as any of those punk bands. More on their sound in part 2, a review of The Rebel Soul Sound System.

Playlist for my 26th Year: Gifts for You

How y’all are? I hope you find some good tunes here. It’s what I’ve been listening to this past year. I might make more playlists on each of my birfdays. I can’t really stomach updating you on my life; for as the last pretenses of my youth prepare for the abattoir, you can tell I’ve been a bit of a musical hermit, dangerously on the verge of adult contemporary and yacht rock—that is, since college I’ve been out of the loop of anything novel and hip. I have no idea who the latest indie star in nuthuggin jeans is. I kind of want to know, but… there’s so much old music that still needs a second spin. So here you go.

1. “Lujon” — Henri Mancini

• Palatial, inviting, pure Mancini.

2. “Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing” — Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

• First of several Motown inclusions. If you don’t have this song already, I think you should. Sorry to be so bossy.

3. “Let Me Down Easy” — Derrick Harriott and the Crystalites

• And the first of a few reggae/dub tracks. Beyond Bob Marley, I find most folks woefully unacquainted with other reggae and dub artists.

4. “Jesus on the Mainline” — Ry Cooder & The Moula Banda Rhythm Aces

• Ry Cooder, formerly of Captain Beefheart, has a penchant for gospel, and playing electric slide mandolin (no that’s not a misprint).

5. “Too Busy Thinkin’ ’bout My Baby” — Marvin Gaye

• Classic Marvin Gaye. The Temptations had an earlier version, but this one is my favorite.

6. “Cruisin’” — Smokey Robinson

• If you’re in a position to make love, you might wanna grab this tune.

7. “Let Down (feat. Toots and the Maytals)” — Easy Star All Stars

• I’ve never heard Radiohead and felt so happy.

8. “I Wanna Little Sugar in My Bowl” — Nina Simone

• Quite possibly the dirtiest song she sang.

9. “These Eyes” — The Guess Who

• I keep thinking of that scene in Superbad where Michael Cera sings this song for a passel of twittering cokeheads. Classic performance.

10. “It’s a Family Affair” — Sly and the Family Stone

• Speaking of cocaine… does it seem like Sly forgot to memorize the words before he recorded this? Not that I care, but.

11. “Still on the Move” — The Dingees

• Best new song from the Dingees’ Rebel Soul Sound System, whose subterranean sound has resurfaced after a ten-year recording hiatus.

12. “Spraypaint (We Won’t Carry Over)” — The Dingees

• A rocking-er song for those inclined (Jack Hittinger) toward hearing loss.

13. “Up Above My Head (I hear music in the air)” — Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight

• Best female guitarist I’ve ever heard with an equally impressive set of pipes. Shout, sister, shout!

14. “Heat Wave” — Martha and the Vandellas

• Cuz it’s so damn hot. Hey. Did you know that Jens Lekman croons to this tune in “A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill” (Oh You’re So Silent, Jens 2005)?

15. “Down Home Girl” — The Coasters

• I had heard the OCMS version, but I like the harmonies in this better.

16. “Berta Berta” — Branford Marsalis

• If you were stuck at Parchman Farm, you might’ve sung this with the likes of Bukka White or R.L. Burnside.

17. “Illinois Blues” — Skip James

• Something haunting about this. August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson introduced this song to me in its epigraph.

18. “The Third Man Theme” — Anton Karas

• Fantastic noir set in Vienna. Karas tune plays throughout the whole film.

19. “Alabama High Test” — Old Crow Medicine Show

• Is a kind of weed, in case you were wondering. While this song is hardly biographical, this feller has got himself into a morass with the law, and just wants to smoke. This song also reminds me of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan.

20. “Saginaw Way” — Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

• Not the first country song to mention Saginaw, Michigan. Lefty Frizzell also wrote “I was Born in Saginaw, Michigan”—which is a lie, by the way.

21. “Mama Don’t Allow No Music” — Doc Watson

• In case you didn’t have any barn burners, Doc Watson’ll set you straight. Did you know he’s blind?

