CITIZEN GHOST TOWN

Nuclear Option

2012-01-27T05:57:00.000-08:00

Andrew Sullivan is an insightful and eloquent political commentator.

An original thinker who doesn’t tow any party line, he is a self-described political conservative who adores Ronald Reagan but who endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election. An early supporter of the Iraq war, he lost faith in the Bush administration and has called the war a mistake. As an advocate of small government, he supported Ron Paul but he was not shy about criticizing the candidate for his irresponsible handling of racist newsletters. Sullivan is not afraid to change his mind, to wring his hands and to write from the heart. This is part of his appeal. Although his views can surprise and frustrate the reader, he doesn’t back down or squirm away - he defends his positions and shifting opinions thoughtfully.

Most of the time.

Earlier this month, Sullivan’s blog, The Dish, offered an entry under the heading, “Why Ron Paul Is Right and Obama Is Wrong About Iran.” OK, I’m interested.

According to Sullivan, Obama’s stance – that the U.S. must not allow Iran to develop or acquire nuclear arms – is foolish. Foolish because Iran will eventually have this capacity regardless of our demands. Sullivan says that Ron Paul, alone among the candidates, understands that Iran sees international sanctions against it as an act of war and that our own policies are only motivating Iran to try harder to obtain weapons. Sullivan also argues that 50 years ago the U.S. didn’t want China to get nukes either but things didn’t work out so badly. I’m not persuaded by this line of argument (Is theocratic Iran really like China?) but it’s standard fare. One side says that an Iran with nukes would be catastrophic. The other side says “oh, come on, How bad would it really be?”

But then Sullivan gets interesting:

"Obama also argues that he opposes Iran's nukes because of proliferation in the region. At which point one must loudly cough "Ahem." Only one country in the region has illegally, in defiance of internatinal [sic] law and the NPT and US policy, has nuclear weapons and it's Israel, not any Arab state."

This is hogwash. Yes, everyone understands that Israel has nuclear weapons. It’s probably the worst kept secret in the history of geopolitics. But possessing such weapons violates no law. Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and cannot be in violation of its terms. It’s certainly the case that most nations in the world want Israel to sign the NPT, which would subject Israel to international IAEA oversight and commit them to eventual disarmament. But as a sovereign nation they don’t have to sign the treaty.

But here is what a nation cannot do: 1) sign the treaty, 2) receive the benefits the treaty provides – exchange of technology, assistance and aid in developing nuclear energy etc. - and then, 3) violate, with impunity, the terms of the treaty and their agreed upon obligations to the IAEA, European Union and United Nations. That is precisely what Iran has done.

What are the United States and the International community to do about that? What are we to make of Iran's history of proliferating the weaponry it already possesses to the likes of Hezbollah? These are fair topics for argument. But the familiar trope “If Israel has nuclear weapons, then why not Iran” attempts to draw a false equivalence. Sullivan ought to know better. It’s the sort of rhetoric that undermines an honest assessment of the vital issue – the consequences of allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to enter the nuclear club and the costs of preventing it.
____________________________________________________________

Gingrich Country

2012-01-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

"South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum"

- James Petigru, 19th century Congressman after South Carolina seceded in 1860

I didn't watch the full South Carolina debates - no man deserves that much entertainment.

But there's that stunning clip of Rick Perry, the swaggering Texan, at the debate held on Martin Luther King day. Here was the exchange:

Moderator: Are you suggesting on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day that the federal government has no business scrutinizing the voting laws of states where minorities were once denied the right to vote?

Perry: I'm saying that the state of Texas is under assault by the federal government. I'm also saying that South Carolina is at war with this federal government and this administration...

The Myrtle Beach audience roared. It may have been the the loudest applause of the night. For Perry, it was his last big moment in the spotlight. He would end his Presidential bid three days later and back Newt Gingrich.

So did the Republic of South Carolina.

25 Best Albums of 2011

2012-01-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

I admit it. I'm heavy on the retro-rock, alternative country and punk/power pop. Here are my favorite albums of 2011:

25. Drive by Truckers – Go-Go Boots

Another year - another solid Drive by Truckers album.

24. Okkervil River – I Am Very Far

Literary rockers from Austin deliver a big sound.

23. Middle Brother – Middle Brother

It might be a bit much to call an outfit consisting of members of Deer Tick, Delta Spirit and Dawes a "supergroup” but in the tradition of Monsters of Folk, these guys deliver like one.

22. Sloan - The Double Cross

One of the truly underrated bands out there, Sloan has been making great pop-rock records for 20 years. This year's Double Cross is among their best.

21. The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient

Nice album with an atmospheric, spacey classic rock feel.

20. Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator

As one would expect, soulful singing and kick-ass slide guitar define this rootsy offering.

19. Smith Westerns – Dye it Blonde

The kids in this Chicago band average age 20 – but their version of glam rock and power pop would have made T-Rex proud.

18. Dave Alvin – Eleven, Eleven

The rocker from the Blasters and X is still going strong. Judging from this fine album, very strong.

17. Beirut – The Rip Tide

Lush and full of diverse world influence, Beirut’s best and most accessible album to date.

16. Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest

Welch’s spare and hauntingly beautiful album is aptly titled. It’s No Depression’s album of the year.

15. The Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck

John Darnielle’s quirkiness and nasal delivery aren’t for everyone but there’s something beautiful and captivating about this album.

14. Dawes – Nothing is Wrong

In capturing their laid-back Los Angeles sound, Dawes has left nothing to chance – bringing in the likes of Jackson Browne and Benmont Tench. It works.

13. Deer Tick – Divine Providence

Raw and surprisingly fun - Deer Tick’s John McCauley does his best to channel Paul Westerberg.

12. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Dave Grohl’s best album in years.

11. Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones

English folk singer with a punk heart, Turner wears everything on his sleeve as he delivers one convincing anthem after another.

10. Over the Rhine – The Long Surrender

The husband and wife team Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist have made a beautiful timeless-sounding album.

9. Decemberists – The King is Dead

Their loyal fanbase might prefer their earlier, more eclectic albums. I prefer this one – a solid, accesible roots rock sound with a touch of early REM.

8. Ryan Adams- Ashes & Fire

Writing great songs is like breathing for Ryan Adams. He makes it seem so easy.

7. Wild Flag - Wild Flag

An indie supergroup consisting of members of Sleater-Kinney and Helium, the garage rock energy of this album packs a punch.

6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong

A great guitar sound reminiscent of The Jesus and Mary Chain and the Smashing Pumpkins.

5. My Morning Jacket – Circuital

The musical range of this band is so impressive – their style and influences range from Otis Redding to Radiohead. It's all really good.

4. Portugal. the Man – In the Mountain in the Cloud

Terrible name, terrific band. A wonderfully listenable blend of glam rock and pyscyhedelia.

3. Girls – Father, Son Holy Ghost

Impressive follow-up by the SF band. Lots of lush and infectiously catchy songs here.

2. Ry Cooder – Pull up Some Dust and Sit Down

The political and social commentary is wittier and far more eloquent than anything you’ll hear from "Occupy Wall Street". But what really makes Cooder’s latest album work isn't the politics - it's the music.

1. Wilco – The Whole Love

The best American band of the last 10 years - their latest album is among their very best.

Happy 2012!

____________________________________________

Why Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters Matter

2011-12-30T17:13:00.000-08:00

Luis Suarez is a soccer player from Uruguay who stars for Liverpool FC in England’s Premier League. Suarez made sports headlines two weeks ago when he was suspended for 8 games for racially abusing a black opponent, Patrice Evra, who plays for Liverpool’s heated rival, Manchester United. Some of the details of the exchange are in dispute but what seems clear is that Suarez, speaking in Spanish, called Evra a “negrito.” In response to the suspension, Suarez and other Liverpool supporters have come forward with a variety of defenses, ranging from the familiar: Suarez has black friends and teammates, is of mixed race ancestry himself and personally treats everyone with respect, etc. - to the more novel and nuanced: the Spanish term “negrito” is not necessarily disparaging, it can even be affectionate. (The more interesting aspect of the incident is the one-sided nature of the suspension. Evra, who is a French national, was reported to have provoked the incident when he called Suarez a “dirty South American.” Evra received no punishment).

But Luis Suarez is not a racist. And it’s not just his friends and teammates who say so. Patrice Evra, the player he insulted, says so. Even the FA, the league issuing the suspension says so. This begs the question: Why is Luis Suarez receiving such a harsh suspension if nobody thinks he’s a racist? The answer is that the personal views of the player are beside the point. It’s the behavior – the calling out of a person’s skin color and disparaging him on that basis - that will not be tolerated. If the penalty seems excessive, consider the history. Only a few decades ago, black players were routinely greeted in English stadiums with bananas and grunting noises from fans. Similar displays still take place in soccer stadiums in Eastern Europe and, on occasion, in Spain. And while an 8 game suspension might seem severe (by comparison, recklessly breaking an opponent’s leg merits only a 3 game suspension), at least the message is clear: It’s not sufficient to say that a person, in his heart, is not a racist. Words are actions. Words matter. And if athletes are to be held accountable for their words, what about public figures who seek the highest office in the land?

Which brings us to Ron Paul.

Paul, the libertarian Texan who is seeking the Republican nomination for President, has drawn fire for a variety of outrageous statements made in the Ron Paul Political Report, a newsletter published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unlike the utterance of “negrito” there is no context in which these newsletters could NOT be considered racist or otherwise crudely offensive. For example, the newsletter reported that the order was restored after the LA riots “when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks." It declared that black protesters should gather "at a food stamp bureau or a crack house" rather than the Statue of Liberty. It suggested that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick"and it questioned whether the 1993 World Trade Center bombing "was a setup by the Israeli Mossad." The statements range from outright bigotry to crackpot paranoia and there’s plenty more.

These outrageous statements came to light in the 2008 campaign but the media mostly ignored the issue – probably because few took Ron Paul very seriously as a candidate. For his part, Paul didn’t take the matter very seriously either. He said he didn’t personally write any of those statements and that he disavowed them. His explanation?

"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product," Paul said. "For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name."

Taken moral responsibility? How?

Questions are again being asked now that Paul is a real contender in the upcoming Iowa caucuses. Last week, Paul was confronted about the content of the newsletters on CNN. “These things are pretty incendiary,” the interviewer noted.

“Because of people like you,” Paul said.

Is that Paul’s idea of taking moral responsibility? When he was pressed to further explain his role in publishing such offensive comments, he tore off his microphone and walked off the set.

Got that? It’s the media’s fault that people are talking about the disgusting things that were published by Ron Paul in his newsletter. Sorry. Ron Paul might be an admirable guy and an intriguing political figure with interesting views, but no other candidate would be allowed to get away with such irresponsible drivel. So why should Paul?

But Ron Paul is not a racist. This is what his very enthusiastic supporters insist. He’s a man of integrity and a true patriot. They point out how uncharacteristic those statements are in comparison to everything else Paul has ever said about race. They tell us that he used to give free medical care to poor blacks in his Texas district. They say that Rosa Parks was one his heroes. They insist that his policies – like ending the “war on drugs” - are good for blacks. And, most incredibly, they tell us that Ron Paul can’t be a racist because true libertarians only see individuals, not ethnicity or group identity. (Evidently, nobody explained this to the non-libertarian writers of Paul’s own newsletter).

All of this misses the point. The belief that Ron Paul is fair and decent guy whose libertarian policies are good for minorities doesn’t change the fact that he has, in no way taken any serious responsibility for the outrageous things that he published.

And there’s massive denial here on the part of Paul’s supporters. It’s understandable that they resent the timing of these questions. This is politics. Of course they would prefer to talk instead about what they like about Paul or complain about taxes, the military-industrial complex or Paul's favorite bugaboo, the Federal Reserve. But they’re kidding themselves if they think this is just some minor baggage or some tenuous guilt-by-association. It’s not as if some random bigot just happened to throw together some racist tirades and independently publish them under Paul’s name. Paul was the president of the company that published the newsletter. The newsletter helped generate millions of dollars for him in fundraising. This isn’t a story that’s being “rehashed.” It has barely been scratched. Paul has a lot of explaining to do.

For instance: When did he first become aware that he was publishing such disgusting comments? Who wrote them? (Paul says he doesn’t know and that it is the editor’s responsibility, not the publisher’s. OK then, who was his editor?) Are the editors still affiliated with Paul’s campaign? How much money did Paul make from these publications? Why did it take so long for Paul to condemn the racist comments? If Paul didn’t know who wrote his own newsletter, why did he make no effort to find out when he learned of the remarks?

Paul has answered none of this.

Andrew Sullivan is a center-right political commentator who had offered a qualified endorsement of Ron Paul but is now thinking twice:

"a man who could win the Iowa caucuses and is now third in national polls has to have a plausible answer for this. It's what happens when you hit the big leagues. Obama did it with Jeremiah Wright, openly grappling with the past toxic association, owning it, explaining it. Paul has not had the wherewithal or presence of mind to do that. Indeed, he has not even named the association, the first step to disowning it. And unlike Obama with Wright, Paul got money from these newsletters."

I’ve always been a bit suspicious of Ron Paul’s populist appeal – his extreme libertarianism suggests a dystopian fantasy, the gold standard he advocates is nuts and the non-interventionism he preaches sounds more like head-in-the-sand isolationism – but still, I used to find much to admire about the guy. Paleo-curmudgeon tendencies notwithstanding, he’s not the kind of guy you’d ever expect to be taking a payment under the table and that is something that ought to matter. And it’s never a fair thing to judge a candidate by the excesses of his nuttiest supporters, but that’s not quite what’s happening here. It’s not as if Paul is being called to answer for comments made by a random associate or a drinking buddy from his youth. Paul is responsible for his own publications. If all he was guilty of was negligent supervision, that would be serious enough to raise questions about the competency of a man seeking the highest office in our nation.

For Time's Joe Klein, the issue is crystal clear: “The newsletters went out under his name. They are replete with hateful filth. They disqualify him from the presidency. The idea that someone else wrote them and Paul didn’t read them is utter nonsense–even if true, it would be a devastating commentary on Paul’s executive abilities.”

But it’s not just the aspect of negligent oversight. The Ron Paul Revolution promises to end “politics as usual.” But in Ron Paul’s own political life, the 12-term congressman has shown himself to be sufficiently opportunistic to exploit racial division and incendiary bigotry as long as nobody was asking questions… and as long as the checks were rolling in. There’s an arrogant refusal to be held accountable.

All partisans are susceptible to blindness. If we like a candidate, we tend to excuse a certain amount of ugliness and baggage if we think their election will ultimately bring a positive result. That’s especially true of Paul who, even more than Barack Obama in 2008, is regarded by his fervent supporters as a political savior. As libertarian and Paul supporter, Conor Friedersdorf, noted in a bit of eloquent hand-wringing in The Atlantic, “figuring out what flaws to accept in a candidate is a brutal calculus.” As citizens and voters, we must all engage in this sort of calculus but we should at least do so with our eyes wide open. If you believe America is going down the tubes and if you truly think Ron Paul can fix what is ailing us, you just might conclude that some offensive newsletters written 15 years ago aren’t very important.

But for me, the newsletters, and Paul’s rather embarrassing response to them, are a fair illustration of why Ron Paul is not a good candidate to fix much of anything.
___________________________________________________________________

Top 50 Guitarists of All Time

2011-09-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

___________________________________________________________

First, the disclaimers. This is a list of my FAVORITE guitarists – not necessarily the best or most technically proficient. I don’t play guitar myself, but guitar playing is at the heart of most of the music I love best. I’ve neglected certain genres: classical music, heavy metal, reggae, flamenco and jazz – musical forms that lay claim to some of the most brilliant and artistic guitar playing. The emphasis here is on rock and blues, because it’s the stuff I listen to most.

50. Joe Walsh

Walsh doesn’t just make his guitar sing – he makes it screech, and delightfully so. His distinctive playing is instantly recognizable in memorable riffs (“Life in the Fast Lane”), classic solos (“Hotel California”) and slide guitar (“Rocky Mountain Way”).

49. Elmore James

One of the great delta bluesmen who plugged in and took Chicago by storm, James was renowned for his slide work and powerful playing on tracks like “Dust by Broom” and “The Sky is Crying.” You can hear his influence on Hendrix, Stevie Ray, Clapton and many other blues and rock guitarists.

48. Richard Thompson

It's easy to overlook the great acoustic guitarists. I was familiar with some of Thompson’s early work with Fairport Convention and the recordings with wife, Linda (especially 1982’s “Shoot Out the Lights”) but I didn’t really appreciate his guitar playing until I heard him play a remarkable acoustic version of The Who’s “Substitute” on a radio program.

47. Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia was such a cultural icon that even worshipful Dead Heads sometimes overlook his guitar playing. Best known for the extended improvisational jams for which the band is famous, he also incorporated elements of country, jazz and blues to make a sweet sound very much his own.

