Tom Watson

America's Pastime

Hey kids, there's a fabulous new craze sweeping the nation! Do you hate President George W. Bush? Well you should! Everyone does! It's the greatest thing since the hula hoop, the wildest sensation since American Idol! Have you see the number one movie in the country this summer? Have you listened to the top radio personality? They all agree - GWB has got to go. So get out and do your part!

In my lifetime, there has never been as wide and deep a popular electoral challenge based on the vast perception of incompetence on the part of the incumbent as there is now. Sure, Carter slammed Ford but that was Watergate, and Reagan walloped a weakened Carter but it was based on his own sunny disposition, and Clinton erased Bush I, but that was the economy stupid.

And the thing is, John Kerry is really responsible for none of that perception (or very little). The daily news by the formerly worshipful news media is grim. Michael Moore just made the most popular documentary/propaganda piece in film history. And Howard Stern may well hand both Florida and Pennsylvania to the challenger with a constant barrage of attacks in two of his largest markets as payback for the FCC's campaign against him. Add in the indredible fundraising of the anti-Bush 527 committees, coupled with the explosion of Dean-style Internet fundraising, has erased Bush's dollar and air-time advantage.

So Kerry has the table well-set by his allies, and by those who just can't stand Bush. He is wisely taking a low-key approach. And give him credit - there are no big mistakes thus far, no gotcha moments, no horrible missteps. That counts. If he chooses a good running mate, offers a sane non-Bush alternative overseas and the basic Clintonist economic plan in the U.S., there's no reason John Kerry can't win in a landslide this November.

Noise Abatement

A gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Mets versus Yankees. The green outer gardens stretching to the monuments and the Bronx County Courthouse and old Concourse Hotel beyond. Two young 'uns at my side. The most historic field in Major League Baseball. A true rivalry. And I could not hear myself think, much less discuss the finer points of the game with my 9-year-old son. What the hell have they done to Yankee Stadium!! I have not heard a louder public address system - it was a horrible, embarrassing, denigration of the sport by the gross, loutish, uncaring management of the New York Yankees. It's fair play for Contreras to make this Mets fan suffer; I don't need ear-puncturing sound waves drilling into my brain to make it worse. This is baseball - you need to be able to hear, to consider the strategy, to argue with the guy in the next seat. Maybe Steinbrenner has grown hard of hearing is his later years and they really need to crank up "Hey Ya!" so he can hear it in the owner's box. Hey George, turn it down.

Deadwood Addict

Incredible to me how HBO continues to excel in programming, while the networks continue to fail in anything but lame-ass "reality" TV. The latest (and quite possibly, best) addition has been this year's sleeper hit Deadwood. I just watched the last three episodes last night; I tend to bunch up my HBO series watching using the set-top VOD set-up from Time Warner. The show is an instant classic - based on real-life events in 1876 in mining camp turned frontier town Deadwood, South Dakota. The show has caused a stir with its deep and abiding profanity, and its non-romantic view of the West. But at the center is the character created by veteran British actor Ian McShane, who plays saloonkeeper/pimp/crime boss Al Swearengen. A brilliant performance to be sure, and the writing in this series is the best yet, better than the Soprano's and Sex and the City, in my book. The first-season DVD should be hitting the shelves any day - I recommend picking it up.

Platform iTunes - Part II

I'd love to be running external business development for iTunes - not the work with the Neanderthal big entertainment companies (blech), but the work with the many other channels available to drive sales and reward hard-working artists. As readers of this blog know, I think of iTunes as a big-time platform, not as a nifty piece of software or a nice online store. And in the long run, I believe, iTunes has the potential to be more important than the iPod.

That said, it's clear that Apple doesn't agree. Sure, iTunes is the best online music store out there. I like its guest celebrity mixes, its weekly recommendations, and the iMix feature. But information about artists, about music history, and about musical culture is painfully thin - hell, the old CDnow had far better resources. But closing in on 100 million downloads, it's a business model that works.

So here's one small-scale scenario that, if replicated, could work on a large scale for iTunes: I'm a big fan of and long-time subscriber to Acoustic Guitar magazine, a terrific monthly read for players of all levels. I just got the July issue in the mail and, as usual, poured through the gear reviews, the transcriptions, and the artist interviews. But I've also used Acoustic Guitar to find new music - it's the kind of mag that lets you into the smaller-scale indie artist and veteran roots players. Wouldn't it be cool if iTunes had a deal with Acoustic Guitar to simply publish a monthly iMix on the artists listed in each issue?