22. “Dignity” — Bob Dylan

• Older Bob, though in prime voice for the late-eighties chapter of his career.

23. “Ramblin’ Man” — Hank Williams

• Something about this song chills me. I think it’s the pedal steel and the yodeling. That’s how country music used to distinguish itself before “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and “Thank God I ain’t Queerrr (titties and beerrr).”

24. “Hong Kong Blues” — Hoagy Carmichael

• Another tune ripped from a noir sound track. I think it’s from To Have and Have Not, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. This song came back when people told stories about getting caught in an opiated stupor in the darkest East Orient

25. “Fiona” — Lyle Lovett

• Weird as ever with a voice like velvet, Lyle Lovett really delivers on this one. Did you know he plays a drug dealer, selling LSD at a club in the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

26. “Done Left Here” — Mississippi Fred McDowell

• Lastly, here’s a blues song everybody who likes the blues oughtta have.

The Marriage of Gonzo and Hell: Notes on Juarez

A few years back I heard this song called Valentine’s Day In Juarez. The chorus of the song peaked my interest, so I downloaded the song. It goes like,

They got the cocaine, oxycontin, mushrooms, marijuana,

Vodka, plastic pop off (or Popov?), twist one up

It’s a catchy tune, but I didn’t explore the message behind it. I thought it was just a song about partying in a border town. And so it quickly fell into the rest of my music collection like a raindrop in a river.

Then I read Charles Bowden’s Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez, and I revisited the song, illuminated by Bowden’s work. I can only describe this book as a sort of “marriage of Gonzo and Hell,” because Alice Leora Briggs illustrated in wood-etchings the dissolution of order there, in a style reminiscent of William Blake or Peter Bruegel the Elder. In fact, the images are quite disturbing, which makes them effective.

The word Gonzo seems appropriate, though I’m not clear on what it is, exactly—for Bowden participates to some degree in what he covers. His book details his experience, not so much the cold facts of the war. He doesn’t edit things but leaves the tape rolling. He’s deeply opposed to it yet unable to imagine the situation there getting better. He’s also a brave son of a bitch, considering all the recent murders of reporters.

Back to the Ike Reilly Assassination—He opens his song, singing,

Yesterday I smoked, today I don’t (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yesterday  I swallowed, today I choke (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yesterday I dreamed, today I hoped (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Yesterday I sunk, today I float (yeah, yeah, yeah)

These words seemed a bit banal to me at first. But Bowden’s account illuminated a few things: First, the Juarez Cartel, as well as the others along the border, kill most of their victims quietly, in a suburban condo, by strangulation. Perhaps after some torture. The cartels call it carne asada, which in plain English means ”grilled meat.”

The character of his song is in Juarez—or maybe just across the border—and he was looking to party, specifically for some drugs (Cocaine, Oxycontin, etc.). So he hooked up with some shady characters and for the drugs, he has to “carry roses across the bridge / to gain favor with the Suicide Girls.”

I don’t know who the Suicide Girls are, and I’ve Googled it, and, well, it turns up porn sites, so…?—But let us imagine for the sake of argument that the Suicide Girls are a gang of women, working with the cartels much like the Zetas, and have dominion over their little fiefs within the greater kingdom of the Mexican drug cartels.

Carrying roses across the bridge refers to a “mule,” I think—that is, someone who smuggles drugs across the bridge for the cartels—and some mules make money, but more disappear. Likewise for the character of the song: He sinks one day, floats the next. He’s been strangled and dumped in the river, floating down the Rio Grande. Which makes this song every bit as dark as Bowden’s stories of missing people: “Where he goes isn’t always clear / Places we both know have been closed for years.” Bowden keeps talking about the disappearing people. Most are never found, save for in a dusty folder within a DEA file cabinet.

My friend called the scene in Mexican a “soft war,” which I suppose is a reasonable nomenclature—except it’s still a war, despite the fact that it’s neither a cold nor hot one. It’s a unique case of drug cartels outstripping the Mexican government’s resources and ability to contain them. Instead of curtailing the growing violence, the government participates. The police perform the executions. The higher-ups look the other way on both sides of the border.