46. Robert Cray

The blues revival of the 1980s was partly owed to the success of Cray’s Strong Persuader, one of the staple albums of my college listening years. He’s a smooth and soulful singer, but what really stands out is his rapid-fire, staccato guitar solos and a sound that’s as clear as a bell.

45. Peter Green

Not everyone remembers early Fleetwood Mac but when you listen to the heavy blues of “Oh Well” or the lovely “Albatross,” you begin to appreciate why Green was regarded as a guitar legend who is still mentioned in the whispered tones reserved for the likes of Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.

44. Jack White

The musical force behind the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, White combines dirty blues with the raw energy of punk and garage rock, to create some of the best sounding rock of the new millennium.

43. Wes Montgomery

I hardly ever listened to jazz guitar but then a friend gave me the CD Smokin’ at the Half Note featuring Wes Montgomery and the Wynton Kelly Trio. I totally get it now.

42. Joe Perry

Aerosmith’s axe-man, is one of the quintessential rock guitarists. Rooted in the blues like his British guitar heroes, Perry is responsible for so many classic riffs.

41. Billy Gibbons

Forget the beards and the MTV videos, what makes ZZ Top is Billy Gibbon’s guitar work - the boogie shuffles, the classic riffs and killer tone.

40. Bruce Springsteen

He won’t make lists for technical proficiency and even die-hard Springsteen fans talk about his songwriting and his stage performance before they mention his guitar-playing. But when Springsteen plays the songs on Darkness on the Edge of Town, his guitar lends a violence that perfectly captures the emotions of the characters and the power of so many of the songs.

39. Dave Davies

As the guitarist for the Kinks, Davies is responsible for some of Rock’s classic riffs (“You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night”) and a use of distortion that influenced countless garage bands and punk rockers.

38. Johnny Marr

Morrissey’s misery may have been the signature feature of The Smiths, but it’s the guitar playing of Johnny Marr that made the songs so striking.

37. Slash

I never had much use for heavy metal or for the hair bands of the 80s but when Guns ‘n Roses came along, they seemed altogether different. The elemental force of their sound grabbed me by the throat. Slash’s guitar work was a big reason why.

36. Angus Young

Sure, the school boy outfits and on-stage antics are pure shtick, but when it comes to AC-DC’s guitarist, what it’s really about is power chords, high energy and ass-kicking solos.

35. Neil Young

No relation to Angus. Neil Young is a strange and unique artist. His acoustic playing and classic songs are impressive enough, but it’s when he’s rocking out with Crazy Horse that he reaches the height of his artistry, tapping into something that’s elemental and, at the same time, not of this world.

34. Neels Cline

Wilco is probably my favorite band of the last decade. As Jeff Tweedy transformed his outfit from a very good alt-country group into a truly great band, the guitar playing of Neels Cline became part of that evolution. A player of great versatility and power, he’s equally at home playing avant-garde jazz, dissonant noise rock and tasty pop-rock licks.

33. T. Bone Walker

Few bluesmen made a greater mark on rock guitar than T-Bone Walker, who recorded classic tracks, played a signature Texas shuffle and pretty much defined the guitar solo.

32. J. Mascis

The front man for alternative rock outfit, Dinosaur Jr, Macis is responsible for some of the most ferocious sounding guitar rock of the late 1980s and 90s.

31. Mike Campbell

Guitar World Magazine paid the ultimate tribute to Tom Petty's guitarist: “there are only a handful of guitarists who can claim to have never wasted a note. Mike Campbell is certainly one of them".

30. Stone Gossard/Mike McCready

I cheated here by choosing both of Pearl Jam’s guitarists. Gossard’s rhythmic riffs, and McCready’s shredding solos are both so integral to the sound that I can hardly imagine one without the other.

29. Nils Lofgren

Best known as one of Springsteen’s sidemen, Lofgren got his start with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. He’s equally accomplished at delicate finger picking, soulful slide guitar and fret board pyrotechnics.

28. Robbie Robertson

Robbie’s tasty playing with the Band is, for me, essential listening. And when Bob Dylan unleashed his electric rock sound to an unprepared folky audience, Robbie helped Dylan make history. Spine-tingling stuff.

27. Albert King

Along with B.B. and Freddy, Albert was one of the three great “King” bluesmen. An expressive and understated player, his “Born Under a Bad Sign” is of the greatest guitar albums of all time.

26. Brian May

Queen’s guitarist is a great technician and his harmonics and timeless solos were a crucial part of the band’s power and signature sound.

25. Mick Taylor

A great English blues guitarist and member of John Mayhall’s Blues Breakers. He’s best known as a former member of the Rolling Stones from 1969-74 and it’s not an accident that the Stones recorded their best albums during that period.

24. Kurt Cobain

When magazines like Rolling Stone put Kurt Cobain high on their lists, the old school rock fans usually howl. But Cobain deserves his place. He wasn’t just the creative force behind Nirvana, possibly the best and most influential band of his decade. As a guitarist, his riffs, hooks and tuning helped create the grunge sound.

23. David Gilmour

Many Pink Floyd fans insist that Roger Waters was the greater creative force in the band. But what I like best about Pink Floyd is the emotional expression in Gilmour’s playing.

22. Eddie Van Halen

When I was growing up, every kid who picked up a guitar wanted to sound like Eddie Van Halen. For good reason.

21. Jeff Beck

Beck is a guitarist’s guitarist. Folks who play guitar tend to rank him higher. His playing with the Yardbirds and Rod Stewart is what’s most familiar to your average rock listener. But his 1970s solo work (“Blow by Blow”) is probably the better measure of his artistic and technical prowess.

20. George Harrison

To be fair, the quiet Beatle was one of three very good guitar players in his band. But his playing – the rockabilly in the early years, the jangly sound, his excellent slide guitar and exploration of Eastern sounds on the late albums - stand out as the most lyrical and distinctive. His influence is massive.

19. Dicky Betts

Twin guitar harmonics, mind-bending solos and blues-based jamming are staples of the Allman Brothers Band, the group that pretty much invented Southern Rock. After Duane Allman died, Dicky Betts created some of the Allman’s most melodic guitar work.

18. Roy Buchanan

Never really famous, Buchanan was one of those blues guitarists revered by other great guitarists. I was determined to find out why. So I picked up his two-disc Anthology and was blown away by the power and range of emotion.

17. Ry Cooder

The eclectic Cooder is a session man extraordinaire (from the Rolling Stones to John Hiatt), an expositor of world music and a terrific slide guitarist. Check out 1972’s Boomer’s Story and his LA concept album, Chavez Ravine.

16. Carlos Santana

Such a rich and fascinating career fusing different musical styles but what always emerges when you listen is a passionate guitar sound that is entirely his own.

15. The Edge

His distinctive playing gives U2 its unique sound. He's an innovator, making creative use of delay and digital technology, but it’s his sense of rhythm and feel is that really drives the music.

14. B.B. King

Iconic. B.B. King established a sort of prototype for what a blues guitarist should sound like and look like. Never bothering with chords, he’s the master at putting everything into each note.

13. Keith Richards

The heart of the Rolling Stones.

12. Buddy Guy

Clapton called him the greatest living guitarist, but please don’t take his word for it (or mine). Just listen. Try his older classics and his 1990s comeback album (Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues.)

11. Steve Cropper

The ultimate soul guitarist and house band accompaniest, Cropper’s work with Booker T and the MGs and Stax Volt artists (Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Picket, etc.) is definitive. He always manages to find the right groove and play licks that are perfect for the song.

10. Pete Townshend

John Hiatt put it well: “It breaks my heart to see those stars, smashing a perfectly good guitar.” But Pete Townshend’s episodes of guitaricide were more than showmanship – the destruction matched the ferocity and nihilistic energy of the Who’s music. More importantly, Townshend was the king of the power chord, a great rhythm player and author of some of rock’s enduring anthems. (“Pinball Wizard” “Won’t Get Fooled Again” etc.)

9. Django Reinhardt

The Belgian born Gypsy Jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt, could be the most influential guitarist of all time. I can listen to him all day.

8. Chuck Berry

It’s really this simple: Without Chuck Berry, rock and roll, as we know it, would not exist.

7. Duane Allman

Regarded by some as the best slide-guitarist of all time, Allman’s playing on “At Fillmore East” and with Derek and the Dominos is some of the greatest music ever played by any mortal.

6. Robert Johnson

It’s not just the immeasurable influence he’s had on the guitarists who followed. Rock fans of today appreciate the influence and love the Robert Johnson mythology (the deal with the devil at the Crossroads) but many don’t actually find the recordings all that listenable. I find them thrilling. The first thing you notice is the emotional power - deep and haunting. And then you realize that something crazy is happening on the strings. You’d swear there were two guitars being played. It’s enough to make you wonder what really did happen at the Crossroads.

5. Steve Ray Vaughan

Critics used to knock him as a Hendrix rip-off artist. And if that was ALL he was, he’d still deserve to be regarded as one of the greatest guitarists ever. But the Texas blues he played with Double Trouble stands on its own brilliance. He would have amazed even Hendrix.

4. Mark Knopfler

I fell in love with his playing the very first time I heard “Sultans of Swing” on the radio. With Dire Straits, he created a distinctive sound that incorporated elements of classical guitar into majestic themes for rock anthems. His solo albums feature more understated playing and exploration into folk, country and Gaelic traditions, but his playing remains lovely, expressive and unique.

3. Eric Clapton

For sheer brilliance, I’m not sure he’s ever surpassed Layla and other Assorted Love Songs recorded over 40 years ago. But let’s suppose he had he died tragically in 1970 (the year Hendrix died). He’d by judged by Layla, his work with the Yardbirds, John Mayhall’s Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonne, and his first (and arguably, best) solo-album. In other words, he’d be worshipped as a rock god and one of the greatest guitarists of all time. So let’s not penalize him for being a survivor. And some of his solo-albums are pretty damn good (461 Ocean Boulevard, Journeyman, From the Cradle). He makes it look so easy but can still blow you away.

2. Jimmy Page

The classic solos, the killer riffs, the heavy blues, the kick-ass tone, the manic energy, the timeless songs. Led Zeppelin’s guitarist was a force of nature.

1. Jimi Hendrix

No apologies for the obvious choice. Virtuosity, emotion, innovation, influence, pyrotechnics (literally), showmanship and great songs. Hendrix had it all and did it all before his 28th birthday. My favorite album just might be the posthumous Blues compilation released in 1994. Usually posthumous collections repackage what you’ve already heard in a cynical effort to squeeze more money from an adoring public. This one is different. Just when you think you’ve experienced the depth of Hendrix’s artistry, here was an album that went even deeper.

________________________________________________________

How Not to Remember 9/11

2011-09-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

_______________________________________

If you don’t feel like reading this, I understand.

I’m one of those people who sought to avoid all media coverage on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I stayed off the Internet. No radio. The only television I watched was the Giants-Redskins game but I purposefully tuned in late to be sure that I missed the pregame ceremonies. Not interested.

It’s not that I’m denial of the significance of 9/11. I certainly recognize the importance of remembrance, of communal ceremony and the need of individuals to react and express themselves (as I’m doing here), to share their memories and derive meaning from the day when the world, and everything we thought we knew about it, changed forever. And then there are the young people. College freshmen were 8 years old when we were attacked. Junior high school students have no memory of 9/11 at all. Education, commemoration and healing are all legitimate reasons for public ceremony and the sharing of memories.

But I’m a New Yorker. I don’t have a New York City address anymore but I did for ten years. In 2001, I lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan. Nothing about the stories, memories and reflections of other people – even the poignant accounts of family members of victims - can make that day any more vivid or meaningful for me. I don’t begrudge anyone who wishes to partake in the ceremonies or to immerse themselves in the sea of media coverage. For some, this public sharing of various emotions – grief, anger, inspiration, pride – is cathartic and lends meaning to their remembrance of the day. But it’s not for everyone.

I ignored the media coverage not to escape memory or pain, but to avoid the inevitable preaching. I have no wish to be reminded to “never forget.” For me, as for most New Yorkers, the notion that such a message might even be necessary borders on the absurd. No public ceremony or public interest story can have a greater impact on me than the simple act of pausing for a moment outside of a New York City fire station or my countless glimpses of the vacant skyline. But I also wanted to avoid the baggage - the fetishizing of 9/11 by the media, the messaging of politicians and even the many well-meaning folks who regard 9/11 as a bumper sticker. (You have Facebook friends who do this – you know you do).

Here’s what I also wanted to avoid:

• Public squabbling over who should and who shouldn’t be taking part in the ceremony at Ground Zero.

• Anti-war protesters who utilize such occasions to condemn the killing of civilians by the U.S. military.

• Mawkish sentimentality.

• Politicians.

• Clergy.

• The bashing of George W. Bush and the praising of Barack Obama.

• The bashing of Barack Obama and the praising of George W. Bush.

• The crackpots who would have us believe that 9/11 was an “inside job.”

• The crackpots who would have us believe that 9/11 is the prelude to “The Rapture.”

• The debate over the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

I’m opposed to the effort to have 9/11 designated an official national holiday. Here’s one reason why (it’s an obvious one, but it’s one that people don’t like to talk about): What are we going to do the next time we are attacked? What if it’s worse? Will we create more holidays?

And do we really honor the memory of the victims by closing down businesses and government offices? I don’t think so. We run the risk of turning 9/11 into a sort of national religion where your individual patriotism is measured by your public display of 9/11 piety – essentially by the kind of show you put on. Or we might go to the opposite extreme and extend the summer season with another 3-day weekend, marking the occasion with family picnics, long weekends at the beach and scheduling of sporting events. Both scenarios – the sacred and the profane - strike me as distasteful.

What should we do? People need to remember and mark the occasion in their own way. But if it were up to me (and it is) here’s what I will do on 9/11 in the future. If I feel compelled to tune in or participate in a ceremony or moment of silence, it will be a short and dignified one. I will call my loved ones. I will take a few minutes out of the day to reflect on what was lost on that day and think about the things that matter most. And then get back to it.

__________________________________

Republican Evolution

2011-08-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

At a Republican primary debate in 2007, John McCain was asked to give a yes-or-no answer to the question of whether he believed in evolution.

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.

The remaining candidates were then asked to raise a hand if they disagreed and did not believe in evolution. Several hands went right up. Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo identified themselves as proud creationists who did not accept the scientific theory of evolution. (Later, Ron Paul explained that he too denied evolution. He would have raised his hand but he didn’t hear the question correctly).

It was a depressing display. I’m not a Republican but I took no pleasure in this backward race to the bottom - a sordid competition to see which candidate could go the furthest spouting nonsense and pandering to the ignorant. I'm old fashioned enough to actually think that we are best served as citizens when the respective parties actually put forth the best and more capable candidates. But I could take solace in the fact that four years ago, the majority of the leading Republican candidates actually kept their hands down. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson were not about to declare that they reject basic science or the foundation of modern biology. Presumably, it’s because they don’t.

Four years later, it’s déjà vu all over again. Except this time around, it’s not just a few fringe Republican candidates who are boasting of their scientific backwardness and stupidity. It’s the entire top-tier.

The winner of last week’s Iowa Straw Poll, was Michelle Bachmann who wants creationism (i.e. “intelligent design”) to be taught in public schools. According to Bachmann, “Evolution is a belief…not a fact.”

Ron Paul finished second in the poll. He does not accept evolution.

Tim Pawlentey finished third and he also supports the teaching of creationism in public schools. (He has since dropped out of the race).

Finishing fourth in the Iowa poll was conservative culture warrior Rick Santorum. Santorum has been cagey on this issue, (possibly because his own church, the Roman Catholic Church, accepts evolution, whereas his political base does not). Santorum has previously stated that so-called Intelligent Design is a “legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in the classroom.” He doesn’t explicitly reject evolution but he refers to it pejoratively as an “ideology” and he has urged schools to “teach the controversy” (whatever that means).

Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain (5th place), has avoided the topic, but Texas Governor, Rick Perry (6th place), dismisses evolution as “a theory that’s out there.” In response to a young teenager's question, he said, “In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution because I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."

Sure, it’s embarrassing. But does any of it really matter? We’ve got big economic problems, high unemployment, tens of thousands of troops in harm’s way and serious global unrest. Why is it important to know where a Presidential candidate stands on evolution? Should we also test them with questions about geology or algebra? It has even been suggested that asking about evolution is an inappropriate inquiry into a candidate’s religious faith. Well let’s address that last charge first because the constitutional proscription against a religious test for public office is one that we ought to take seriously. But asking a candidate about his or her understanding or acceptance of evolution is NOT a religious test – it’s a test of scientific literacy. And scientific literacy matters. For one thing, our economic future and competitiveness depends on it.

