Ted Asregadoo

This is the first time Barack Obama and John McCain have faced each other as competitors rather than Senate colleagues, and it’s clear that the chumminess of that institution cast a long shadow over the early part of the debate. Both were cordial, often agreed with one another, and had trouble defining themselves as candidates with different ideas on addressing the problems of the country.

It wasn’t until moderator Jim Lehrer pushed the two of them to articulate their differences that we saw that chumminess start to evaporate.  One of the overarching themes of Friday night’s debate was about resources and how best to allocate them. Money, jobs, energy, and even troops were the resources in question, and the politics centered on how much for whom. Tax breaks for oil companies and businesses, or tax breaks for families making $250,000 or less? Which was going to do its economic magic and help the economy recover? Trickle down or bottom up?

On energy, the two candidates were pretty much on the same page, and only differed on details of how much and when. What shocks me the most is Obama’s support for nuclear energy. Why, if he’s so keen on preventing nuclear “suitcase bombs” from going off in American cities, does he not see the danger of nuclear reactors as terrorist targets? Also, almost no attention is being paid to the huge costs to taxpayers in setting up nuclear reactors, and once they are set up, how do you deal with the nuclear waste? Yucca Mountain can’t hold it all. His pragmatism on oil drilling is understandable, but it overshadows his commitment to alternative energy — which, when McCain chimes in, makes it sound like both men don’t mean it.

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Once again John McCain has chosen chaos over constancy as his presidential campaign …

Oops, I forgot: McCain currently doesn’t have a presidential campaign. It’s been “suspended,” even as he swoops down on Washington to preen around and pretend to inject his “leadership” in the struggle to save our floundering economy. For months Republicans have been blowing smoke up our asses, claiming that Barack Obama is “presumptuous” for drawing huge crowds, holding substantive meetings with foreign leaders, driving around in motorcades … and for requesting briefings from Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. But what could be more presumptuous than McCain’s gambit to blow up the debate schedule so he can turn Congress’ bailout negotiations into a personal photo-op?

Let’s be brutally honest here: McCain has nothing to contribute to the actual negotiations between Congressional leaders and the current White House. Neither does Obama. Neither man sits on the relevant Senate committees, nor would either man be invited to sit on the Conference Committee that will attempt to reconcile differences between the House and Senate bills that eventually emerge. Today’s sit-down at the White House, for which McCain and George Bush conspired to pull Obama away from his scheduled activities, is mostly a dog-and-pony show; the real negotiations, if they’re not already wrapped up, will continue behind the scenes among staffers from Congress and the Treasury.

You’ve got to give McCain credit, though – he certainly knows how to make a splash. His grandiose display of “statesmanship” yesterday was a P.R. move, pure and simple, but it will probably work like a Pavlovian whistle among the small sliver of the electorate that sends poll numbers careening back and forth. What this says about those folks is another question. Why must the leadership of the free world hinge on a bunch of ninnies who are so easily distracted by shiny objects of no value (Sarah Palin) or offers of free (bi-partisan) joints from a guy who so clearly plans to get us strung out on the usual GOP heroin?

But I digress. There actually is one service McCain can provide in the current negotiations – that of pulling the wackiest of wacko conservatives back from the ledge, and convincing them to sign on to whatever compromise legislation emerges over the next few days. Unbelievably, there remains a core of House Republicans who would rather watch our banking system collapse than betray their conservative “principles” by allowing the government (horrors!) to do something about it. The Democratic leadership wisely has insisted that no bailout plan will come up for a vote without a critical mass of Republican support; McCain probably recognizes that unless such support coalesces, he and his party are likely to suffer such extraordinary losses in November that the party may never recover. (more…)

Among the many types of radio star that video killed were what I like to call the Faceless Narcissists – those acts of the pre-MTV era who felt compelled to name their acts after themselves despite the lack of stardom or even any apparent charisma. The Sanford/Townsend Band; Zager & Evans; Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds; Emerson, Lake and Palmer … you guys know who you are.

Once that little moon-man started flickering across the ether, those snoozer monikers were out the window. And particularly if you were a duo (unless you happened to be Daryl Hall & John Oates), you needed a name like Wham! or Yazoo or Outkast to get on the TV. (Dear readers, please don’t barrage me with boring duo names of the past 25 years; my point is my point, and I’m sticking with it.)