“But here is where we stop and turn off the answering machine and go back to the history that comforts us, the faith of our fathers,” Bowden says.

Where, then, do these cartels find all this money to keep on keeping on? You have to look no further than your  own neighborhood. And while our government guilt-trips kids so they will avoid drugs, it knowingly supports, or tacitly approves of, the violence that is funded by drugs.

Such is the state of things, and it’s only getting worse.

On a side note

Since we never see Thomas Pynchon, there are always people trying to guess who he really is. Here’s my best guess so far: He is Charles Bowden.

Their voices are both similar, old and bass-y. Cf. this interview with Bowden with this video ad for Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, which he apparently narrated. Maybe it’s just the subject matter that makes the connection for me. Even the pictures kind of match up: Pynchon vs. Bowden.

I know it’s crazy. But the name Bowden is similar to Bodine, who is a recurring character in every (I think, anyway, haven’t read em all yet) Pynchon novel. He’s either Pig Bodine (V) or Seaman Bodine (Gravity’s Rainbow), and there’s also a Bodine in both Mason & Dixon and Against the Day.

So would it be so crazy to think Pynchon works pseudonymously through Charles Bowden?—that, when Pynchon isn’t writing sprawling novels, he is an active journalist.

I’m probably wrong, but there are worse people to suggest, right? I can’t image either one would be offended at the guess, because they are both fantastic writers.

A sugar by any other name…

Rick Berman (not the dick who runs Star Trek, but the lobbyist) for The Daily Caller explores the semantic choices of the high-fructose corn syrup lobby, which has sought to change public perception of their sweetener. The lobby has petitioned the F.D.A. to allow their sweetener to be called “corn sugar” as opposed to “high-fructose corn syrup.” Berman considers this name an improvement, since the amount of fructose (what makes sugar sweet) is roughly the same as in refined cane and beet sugar. In addition, listing it in plain English as “sugar” clearly tells consumers what they are consuming. He notes the common view that anything sounding too industrial or scientific tends to scare people. He also explores the semantics of advertising and their word choices, concluding, “Americans want to know what is in their food, not which squares on the Periodic Table it occupies.”

***

In recent years, many have demonized high-fructose corn syrup. Sugar itself, in one form or another, has been a key scapegoat for America’s obesity debacle for even longer. The connotations attending to each product have shifted. In the 1980s, soft drink corporations replaced cane sugar with corn sweetener. They did so mainly because of high import tariffs and other government supports for the U.S. sugar industry (Yes, your tax-dollars support that foul miasma wafting over campus from Bay City’s sugar refinery.), which drove the price of imported sugarcane to artificially high prices. Domestic corn syrup, as a result, became the cheaper, domestic alternative.

Economics aside, the switch made advertising sense too. When the switch came, many—especially children—did not know what high-fructose corn syrup was nor cared to find out, because it is a mouthful to say and looks arcane enough to ignore. It made good marketing sense, then, to replace the word “sugar” with a word that looked like gobbledygook, because it replaced a word commonly associated with obesity with a word that had no negative connotation in the minds of consumers.

Twenty-five years later, the connotations have reversed. Enough talking heads and celebrity chefs have lambasted high-fructose corn syrup such that the word “sugar” seems healthier by comparison. The products have not changed, but the lobby intends to change its perceived health benefits. People associate sugar with greater health benefits—or at least, greater than those of high-fructose corn syrup—which, as Berman points out, was coined such because it had a greater amount of fructose than regular corn syrup, and not because it had more fructose than table sugar. While Berman maintains this switch of terms to be beneficial, “corn sugar” being a more to the point and accurate name, there is always an economic reason for these changes. This is an effort to change their product’s image, and like water, advertising tends to seek the lowest level. If one is stupid enough to believe high fructose corn syrup is bad because it sounds scientific, s(he) will be stupid enough to think cane sugar will be better for them. Only in advertising can the truth still seem like a lie.