Yes, we have other challenges and many other problems. But a Presidential candidate who does not accept evolution, the unifying principle of modern biological science, is not fit for the office. For starters, it’s a mark of astonishing ignorance that ought to give any voter pause. It is also suggestive of a lack of commitment to scientific education and scientific achievement. At a time when our nation is lagging behind and is no longer the global leader in research and technological innovation that it once was, we can ill afford a leader who rejects basic science and scientific inquiry. And finally, it suggests a willingness to pander the worst elements of America's right wing Christian fundamentalists. Such theocratic dominionists don't represent most Christians in the U.S. and they have already had far too much influence for far too long. Being a scientific ignoramus is bad enough. But rejecting basic biology and instead teaching creationism (a religious doctrine not a scientific theory) in our public schools, not only stunts the education of our nation’s children, it plainly violates the First Amendment to our Constitution.

One of the GOP candidates who has intrigued and even impressed me is Jon Huntsman, Jr., the former Governor of Utah and, until recently, the U.S. ambassador to China. Last week, Huntsman tweeted the following response to Rick Perry’s dismissal of evolution and climate change: “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

This tweet was the opposite of crazy. It was refreshingly sane. But from someone who is seeking the Republican nomination for President in 2012, it may also have been political suicide. I hope I’m wrong.

_____________________________________________________

Buffalo Shuffle

2011-07-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Mark Grisanti is the state legislator from Buffalo who cast the deciding vote approving same-sex marriage in New York State. He is also one of four Republican Senators who broke with his party to vote in favor of the bill. Without the Republican votes, the law would not have passed. This means that Grisanti is either a hero of conscience or an apostate and opportunistic sell-out, depending on where you happen to stand on same-sex marriage.

In my view, there is only one place to stand on this issue. Marriage equality is a matter of basic fairness and was long overdue. But there is something about the rush to make a hero of Grisanti that didn’t sit right with me. Before voting in the affirmative, Grisanti delivered a speech on the Senate floor and in it, he explained why he changed his mind about same-sex marriage. He was raised Catholic and had always believed that marriage could only be between a man and a woman but upon studying the matter carefully, he had changed his view. On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart lavished heaps of praise on Grisanti for his courage and the speech has become something of You Tube sensation.

I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s pride parade, but I wasn’t that impressed with Grisanti’s speech. At least, that was my first reaction. He appeared to fumble a bit as he repeated prepared phrases several times (“a man can be wiser today then yesterday…”). I found myself appreciating his vote more than his speech. And I suppose I’m reluctant to credit politicians with courage or heroism simply for changing their mind to the position that I hold. Do we credit elected officials whenever they follow their conscience and appear to take a principled stand? Of course not. We only do so when we agree with their stand.

It’s not as if Grisanti is taking an unpopular position. New Yorkers favor same-sex marriage by a wide margin. (To be fair, I don’t know how the issue polls in Grisanti’s own district). He says his vote might be “political suicide” but this strikes me as bravado. It’s just as likely that this vote will be the making of him. The last state legislator to receive this much national attention was a young state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.

And if Grisanti is hero of conscience for reversing himself and officially supporting same-sex marriage, does that make President Obama a coward for not doing so? Most people believe that Obama supports same-sex marriage but can’t say so directly because of the political consequences. If you like Obama, you’re likely to excuse such pragmatism. If you don’t, you’re not. Doesn’t it work that way for all elected officials? Is Grisanti really so different?

But upon listening to Grisanti’s speech a second time (this time holding cynicism in check), two things stood out. First, he appeals to his training as a lawyer. He refers to his extensive research and the application of reason. “I cannot legally come up with an argument against same-sex marriage,” declared Grisanti. Proponents of same-sex marriage take this point for granted. They shouldn't. The familiar arguments against gay marriage (“Marriage is about procreation,” “the word marriage has a definition” “next people will be marrying their pets,” etc.) are based in either emotional reaction or religious authority. These arguments all crumble away before the light of reason. It was refreshing to hear it said on the Senate floor.

I also think that Grisanti’s speech resonates with people because in some ways, his change in attitude on same-sex marriage is illustrative of the way the public’s views have also changed. This moment was barely conceivable a few decades ago. Everyone of my generation was brought up to believe that marriage was something that only took place between a man and a woman. There is an evolution here that proceeds in roughly four stages:

Stage One. “****ing fagots!” Derision of gays is expected.

Stage Two. “I don’t care what they do, so long as they do it in their own bedroom.” Softer bigotry - tolerance within limits.

Stage Three. “OK, gay couples should have legal protections but marriage is between a man and a woman.” An empathetic ‘separate but equal’.

Stage Four. “Did you hear? Tony is bringing Steve to Thanksgiving dinner.”

Ultimately, what brings people around on this issue isn’t an extensive legal analysis. The argument for marriage equality has already been made and made very well by conservatives, Andrew Sullivan (who is gay) and Ted Olson (who is not). But what persuades people more than these arguments is actually knowing people who are gay and recognizing that they have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else.

Wherever his journey has taken him, in the end, Grisanti arrived at a position that was thoughtful, rational and just. That’s as much heroism as anyone has a right to expect in an elected official.

Happy Independence Day.

____________________________________________

Farewell Clarence

2011-06-20T06:28:00.000-07:00

Well, they made a change uptown. The Big Man has left us.

The loss of Clarence Clemons, at the age of 69, leaves a gaping hole in the E Street Band and in the hearts of Springsteen Nation. The tributes online have been warm and generous. As usual, Clarence is described in legendary terms. His influence on Springsteen was “transcendental.” He was larger than life, the band’s talisman. When Springsteen introduced the band on stage, Clarence was introduced last. The Big Man always got the biggest applause. More than a band mate, he was a soul mate. And for the fans, he was a massive presence. Even when he didn’t play much saxophone, it was reassuring to see him on the stage. He was a fixture, elemental to the band's identity and to the fan’s experience.

Because Clarence was such a perfect stage foil to Springsteen, his actual musical contributions are sometimes overlooked. He wasn’t the most accomplished musician in the E Street band, but his saxophone solos are an indispensible part of the band’s sound and Springsteen's greatest songs. There are detractors who saw him as part of a formula – get a big black guy with stage presence who can fill gaps in rock songs with sentimental sounding sax solos. Springsteen fans know better. There’s soul in those notes. Yeah, they can find someone else to play the parts, but Clarence MADE those parts.

And so, in the tradition of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, let’s honor Clarence Clemons with a list of his 10 greatest Springsteen sax solos:

10. The Ties that Bind

The opening track of The River. During the bridge, Bruce sings about feeling the hurt inside. Then Clarence delivers the release.

9. Trapped

The E Street Band started playing this Jimmy Cliff song on the Born in the USA tour. Being trapped never sounded so joyful.

8. Spirit in the Night

Not merely a soloist, Clarence plays the melody here, his tenor sax providing the heartbeat of the characters in the telling of this magical night.

7. Prove it All Night

A simple enough solo, it’s the perfect lead-up to the searing guitar that follows.

6. Bobby Jean

In High Fidelity, Nick Hornby’s character talks about this one: “And then one of those sax solos comes in and you get goose pimples, if you like sax solos.”

Well, I do.

5. Drive All Night

Gentle and soothing, the perfect part for this underrated track.

4. Thunder Road

It’s more of a coda than a solo, but it’s one of the most joyous things ever recorded.

3. Badlands

It’s a short simple solo that basically punctuates the main melody. But it’s a wonderful moment. Hearing it live, you stand at attention, completely absorbed.

2. Born to Run

A classic solo that runs with the fevered energy of Springsteen's most famous anthem. Another blogger put it best: “That thing is the sound of freedom.”

1. Jungleland

Epic. Definitive. Transcendent.

Thank you, Big Man.

_____________________________________

Messi Game

2011-06-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, the world’s greatest soccer player, Lionel Messi, led FC Barcelona to the UEFA Champion’s League title in a convincing 3-1 win over Manchester United. The Champion’s League final is Europe’s version of the Super Bowl. Only it’s bigger. This year’s final match was a true clash of titans. Man U and Barca both have storied histories and massive followings and have been the class of Europe over the past several years. By capturing its 3rd European title in six seasons, Barcelona can legitimately claim to be one of the greatest teams of all time. But more than that, Barca’s win represented an aesthetic triumph of style and skill. Something like beauty.

Soccer fans in Europe and South America (especially Brazil) call their sport, “the Beautiful Game” a name that might seem ironic to soccer haters in the U.S. To be fair, many American skeptics do give soccer a chance every four years. They’ll watch a game or two at the World Cup. They’ll see long-haired foreigners flopping to the ground and kicking each other as often as they kick the ball. They’ll see players moaning in agony at real or imagined injury. They’ll see more yellow cards than shots on goal. They’ll see a 1-0 game decided by questionable refereeing and a penalty kick. And they’ll say “Beautiful Game? Are you kidding me?”

And they have a point. The last few World Cups, though thrilling at times, have delivered more clunkers than gems. It’s not surprising to discover that the best professional clubs often play soccer at a higher level than national teams playing in International Tournaments. When Brazil, Argentina, France or Italy, send a team to the World Cup, it’s a bit like the U.S. sending a basketball team to the Olympics. Some of the player selections are political, the players are often spent, they have little history of playing together, and there is little time to practice. You get a collection of superstars, rather than a truly cohesive team.

But to watch Barcelona is to watch soccer at its finest. When their players have possession of the ball, they rarely lose it. They attack relentlessly with a short, one-touch passing game, constant motion and one daring give-and-go after another. The blend of technical proficiency and sheer artistry is, at times, breathtaking. It’s a style that is embodied in the play of midfielders Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, and above all, Messi. The diminutive Argentine is only 23 but he looks even younger. With his floppy bangs and impish grin, he looks like a slacker skateboard kid. But when the ball is at his feet, he is magic.

Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan author of the elegant Soccer in Sun and Shadow laments the way money and the pressures of winning have all but stamped out the poetry of the game. It’s a complaint that will resonant with fans of other sports too. But in Messi, he sees a shining ray of light.

“No one plays with as much joy as Messi does,” Galeano told the New York Times. “He plays like a child enjoying the pasture, playing for the pleasure of playing, not the duty of winning.” But of course, he also wins.

FC Barcelona’s motto is mas que un club (more than a club). Because soccer fanaticism is a world-wide phenomenon, this motto could well describe any number of teams with a rich history and rabid supporters. But it carries special meaning in Barcelona, where the football club is tied to a certain political or cultural identity and is regarded as the flagship of Catalan nationalism. For decades, under Franco’s rule, Barca became a powerful source of Catalan identity and a vehicle for political expression. (The fascinating history of the club is well-documented in Barca by Jimmy Burns).

The attraction of FC Barcelona extends far beyond Catalonia and Spain. In his book How Soccer Explains the World Franklin Foer, an editor with The New Republic, describes his first visit to Camp Nou, Barca’s stadium, where the museum dedicated to the football club had just opened in 1994. A young American abroad, he marveled at the enthusiasm shown by visitors, young and old, for artifacts and sepia photographs.

“I felt like a nonbeliever watching a religious pilgrimage,” wrote Foer. “And the sheer depth of their faith made me a believer too.”

I know what he means. I had a similar experience when I visited Camp Nou eight years later. When you walk amongst the trophy display cases and old blue and red striped shirts and the ghosts of the stadium, you may as well be walking through a cathedral. You are left with the unshakable feeling that FC Barcelona, no less than Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the Barri Gotic or the Picasso Museum, is a part of the city’s soul. You couldn’t hope to understand one without the other.

But Foer was also drawn to Barca for other reasons. For soccer happy Americans, it’s easy to be enticed by the quality and excitement of European soccer, but it’s more difficult to actually find a team to support. Within every large club, there seems to lurk a strain of xenophobia, racism or nationalistic fervor that strikes an ugly chord. One is drawn to the passion and the energy and the idea that here is a game that actually matters. But there is a dark side to this passion. Under the colorful banner of a club, national and ethnic pride turn easily to chauvinism or worse, especially in the terraces of stadiums where alcohol and unemployment levels run high. But in the blue and red of FC Barcelona, Foer found a balance, between Catalan provincialism and liberal tolerance, between local pride and cosmopolitan openness. This tension produces a unique and creative energy that is an indispensible part of the city of Barcelona itself.

Liberals also love an underdog. Never mind that when Foer visited Camp Nou , Barca was already the second most successful team in the history of Spanish football. Barca’s fans and players all saw Real Madrid’s historic dominance as yet another part of Franco’s oppressive dictatorship. To root for FC Barcelona was to cheer against totalitarianism. No wonder Foer joined the ranks of the blaugrana faithful.

Today, it seems absurd to imagine Barca as an underdog. On the field, they are imperious. They’ve won 21 Spanish League titles including the last three. Only Real Madrid, AC Milan and Liverpool have won more European championships. Like any other giant club, they spend enormous amounts of cash buying international stars (though they still retain a nucleus of local Catalan players – Xavi, Carles Puyol, etc.). And if their fans were merely prideful, these days, they can be arrogant and overbearing. But the way their team plays, I can hardly blame them.

Like Foer, I too became captivated by the style and legacy of FC Barcelona but unlike him, I already had a European team. When I visited London in 1999, I got my first taste of English football. I watched Arsenal play in their old ground, Highbury (which struck me as the Wrigley Field of soccer) and I was hooked. In recent years, Barca has made life difficult for Arsenal, defeating the Gunners in the Champion’s League finals in 2006 and knocking them out of the tournament in each of the past two seasons. A quarterfinal match in April of 2010 saw Barca dismantle Arsenal 4-1 with Messi scoring all four goals. It was the finest display of soccer I have ever seen.

It called to mind Eduardo Galeano, who, as a boy in Montevideo rooted for Nacional. But one day, he found himself admiring the brilliant play of Juan Schiaffino and Julio Abbadie even though they played for the hated cross-city rival, Penarol. Galeano then had a realization:

“I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good soccer. I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: “A pretty move, for the love of of God.” And when good soccer happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”

Amen.

______________________________________________________

Bachmann's Burr

2011-03-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

Which of the Tea Party politicians is the most unhinged? The most unprincipled? The most dangerous?

Disconcerting as it is, this is a game you can play for hours. But perhaps the strongest candidate in all three categories is Michele Bachmann, the Congresswoman from Minnesota, whose grasp of reality calls to mind not so much her fellow tea-partier, Sarah Palin, but Charlie Sheen.

One hardly knows where to begin. There’s her cartoonish ignorance of basic science, her paranoid fantasies about monetary policy, her rank dishonesty about healthcare and predictably enough, the disgusting charge that her political opponents share the common cause of radical Islamic extremists. Is Bachmann is merely an embarrassment for the Republican Party or is she actually dangerous for the nation? That’s an argument to be had. But either way, she’s proof that in the United States, you can never dumb it down too much, and a train wreck never wants for media attention.

But one recent remark stood out for me. The reason Bachmann became a Republican is because she read a novel, Burr, by Gore Vidal:

“He was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought, ‘What a snot,’” she said. “I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, ‘You know what? I don’t think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican."

That’s some pretty deep political analysis.

I delighted in the remark because Burr is one of my favorite books. It’s exactly what good historical fiction should be. The novel takes revered historical figures, pulls them from their marble pedestals and, drawing on historical research, humanizes them. It tells their story with such verve so that we are spellbound even though we already know most of it.

I find it doubtful that Bachmann actually read the book. More likely, she named Burr because the author, Gore Vidal, is one of those gay elite commie bastards of the left. Now I can hardly blame someone for taking issue with Vidal’s political views. Indeed, some of his more recent anti-government conspiratorial rants have left even liberals scratching their heads, wondering aloud if the old gadfly hasn’t himself become unhinged. But his writing is first rate, most especially, his historical novels, Lincoln (1984) and Burr (1973).

It’s a bit puzzling that any calculating politician would attribute her political awakening to the reading of a novel, much less one she didn’t like. When liberal politicians talk about what made them liberals, they don’t say “Well, I read Atlas Shrugged or The Lord of the Rings and then realized I was a Democrat.” They talk about personal struggles and influential events like the civil rights movement. Similarly, conservative politicians tend to attribute their political origins to real life experiences and to inspirational examples like Ronald Reagan. To the extent, inspiration comes from books, one might expect those books to be written by the likes of Edmund Burke or William F. Buckley. But this quaint notion presumes that an individual’s political ideology is shaped by actual political ideas. Not as a reaction to snotty fiction writers.

But let’s give the representative from Minnesota the benefit of the doubt and assume she actually read the book. What about it offended her? What’s the connection between the novel and her own political identity? Well, according to Bachmann, the book mocks the Founding Fathers. (I have taken care to capitalize the term, lest I too be charged with mocking them). Of course the book does nothing of the kind. But it does present them as three dimensional human beings with the foibles that all humans possess. George Washington is vain and calculating. Alexander Hamilton is ruthlessly ambitious. Thomas Jefferson is charming but duplicitous. Is Bachmann aware that these characterizations come from none other than the Founding Fathers themselves? Gore Vidal is far more generous to these great men than they were to each other.

Needless to say, Bachmann misses the obvious. The defining feature of the book is the unique point of view - telling the story of the American Revolution and early years of the republic through the eyes of the Aaron Burr. The portrayals we see of Washington, Hamilton and Jefferson are the glimpses of men who were Aaron Burr’s political enemies. The great strength of the book is that because it is fiction, it does what only fiction can do - it breathes life into the past by offering a fascinating and unique perspective that cannot be found in history books or any surviving documents.