So here goes - I punch up iTunes, do a little searching, a bit of sampling and voila - here's the first monthly Acoustic Guitar iMix. It'll cost you $10.89 to download whole thing, and it's a terrific collection of music by folks like Leroy Martez Bell and Sarah Harmer, many of whom I've never heard before. For someone like Fred, who's always looking for new music, tying old media (the magazine) to new media (iTunes) would be an easy homerun. So simple! So where's the Apple biz dev guy cutting these deals?

Drafting Springsteen

My friend Andrew Rasiej has taken the notion of counter-programming the Republican National Convention to the next step - and he's either crazy or brilliant (or both). Acting on the notion that a Bruce Springsteen concert in New Jersey, broadcast live, would pull millions away from the GOP's Bush-fest, Andrew has reserved Giants Stadium for Sept. 1, and has launched DraftBruce.com to prove popular support for the idea by gathering online petition signatures, which Andrew - a gifted music promoter from back in the day - will present to Bruce's management. Springsteen has grown increasingly political in recent years, moving from vague notions of the downtrodden in his songs, to actual calls to action. Some fans can't stand it. Personally, I love it.

UPDATE: Andrew gets some big coverage from Reuters/MSNBC, with interest expressed by Bon Jovi and REM for the idea.

Edwards for Veep

Met John Edwards last night at the annual Drum Major Institute for Public Policy fundraiser in midtown. Along with just about everyone else in the room, I told him I hoped Kerry picked him as his running mate. I know Kerry is looking at his buddy Dick Gephardt and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, but Edwards has the goods to run hard in the long pull between Labor Day and November. He's telegenic, works a crowd like few others, and connects with people. No accident that Edwards topped a poll of Democrats as their choice for No. 2. I'd put Edwards on a plane traveling the country from the day he's chosen till the last polls close on Election Day. He projects the kind of optimism the ticket needs, he's got the southern sound, and I think he'd be great in the role for one simple reason - it's what he's been doing for the last couple of months.

Speaking of DMI, where I'm lucky to serve on the board, the organization had a big night. The progressive think tank honored Edwards and Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO, whose personal story (migrant farm work to national leadership) was stirring. And DMI president Freddy Ferrer unveiled a new microsite aimed at informing this year's election cycle - themiddleclass.org - filled with policy resources and reports on the great American middle. How big is it? More than 90% of Americans identity themselves as middle class. (Thanks to Brian Walsh for the digital snap, above).

I said yes I will Yes

What would James Joyce make of today's 100-year celebration of Bloomsday, the marking of the fictional events of June 16, 1904 in Dublin chronicled in Ulysses? I think he'd be thrilled; Joyce created a complex system for Ulysses to challenge the notion of written media. He revelled in the new form, and was precise in timing the movements of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and the other characters. I think he'd get quite a charge out of the hallowed nature of this day among Joyceans, and about the millions of man hours of literary detective work that has gone into analyzing his masterwork over the last eight decades.

Why do fans retrace the steps of the 19 "wandering rocks" in the 10th chapter and stage round-the-clock readings of Ulysses on this day every year? I think it has to do with what my old Columbia professor Wally Gray always emphasized about Ulysses: that it is a profoundly optimistic and human book. Nothing of import happens in Ulysses - Joyce was quite determined to substitute the mundane and human for the soaring and fantastic episodes of the Odyssey. We are the gods, the titans, and the monsters, and each day is a voyage of uncertain end.

That humanity is, to me, its greatest success. I've read Ulysses cover to cover only twice - once at Columbia and again a few years later at the start of my journalstic career. But I do revisit snippets often; Joyce's work as a whole is Biblical in that way. I'll read Molly Bloom's soliloquy, or "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" from Dubliners just to listen to the language in my head, maybe grab a little inspiration. I particularly love the highly domestic 4th chapter of Ulysses, where Bloom makes breakfast for his unfaithful wife. Ulysses is not a perfectly-crafted work of fiction, it deserves its reputation as a difficult read. But it does not deserve its reputation as elitist - it is not. Indeed, it elevates commonality in human experience quite succesfully, and many parts of highly accessible, and meant to entertain.

That's why I also think Joyce would love what the Internet has meant to the study and consumption of his work, from today's Google logo search to this fantastic hypertext version of Ulysses, complete with Java-powered maps of Dublin with moving character icons to Web cam images of some of the novel's settings.