Switching the names signals a greater trend. If the ingredient’s name reads as if scientists coined it, it must be bad, whereas, if it is natural, it must be okay. Still these assumptions break down under scrutiny. For instance, compare the processed xanthan gum with natural hemlock. Humans process kelp to make xanthan gum, yet it remains innocuous, but natural hemlock is a deadly poison. American Spirit cigarettes claim they are all natural, but they will kill just the same as cigarettes with additives. So too have words like “preservatives” and “partially hydrogenated soybean oil” become insidious, mainly because the name—often Latinate—implies, or lists outright, a scientific process. In the past, advertisers have listed these processes to distract the consumer from the basic contents of their food, even though chemically speaking, a preservative is just a salt and partially hydrogenated soybean oil is simply a fat. However, if the label lists the main ingredients as “salt” and “fat,” those products would be harder to sell.

If advertisers could convince the world that the sky is purple, they would surely try. It is disheartening that many in America gather a great amount of “truth” from advertising. Consider the Tiger Woods scandal. Why was it so scandalous? Charlie Sheen had just stabbed his girlfriend, but the media gave it scant attention in their scramble to uncover Woods’ many sins. Since Woods became pro, companies have pitched him as a mentor, a good citizen and a paradigm of racial progress. Years later when the scandal broke, the American public felt let down, somehow. Tiger Woods no longer commanded such admiration. Charlie Sheen had no such image to shatter, and in fact, he had the opposite reputation as a bad-boy with a record; so naturally, nobody was entranced with the scandal of his serious crime. They expected it.

The truth about Woods is obvious in hindsight. He plays golf constantly, and when he does not, companies use him incessantly to sell cars, golf balls, and clothing lines. All real evidence would suggest that he is too busy to devote adequate time to his family. Still many were deceived, because advertising has stamped this mentor image—and by extension, the image of a good father and husband—so indelibly into their minds. This deception not only illustrates the power of advertising to make one needy, but also its power to shape a person’s image. When that image shatters, however, we should not be so surprised.

Now, sugar has a good image—or at least not as bad. Even though the scientists at the American Dietetic and the American Medical Associations agree that cane sugar and corn sweetener are essentially the same, advertising still maintains a myth through the connotations of language. For a little while, the American public may believe corn sugar will help them with their obesity. However, whether a name seems natural or unnatural rarely denotes whether a product is processed or safe. Milk is regarded as natural, except for pasteurizing and homogenizing. Moreover, if you have smelled that sickly-sweet scent drifting from the Bay City sugar refinery, you might have guessed sugar cubes don’t grow in grandma’s garden.

An Open Letter to Ilya Kovalchuk

Kovy, I know you’re busy trying to score the longest and most lucrative NHL contract in history. $102 million over the next 17 years sounds like a nice paycheck. But sit down and let me relate to you an analogy. If you’re having trouble understanding it, have your agent step in to help.

Once upon a time, I owned just one cigarette lighter and I’d often lose it. In an attempt to stop this never ending search through my pockets and the nooks and crannies of my car, I decided to buy eight lighters. The logic, at the time, seemed water-tight, infallible. After all, if I lost one, I’d have seven others to fall back on, and I’d have time to find the one I lost eventually.

What I didn’t realize is just how fucking wrong I was. I soon lost all eight of those lighters, and, within a comparable amount of time, I was in the same lighter-less position as before.

Now, what does all this have to do with you? Well. Your contract, sir. It is very large, but don’t be fooled. Your agent has a lot to do with that. His commission on your contract grows with that contract, so his advice will only always be to get as much as you can.

Let me submit to you the logic of the great American writer and thinker, Mr. Mark Twain, as told through the slave, Jim, in chapter 14 of Huckleberry Finn:

Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne be wasteful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; he can’t ‘ford it. He knows how to value ‘em. But you take a man dat’s got ’bout five million chillen runnin’ round de house, en it’s diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. A chile er two, mo’ er less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fetch him!”

Now Kovy, you tend to value more what you have little of, and less what you have a lot of. So do you think it matters much if you receive $80 million instead of $102? Either way, it’s a fortune compared to what your rural comrades make in your homeland. And either way, you can still lose it pretty quick. In fact, you’re more likely to lose a lot of it quick, because more or less, what’s a million here or a million there?