For Bachmann and her tea partiers, the hagiography of the Founding Fathers is holy writ. The irony is that when it comes to the historical and constitutional foundation of the United States, Bachmann is a staggering ignoramus.

In a speech she gave in January, Bachmann credited the Founding Fathers with abolishing slavery:

“we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.”

This is puzzling news to anyone who paid attention in high school social studies class.

Standing alone, this sort of deceptive half-truth coming from a politician would be unexceptional. What makes it noteworthy in the case of Bachmann is 1) the frequency with which nonsense and dishonesty pours forth from her mouth, and 2) the fact that she claims to revere the Founding Fathers and their vision of America, but doesn't know the most basic facts about American history (much less our Constitution).

Bachmann is now considering a Presidential run. Earlier this month, she addressed a crowd in New Hampshire and said:

“You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

Astonishing. Yes, there is a "Concord" in New Hampshire - it's the state capitol. But every elementary school kid learns that Lexington and Concord, where the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired, are in Massachusetts. This was no mere speaking gaffe. This was a prepared speech and she repeated the error several times.

It sounds like fiction, but you couldn’t make this stuff up.

_____________________________________________

Philadelphia, Paris and Cairo: A Tale of Three Cities

2011-02-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

As events unfold on the streets of Cairo, many of us still don’t know what to think. Should we be feeling wonder or trepidation? Mubarak’s days are numbered but what comes next? Liberal democracy? Not likely, but perhaps a step in that direction? Is democracy merely the handmaiden for Islamist theocracy? Will the army have the final say? Does one strong-armed autocrat replace another? We don’t know. Political revolutions take on a life of their own. The drama is real and the stakes are enormous.

Historical examples of other nations can only teach us so much but they might teach us something. I’ve been reading a book called Cosmopolitan Patriots by Philipp Ziesche. It’s about the French Revolution as seen through the eyes of Americans who were living in Paris and witnessing the momentous events firsthand, from the storming of the Bastille in 1789 to the seizure of power by Napoleon Bonaparte a decade later, and the great political upheaval in between. These Americans – including Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Gouverneur Morris, James Monroe – had their own ideas about revolution and nation-building. In 1789, the ink on the U.S. Constitution wasn’t even dry.

In the beginning, the Americans in Paris embraced the French Revolution wholeheartedly. They saw it as an extension of their own revolutionary experiment in self-government, but they had no way of knowing how things would turn out. Even Jefferson, probably the most fervent American supporter of revolution in France, didn’t initially hope for more than a constitutional monarchy. These cosmopolitan American ambassadors did not support anything like “democracy” as we understand the term today. Democracy was understood as mob rule and chaos. It was equated with a breakdown in the social and moral order.

When Jefferson returned to the newly formed United States in late 1789, he was practically giddy about the prospects for revolution in France. But then, Jefferson had seen none of the violence. His replacement, the new U.S. minister to France was the well-heeled New Yorker, Gouverneur Morris, surely one of the more underrated Founding Fathers. Morris is most famous for his role in drafting the Constitution and, in particular, for adding the phrase “We the People.” Even the conservative Morris clearly understood that sovereignty, the very authority to govern, resided in the People.

By 1792, the streets of Paris turned bloody and heads began to roll, literally. (Thomas Paine almost lost his own.) In the first two weeks of September, more than a thousand prisoners were massacred by Jacobin radicals. Morris witnessed these events and, in a letter to Jefferson, he described the killing of a noblewoman, Madame de Lamballe, by a Parisian mob. He noted that her head and entrails were paraded through the street on pikes and her body was dragged after them. (Power to the people? Sounds fine. But THOSE people? On second thought…) Seeing a revolution up close can have a way of cooling the passions for change.

Last week, the demonstrations in Cairo took a bloody turn. The blame is generally placed on Mubarak who evidently didn’t get the memo announcing: The tides of history are against you! Please step down so that an orderly transition of power can be arranged! By cracking down on the demonstrations and the media’s coverage of them, Mubarak and his supporters are only delaying the inevitable. What’s more, they showed the world what many Egyptians have experienced for years – the blunt inclination of an autocrat to crush dissent. How could Mubarak be so foolish? So tone-deaf? That’s what it is to be a dictator. But sometimes the devil that you know is better than the one that you don’t. Imperfect order is preferable to perfect chaos. That’s the argument in defense of Mubarak. It’s credible to a point, but it isn’t nearly enough. Events have pushed things too far.

Cairo, 2011 is not like Paris, 1789 or, for that matter, Berlin, 1989. The forces of revolution and reaction aren’t truly comparable. Could this be like Tehran in 1979? Yesterday happened to mark the 32nd anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution. Superficially at least, the Iranian example seems instructive – a secular autocrat, backed by the West, overthrown by a popular movement. But there’s good reason to think that Tehran isn’t the right example either. For one thing, Egypt is not Iran. While there is a long history of Islamist activity within Egypt, there is no galvanizing clerical figure in Egypt comparable to the Ayatollah Khomeini. Perhaps more importantly, 2011 is not 1979. Unlike the Iranians of 1979, Egyptians have the Internet (or at least they did before Mubarak’s crackdown). Facebook, Twitter, smartphones and satellite television mean that authority figures can’t control or filter information the way they once did. The revolution will not only be televised – it will be tweeted.

These communication technologies can have a democratizing effect but democracy is no guarantee of a liberal government or good result. One of the greatest foreign policy mistakes the U.S. has made in recent years was to promote “democracy” without adequately supporting the architecture that enables democracy to safeguard basic human rights. As if the mere holding of elections will somehow change what’s broken in a corrupt and backward political and economic system.

Here, the lessons of the U.S. founders are instructive. They created the United States as a constitutional republic and not as a democracy. The distinction meant a great deal to them. Democracy amounts to elections and majority rule – it is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. But a republic includes constitutional protections, rights for minorities, an independent judiciary and a balance of power. The word “republic” seems quaint now. For many years, we referred to the free nations of the west as liberal democracies. The adjective "liberal" signalled a certain kind of democracy - one with constitutional provisions and a commitment to the political ideals of the Enlightenment. But now the word has been swallowed up by partisan politics and is most often used either defensively or as a pejorative. Meaning becomes diluted. Now we hear “democracy” and we decide that’s a good thing but we don’t bother to make the distinctions that were so important to the founders.

The fear is that Egypt will go radical and the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological forbearers of both Al-Qaeda and Hamas, will rise to power. Or that chaos will reign, resulting in a much bloodier crackdown and Egypt will end up exactly where it was – with a strongman ruling the nation by force. We will be reminded that Mubarak, for all of his faults, at least kept the Muslim Brotherhood from the levers of power. Of course he did this by outlawing the Brotherhood, torturing their leaders and tossing their members in prison. But he tosses lots of other people in jail for the crime of political dissent. Those jailed have included Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypt’s leading human rights advocate and Ayman Nour, a political opponent who champions a democratic movement that is neither Islamist nor autocratic. In the U.S., we often hear politicians and commentators ask “Why are there so few moderates in the Islamic world?” Well, it’s worth considering that at least some of them have been rotting in Mubarak’s jails.

Students of political science and European history learn that there are different theories of the social contract, that famous principle of the Enlightenment which explains government's legitimacy. Government authority comes from the consent of the governed. The concept was popularized by Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, but his particular version provided the justification for monarchy and absolute rule. Another variation on the social contract was devised a century later by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although the populism inherent within his version is blamed for the excesses of the French Revolution. In the United States, it has been the social contract theory of John Locke that is most often celebrated because of its emphasis on natural rights and individual liberty.

How does social contract theory apply to Egypt and the Muslim world? Does it apply? Reformers and critics alike have noted that the Islamic world has not experienced anything like a philosophical or cultural movement like Europe’s Enlightenment. Whether this is because of the severity of Islam’s religious doctrine or because of other political or cultural developments within the Islamic world is a favorite subject of historical debate. But it is fair to say that in Islam, government authority does NOT come from the consent of the governed, but only from Allah. This poses quite a challenge for Islamic reformers and legal scholars, like UCLA professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, who strive to reconcile Islamic faith with individual rights and popular sovereignty.

There are skeptics who don’t think meaningful democracy can succeed in the Islamic world. There are still others who don’t want it to. But what is widely agreed upon – by critics and supporters alike – is that what the Islamic world needs is a reformation on a large scale. Given the reality of terrorism in the nuclear age and the threat that failed states pose to the global order, we need this reformation too. What if THIS is it? Sure, political revolution is a risky proposition. If it goes badly, it might fuel terrorism, pose a threat to Israel, spread chaos throughout the region and crush the hopes of millions of Egyptians. But what is the alternative? To support a regime that denies basic human rights? Can we rationalize the fixed elections and suppression of free expression by telling ourselves that the worst of the Islamist radicals are held in check? (Is that even true?) Shall we make the condescending excuse that the people of Egypt cannot handle freedom? What is the price for supporting the status quo? What is the cost of being on the wrong side of history? Talk about risky.

But the reality is that we are bystanders. President Obama and other world leaders have called for Mubarak to step down. They seek an orderly transition of power, but do they have the ability to shape events on the streets of Cairo? The likely successor, Vice President Omar Suleiman, is seen by some Egyptians as just another Mubarak. He is also the commander of Egypt’s military. Mubarak, who was expected to resign, announced yesterday that he wasn’t ready to do so. Victory celebrations in Tahrir Square turned to demonstrations of outrage.

Cairo, the city of a thousand minarets, is a massive place. Each day now there are many peaceful protests and great showings of solidarity. There is also anger and tension, clashes with police and roving gangs of looters in the streets. Tanks and armored military vehicles are on stand-by. Today, millions have gathered in Tahrir Square to answer the Friday call for prayer. One suspects that this is still the beginning. The world holds its breath.

______________________________________________

The Day the Music Died

2011-02-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the plane crash that killed rock n roll legends and pioneers, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. The story of the crash and the meteoric lives of the ill-fated musicians on board have been shown in film in The Buddy Holly Story and La Bamba. But it was Don McLean’s song, American Pie, that did the most to immortalize this tragedy in art and it was McLean who coined February 3rd as “the day the music died.”

American Pie was one of the first pop songs that I can remember singing as a child. My dad taught me the lyrics to the chorus and I especially delighted in the rhyming of “Chevy” with “levee.” This was also an educational experience - it was because of this song that I learned what a “levee” was (we had no rivers or dikes on Long Island) and that “rye” was something that you drank. But I didn’t understand much about the song and when I marched around the kitchen cheerfully singing, “This’ll be the day that I die,” I wasn’t aware of the nod to Buddy Holly’s That’ll be the Day.

American Pie has become one of the most analyzed songs in the history of popular music. It’s famous for its many references and allusions to musicians and events of the rock n roll decade. The February 3rd plane crash is simply the most obvious one, and of course it’s the event that kicks off the narrator's tale. For years, music critics and fans have discussed and debated the meaning of the lyrics. Is the “jester on the sideline” Bob Dylan? What about the marching band? Is McLean making a reference to Kent State? Altamont? Are the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost a reference to Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper? Or is the narrator talking about a more personal loss of faith?

Don McClean has been refreshingly tight-lipped about the meaning of his lyrics. (Supposedly, when asked what the song means, McClean replied "It means I never have to work again.”) But that’s how it should be when an artist creates a work. He’s already said what he’s had to say. That’s what the song is for. Still, we listeners can’t help ourselves and we’ve imbued the song with the importance of a Homeric epic. Like any epic poem, it’s a song about many things: music, love, the birth of rock n roll, the loss of innocence, the coming of age of a generation – all woven together in a melodic strum-along tapestry.

It seems somehow strange to think that McClean’s song was released in 1971, just 12 years after the fateful plane crash. He was fourteen years old when he heard about the tragedy (apparently, he really did have a paper route) and was 26 when he released American Pie. In cultural terms, the span between 1959 and 1971 seems massive. But 1959 was as near to McClean in 1971 as 1999 is to us today. For me, at least, 1999 seems like yesterday. Remember 1999? Some people thought the world was about to end. Don’t they always?

______________________________________

To Hell with Blasphemy

2011-01-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

___________________________________________

“It is clear that blasphemy, which is a sin committed directly against God, is more grave than murder" - Thomas Aquinas

I just finished watching the first season of The Tudors on DVD. It has some problems. For one thing, it’s a trashy bodice-buster (the series could have been called, Kings Behaving Badly). It also suffers from historical inaccuracy and too many of its characters are paper-thin. But if you like a dramatic period piece, there’s enough to maintain interest. They do a nice job of weaving the historical events of Europe with the personal ambitions of the characters, most notably in the connection between the Protestant Reformation and Henry VIII’s passion for Anne Boleyn. Anne is a bit like Helen of Troy. Instead of launching a thousand ships, she, by arousing Henry’s lust, launches England into its break with the Catholic Church, changing forever the course of European (and American) history. What I find most interesting about The Tudors is its portrayal of religion at this pivotal moment in 16th century England.

In the last episode, the newly-appointed Lord Chancellor, Thomas More, announces that he will vigorously defend the true faith from the growing Lutheran heresy. In a powerful and disturbing scene, More (played by Jeremy Northam) watches as a heretic condemned for blasphemy is burned alive at the stake. More stares intently as the flames consume the screaming man as if he is fascinated by the chemistry experiment, the combination of flame and human flesh. That he is carrying out God’s justice is never in doubt. Years later, Thomas More, would be venerated by the Church for his own martyrdom, and he was regarded as a learned, principled and compassionate man even in his own day. It says a lot about how far we’ve come. Back then, even a “humanist” would have no hesitation in concluding that a person who believed the wrong thing about God deserved to die in flames. For what is the agony of one man when compared to the eternal torment of the multitudes who might be infected by such heresy?

But have we really come so far? On the same day I watched this entertaining television program, I learned about the civil unrest in Pakistan over its blasphemy laws. In Pakistan, the world’s largest Islamic nation, an insult to Islam or defamation of the Holy Prophet may be punishable by death. This isn’t simply the case of an anachronistic law remaining on the books in a traditional society (like a law which criminalizes adultery in Virginia). Blasphemy has been in the news because in November, Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old Christian woman, an agricultural worker, had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. Unlike the heretics convicted in Thomas More’s England, this woman published no incendiary pamphlets, preached no doctrine and criticized no religious authority. Her particular offense was the touching of a drinking bowl that was being used by Muslim co-workers. Judging by the reaction, you’d think she drew a cartoon.

Reformers and human rights activists, embarrassed and outraged by the harshness of such laws, have been trying to repeal or change them for some time now, but with no success. Although judicial convictions for blasphemy have not resulted in any state executions (in Pakistan, at least), the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has documented dozens of cases where the mere accusation of blasphemy has led to murder and false arrests of Christians and more often, members of minority sects within Islam. The Asia Bibi case has drawn considerable international attention and there has been pressure both within Pakistan and without to free the woman and to amend the laws. Pope Benedict XVI has weighed in and called for authorities to free the Christian woman. A reform bill was brought before Pakistan's Parliament. The bill did not call for the repeal of the blasphemy law, but it did eliminate the death penalty and called for some procedural safeguards against miscarriages of justice. It looked as if the reformers finally had some momentum.

What followed in Pakistan on Friday, December 31st was remarkable and every bit as disturbing as the burning of heretics by zealous inquisitors. Thousands of Pakistanis took the streets to protest any possible change to the nation’s blasphemy laws. Religious leaders called for a general strike, forcing businesses to close. Rallies were staged in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta. Karachi, a city of 13 million people was brought to a standstill and the police fired tear gas to stop protesters from marching on a residence of President Asif Ali Zadari. One Sunni cleric in Islamabad warned in his Friday sermon that any change to the blasphemy law would happen "over our dead bodies." To some religious Muslims, it is THAT important that such insults be punishable by death.

Does this kind of bullying and street politics on the part of religious extremists actually work? You bet it does. Within hours of the rallies, government officials were already distancing themselves from any bill or proposal to change the blasphemy laws. I imagine they'll figure out a way to pardon this poor woman and allow her to flee Pakistan to a place where, if she’s careful and sufficiently obscure, she should be able to handle as many water bowls as she likes. But don’t expect changes anytime soon to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws or to the culture of terror and intimidation that such laws engender.

Do these radical Islamists constitute a majority in Pakistan? Surely not, but their numbers and influence are sufficient that they can hijack the majority and get their way in an already unstable political regime. This time, the extremists left nothing to chance. One of their enemies and a prominent advocate for changing the law was Salman Taseer the Governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province. In November, Taseer said: "The blasphemy law is not a God-made law. It's a man-made law," he said. "... It's a law that gives an excuse to extremists and reactionaries to target weak people and minorities.” Yesterday, Taseer was shot to death by his own security guard.