Anyway, the singles I’ve excavated for today’s column date from the peak years of Faceless Narcissism. They are stellar examples of the form not only because they came from duos who had no business naming anything after themselves, but also because they fairly reek of sublimated testosterone. One very nearly punctured the Bee Gees firewall to become a Top 10 hit during the winter of 1978; the other, while not achieving anywhere near that kind of chart success, remains one of the sweetest examples of the kind of turn-of-the-’80s midtempo AC that kept me riveted (and dateless) through much of high school.

Lenny LeBlanc and Pete Carr were high school classmates in Daytona Beach, Fla., whose musical ambitions danced around one another for nearly a decade. LeBlanc led bands in Florida and Cincinnati, while Carr focused on production and eventually settled in Muscle Shoals … zzzzzzzzzzz. For crying out loud, wake me when the backstory’s over! (I told you they had no business naming anything after themselves…) So these two guys finally hooked up and started recording together around 1975, and instead of giving themselves a cool name like one of the bands Carr had produced (Sailcat) or one of LeBlanc’s former groups (Whalefeather), they decided to go by … LeBlanc & Carr. Narcissists! (more…)

John McCain and Sarah Palin enjoy a light moment on the campaign trail, between feedings.

From yesterday’s New York Times: “Laura Chase, the campaign manager during Ms. Palin’s first run for mayor in 1996, recalled the night the two women chatted about her ambitions. ‘I said, ‘You know, Sarah, within 10 years you could be governor,’ Ms. Chase recalled. ‘She replied, ‘I want to be president.’”

Discuss.

Though my head is exploding over the lunacy of John McCain’s increasingly cowardly and dishonorable presidential campaign, it seems imperative that I join the rest of the political culture in taking a break from the back-and-forth of lipstick and pigs and idiot conservatives (whoops), and devote some space to a reflection on 9/11 and its continued impact on our American life.

There. Can I move on now?

I don’t mean to sound crass. I just don’t believe that, seven years on, you need to hear my personal perspective on 9/11. I also don’t feel a need to impart my memories of that day (suffice it to say I was at work at the U.N. when the planes hit, then was evacuated from both my office and Grand Central Station and spent the day with fellow future-Popdoser Bob Cashill, who was kind enough to take me in). My thoughts on the attacks’ long-term political and cultural ramifications similarly aren’t important; you’ll get enough of that elsewhere today, unless you choose to spend the day (as I might) under a rock.

However, when the wife woke me this morning with the news that she had spent the previous hour and a half watching a real-time replay of the Today show’s 9/11 coverage on MSNBC, I was stirred anew by rage and resentment. Not toward al Qaeda or bin Laden or the Taliban or the hijackers, though that’s there too – it’s always there, not just one day a year. Instead, I raged at the callousness of those who continue the cynical use of 9/11 as a tool for achieving their own purposes – be they a political party or a television network.

Anyone who watched MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican convention last week, or who watched Countdown last night, knows that Keith Olbermann has been apoplectic over the video “tribute” to 9/11 that aired minutes before McCain accepted his party’s nomination for president. Olbermann’s fits, which culminated in a typically rambling “Special Comment” last night, have been well-placed (if untidy and, as usual, over the top). That convention video was truly appalling, a crime against the memories of those who lost someone in the attacks as well as those who lived through them. It was overly explicit both in its footage and in the (wrong-headed) politics of its narration. Perhaps even worse, by conflating the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80 with al Qaeda’s campaign of attacks on U.S. interests, it once again betrayed the Republicans’ inability to differentiate Shi’ite Muslims from Sunnis, and thus it implicated the full sweep of contemporary Islam as the “enemy” (the video’s word) in our War of Terror (Borat’s words).

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Dw.: Well, John McCain is in a pickle now, isn’t he? Last week he chose a running mate that would satisfy certain weak sectors of his ticket - the Christian Right, young people and women. One day after Sarah Palin’s speech, she is suddenly the party’s superstar. It helps him in the polls, but now he has two people to wrestle the spotlight from: Barack Obama and his own VP choice.

Jon: I think McCain needs to back away from the nastiness of Wednesday evening. Mitt, Rudy and Sarah were so over the top, and the crowd in the hall was so angry, that the long-term impact might be an implosion of the Republican Party brought on by its own misplaced victimhood and unearned condescension. McCain needs to offer something different tonight.