Red. vs. Blue

Depending on which poll you believe, the gap between stentorian frontrunner John Kerry and struggling incumbent George W. Bush is somewhere between seven points (LA Times) or two points (FoxNews). In any case, following the more important swing state polls reveals we're pretty much headed for another neck-and-neck Presidential race in November - and, we read all the time, we've never been more divided as a society between the reds (conservatives, ironically enough) and the blues (liberals).

But wait a minute. Although the reds and blues I know disagree passionately about the merits of George W. Bush - regular readers of this blog know it's Bush lovers Fitz and Tom K. vs. liberales Bruce, Ralph, and Chervokas - do we really disagree so much about the key issues of our day aside from the embarassing, prestige-losing, lets-send-the-lower-middle-class-kids-to-die-for-Vietnam-dodging-oil-plutocrats Iraq disaster?

A fascinating piece in today's New York York Times (a blue newspaper that kisses red ass) argues that the great American center is not only holding, it's expanding, despite the hyberbolic vitriol. John Tierney's article is a must-read for combatants on both sides, and he argues pursuasively that it's the parties that have grown farther apart, not the people in them:

Just because a state votes red or blue in a presidential election doesn't mean that its voters are fixed permanently on one side of a political divide or culture gap. The six bluest states in 2000, the ones where George W. Bush fared worst - Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, Connecticut and Maryland - all have Republican governors. Even California went red last year when Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, became governor. Most voters are still centrists willing to consider a candidate from either party, but they rarely get the chance.

Tierney points to the work of scholars Morris P. Fiorina of Stanford, Samuel J. Abrams of Harvard and Jeremy C. Pope of Stanford, who point out that:

Majorities in both places support stricter gun control as well as the death penalty; they strongly oppose giving blacks preference in hiring while also wanting the government to guarantee that blacks are treated fairly by employers. They're against outlawing abortion completely or allowing it under any circumstances, and their opinions on abortion have been fairly stable for three decades. Virtually identical majorities of Blues and Reds don't want a single party controlling the White House and Congress.

Funnily enough, this argument holds true for the warring parties on this Weblog - we argue viciously over the lack of leadership of the President, the Iraq adventure, and the success or failure of each party. But we never argue about the key social issues. Is that why liberal Republicans keep getting elected? Could that be because we agree?

Rockin With Ray

It's been said that Ray Charles invented rock and roll. Don't think that's true, not of any one person in any case. But I do believe that Brother Ray was a precursor of the kind of crossover mentality that eventually became a mainstay of the music business. From his early Nat King Cole stylings and Gospel sides through world-class work in jazz, blues, R&B, country, rock, and standards, the man's incredible way with a song - almost any song - made him unique, but also blazed a path for many others.

Ray Charles records were the only records from my parents' record rack that I played in, say, the early 70s. The one I remember best was The Genius Of Ray Charles, which was a collection of (somewhat cheesy) standards. Here I was a massive Beatles fanatic, totally digging Ray's version of Alexander's Ragtime Band. Ray was funny that way - for every rocking What'd I Say or Leave My Woman Alone - tunes that dominated the Ray Charles sound - he'd still get us with America the Beautiful or I Can't Stop Loving You. It was the voice, the unique phrasing, the emotion and what I believe was an incredible joy in singing. And that joy with a synthesis of Gospel and a broad musical knowledge.

Saw Ray and his full touring unit in (I'm guessing) 1984 at Lehman College in the Bronx - the Raelettes of that vintage, horn section, the works. He did a totally professional 75 minutes, nothing special in the litany of a working musician. But there was a lightness to his presence, from the moment he came on the state on the arm of an usher, that just grabbed the audience and lifted us out of our seats. I was totally mesmerized by the performance, and it remains one of the great live music experiences of my life. Honestly, I don't remember the songs, but I'll never forget the voice.

Electricity

Jason Chervokas is now five chapters into his multi-text novel "Electricity," and I thought it would be a fine time to recommend it to the massive readership on the weblog. I had a very minor hand in the site and novel, mainly as a sounding board, and it's terrific - a noirish detective story set in Los Angeles in 1969, sort of a Helter Skelter meets the Mod Squad and Mannix, packed with pop culture references. As usual, Jason's bringing a level of obsession to the project that is truly scary, and has been IM'ing me about actual SDS files scanned online and Captain Beefheart lyrics. Anyway, please dig in - I think it's a cool, public way of working on a long fiction piece, and I know he's seeking feedback, more source material, and eventually, a book contract.