Why did the guard do it? Because, he told the police while in custody, Taseer "did blasphemy of the Prophet Mohammed." Let’s consider the mentality here. To express an incorrect religious view or to offend Islam is to defame the Holy Prophet. This is a crime punishable by the state and punishable by death. And to propose any change to this law is also to insult the Holy Prophet. How does one combat such a mentality?

In the West, people tend to agree that criminalizing attitudes about religion is a bad idea. In the United States of America we go even further to protect freedom of conscience. Under our Constitution, the state can play no role in the establishment or endorsement of any religion or religious view. Any law seeking to criminalize blasphemy violates our First Amendment. This secular formula has fostered both freedom and prosperity. We didn’t arrive at this moment overnight. It was a long struggle and, as any look at European history will tell you, it was a bloody one.

It is often said that what the Islamic world needs is its own Reformation and its own Enlightenment. But the theology of Islam and the present conditions of the Islamic world make it difficult to identify potential catalysts for that kind of sweeping change. We don’t see a Martin Luther, a Henry VIII or an Anne Boleyn (maybe in a burka?) And we can’t readily identify the sort of Enlightenment figures who would play the role of Montesquieu, John Locke or John Stuart Mill. These observations may cause us to simply throw up our hands, ignore world events and take smug comfort in the superiority of the West. We shouldn’t.

For one thing, the killing of the Governor of Punjab serves as a reminder that there are indeed individuals (and Muslims at that) willing to risk their lives for change and reform within Islamic society. Following the assassination of Taseer, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti told CNN. "I will campaign for this... these fanatics cannot stop me from moving any further steps against the misuse of (the) blasphemy law." When asked if he feared for his own life, Bhatti acknowledged that he has received many threats, but he said “I am ready to sacrifice my life for the principled stand I have taken because the people of Pakistan are being victimized under the pretense of blasphemy law." This is courage. As a nation that purports to champion freedom, we ought to acknowledge it and support it.

We should also not make the mistake of thinking that this stuff is none of our business. If 9/11 has taught us anything, it taught us that the world is a much smaller place than we might wish it to be. Political instability and religious fanaticism in central Asia impacts our security, our interests, our good relations with other nations and it directly affects our ability to combat global terrorism. And blasphemy laws aren’t confined to “backwards” nations from those scary parts of the world. Blasphemy is a criminal offense in Ireland. No, you won’t be sentenced to death, but you may be slapped with a hefty fine for taking the Lord’s name in vain or for other “blasphemous material.” This is defined as material "grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion” and it is criminal when the intent and result is "outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion." Asia Bibi would not be safe in Ireland. The law is an embarrassment to any civilized person.

Of course in Ireland, you are at least free to protest such a silly law and can probably do so without fear of being lynched or gunned down. Still, such anti-freedom measures can only serve to embolden the theocratic instincts of others. Recently, a coalition of Muslim nations introduced an anti-blasphemy law before the General Assembly of the United Nations. The law, if passed, would make the “vilification of religion” a crime internationally. This proposed law makes no mention of Islam or the Holy Prophet. Indeed it is dressed up in the harmonious language of religious ecumenism, but let’s not be fooled. It is an attempt to both criminalize speech, and to utilize laws and the power of the state to coerce the “correct” views about religion. It is an offense to human dignity and a blow to freedom.

_____________________________________

The 10 Most Painful Giants' Losses

2010-12-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Because being a real fan is about sharing in the pain...

10. Titans 24, Giants 21, (Nov. 26, 2006)

Prior to the Giants recent meltdown against the Eagles, when was the last time an NFL team blew a 21 point lead in the 4th quarter? Yup. The Giants took a 21-0 lead into the 4th quarter against the Titans. This time Vince Young did the damage.

9. 49ers 44, Giants 3, NFC Divisional Playoff (Jan. 15, 1994)

Some losses break your heart. Others are just humiliating. This was the worst playoff loss in Giants history. It was also the last game in the careers of both Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms.

8. Jets 27, Giants 21, (Dec. 18, 1988)

Last game of the season. Al Toon’s touchdown in the final seconds costs the Giants a playoff spot.

7. Ravens 34, Giants 7, Super Bowl XXXV, (Jan. 28, 2001)

The Ravens defense deserved it, but getting crushed on the biggest stage hurts.

6. Rams 19, Giants 13 (OT), NFC Divisional Playoff (Jan. 7, 1990)

Flipper Anderson beats the Giant secondary with a game-winning touchdown in overtime. He keeps running into the tunnel, leaving the Meadowlands stunned in silence.

5. Eagles 19, Giants 17, (Nov. 19, 1978)

One of my earliest (and worst) Giant memories. Quarterback Joe Pisarcik only needed to take a knee and the hapless Giants win. Instead he puts the ball on Larry Csonka’s hip, Herm Edwards recovers the fumble and the rest is history. The Eagles go on to make the playoffs for the first time in 18 seasons. Giant fans know it as “The Fumble.” In Philly, it’s the “Miracle at the Meadowlands.” This wasn’t the worst loss in Giants history – the Giants were terrible and going nowhere - but it had to be the stupidest.

4. Panthers 41, Giants 9, (Dec. 27, 2009)

The Giants final home game in the 34-year history of Giant stadium. The mediocre Carolina Panthers start a back-up quarterback, Matt Moore, and humiliate the Giants, eliminating them from playoff contention.

3. Vikings 23, Giants 22, NFC wild-card playoff (Dec. 27, 1997)

A nine-point lead with less than two minutes remaining. Then the wheels come off and Giant nemesis, Randall Cunningham, completes the comeback.

2. Eagles 38, Giants 31 (Dec. 19, 2010)

The most recent ones are always the most painful, but as things stand right now, the Giants can still make the playoffs. But whether they do or they don’t, this historic collapse against the hated Eagles won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

1. 49ers 39, Giants 38, NFC Wild-Card Playoff (Jan. 5, 2003)

Some fans blame Trey Junkin, whose bad snap blew the chance for a game-winning field goal. Others blame the officials for blowing the pass interference call on the game’s final play. I remember Michael Strahan pointing at the scoreboard when the Giants were celebrating a 24 point lead. Everything after that is a nightmarish blur.
______________________________________

25 Best Albums of 2010

2010-12-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of retro in my choices this year. That may say more about me than it does about the year in music. But in 2010, I heard great power pop, soul and bands that mined the best of the 1960s and 70s. And why not? Killer riffs, great hooks and soulful grooves are timeless. Here are my favorite albums of 2010:

25. Spoon – Transference

Spoon is either one of the most overrated or one of the most underrated acts around. According to Metacritic, the band from Austin was the artist of the decade. That seems a bit much, but there’s something very convincing in their tight grooves and Britt Daniel’s snarl. This is an album that grew on me.

24. Delta Spirit – History From Below

Well-crafted rock anthems from an up-and-coming San Diego band. Keep an eye on them. Standout Track: "Bushwick Blues."

23. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Mojo

Universally regarded as one of rock’s elder statesmen, Petty’s more recent work tends to get overlooked. On Mojo, Petty and the Heartbreakers again find their stride with a big bluesy album featuring the ordinarily restrained Mike Campbell playing some ferocious guitar.

22. Some Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Let it Sway

An excellent and underrated power-pop outfit, SSLYBY sounds like the love child of Weezer and Fountains of Wayne.

21. The Mynabirds – What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood

Beautiful. Laura Burhenn sounds like the reincarnation of Dusty Springfield.

20. Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks

There’s a bit of U2 and Coldplay in the way this Scottish band creates lovely, layered and majestic anthems.

19. Free Energy – Stuck on Nothing

In a year that saw the passing of Alex Chilton, it was nice find Big Star's power pop legacy evident in up and coming bands like Free Energy and SSLYBY and also in fine releases from warhorses, Teenage Fanclub and the Posies.

18. Drive-By-Truckers - The Big To-Do

Solid album from one of the most solid bands around.

17. Peter Wolf – Midnight Souvenirs

The J. Geils Band front man sounds as good as ever. There are some gems on this album and guest appearances from Merle Haggard, Shelby Lynne and the ubiquitous Neko Case.

16. Two Cow Garage – Sweet Saint Me

It’s hard to stand out as an alt-country band, especially when your lead singer sounds just like Lucero’s Ben Nichols. But Two Cow Garage pulls it off here – an ambitious album from a band that has arrived.

15. The New Pornographers - Together

Another great offering from the New Pornos When was the last time Neko Case was involved in a musical project that wasn’t impressive?

14. The Black Keys - Brothers

Like Jack White, these Midwestern guys make 70s guitar riffs and classic blues sound dirty and invigorating.

13. Murder by Death - Good Morning, Magpie

True story. For a while ITunes had them listed as a metal band. And maybe it's their name that 's holding them back, but Murder by Death is one of the best and most interesting alt-country bands around.

12. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way

Sure it's retro - 60s R&B, 70s funk and lots of soul. But it's the real deal.

11. The Like - Release Me

Whereas Sharon Jones (a former Ryker's Island prison guard) serves up authentic soul, The Like's take on retro is entirely contrived. The band consists of the daughters of music industry big shots and with the help of Mark Ronson's production, they try to sound like a tough 1960s girl group. And they really do. This album has some of the best and catchiest songs you'll hear this year.

10. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

Excellent debut from indie rockers who borrow surf-rock, pop and punk to create something that sounds both familiar and excitingly new.

9. The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever

Not as great as their last couple of albums. But there's more than enough on this album to affirm an earlier conclusion: If any band can save rock 'n' roll, it is the Hold Steady.

8. The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

If the Hold Steady isn't rock 'n' roll's savior, The Gaslight Anthem just might be.

7. Roky Erickson with Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil

A great album and a great comback story. Erickson was a psychedelic rock hero of the 1960s (13th Floor Elevators) whose descent into drugs and mental illness made Syd Barrett seem like a model of sanity by comparison. His pairing with fellow Texans, Okkervil River is nearly perfect.

6. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Yeah, it's big, bombastic and a bit pretentious. It's also pretty awesome.

5. Alejandro Escovedo - Street Songs of Love

Another great rocker from Austin, Escovedo is incapable of making a bad album. This might be his best since Thirteen Years.

4. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

Now this is my kind of album. Springsteen-inspired punks record an energetic, concept album about the American Civil War. You know you're in for something different on the first track when Patrick Sickles screams, "Tramps like us, baby we were born to die!" Strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.

3. The Indelicates - Songs for Swinging Lovers

Deliciously witty, dark and dystopian indie pop. Brilliant stuff.

2. Bruce Springsteen - The Promise

Well, sure. (see review below).

1. The National - High Violet

I was reluctant to believe the hype but after one listen, I became a believer. And after repeated listens, the richness of his album only grows.

Honorable Mention:

The Walkmen - Lisbon
Phosphorescent - Here's to Taking it Easy
Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone
Robert Plant - Band of Joy
Grinderman - Grinderman 2
The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Josh Ritter - So Runs the World Away

A Promise Fulfilled

2010-12-19T20:57:00.001-08:00

If I were forced to choose just two Bruce Springsteen albums for a desert island stay (boxed sets don’t count), I wouldn’t hesitate to choose Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). When I was a teenager, these albums captured my imagination in a way that few albums ever have. They still do. More than that, they represent a key transition in Springsteen’s vision as a songwriter. First there’s Born to Run – the colorful characters, the driving anthems and the lush wall-of-sound production. Then there’s Darkness on the Edge of Town – powerful and raw, a head-on collision between hope and desperation. But never surrender. As the street poets give way to factory workers and the romantic dreams of escape turn to a darker reality, Springsteen finds heroism in the everyday struggle. The appeal of The Promise, the two-disc collection of songs recorded in 1977 and released last month by Sony, is that it captures the moment of transition. It’s a glimpse into the making of an artist.

Professional athletes peak at the age of 27 or 28. For artists, there’s no such rule and no such limit. Still, for most of us, turning 30 represents something pivotal. As adults, we’re just finding our footing, still coming to understand the world, our community and our place within them. Our dreams and ideals aren’t necessarily abandoned, but they’re recalibrated and redefined in light of maturity and new understanding. These discoveries are expressed in the work of writers and artists. At the age of 28, Bruce Springsteen had recorded three albums, including the acclaimed Born to Run and had appeared on the cover of Time and Newsweek. He was emerging as something of a rock star but was a long way from mega-star or celebrity status. He had also been involved in a nasty legal dispute with his former manager over the rights to his songs. And when he looked around, he saw a post-Watergate nation living in doubt and he saw working class people from the towns he knew struggling to make sense of their lives.

Like other serious fans, I was already familiar with some of the tracks on The Promise through the magic of bootlegging (“Rendezvous”, “Outside Looking In”, “The Promise”) and I was pretty sure the album was going to be something special. Still, I wondered if this was the sort of release that would appeal only to hardcore fans. Were the unreleased songs left off previous albums for good reason? Was The Promise just a desperate ploy on the part of a dying music industry to pry cash from fans on the strength of one of the label’s few profitable artists?

If it was a ploy, it was one of the better ones that Sony has come up with. The Promise offers alternate takes of songs that appear on Darkness (“Racing in the Street”), favorites better known from versions by other artists (“Because the Night”, “Fire”, “Talk to Me”) and a terrific collection of rockers, 60s-style pop and soul, and heart-felt ballads which span the mood and the musical distance between Born to Run and Darkness. There’s a wealth of tasty material here. The boxed set also includes DVDs of some riveting live performances with the E-Street Band and the special which aired on HBO on the making of Darkness on the Edge of Town. In the sessions, the loose-limbed Springsteen is alternately light-hearted and intensely serious. But there’s no mistaking the drive, the restlessness and the creative energy.

The two-disc set can be seen as a sort of “lost” Springsteen album from, arguably, his most creative period. It’s not merely a collection of rejected outtakes and not-quite-good-enough songs. It more than holds its own as a cohesive work and it also offers fascinating insight into Springsteen’s creative process. The songs don’t simply come to him in fevered dreams or moments of inspiration. Instead, we see Springsteen the tinkerer, a craftsman at work. He tries different melodies with different lyrics, he mixes and matches verses, attempting different concoctions until he arrives at something that fits with the mood, the characters and theme of the story he wants to tell.

“Candy’s Boy” features most of the lyrics that would eventually make up “Candy’s Room” but a different melody and slower tempo give the song an entirely different feel. It’s a bittersweet lament rather than a desperate rocker. “Spanish Eyes” has a lyric that would appear on Born in the USA seven years later (“Hey little girl is your daddy home, did he go away and leave you all alone”). “Come on (Let’s Go Tonight) uses the melody and a few lines from “Factory” but it’s a completely different song. It also has the line that would emerge years later on the underrated B-Side, Johnny Bye-Bye: “The man on the radio says Elvis Presley died.” We’re reminded that a good writer is also a judicious self-editor. It’s as if Springsteen (perhaps with Jon Landau whispering in his ear) said “I LOVE this lyric but it doesn’t work for the story I’m trying to tell right here.” So he files it away for another day.

This fruitful recording session ultimately produced Darkness on the Edge of Town, a landmark album for Springsteen. It was the first album in which he explored in depth the subject that mattered most to him throughout his career – the American Dream. And as good as The Promise is, you don’t hear any song on it that causes you to say “He should have put THAT on Darkness." For one thing, Darkness isn’t wanting for much of anything. But most of the songs on The Promise are too sentimental by comparison. The one possible exception might be the song, “The Promise,” which was as unsentimental a song as Springsteen had ever written. Just two years after he was “pulling out of here to win” on “Thunder Road”, Springsteen recorded these lyrics:

      All my life I fought this fight
      The fight that no man can ever win
      Every day it just gets harder to live
      This dream I'm believing in
      Thunder Road, oh baby you were so right
      Thunder Road there's something dying down on the highway tonight

He's a long way from Born to Run. In the Nick Hornby novel, High Fidelity, there’s a great passage in which the 30-something narrator muses:

In Bruce Springsteen songs, you can either stay and rot, or you can escape and burn. That’s OK; he’s a songwriter, after all, and he needs simple choices like that in his songs. But nobody ever writes about how it is possible to escape and rot – how escapes can go off at half-cock, how you can leave the suburbs for the city but end up living a limp suburban life anyway. That’s what happened to me; that’s what happens to most people.

Nick Hornby’s narrator probably hadn’t heard “The Promise” which speaks to this sentiment. The choices are NOT simple. The escapes don’t always work. Springsteen’s character drives his Challenger down Route 9 through dead ends, chasing ghosts. Dreams can wither and die. And life goes on. The struggle continues. The beauty of Darkness is the way Springsteen tries to capture that struggle without flinching and without ever succumbing to resignation. When Pete Townshend first heard Darkness on the Edge of Town he summed it up this way: “When Bruce Springsteen sings on his new album, that's not 'fun', that's fucking triumph, man.”

What The Promise offers is that same triumph but with a bit more fun.

__________________________________________________

Let Them Drink Tea!

2010-11-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

You know the Tea Party has arrived when even Bill Clinton and Barack Obama give props.