Just look at Theo Fleury, Jaromir Jagr, Sergei Fedorov—nice company to be in, eh Kovy?—they all made millions, but also squandered millions. Why do you think Fedorov is suing people and trying to sell his mansions? Alcohol, drugs, gambling, women, and frauds—these can become costly in a hurry, so mind who you keep company with. Especially in New Jersey.

If you are going to spend that fortune frivolously, spend it on charities and such. That way if you fail to pay, they’re a lot less likely to come over to your house and break your legs.

Good News for my Recycle Blues

I forgot to leave the recycling out last Friday. People around here often—and by people, I mean my neighbor and I—slip into a mental fog of it’s 6 am and I don’t want to drag my company of small plastic bins out to the road and set them up like Stonehenge around my trash can. Usually I’m to blame.  This time, however, in the words of Humphrey Bogart, “I was misinformed.”

The previous evening, I had wheeled my trash bin to the curb just as my neighbor was, and we had the same look on our face: “Is it tomorrow? Naw…. but is it?” We put these thoughts to words and decided it couldn’t possibly be tomorrow.

We’d been fooled before. We left our bins out on the wrong day, and it happened on the most blustery one in recent memory, so together we had to chase around empty milk jugs clear down the block. We could have avoided this with the Internet, but there was some satisfaction in talking to my neighbor instead of Googling it. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?—neighborly mimesis. Just as when one person claps in an audience and everybody starts doing it, one person has the sense to check the date and put theirs out for the rest of us. But I think everyone on our block was confused, because no one had theirs out yet. Such was our concern.

But we were wrong.

So today, I’ve got recyclables scattered pell-mell across my garage until I decide to make the trip there myself or (more likely) wait it out.

Within the next month, though, the City’s recyclers are going to drop off an apt-sized 96-gallon bin at the foot of my driveway. It is supposedly going to have wheels.

Now, it would have been a nice gesture if they had delivered these bins at the same time they dialed back their pickup-frequency to just once a month. Even when I don’t forget, I’m still trying to find novel ways to store my recyclables.

My old 14-gallon bin, way back when they came once a week, used to be sufficient. I still had to crunch things to make room, but it seemed less of a chore. There was also a lot less stuff they would take and each container had to be stripped before they would accept it.

It has been a bit of a travesty that our recycling bins are seven times smaller than our trash bins. With all the alt-energy investment here, this upgrade is not only the right thing to do, it’s the shrewd thing to do. It may be a long-due and obvious idea, but still a good one. Not that I feel entitled. I could make the effort to drive it across town and drop it off, myself. Still, it’s nice when recycling gets easier, for who wants to feel guilty because they don’t zip the paper off aluminum cans?

Anyway, this Memorial Day, for a change of pace, take some time to remember those who are paid to keep Creation, instead of those who were (and are) paid to trample it.

Joy Electric: a Hazrod Flashback

As I was redacting and compiling my Hundred Handers playlist, I rediscovered Joy Electric. I don’t know what exactly I thought of this band at first. Something like Boy George on helium singing over a Nintendo. It was weird. But I was twelve, so my shock-threshold ran kind of low. I found the album at a—wait for it—Christian Bookstore (in the alternative CCM section, of course).

So hey you younguns in nuthuggers, leaking autotuned disco from your headphones—spit out your pacifiers and get a load of Ronnie Martin’s Joy Electric. And get ready to get tweaked.

Birds Will Sing Forever

Back in the mid-nineties, nobody I knew knew what the fuck Joy Electric was or why they were so unabashedly Christian and, simultaneously, sort of gay (in both connotations of the word—but not the “stupid” sense). I don’t really think Martin is gay, but anyway, I don’t think they’ve ever sold a lot. Back then, to the CCM market, they were just a little too, you know, out there….