Ted: This speech will tell us a lot about how much McCain wants to be president, and how low he will stoop to get it. So far, he has kowtowed to his advisors and party regulars, who steered him away from picking his top choices for VP (Thompson and Lieberman) in order to go with Palin.

Dw.: Tonight’s speech has to be a winner. By even the standards of the conservative pundits, Obama’s was one for the ages. McCain needs to bring the impact, and badly. The question is how he’ll approach the task. Will he rise above the verbal flogging his compatriots inflicted over the last two and a half days, addressing the audience as a statesman? Or will he sink to a barrage of easy cliches, distortions, and the kibbles and bits the red states lap up so willingly?

Ready, steady, go…!

McCain takes the stage…

Dw: Heeeeere’s Johnny!

Jon: What was with that intro video? Very Leni Riefenstahl, with the voiceover and the flagwaving. And now McCain enters, and that huge spotlight is terribly Triumph of the Will. (more…)

Dw. Dunphy: Yes! I have been waiting for this all week: Palin Time! Do you think they’ll do the Dead Parrot sketch? Maybe even … the Cheese Shop?! I can’t wait for — What? No, please! You can’t do this to me! I have so little to look forward to! This is the only thing that got me through the week! I spent the entire evening digging out my Knights Of Ni helmet!

Fine. You win. But the Alaska chick better be hilarious.

Jon Cummings: Well, the lead-up today has been pretty darn amusing. First there was the saga of Levi, the baby daddy, and his vulgar MySpace page that concluded that he was “in a relationship” but “I don’t want kids.” Then there was the leak of an off-mic conversation between Chuck Todd and Peggy Noonan in which she admitted Palin wasn’t “the most qualified” candidate and said of her selection, “I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives … Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it … It’s over.”

Ted Asredagoo: According to my brother in-law, who lives in Alaska, Palin will be an albatross around McCain’s neck. This so-called maverick who brought home the pork to Wasilla, who was in favor of the “Bridge to Nowhere” until she was against it, who is anti-choice except when it’s her own teenage daughter who’s “with child,” and who is allegedly using the power of her office to punish her former brother in-law because, well, he’s divorcing Palin’s sister.

Mitt Romney moves (though his hair doesn’t) onstage, and quickly launches into a tirade about “liberal Washington”…

Dw.: Romney is painting eight years of George W. Bush as “liberal Washington.”

Jon: I know this guy wears magic underwear, but he’s truly delusional. Yeah, Mitt, the Supreme Court’s really “liberal.” (Well, it is if torture is your idea of good conservative values, which Mitt clearly does.) Teaching to the lowest-common-denominator test under No Child Left Behind is “liberal.” The slightest hint of regulation of oil speculators is “liberal.” Well, douchebag, if “liberal” is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Dw.: America — more awesome than Atlantis in every way. “America — the hope of the earth!”

Jon: So the solution to all the problems created by the Bush years is to pursue…the policies of the Bush years!

Dw.: Oh, Mitt, you big, dumb baseball glove. Go get yourself a couple extra wives. (more…)

Amie Miriello, I Came Around (BellaSonic/Jive/Zomba)
purchase this album (Amazon)

The current boomlet of female singer-songwriters hasn’t yet spawned a Lilith Fair revival, but you can just feel one coming when a label like Jive throws its weight behind a folk-pop ingénue like Amie Miriello.

Actually, Jive has been behind her for awhile; she and her songwriting/performing partner, guitarist Jay Dmuchowski, threw together the band Dirtie Blonde after signing with the label in 2005, and scored a minor hit with the poppy but personality-free “Walk Over Me.” Since then Miriello has jettisoned the band and allowed Jive to use her as a guinea pig in the launch of its BellaSonic subsidiary, which seems intent on marketing her in a Colbie Caillat/Sara Bareilles mode.

And why not? Miriello exhibits plenty of promise on her solo debut, I Came Around, even if the album’s charms are a bit scattershot. The songwriting is relentlessly catchy (Miriello has at least a hand in every tune, assisted by Dmuchowski and numerous others), and its folk and blues influences occasionally manage to bubble up out of the major-label production gloss. The acoustic musicianship is impressive, too – and apparently is very impressive during her live gigs, which feature more of a laid-back, low-fi vibe than she displays here.