Maybe not the highest of praise but they were a lot more generous than they could have been. Here’s Bill Clinton last month: “There are a lot of real people in this tea party movement that are saying something everyone should hear — which is, ‘Seems like everyone but average Americans are doing all right here. The people that caused the financial crisis are all back in great shape."

And when President Obama was asked about the Tea Party, he also struck a positive note. "I think America has a noble tradition of being healthily skeptical about government. That's in our DNA," he said. "I think that's a good thing."

As characterizations of the Tea Party go, that’s awfully generous. Clinton and Obama both went on say why these folks are misguided, but the sugarcoating of criticism, and the expressions of empathy are surely a sign of something - the political insecurity of the democratic party. They can’t afford to dismiss the Tea Party phenomenon and they won't call it what it is: The cynical exploitation of anger.

Perhaps I’m also being generous. After all, the Tea Party is not simply for the disillusioned and discontent. At its worst, it’s a vehicle for racism, xenophobia, McCarthyite paranoia, reactionary radicalism and an assault on our Constitution. It also features candidates who are as dumb as rocks. (When creationist, masturbation foe and tea party darling Christine O’Donnell debated her Delaware opponent and was discovered to be unfamiliar with the 1st, 14th and 16th Amendments to the Constitution, her excuse was: “I didn’t bring my Constitution with me. Fortunately, senators don’t have to memorize the Constitution.”)

President Obama is too cautious to comment on the incompetence or idiocy of the candidates or their followers. The Tea Party is seen as a populist movement and you don’t get far in politics by telling the people that they are stupid or wrong. In 2008, when John McCain’s economic advisor, Phil Gramm insisted that recession fears were exaggerated and said that we’ve become a nation of “whiners” he was pressured to resign from the campaign. Never mind that tea partiers have been whining at a fever pitch. Careful politicians like Obama know that Democrats are already susceptible to the charge of “elitism.” They believe they cannot afford to fall into this trap. That's too bad.

Whether the Tea Party really IS a genuinely popular movement or a well-financed vehicle for conservative political operatives or just an incoherent temper tantrum, has been the subject of considerable analysis and debate. To the extent that the Party represents more than a freak show, and is an actual force in American politics, it is one that plays on three themes:

1. Anti-Incumbency. This is the one constant in American politics today. It worked for Obama in 2008. It works against him now.

2. The Economy. It’s not all gloom and doom, but it’s not so rosy either. There’s never a good time to feel you pay too much in taxes. And in tough economic times, it's a resentment that grows.

3. Populism vs. Elitism. Us versus them. THEY are the “special interests” who go to Ivy League law schools, make backroom deals and export jobs overseas. WE are Joe six-pack, Joe the Plumber and the hockey Moms who love God and the flag. You know the drill. But too many liberals still DON’T know the drill. They cannot understand how someone as vapid as Sarah Palin can remain a celebrity and political force when surely her 15 minutes of fame should have expired by now. Perception of class and culture runs far deeper than many urban liberals realize.

Take these themes and mix in a dash of libertarianism, a helping of anti-immigrant hysteria and a spark of paranoia to re-ignite the culture wars, suggest complicity with Islamist terrorists and eulogize the decline of Western Civilization and there you have it – a potent brew of populist rage.

Just how potent remains to be seen. Tomorrow’s mid-term election results may tell us something. Or maybe not. The Democrats are expected to lose their majority the House and narrowly hold on to the Senate. Is the Tea Party responsible? Hard to say. It had been predicted that the Democrats would lose some quantity of Congressional seats anyway – partly because the economic recovery has been slow and partly because the Democrat gains in 2008 were so huge. Some recalibration had to be expected.

But it’s far from clear that the Tea Party movement has been of help to the Republican Party. While some Republicans credit the tea partiers with reigniting “the base” and putting the Democrats on the defensive, there are quite few races that were winnable for the GOP but will remain in Democrat hands simply because the Republicans are running a Tea Party candidate who is a train wreck. Delaware’s O’Donnell is one example. New York’s GOP Gubernatorial Candidate, Carl Paladino is another. Mainstream Republicans are increasingly finding themselves running away from the bigotry and ugliness of the Tea Party. Independent libertarians have distanced themselves too, going to so far as to form a separate movement, the Coffee Party. Even Big Business has reasons to fear the reactionary tendencies of the Tea Party. Anger is a poor substitute for vision, judgment and sound policy.

But you know what else is not substitute for sound policy? Humor. I hate to say so since humor is a tonic that we can't do without in these absurd times. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert lampoon the Tea Party brilliantly and this past weekend they held their much anticipated joint rally in Washington D.C. – Colbert’s rally to “Keep Fear Alive” and Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.” They are very good at skewering the hypocrisy, the ignorance and the fear-mongering of the tea partiers (and their champion in the media, the clownish Glenn Beck). But as fond as I am of their brand of comedy, there are limits to what irony and satire can accomplish, a point made eloquently in Michael Kazin's recent article in The New Republic.

On the subjects of fear and demagoguery, the core specialties of the Tea Party, I am instead reminded of a statement made 40 years ago by Ed Muskie:

“There are only two kinds of politics. They’re not radical and reactionary or conservative and liberal or even Democratic and Republican. There are only the politics of fear and the politics of trust. One says you are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you. The other says the world is a baffling and hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men.”

Coffee anyone?
___________________________________________________

Bonfires and Bloomberg

2010-09-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."

-- Heinrich Heine

I first encountered this quote by Heinrich Heine when I was in elementary school learning about the Holocaust. I recall a black and white photograph of uniformed men wearing caps and swastika armbands, their faces glowing in the light of the flames as they tossed stacks of books onto a bonfire. The most grotesque thing about the picture wasn’t the fire or the physical destruction of books, our treasured symbols of civilization. It was the joyful carnival-like atmosphere of the scene. Alongside the photograph appeared Heine’s famous quotation.

As a humanist writing in the 19th century, Heine understood something of the dark potential lurking within the rise of German nationalism. It’s easy enough to read his quote as a foretelling of the Nazi Holocaust. It may also be understood as a more general comment about liberty and free expression and how the path to barbarism is paved by a willingness to combat ideas with flames. What is less appreciated is the actual context of Heine’s words. The excerpt comes from a play, Almansor, written in 1821 about the cruelty and ignorance of the Spanish Inquisition. The book that is being burned is the Koran.

Perhaps it’s a stretch to link the poetry and prescience of Heine with the nonsensical story that dominated last week’s news, the threat of a Koran Burning Day promoted by an idiot pastor in Gainesville, Florida. After all, the pastor may be a hateful moron but he's not acting under the authority of the State. He’s a lone extremist with a congregation of about 50 people. He does not represent Christianity or the United States of America or the people of Gainesville. Clearly the whole thing was a sordid bit of sensationalism. And yet, look how easy it is for a single actor, threatening to commit a single act of desecration, to dominate the headlines and create an international incident requiring a response from the President and Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense and General David Petraeus, the Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan. I'm guessing that they have better things to do.

I’m not sure which is worse, the moral sickness of the pastor or the fact that such idiocy really is capable of provoking actual violence in the world. Perhaps the sorriest commentary of all is the role our media plays in creating and giving attention to such a nonsensical story. Rather than informing citizens or stimulating meaningful discourse, the media essentially supplies the fuel for the bonfire. Conflagration sells.

Strangely, some have accused New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg of also stoking the flames of controversy but, actually, he’s been a refreshing voice of reason. "I happen to think that it is distasteful,” Bloomberg said last week, “But the First Amendment protects everybody, and you can't say that we're going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement."

Exactly right. Some might have preferred a stronger condemnation of the burning act itself but that’s our job as citizens. His is to uphold laws and protect rights. New York’s billionaire mayor is nobody’s idea of a great orator and he's surely an unlikely candidate for praise as a defender of individual freedom, but on the all-important issues of rights and freedom, he’s been nearly pitch perfect just as he was when defending the right to build the Park51 Islamic Cultural Center.

“We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors,” Bloomberg stated then in his gruff tone, looking bored as usual at the podium. “That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.”

Not bad for a Bostonian. His statement was perfect because it went beyond the necessary affirmation of rights (there is no right to be respected by your neighbors) and eloquently captured the ethos of New York City and civil society itself. That should have been the end of things. Instead, we saw an absurd controversy descend into an insulting display of emotional incoherence, civic ignorance and political demagoguery Regarding the furor over the Islamic Center, Bloomberg observed, "This is a political thing. It all came up in two months, and it's going to go away on November 4th."

Or even sooner if the media can find something else that’s flammable.
____________________________________________________

Mosque on the Hudson

2010-08-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

What about the proposed mosque near Ground Zero?

On one hand, that roguish enemy of religion, Christopher Hitchens, is perfectly correct – what we are witnessing here is an alarmingly stupid debate, driven almost entirely by emotional incoherence and the lowest form of political demagoguery. But if the controversy is really so stupid, then why did Hitchens see fit to comment? Why did President Obama? Why are so many of us drawn to it? There’s something truly fascinating about the ferocity of emotion unleashed by this issue. Even if there’s precious little rational argument being offered, I would suggest that the triumph of irrationality itself makes it a worthy subject of careful examination.

So why all the fuss? As a matter of rights and Constitutional Law, there’s no issue at all. In the United States of America, folks have the right to practice their religion even if you and I don’t like that religion or are offended by the beliefs that particular religion propagates. Freedom of religion includes the freedom to purchase land and operate a house of worship. To not know that is to not know the essentials of America’s history, the Constitution, or our founding principles. But enough Civics 101. Even Sarah Palin acknowledges that the Muslims behind the Park 51 Cordoba Initiative have the right to build a mosque (or more accurately here, an Islamic community center which includes a mosque). The question, Palin insists, is whether they should build it. That at least settles the practical aspect of the debate. If the organizers have a right to build it, what legitimate grounds are there for asking New York City (much less President Obama) to deny them that right? I’ve never heard a straight answer from Palin or anyone else.

But why do they have to build it there? This seems to be the question most often asked, though I’m never quite certain to whom this question is really being directed. The President? Mayor Bloomberg? NYC’s Landmark Preservation Committee? Feisal Abdul Rauf?

If you were to sort out the various comments made by those in opposition to the mosque – Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, Sunday morning talking heads and any number of bloggers and Facebook posters, you might have heard (or imagined) an exchange along the following lines:

A: Look, I’m not saying they shouldn’t build a mosque, I’m just saying they shouldn’t build it there, at Ground Zero

B: But it’s not at Ground Zero. It’s on Park Place about half a mile away.

A: That’s still very close.

B: Is proximity the issue? There’s already a mosque roughly the same distance from Ground Zero (Masjid Manhattan on Warren Street). That mosque and another one in lower Manhattan (Masjid al-Farah on West Broadway), routinely turn away worshippers because they are overcrowded. Should we object to those mosques too?

A: Those mosques aren’t 13 stories high.

B: True. But what’s been proposed by the Cordoba Initiative is a multi-activity Islamic community center. Is it really the height that’s the problem?

A: Not just the height. But at that location, such a prominent Islamic building is an insult to the victims of 9/11.

B. Would a more modest architecture be less insulting? Should the President get involved and insist on some different building size or design in order to minimize insult?

What are we really talking about here?

Among civil people, the usual answer is: Sensitivity toward the victims of 9/11 and their families. That’s what we’re talking about. OK. At least we know what we’re dealing with. Sensitivity. But it’s amazing how many people suddenly feel qualified to speak for the 9/11 victims and the feelings of their families.

I don’t claim that right. I am not qualified to speak on behalf of the victims or their families, but I am fairly certain of this: Neither are Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich. Unlike many of those claiming outrage, I do call myself a New Yorker. I lost a childhood friend on 9/11 and I lived close enough to Ground Zero that the sickening smell of burning flesh and rubble pervaded my nostrils for weeks and will remain in my memory forever. I don’t know what percentage of 9/11 family members really are offended by the Cordoba Initiative. I also don’t know what percentage is just as offended by the cynical exploitation of 9/11 by opportunistic politicians, especially those who don’t otherwise care much for New York City. But we do have some sense of how the community feels about the issue. The Local Community board for the actual neighborhood involved, including Ground Zero, voted 29 to 1 in favor of allowing the proposal.

But clearly some number of 9/11 family members are deeply hurt and offended - fairly, or not. Reasons are beside the point. This is raw stuff here. It’s not my place to tell any of them that they shouldn’t feel offended. But I will tell anyone that in a free society, offense is never sufficient grounds for denying others the right to practice their religion. But take heart, this freedom has a flip side. We should never allow offense to serve as a basis for stifling criticism either. That includes criticism of religion (a favorite point of Christopher Hitchens). Because if we are so willing to constrain our Constitutional freedoms, to kowtow to those who cry about hurt feelings, even in the name of “tolerance” or “hallowed ground,” we are practicing a corrosive form of capitulation that any free and decent society ought to resist.

We can at least acknowledge that an emotional response on the part of 9/11 family members is sincere and not calculated or ill-intentioned. Not so for the politicians. Florida’s gubernatorial candidate, Rick Scott provided a particularly disgusting example of how emotion and fear can be put in the service of demagoguery. And it’s not just the GOP. Harry Reid was equally cowardly and opportunistic. But probably the least coherent “rationale” for opposing the Cordoba Initiative came from Newt Gingrich. “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia,” said Gingrich. Really? So our commitment to First Amendment freedom should be placed in the hands of Saudi Mullahs? In order to prove a point to those Muslims, we ought to debase our own society to the oppressive level of a theocratic dictatorship? Brilliant. Surely, THAT will show them. THAT will make us safe.

Gingrich may not be interested to know it, but the Imam behind the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a Sufi Muslim. In Saudi Arabia, Sufis have traditionally been targets of discrimination and abuse. Their shrines have been destroyed, their literature banned and their leaders excommunicated. While we don’t know what shape the completed Cordoba Initiative on Park Place will ultimately take, it’s a safe bet that it won’t be the sort of establishment that would ever be allowed to exist in Saudi Arabia.

I don’t suggest that Feisal Abdul Rauf, simply by virtue of being a Sufi, is admirably moderate or a good candidate for a more liberal, pro-western brand of Islam. Hitchens, for one, is skeptical, noting several controversial and disappointing statements made by the Imam following 9/11. (Nothing terribly shocking - just the ordinary bit about how 9/11 was the result of American foreign policy, Bin Laden was made in the USA, etc. etc.) Former President George W. Bush, on the other hand, held a more favorable view of Rauf, deciding that the Imam was exactly the right kind of Muslim. He even asked Rauf to represent the administration as a diplomat to help build a bridge between the United States and the Islamic World. The foreign policy views, intentions, and associations of Rauf are indeed fair questions for the public. But they are not the point of the current debate. We don’t get to say that only those clerics whose views and friends meet with our approval are entitled to build houses of worship.

When I listen to the public mosque debate (if we can be generous and call it that) it seems to me that many defenders of the mosque don’t quite have it right either. Some champion the Mosque proposal on the grounds of “tolerance.” They like to remind us that Islam didn’t attack New York City on 9/11. Al-Qaeda did, and Al-Qaeda doesn’t represent all, or even most, of Islam. That’s true enough but it’s not very satisfying, probably because it’s not complete. It is superficial to frame this as a battle of manners between those urging “sensitivity” on one hand, and “tolerance” on the other. For one thing, it seems to me that tolerance is an overrated virtue. To “tolerate” something is to put up with something we don’t like. We do it only when we have to. The value that matters most here isn’t “tolerance” but freedom.

And what of the victims of 9/11? Do we really dishonor them by building an Islamic center within a few blocks of this hallowed ground? Well, we certainly don’t honor them by exploiting fear and division, by straining and shouting just to prevent that building. And let’s remember what actually happened on 9/11. The U.S. wasn’t merely attacked. We were violently joined in a war that has been raging for decades. A large portion of the world, from Northern Africa to Southeast Asia, has been ravaged by a war within Islamic world. It’s a conflict that exists irrespective of any particular U.S. foreign policy decision (and would certainly be taking place regardless of whether Israel existed or not). What we learned on 9/11 - or what we should have learned - is that we have a great stake in the outcome that war. Let’s remember that the primary victims of Al-Qaida’s Jihad are Muslims. And it is Muslims, who pray in mosques, who have been doing most of the suffering and dying at the hands of murderous Islamist extremists. If we lose sight of that, we also lose sight of what we are fighting when we say we are fighting terrorism.

I am not arguing that Islam is a peaceful religion (a statement we hear often – it’s more meaningless than false). But today, the questions of how Islam should express itself and who gets to define it are hotly contested and have enormous consequences for us. Consider Iran, a nation of 70 million Muslims. Here is a theocratic regime and regional power. Yet bristling beneath the harsh clerical rule is a significant reform movement, sympathetic to the west, and hungry for civil rights. Millions of Muslims seek to redefine their society, their laws and the role of Islam in their lives. Yet they are believers in Islam. Shall we conclude that only Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Shi’a clerics are entitled to decide what it means to be Muslim in Iran? Similarly, shall we declare that Al-Qaida is the legitimate and authoritative voice of Islam globally? Isn’t that what we are essentially doing when we associate all things Islamic with the murderous vision and deeds of Al-Qaeda – and worse, when we use this as an excuse for curbing religious freedom at home?