Today, Joy Electric fits right in there with the loosely defined genre, IDM (Intelligent Dance Music—yes, you’re a moron if you like anything else), along with a host of electro-disco jockeys and glitch-geeks with carpal tunnel from something other than (or in addition to) porn. Only, Joy Electric use Moog synthesizers instead of computers—a badge that is unassailably badass to most audiophiles.

Oh yeah. Joy Electric don’t like it when reviewers insinuate or say outright that they use computers. Not long ago, that was a problem for artists like Joy Electric, because somehow, if you used a computer instead of an instrument, reviewers thought you were faking it. Funny how things have changed. You hear Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, Kanye West, and you realize that computers are just so banal, so not a problem. Those artists would have faced the same struggle Joy Electric faced if they dropped on the scene fifteen years ago. And for that, they should check out Ronnie Martin’s Joy Electric; for it is foundational to IDM in much the same way Raymond Scott is to Joy Electric. And I think it’s a reasonable bet that if you thumbed through Dan Snaith’s or Richard D. James’ Ipod, you’d find an LP or two by Joy Electric.

Side note: Though I’m not a fan of the A & R ilk, props to Brandon Ebel of the Tooth and Nail records for signing Joy Electric. When everyone was gobbling up pop punk and rap rock during their post-grunge hangovers, he had the stones to go with these guys. Why? Because they really are great. Better than Xanax.

Viva la Vida (yes, a Coldplay cover)

Big and bold, Joy Electric, you deserve your moment in the sun.

Hundred Handers—Top 100 Songs

If you have an eon to kill and you really like music, get a load of this: The Hundred Handers compilation, which is a playlist of your top one hundred favorite songs. (I know I came up with a nerdy name, but when I had the idea, I’d just seen Clash of the Titans, which didn’t have any Titans in it.)

It’s hard. First, you have to assign a value number, one song through three, for each artist or band. For instance, I give Bob Dylan an initial value of five, but I’ll have to whittle it down to three. Three Bob songs that have really stuck with me for a long time. Also, you have to try (at least) to be as objective as possible. Obviously, you’ll lean more toward songs you like now—and that’s okay, for this season of life should receive representation—but you might have to give a nod to songs that had a huge impact on you when you were say, 14-years-old. Depends on how autobiographical you want to make it. I’m at 125 songs already and I’m only through the M’s.

You can then burn it to a five disc box set, or single DVD, and give it to that special girl or guy you’ve been makin eyes at. Or not. Just loan it to the next person who asks you that impossible question, “What’s your favorite song?”

Then you can reply, “Here’s my top 100. All time.” and not really have to think about it too much.

A decent first draft….

