Dw. Dunphy On… Defining Change in the Here and Now
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 by Dw. DunphyI’m not a politics junkie, really. I know that might be hard to believe based on some of my columns over the last year. You’d find support in your disbelief from my family members as they recount the agony I go through while running through the Sunday morning roundtable tortures.
This Sunday, much like last Sunday and the one before it, the buzz was about how John McCain has co-opted Barack Obama’s tentpole strategy of change. Some argue that he is only flipping his deck of cards around, that he utters change while he shuffles out constancy. Others are saying that he actually has presented change, but only one, yet that single one has all but assured him a close run to the White House - Sarah Palin. The other big topic for the talking heads was the collapse and eventual sale of Lehman Bros. Investments and the rapidly plummeting stock prices for Washington Mutual (WaMu) and other notable lenders.
It all started me to thinking about the notion of change beyond the rhetorical slings and arrows. What changes are we actually looking for in this country? Who among us are secure? Who are hanging in, and who have given up? Despite optimistic numbers all summer long, unemployment is at a five year record high, so pervasive that those once rose-tinted figures had to be retro-actively adjusted to gel with the facts. I posed the question to some of my fellow Popdose writers: how are you doing? We’re presenting the responses here as an invitation to you, the readers. Feel free to share your situation with us in the comments section.
A point worth mentioning: this article has been several months in the making and while individual circumstances may have changed from person to person, the viewpoints are still valid, the message still has merit and is presented in that respect.



There are several degrees of expectation, but the key ones are low expectation, high expectation, and original Metallica fans. You’re aware of the first two, I’m sure, but number three may be a mystery to you, and for good reason, as satisfaction requires nothing less than a wormhole in time, a crate of Jagermeister, and just maybe the reanimated dead. Intrigued?
Multiple choice time on Popdose, kids. Make sure that pencil is a #2 and don’t forget to fill your circles completely. Your future depends on how you do on this test (snicker, snicker.) Okay, let’s begin!
It’s a cynical world, and there isn’t much to do about it. I grab rare glimpses of virtue whenever I can, but I’m seldom overwhelmed with opportunities. A couple weeks ago, however, we all caught sight of incredible bravery, strength of character and guts, and I couldn’t let the event pass without taking note.
That may explain my fascination with the Kids’ WB! animated series Freakazoid!, produced by Steven Spielberg back in the rip-roaring mid-’90s. Warner Bros. Television Animation had been through a resurgence of sorts, propped up by the success of the moody, atmospheric, and terrifically written Batman: The Animated Series. They suddenly had the rest of the entertainment world paying attention, so much so that Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment came to call. From there, a succession of fondly remembered series tumbled out: Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain. The word came down that Spielberg’s next series should be a superhero show, so Bruce Timm, an integral part of the Batman show, started spitballing ideas, working up a premise and designing characters. The result was a show far more earnest than Spielberg planned, so he sent back the message to crank up the humor. He should have been more careful with his direction.
Have you read the entertainment news today? Oh boy. A particularly dreadful tune is set to break some major records for sales, this week’s new movies arriving under a mantle of critical kudos have been trounced at the box office by The Dark Knight, a four-week winner no less, and the spate of mind-numbing reality TV shows, once considered dead in the water by pundits, are not only thriving but multiplying for the 2008/2009 season. It is, as the critics have feared, the grim realization that they have zero effect on the zeitgeist. But then again, we always knew that.
Porcupine Tree has been, for well on a decade now, a cult favorite trying to simply be a favorite, but there has been a problem in making that happen. That problem is the box lead member Steven Wilson refuses to be put in. The band started as a home studio project, a solo affair that leaned heavily on psychedelia, hence the trippy group name. The project would soon be fleshed out into a full group comprising Wilson, bassist Colin Edwin, drummer Chris Maitland (to be followed later on by Gavin Harrison), and former Japan synth player Richard Barbieri. With the expanded group ethic, Wilson found the proper tools to stretch out in progressive rock, pop, and even the current metal sound. That metal sound has, unfairly, caused some to blanch at the group’s Tool-like complexity and weight, which are mixed with Wilson’s harmonious, classic rock vocals.
It was a strange Sunday evening in the wilds of Holmdel, New Jersey. The PNC Arts Center usually allows patrons onto the property two hours before show time at 6:00 PM, and so I found myself on the Garden State Parkway with Elvis Costello’s Brutal Youth CD on the stereo and thoughts of scoring a sensible parking space bouncing in my brain. Little did I know that, as a courtesy to the weekenders, the venue let people in at 4:00. They dumped me out into the adjacent woods to park! This did not bode well.
Now, had the evening ended there, I wouldn’t have walked away from this performance completely baffled. It would have been my shortest concert experience, but we all would have felt like we wanted to be in the same room with each other, band included. We’re all aware of the behind-the-scenes tensions purportedly happening in Camp Police. We’re also aware that even back in the early days, Sting commanded the majority of the attention, a position that could quickly irritate, and while hearsay shouldn’t color one’s impressions so early in the game, it was evident when Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland took the stage that they were plainly irritated.
The big U.S. auto manufacturers, finding their sales affiliates smarting over the loss of business for the once-profitable mammoth, 4X4 luxury monsters in deference to smaller, fuel-friendly models and higher prices at the pumps, started testing the waters to see what would happen if… they sold those divisions? Maybe they might just close the Hummer and Escalade plants down, seeing as how the time for them had come and gone. A part of me, the part that never could afford one of these stupid counties on wheels and was gleeful in spite, cheered the announcement. Sure, it wasn’t a concrete plan of action — merely a “f’rinstance” — but the merest mention of the possibility was enough. At least, it momentarily was.
I said something that sent a jolt of disbelief through the ranks of Popdose. I have been known to take my opinions to the far side, but this one threatened to betray an ignorance I didn’t know I harbored. Let me spell it out and see if I’m as far off base as some have claimed me to be:
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