Like most Americans, I too would like to see ordinary Muslims as well as Islamic leaders do more to distance themselves from the barbaric conduct and totalitarian views of the Jihadists. But shouldn’t we be encouraging them? Instead, with these mosque protests, we seem to be sending the message that their rights don’t matter and that we don’t care about their views – except for the ones that offend us. They need not bother with reform, with assimilation, with civic virtues or with resisting the likes of Bin Laden - we’ve already decided that Bin Laden speaks for them. When we do this, we show how unserious we are about fighting terrorism. We are essentially handing Bin Laden a crucial victory.

By indulging in the ugliness of this Ground Zero mosque controversy, we are missing a key point. It’s not that we need to make nice with Muslims for the sake of tolerance. It’s that we need to be true to our own values and principles of freedom for our own sake.

__________________________________________

Morbo and the Mollusk

2010-07-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Only seven nations (four from Europe) have ever won the World Cup. Today, either Holland or Spain will join that list. I like both Holland and Spain. Both nations have rich soccer traditions that capture the imagination and both teams play a positive and attractive (usually) brand of possession, attack-oriented soccer. In a way this is unfortunate. It’s all well and good to appreciate the sport and to say “well, I’d just like to see an exciting game.” But something is missing in this. The tasty juice, the mojo, the real passion of soccer is only truly experienced when you feel strongly for one team and, preferably, despise the other.

One of my favorite soccer books is Phi Ball’s Morbo, the story of Spanish Football. And Morbo might be the very thing I’m talking about. Ball explains the difficulty of the word:

It’s one of those awkward ones that defies easy translation. No matter how you try, you can’t quite nail the word down. It entails a lot of slippery little notions that just won’t rub shoulders with a convenient English synonym. Don’t bother with a dictionary, for it will only confuse you further, the word having other meanings that are not applicable to football. Most treat it as a noun and translate it as something ‘disease’, which is hardly appropriate to this context.

Fever. Spirit. Rivalry. Passion. Morbo is an intangible something rooted in the heart and in history and culture. It can be quite ugly – the heart being a big dumb muscle linked to oversized adrenal glands. But it can also be life-sustaining, loving and inseparable from our humanity. I’ve been to Spain and have visited the two great cathedrals of football, Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid (home of Real Madrid) and Camp Nou in Barcelona (home of FC Barcelona). As an American visitor, I could experience only the slightest taste of the Morbo that infects Spanish culture, but its potency is unforgettable.

I’ve never been to Holland but the Dutch too hold a special place for me. As a history-obsessed New Yorker who lives a stone’s throw from the Hudson River (and short drive from Sleepy Hollow’s Old Dutch Church and the Tappan Zee) I often think about the Dutch influence on New York. And as a soccer player and fan, I became enamored with the Dutch legacy of “Total Football” and the genius of “Clockwork Orange.” I never saw Johan Cruyff play but I do remember the brilliance of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and more recently, the likes of Dennis Bergkamp.

The Dutch ideal is one that emphasizes attacking over defending, creativity over results and artistry over efficiency. The history and culture of Dutch soccer is captured by David Winner in the brilliant Brilliant Orange. The Dutch legacy plays on myth but also embodies a certain paradox - individual brilliance, and even a touch of anarchy within a communitarian team sport. This aspect of Dutch football culture is, it has been argued, one of the reasons Holland has never won the World Cup despite coming tantalizingly close, reaching the finals in 1974 and 1978. This is part of the Dutch legacy. As Red Sox fans used to know, once you get past the disappointment, there’s a certain romanticism in coming close and losing gloriously.

The Dutchman, Johan Cruyff, is perhaps the greatest European player the game has ever seen. (I would entertain arguments for Beckenbauer before Platini or Zidane). Cruyff also represents a crucial link between Spain and Holland. The word “genius” is overused in sports but it’s surely an accurate description of Cruyff, whose technique and brand of “total football” with the Amsterdam club, Ajax, revolutionized football in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then, in 1973, he took Spanish football by storm when he joined FC Barcelona. He embraced Barcelona’s own football culture entirely, learning the language and settling in the Catalonian capital. He went on to manage Barcelona and won the European Championship in 1992 with a squad that played gloriously, something like “total football” in the Ajax tradition.

Even today, FC Barcelona plays a very stylish, creative, attack-oriented brand of soccer. Cruyff’s influence will be seen on both sides in today’s World Cup final. At least 5 of Spain’s starting 11 today play for FC Barcelona. And several of Holland’s players, including their most creative attacker, Wesley Sneijder, came up through the Ajax system in Amsterdam. But according to Cruyff himself, the team that plays closer to the Dutch ideal he prefers is not Holland, but Spain.

Paul the Octopus agrees. The most famous mollusk in all of Germany, Paul, has a perfect record in World Cup prognostications. He picked Spain to win the final. I’m with Paul. I think Spain will take it 2-1. But what I’m hoping for most is a great game with moments of great individual brilliance and hopefully a spectacular goal or two. True, I may be lacking the passion the occasion seems to demand, but I have a feeling that there will be plenty of Morbo to go around.

Not So Much English

2010-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

I suppose we are all susceptible to cultural and historical biases. Here’s one of mine: I have always found it difficult to root for Germany in international competition. I’m fine with their individual athletes. Boris Becker? Terrific. Detlef Schrempf? Dirk Nowitzki? No problem. It's when they assemble as team that I begin to feel uncomfortable. This is especially true in soccer. Tall and blonde, steely blue eyes, the imperial black eagle on the crest of the pristine white uniform, the full throated singing of the national anthem (Für das deutsche Vaterland!) And once the game begins, there’s that organized defense and tireless discipline, the joyless Teutonic efficiency with which they dismantle their opponents. How do you root for that?

That all changed this past weekend. I was absolutely delighted to watch Germany’s 4-1 thrashing of England in the World Cup Round of 16. Clearly I have some biases against England too. These stem in large part from the arrogance that one encounters in English commentators and fans who seem to think that inventing the game over a century ago entitles their nation to privileged status today. After England was eliminated from the World Cup in 1958, England’s great passer Johnny Haynes observed, “Everyone in England thinks we have a God-given right to win the World Cup.” It’s an attitude that still resonates in the English-speaking world.

As someone who follows English football, I’m also struck by the less admirable qualities of some of the leading lights of the English team. Wayne Rooney, for all of his talent and effort, is a shameless diver. Captain horndog, John Terry, is, to put it mildly, not the most trustworthy of teammates. The names of Steven Gerard and Ashley Cole have graced the headlines for the usual nightclub shenanigans. It's one thing to accept that athletes are not role models. It's quite another to have your nation represented on the world's biggest stage by a squad whose peccadillos would rival the Florida State Seminoles or Cincinnati Bengals.

For all of my earlier criticisms of Soccernomics I must give credit where credit is due. The diagnosis of England’s predicament was spot on. In the chapter entitled “Why England Loses and Others Win,” the authors detail an 8 phase pattern that repeats itself every four years:

1. Pretournament - Certainty that England Will Win the World Cup. Check.

2. During the Tournament England Meets a Former Wartime Enemy. Check.

3. The English Conclude That the Game Turned on One Freakish Piece of Bad Luck That Could Happen Only to Them. Check.

4. Moreover, Everyone Else Cheated. Check.

5. England is Knocked Out Without Getting Anywhere Near Lifting the Cup. Check.

6. The Day After Elimination, Normal Life Resumes. Check.

7. A Scapegoat is Found. Check. Check and Check.

8. England Enters the Next World Cup Thinking it Will Win it. Well...stay tuned.

Rooting for Germany was easy for another reason. They played a positive, team-oriented brand of soccer that was fun to watch. England didn’t. “Germany” and “fun” are two words that don’t usually go together but they did last Sunday. The Germans also seemed to avoid the mistake made by other nations by choosing a young and energetic squad (among the regulars, only Miroslav Klose and Arne Friedrich are over 30). Other European nations, England, France, Italy, and Denmark among them, were more committed to big-name players regardless of their age, current form, or ability to mesh as a team.

And so the English team, like the U.S., will watch the remainder of the tournament from home. Commentators have observed what a great tournament this has been for South America (4 of the final 8 teams) and how this marks the 3rd time that an African nation (Ghana) has reached the Quarterfinals. Of the final eight nations remaining, four are Spanish-speaking. There is only one nation remaining whose official language is English. That nation is Ghana.

____________________________________________________

Round of 16

2010-06-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

Just one goal makes all the difference. Had Landon Donovan's missed his strike in the 91st minute, had he sent it over the bar (as U.S. players did throughout the game), had the Algerian goalkeeper held on to the initial shot by Dempsey - denying Donovan the rebound, had U.S. keeper Tim Howard failed to make a perfect throw half the length of the pitch to set up the play - had any of those happened, the game would have ended in a 0-0 draw. The U.S. team would already be home, their winless World Cup adventure considered a failure. Coach, Bob Bradley would be out of a job and Landon Donovan would be regarded as the underachieving disappointing face of U.S. soccer.

Instead, the U.S. team beats Algeria advances to the knockout round of 16, winning their group ahead of England. Donovan is a national hero and America's soccer haters have no choice but to put up with all of this for at least a little while longer.

Commentators and fans will be talking about this goal for a long time, and arguing about where it belongs in within the history of U.S. soccer and in rankings of the most dramatic moments in U.S. sports. It's the biggest U.S. soccer goal since at least, well... the one scored by Brandi Chastain in 1999. (It's worth remembering that the Women's Team actually won the World Cup)  For now, let's focus on what it means for the U.S. team in the short term. Tomorrow the U.S. plays Ghana in the round of 16. It will be another tough match. Ghana beat the U.S. last time around and was the only African team to advance this year. We've made it this far before. In 2002, the U.S. won a round-of-16 match against Mexico before bowing out to Germany in the quarterfinals. But there's been much greater drama this time and a much larger U.S. audience watching. Americans who saw the white-knuckled win over Algeria finally tasted some of the tension, passion and pride, familiar to other nations. No, it's not going to make soccer a bigger sport than American football. But kids were watching. Plenty of new fans were born.

For a real treat, make sure you listen to the orgasmic call of Landon Donovan's goal by Andres Cantor.

And if all of that is too insane, there's always the classic parody from the Simpsons.    .

Soccernomics Again

In my last entry, I noted the observation made in "Soccernomics" about the recent dominance of Western Europe. In the 2006 World Cup. No team from Western Europe lost a match to any team not from Western Europe until the knockout round when there was only a single loss - Switzerland lost to Ukraine on penalty kicks. Well, in 2010, in the First round alone, teams from Western Europe have lost six matches when playing teams from elsewhere. In 2006, there were 9 Western European nations in the tournament and all of them advanced to the knockout stage. In 2010, there were 8 teams and only 4 have advanced. France, Italy, Denmark and Switzerland have already been eliminated. And the South American teams (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay) have yet to lose a single match.

Predictions

Uruguay 1, South Korea 0
U.S.A. 2, Ghana 1
Germany 1, England 1 (Germany wins on penalty kicks)
Argentina 3, Mexico 2
Netherlands 3, Slovakia 1
Brazil 2, Chile 0
Japan 2, Paraguay 1
Spain 3, Portugal 1

World Cup Notes

2010-06-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

World Cup 2010 is into its second week. Each team has played twice - 32 games have been played in all. Here are some random thoughts and reactions.

The Nick Hornby Scale: USA vs. Slovenia

USA vs. Slovenia had a little bit of everything. According to Nick Hornby, a truly memorable match has the following features.

1. Goals (as many as possible)
2. Outrageously bad refereeing Decisions
3. A noisy crowd
4. Rain, a greasy surface, etc.

The pitch in Johannesburg seemed fine, but otherwise, the conditions were met. The game saw 4 goals - quite a lot by the standards of this tournament. The average goals-per-game in this World Cup is 2.09. (The average was well below 2 before Portugal's 7-0 drubbing of North Korea). It had an outrageously bad refereeing deicsion. The U.S. dramatically came back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to tie the game and only a horrible refereeing decision, a phantom foul disallowing Edu's goal, prevented them from winning it. But doesn't this kind of terrible officiating ruin the game? Not according to Hornby:

"Indignation is a crucial ingredient of the perfect footballing experience; I cannot therefore agree with match commentators who argue that a referee has had a good game if he isn't noticed...I prefer to notice them, and howl at them, and feel cheated by them."

Mission accomplished. The third element - a noisy crowd - was also satisfied. Between the lunatics of Uncle Sam's Army and those damn plastic vuvuzela horns, there was no shortage of noise. That's 3 out of 4 on the Hornby scale. Not bad.

I was correct in predicting a draw between the U.S. and the impressive Slovenians but I can feel only the slightest degree of satisfaction. The good news is that the U.S. has broken a trend - it played a team from Eastern Europe in the World Cup and for the first time, it did not lose. The better news is that the U.S. still controls its destiny. A win against Algeria and they advance to the knock-out stage.

What Sucks About Soccer

For my money, what sucks about soccer isn't the money, or the politics, or the draws, or the penalty kicks, or the low scoring. It's this stuff. A player from the Ivory Coast runs into Brazil's best player, Kaká, and then pretends he was elbowed in the face. The referee is fooled by the act, and issues a yellow card which means that Kaká will miss Brazil's next game against Portugal. Ivory Coast was considered the strongest of the African teams and I was pulling for them at the start of the tournament. Not anymore. This was a disgrace.

Soccernomics Refuted

I picked up "Soccernomics" by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski. I enjoyed Kuper's earlier book, "Football Against the Enemy," a fascinating study of the way that cultural identity, politics and even ethnic hatred is expressed through the international game of soccer. Soccernomics is a bit different. It's a cross between Bill James and Steve Levitt. A dispassionate statistics/economics approach to the game that promises to shatter conventional wisdom about the game and the business behind it. I don't think it works all that well, largely, because soccer is not like baseball. It is less susceptible to the kind of number-crunching and meaningful statistical analyses that Bill James brought to baseball through his pioneering of sabermetrics.

One of the trends observed by the authors is the dominance of Contintental Western European nations when it comes to International play. (Follow the GDP!) For example, in the 2006 World Cup, not only did Italy meet France in the final, but no Western European nation lost to a team from any other part of the world. The only exception was when Ukraine beat Switzerland in penalty kicks after a 0-0 tie. Well, we're only halfway through this year's edition but we've already seen Mexico beat France, Serbia beat Germany and Chile beat Switzerland. The story for this World Cup might be the fact that no South American team has lost yet. In fact, the only team from the Western Hemisphere that has lost a match is Honduras.

The Run of Play

Judging by present form, the two teams that look the best are probably Argentina and Netherlands. Netherlands was impressive against Denmark and Japan and have already advanced. Argentina, which features the world's best player, Lionel Messi and the world's maddest coach, Diego Maradona, looks to be the most dangerous side. But it's too early to read much into it. In 2006, Argentina also looked dominant in group play before stumbling in the Quaterfinals. And Netherlands, for all of their orange brilliance, tends to find a way to self-destruct. But if there is one lesson of economics that can be applied to soccer, it is this: Past results are no guarantee of future reults. You have to play the game.

World Cup Diary: Week One

2010-06-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

Opening Game

I was planning to catch the opening match between South Africa and Mexico but since I’m in California that means a 7:00am start time. But I figured, why not? And if you’re going to watch the Mexican national team play soccer while in Los Angeles, you may as well head down to Olvera Street. To a New Yorker, Los Angeles doesn’t feel much like a city because it’s all sprawl and there’s no real center. No heart. But if any place can lay claim to being the heart of L.A., it is Olvera Street, the oldest street in Los Angeles and the historic home of LA’s latino heritage. Shortly after dawn, we drove to downtown Los Angeles. There was no traffic.

Olvera Street is pedestrian thoroughfare of smooth red tile, lined with kiosks and vendors selling crafts, clothing, candy and souvenirs and where you find historic adobe buildings and authentic Mexican restaurants. It’s a nice mix of charm and kitsch, but it’s a gem within an otherwise blighted downtown and its historic roots and quality food are real enough. At 7:00 in the morning the kiosks aren’t yet open but some of the restaurants are. Of course they are showing the game. We go to Café de Camacho at the south end of the street. It’s a newer place that serves flavored coffees and has brightly colored walls displaying paintings for sale. We had no problem getting a table. It wasn’t very crowded but nearly everyone there was wearing the green Mexico shirt and cheering for El Tri. Spirited but civilized. Instead of beer and meat pies, it was coffee, muffins and breakfast burritos. Much more my speed.