1. “Soya” Ali Farka Toure

2. “Fistful Of Love” Antony and the Johnsons

3. “Daydreaming” Aretha Franklin

4. “The Weight” The Band

5. “A Day in the Life” The Beatles

6. “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” The Beatles

7. “Hey Bulldog” The Beatles

8. “I Loves You Porgy” Billie Holiday

9. “Stack Shot Billy” The Black Keys

10. “The Soul of a Man” Blind Willie Johnson

11. “Shelter from the Storm” Bob Dylan

12. “Ballad Of A Thin Man (Edinburgh)” Bob Dylan

13. “Like A Rolling Stone (Manchester)” Bob Dylan

14. “Waiting in Vain” Bob Marley

15. “Ibi Dreams of Pavement (a better day)” Broken Social Scene

16. “Going up the Country” Canned Heat

17. “Her Eyes are a Blue Million Miles” Captain Beefheart

18. “Smackwater Jack” Carole King

19. “Rudie Can’t Fail” The Clash

20. “Lookin’ out my Back Door” Creedence Clearwater Revival

21. “Rocks and Gravel” Dave Van Ronk

22. “Changes” David Bowie

23. “At the Hop” Devendra Banhart

24. “Life is Like a River” Doc Watson

25. “Caledonia” Dougie MacLean

26. “Let Down (Featuring Toots & The Maytals)” Easy Star All-Stars

27. “Masters Of War” Eddie Vedder & Mike McCready

28. “Mr. Blue Sky” Electric Light Orchestra

29. “Bennie and the Jets” Elton John

30. “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” The Flaming Lips

31. “Blue Ridge Mountains” Fleet Foxes

32. “The Holly and the Ivy” George Winston

33. “Mind is Playing Tricks On Me” Geto Boys

34. “My Morphine” Gillian Welch

35. “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” Gordon Lightfoot

36. “Tesla’s Hotel Room” The Handsome Family

37. “Let’s Make it” Hooker and Heat

38. “Freedom Hangs Like Heaven” Iron & Wine

39. “Do Me” Jean Knight

40. “A Postcard To Nina” Jens Lekman

41. “A Higher Power” Jens Lekman

42. “Operator (that’s not the way it feels)” Jim Croce

43. “All Along the Watchtower” Jimi Hendrix

44. “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” Jimi Hendrix

45. “Sadie” Joanna Newsom

46. “Feeling Alright” Joe Cocker

47. “Redemption Song” Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash

48. “I Walk the Line” Johnny Cash

49. “Wayfaring Stranger” Johnny Cash

50. “Folsom Prison Blues” Johnny Cash

51. “Meet Me in the City” Junior Kimbrough

52. “Police and Thieves” Junior Murvin

53. “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” Leadbelly

54. “Going To California” Led Zeppelin

55. “When The Levee Breaks” Led Zeppelin

56. “Old Friend” Lyle Lovett

57. “Between the Bars” Madeleine Peyroux

58. “Engwish Bwudd” Man Man

59. “All Night Diner” Modest Mouse

60. “This Devil’s Workday” Modest Mouse

61. “The Blood of Cu Chulainn” Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna

62. “What Have You Done?” Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens

63. “Heart Of Gold” Neil Young

64. “Deep Red Bells” Neko Case

65. “Wild is the Wind” Nina Simone

66. “I Got it Bad and that ain’t Good” Nina Simone

67. “Wagon Wheel” Old Crow Medicine Show

68. “Immigration Song” Ozma

69. “Canarios” Phil Keaggy

70. “Time” Pink Floyd

71. “Us and Them” Pink Floyd

72. “Wish You Were Here” Pink Floyd

73. “Fairytale Of New York” The Pogues

74. “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy ” Queen

75. “We Are the Champions” Queen

76. “Jumper on the Line” R.L. Burnside

77. “Nude” Radiohead

78. “Paranoid Android” Radiohead

79. “Old Friend” Rancid

80. “Hit the Road Jack” Ray Charles

81. “Build Me Up” Rhymefest featuring O.D.B.

82. “My Deliverer” Rich Mullins

83. “Ruby Tuesday” The Rolling Stones

84. “Beast of Burden” The Rolling Stones

85. “Oh My Sweet Carolina” Ryan Adams

86. “Wo Qui Non Coin” The Seatbelts

87. “Up above my Head I Hear Music in the Air” Sister Rosetta Tharpe & Marie Knight

88. “Superstition” Stevie Wonder

89. “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” The Temptations

90. “Come On Up To The House” Tom Waits

91. “Hoist That Rag” Tom Waits

92. “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)” Tom Waits

93. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” U2

94. “Moonshiner” Uncle Tupelo

95. “Into The Mystic” Van Morrison

96. “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” War

97. “El Scorcho” Weezer

98. “Jesus, Etc.” Wilco

99. “Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)” Willie Nelson & Calexico

100. “Mr. Tough” Yo La Tengo

Olympic Notes

Only Medal

I was eleven the first and only time I held an Olympic medal. It happened at the small church I attended on Wednesday nights. I forget her name, but she had a gold medal for swimming, I think. Earlier at a Big Boy’s restaurant, her little nephew had splattered hot fudge sundae all over the neck band. She’d tried to get it out, but I remember seeing the sticky  little stains, picking up dirt and germs from people who will always remember the weight of it in their hands, the fingerprints on it.

Slip like Freudian

Silver medal slalom skier, Julia Mancuso, tried to downplay her previous comments in the drama between her and Lindsey Vonn. In an interview today, she tried to assess blame on the media for blowing this drama up, and asserted that her “comments had been taken out of contest—context.”