The only trouble is, I’m pretty sure Miriello is schizophrenic – or at least her voice is. (Come on, folks – I had to say something to avoid the standard clichés, like “she wears her influences on her sleeve” or “she hasn’t found her voice yet.”) Miriello has a strong, bluesy voice in there somewhere, but on songs like “Pictures” and “Brand New” she meanders from one affectation into another in what finally sounds like a desperate attempt to connect by reminding listeners of someone else. A little Alanis here, a little Tori there, a touch of Joni on “Who You Really Are” and the lovely piano ballad “Snow” – it doesn’t end there, but you get the idea.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, Miriello doesn’t need to do all that, because her songs sell themselves without all the distracting vocal acrobatics. The title track (and first single), for example, matches a regret-tinged lyric with propulsive guitars, sounding like an early track from the wonderful Sarah Harmer. (more…)

Dw. Dunphy: I thought I’d start things off tonight with a joke: So … Judas, Benedict Arnold, and the dude from Raiders of the Lost Ark who gets the spikes through his face walk into a bar. They see Joe Lieberman, turn around and leave, saying, “Shit, they’ll let anyone in here these days” … Well, it ain’t funny, but it is original.

Ted Asregadoo: He’s here ’til Thursday, ladies and gentlemen!

Jon Cummings: Try the red meat! The Republicans are having a special.

9:40 p.m. EDT: Laura Bush emerges to introduce her absent hubby…

Dw.: Laura seems to be having trouble with the TelePrompTer.

Jon: Is our children learning?

Ted: I feel like taking a nap.

Jon: Get your ass up! If I can sit through this, you can.

Dw.: I speak for all of us when I say this is a sacrifice for the good readers of Popdose.

Jon: Here is Laura’s “straight talk” about the achievements of hubby’s administration: 1. No Child Left Behind (enacted with more help from Democrats than anyone else, never fully funded by Bush, too reliant on standardized tests, school districts nationwide despise it); 2. Supreme Court justices Alito & Roberts (selling the populace down the river to big business, ready to gut Roe v. Wade on a moment’s notice); 3. Faith-based initiatives (even the former director of the program says the Bushies were pandering, then disrespectful to church groups); 4. The African AIDS initiative (hard to argue with this funding, though the policy behind it reeks of Christian-right asininity – and Laura’s “before” statistic that only 50,000 Africans were receiving treatment in 2001 is a steaming pile of horseshit); 5. Afghanistan & Iraq “living in freedom” (millions of them might beg to differ – if you can hear the women’s muffled voices beneath their burkas); 6. Having “kept the American people safe” (hahahahahahaha).

And heeeeeeere’s Georgie…live via satellite… (more…)

An Open Letter to Hurricane Gustav
By Ted Asregadoo

Damn you, Gustav!  I mean, how could you have the audacity to downgrade from a Category 3 to the Category 2 and not hit New Orleans practically straight on –like Katrina did? Didn’t you watch the video the RNC put together to reassure the Gulf Coast (i.e., the Republican base) that Republicans were “on it”?  Didn’t you see Rick Perry in front of “Texas Task Force One” looking us in the face and saying, “Taking care of citizens … it’s what we do”? I know, it was hard not to snicker, but I bit my lip hard and made myself forget how much “care” Republicans heaped on those who survived your friend Katrina.

Have you no heart not to point your fury at the Big N.O. and fill that bathtub to the overflow point?  I mean, Bob Riley of Alabama was appealing to the better angels of our nature and telling us that our values like honor, courage, and dedication will lead to a recovery, but only if you leveled the place!  And have you no decency, Gustav?  At long last, have you no decency, sir?  Because if you did, you would know that Charlie Crist of Florida said that through tragedy we will see an increase in self-sacrifice and the spirit of helping one another.  Haley Barbour “felt” our prayers and has seen firsthand the outpouring of charity in the aftermath of tragedy.  And it’s through those tragedies will we see the “partnerships” that form between the Federal and state governments.

Gustav, didn’t you know that it was because of you that we were all going to put on our “American hats, ” roll up our sleeves and get the job done?  Since you didn’t fulfill your role as a “Lucifer’s Hammer,” it’s going to be tougher for Republicans to stick to their revised narrative of “Serving a cause greater than self-interest.” I am so disappointed in you, Gustav.  So terribly disappointed. (more…)