Mexico dominated the play, but it was South Africa, the host nation, who drew first blood. Siphiwe Tshabalala sprang free on the left wing and blasted a perfect shot past the Mexican keeper. The stadium erupted. Cafe de Camacho groaned. Unluckily for Mexico, an apparent Mexican goal was ruled off on what appeared to be an incorrect offsides call. Retribution came late. Mexico kept up the pressure and in the 80th minute, Rafa Marquez, the veteran defender for Barcelona equalized. Café de Camacho roared with excitement. The 1-1 tie was a fair result but one that frustrated Mexican hopes. Mexico is a soccer-mad nation with a talented squad but they are also cautious in their hope. They routinely qualify for the World Cup and advance to the round of 16 but they have never made it past the quarter-finals. The next two games – against France and Uruguay are expected to be tougher. But with some better finishing, Olvera Street might yet see some festive partying.

The U.S. Team

The much-anticipated game between U.S. and England did not produce the dramatic upset Americans were hoping for, but it was hardly a let-down either. As a practical matter, a 1-1 tie with England is an excellent and extremely fortunate result. The U.S. goal was a gift from England’s Keeper, Robert Green, whose mishandling of an innocuous shot from Clint Dempsey produced a howler for the ages. The best news for the U.S. was that its defense, a real question mark going into the game, performed solidly. Tim Howard and Steve Cherundolo, at right-back, were the best U.S. performers of the match. Jozey Altidore showed some signs of danger but needs to be more involved.

I was reading some of the reader comments on ESPN Soccernet last week. One comment read “The England game doesn’t matter that much – the key game is the 2nd game against Slovakia.” Exactly right, save for one detail. The U.S. opponent isn’t Slovakia – it’s Slovenia. What concerns me isn’t the fact that Americans are bad at geography. It’s that they don’t appreciate how tough their opponent is. I don’t mean to be pessimistic but I think it’s nuts to suppose that the U.S. should be heavily favored in this game, but that’s exactly what is being reported. I’ve already noted what’s impressive about Slovenia. The U.S. has qualified for every World Cup since 1990. That’s five tournaments. And each time, the U.S. has played a team from Eastern Europe and each time it has lost. I’m predicting another 1-1 tie. (Soccer haters love those). If it happens, the American sports media will howl, but we shouldn't be at all surprised.

Santa Barbara

My vacation took me to Santa Barbara on California’s beautiful central coast. It’s not an obvious place for watching soccer, but Santa Barbara has a richer soccer heritage than you might expect. The local college, University of California at Santa Barbara, was the NCAA men’s soccer national champions of 2006. The main drag, State Street, is full of stores, galleries, restaurants and bars – and these cater to upscale shoppers as well as college kids and beach bums. The restaurants, sports bars, English taverns, Irish pubs and coffee houses are all televising the World Cup matches. In the evenings, it’s all about the NBA finals – Lakers vs. Celtics. But by day, soccer rules.

On Thursday morning, we’re watching Mexico again. This time, they’re playing France, who drew nil-nil in an uninspiring opening match against Uruguay. We’re at Moby Dick, a sea food restaurant on Stearn’s Wharf. It’s an unusual soccer-viewing environment. Outside our window pelicans are hovering over the Pacific and we’re having grilled salmon and a crab-melt sandwich. Nearly all of the patrons watching are rooting for Mexico, surprising only because we encountered so many French tourists in Santa Barbara. Mexico’s 2-0 win is well-deserved. Defender Carlos Salcidos is an intense-looking guy and he put on a master class at left fullback. It’s hard to feel sorry for France. Not only because of the controversial way they qualified, but because they’re playing a dull and listless brand of soccer. Franck Ribery is a nice player but he’s no Zidane. Only Florent Malouda was lively. Mexico beating a Western European power in a World Cup match is a very big deal. As beautiful as Santa Barbara is, I wonder what it’s like right now on Olvera Street.

______________________________________________________

World Cup Diary

2010-06-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

We’re minutes away from the biggest soccer game in U.S. history. I’m thinking not only about the excitement of the World Cup but about the game of soccer and its place in U.S. Culture. Soccer’s no longer just for immigrants and suburban kids who are driven around by Moms in mini-vans. Americans are getting increasingly interested in the International game. Last month the European Champions League final between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich, was aired on a Saturday afternoon on Fox. Not Fox Soccer Channel. Fox. New York’s Channel 5. This is new. And it could be the start of something big.

But admittedly, I’m more enthused about soccer than is your average American sports fan. I grew up in the New York area and started kicking a ball around the same time Pele joined the New York Cosmos, who played before bigger crowds than even the Yankees could draw. I played varsity soccer at my Long Island high school in the 1980s. I’ve tuned into every World Cup since 1986, when a squat player from Argentina named Diego Armando Maradona put on one of the greatest performances that any sports fan has ever seen. I consider Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch to be the best sports-fan memoir ever written. I visited London and Madrid in the late 1990s, and saw professional matches at Highbury (Arsenal) and the Bernebeu (Real Madrid). An American sitting in those legendary venues, watching the game being played at its highest level among impassioned supporters, can only begin to understand the degree to which soccer is in Europe’s blood. To say nothing of Latin America. And anyone looking to experience how Asians feel about soccer ought to visit’s 32nd and Broadway, New York City’s Koreatown, when South Korea plays in the World Cup. To see what soccer means to Africa, just watch this year’s edition of the World Cup.

For the mainstream American sports fan, the game of soccer tends to invoke one of two reactions. The first is contempt. And as soccer grows in popularity, so does the intensity of the American backlash against it. Some of that is simply an expression of nationalism. Since soccer is the biggest game in the world by far, the red-blooded patriotic American is inclined to be to be suspicious of this foreign activity. The second and more common reaction is ambivalence. Here are the American sports fans who have nothing against soccer on a cultural level, but who just can’t get all that excited about it. The sport isn’t really foreign to them – they’ve played it, or their kids have. And they’ll enjoy watching a great goal or show of individual skill on ESPN Plays of the Week. But the game itself doesn’t capture them and the lack of success by the U.S. at the International level frustrates them.

Here’s what bothers lots of American fans about soccer:

• Low scoring.

• Tie games.

• Whining, dramatics and simulation of injuries.

• Outcome of games decided by penalty kicks

But what the U.S. likes most about sports – more than lots of goals or tough play – is winning. If the U.S. can do well in this World Cup, plenty of Americans will look past what they see as the negatives of the sport and come to embrace the Beautiful Game. That’s one reason why today’s game between the U.S. and England is so huge. The media has hyped the game a lot but there’s no question that the U.S. is a decided underdog. There are a lot of eyes on this game but in the U.S., there’s also a notoriously short attention span. A U.S. win would be historic. And if you think there’s a lot of hype and sports media attention now…just wait. But if we see a disappointing showing by the U.S. or a dull game, a nil-nil draw, or a questionable call by a referee resulting in a penalty kick giving England a 1-0 win, the soccer haters will say “See? I told you so.”

But that’s Ok. Some of us will keep on watching. That's what fans do.

Life in the Party Pit: The Hold Steady in Ardsley, NY, April 2, 2010

2010-04-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

________________________________

When you listen to The Hold Steady, the word “beautiful” is not a word that springs immediately to mind. The songs take you to some scary and desperate places – High School, Penetration Park, barroom bathrooms, party pits and the seedy camps on banks of the Mississippi River. The characters that inhabit the songs include skaters, drug dealers, hustlers and hoodrats. They have names like Holly, Gideon and Charlemagne. They are shady, quirky and vulnerable. They are often battered, sometimes bloody and usually wasted. Sure, there’s fun to be had, humor, irony and a massive party, but there’s little glamour in it. We see a youth culture that wants what every generation has wanted over the last half century – its own celebration of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. But the sex is desperate and the drugs turn ugly. When the smoke clears, we bear witness to the casualties, the bruised flesh and lost souls. But what we are left with is pure rock n’ roll.

Craig Finn is the voice of the Hold Steady. It might be a stretch to call him a “singer” in any traditional sense but he has a unique way of non-singing that makes him a captivating, if unlikely, front-man for a rock band. When you see The Hold Steady live, you are struck by the odd figure that he cuts. With his receding hairline, dark glasses, and plain-looking collared button-down shirt, he hardly looks the part of a rock star. He looks like a Dad, or a computer programmer or a guy who runs the copy machine in an accounting office. And when he dances on stage with the spastic exuberance of a child, you realize that this is no poseur. Nobody would fake this. He gesticulates wildly, punctuating the vocal rhythms with his hands. It’s quirky and odd, but his energy is infectious and his geeky lack of self-consciousness is refreshing. There’s an earnestness and innocence in his delivery even as the characters he sings about have lost their own. It’s a paradox that works.

Success has come but it has been modest. Forming in Brooklyn, by way of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, in 2003, The Hold Steady became a critically acclaimed bar band and, following their first two albums, Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday, they had a solid cult following. In 2005, they appeared on the cover of The Village Voice. Their next album, Boys and Girls in America even got some radio play (notably, the anthem, “Stuck Between Stations”). But in 2006, Finn was still working in an office. Then in 2008, they released Stay Positive, their most successful album to date.

But if they had really made it big, I probably would not have been fortunate enough to see them play last Friday in Ardsley, New York before just a few hundred enthusiastic fans. That night, the band kicked off their summer tour at an unlikely venue. LIFE the Place to Be is a family event space, complete with arcade games, bowling alley and rock-climbing wall (kosher catering is available). It's more of a venue for corporate outings and Chappaqua Bar-Mitzvah parties than for sweaty, beer-soaked, bar-band rock, but I enjoyed the incongruity of the scene. The concert was part of the 6th birthday party celebration of 107.1, The Peak, the only decent radio station in Westchester County and the one that introduced me to The Hold Steady. There’s a new album coming out in May (Heaven is Whenever) and a new line-up. Their wonderfully flamboyant keyboardist, Franz Nicolay has been replaced and they’ve added an extra guitarist to lend some muscle to Tad Kubler’s killer riffs.

The show was fantastic. This band could get really big. I wouldn’t rule it out, but I wouldn’t predict it either. Finn’s vocal delivery– part nasally snarl, part rapid-fire chant - isn’t for everyone. He’s enamored with words, with literature and storytelling. Poets, John Berryman, William Butler Yeats and William Blake appear in the songs. So does Jack Kerouac. With Finn, words come flying forth rapidly without restraint or moderation as he creates captivating tales of celebration, desperation and the places in between. One of the drawbacks of the live performance is that the words get lost in the sound system, the haze of amplification and layers of guitar. It’s a common problem at rock concerts. But Finn makes up for this loss with the sheer energy and exuberance of the live performance. He has a way of making you wait on every word even when you can’t quite make them out. There's a boundless joy that seems to contradict the crises that underlie at least some of the storytelling. But within this contradiction is the very heart of rock ‘n roll. Three chords and the truth but don’t ever stop dancing.

There was something appropriate about seeing this band on Good Friday. Catholic imagery runs rampant in The Hold Steady’s songs, most notably on the Separation Sunday. At every turn, there’s sin, sacrifice, the hope of salvation and the fear of its loss. The Village Voice called Separation Sunday “the most egregiously American Catholic album since X's Under the Big Black Sun, Springsteen's Tunnel of Love, or that Jewish new waver Billy Joel's The Stranger.” After the band played “Multitude of Casualties,” a song of drugs and redemption, Finn smiled (he smiles a lot) and wished the audience “Happy Easter.” Finn may be haunted and he may be lapsed but there’s no denying that it’s in him.

There is an obvious Springsteen influence: the recurring characters, the big-sounding anthems, the Bittanesque keyboard and the energy of the live show. But Finn and his crew are also of a different generation. There’s a "Dazed and Confused" slacker sensibility which, because of the Minneapolis connection, brings to mind Paul Westerberg and the Replacements. (But also that other bard of Minnesota, Bob Dylan). In the crunching guitar riffs and power pop chords, you can hear the influence of AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Cheap Trick. And there’s a touch of Punk in these guys as well. In “Constructive Summer,” the driving anthem that kicks off Stay Positive there’s a nod to both Iggy Pop and Joe Strummer. Finn considers the idealism of youth and what it all means now that he's facing the realities of getting older:

Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer

I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher

Getting older makes it harder to remember…we are our only saviors

We’re gonna build something, this summer

This isn’t the voice of a slacker or of a wasted youth stumbling around the party pit. The stakes couldn’t be higher. What Finn and The Hold Steady represent is nothing less than the redemptive power of rock n’ roll. Every concert is an affirmation of that faith. See them if you can. It truly is a beautiful thing.

________________________________________

Do You Believe in Miracles?

2010-02-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

I’m watching Team USA play Canada for the Olympic Hockey Men’s Gold Medal and I’m struck by a realization: It’s been 30 years since the “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid, when Team USA beat the Soviets and went on to win the Olympic Gold Medal. 30 years!

The game I’m watching now is a pretty big deal - especially for Canada. Hockey is their national religion. They expect to win and there is even greater pressure for these 2010 Olympic Games as they are on home ice in Vancouver. It’s a fairly big deal for U.S. hockey too. It's also a terrific game. But I’m watching a team of 23 NHL players skate against another team of 23 NHL players. Almost all of them are millionaires and they are all familiar to fans of hockey. When the U.S. met the Soviets in Lake Placid in 1980, there were no NHL players and no millionaires. The world wasn’t so small then. There was real mystery when your nation competed against a foreign team.

It’s difficult to fully appreciate how different things were in 1980. First, there was the sheer magnitude of the upset. Team USA featured a collection of college players (mostly from Minnesota or Massachusetts) while the Soviet team was an experienced machine, universally regarded as the best in the world. The previous winter, the same Soviet team had badly beaten an NHL All Star Team (featuring 15 eventual hall-of-famers) in the Challenge Cup at Madison Square Garden. And only three days before the Olympics opened, the U.S. team played the Soviets in an exhibition game also in the Garden. The Soviets won 10 – 3. Then there was the geopolitical climate in 1980. Jimmy Carter was President. We had an energy crisis, a Cold War and what seemed to be an increasingly more dangerous world. Four months prior to the Olympics, 53 Americans were taken hostage by Iranian revolutionaries. And just three months before the Olympics, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan.

But I was only 11-years-old and the Olympics had completely captured my imagination. I had a vague recollection of the 1976 Winter Games – Franz Klammer, in his banana-yellow ski suit, winning the downhill in Innsbruck. But this time, the Olympics would be in the United States, in New York State even. Practically in my own backyard. In the summer of 1978, I went to a sleep-away camp near the Adirondacks and had visited Lake Placid on a day trip. I remember getting ice cream on Main Street, swatting mosquitoes and walking down to the lake to watch water skiing. Olympic preparations were well underway in town and Olympic posters, decals and flags could be seen everywhere. It was thrilling to consider that this small mountain village, would be blanketed with snow and play host to the world.

I was also just beginning to follow hockey. Those were heady times for hockey in New York. The Ranger team, more famous then for their designer jeans and swimsuit model wives than for their on-ice accomplishments, had just played in the Stanley Cup Finals. My beloved New York Islanders were on the assent to greatness. But these were the days when only amateurs played in the Olympics. There would be no Phil Esposito, no Bobby Clarke, no Guy Lafleur and no Brian Trottier, Mike Bossy, Clark Gilles or Denis Potvin. But these guys were all Canadians anyway. I couldn’t name a single American player and I knew nothing of College hockey. And so I read my Sports Illustrated Winter Olympics Preview issue in order to educate myself. Most of the Olympic hype concerned an American speed skater named Eric Heiden who was expected to compete for the Gold Medal in 5 events. But there was also a short article previewing the hockey. Of course the Soviets were expected to win Gold. Czechoslovakia was picked to win Silver. But, according to Sports Illustrated, the plucky U.S. team, coached by Herb Brooks, had a legitimate shot at the Bronze! I was thrilled. This would be a team worth watching.

The rest, of course, is history. In their opening game, the U.S. tied Sweden, 2-2. The Americans then rolled off consecutive wins against Czechoslovakia, Norway, Romania and West Germany. The leading scorer for the U.S. was Mark Johnson (now coach of the U.S. Women’s hockey team) but their best player was probably goaltender, Jim Craig. ABC, the network covering the Olympics, only showed highlights from these games until the medal round, which pitted the USA against the mighty Soviets. The game was aired on a Friday evening on tape delay.

The greatest thing about sports is that the drama is real. The unexpected sometimes does happen and when it does, it can shock, inspire, fulfill dreams and break hearts. When Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal in the third period and Team USA held on to win 4-3, I was jumping up and down in front of the television. The U.S. would go on to defeat Finland to win the Gold Medal but it was the win against the Soviets that was the one for the ages. Lacking any real political awareness, I had no temptation to attach any political significance or propaganda angle to the win. I only knew the joy of victory. I knew that my team, my country, had beaten the best. I knew that it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it happened. I knew it was a miracle. It remains the greatest thing I’ve witnessed in sports.

But now, I’m again jumping excitedly in front of my television. With the U.S. trailing Canada 2-1, Zach Parise scored for the U.S. with just 24 seconds left in regulation. Awesome! The Gold Medal winner will be determined in sudden death overtime. It’s thrilling -but it’s not like 1980. I shouldn’t compare, but I can’t help it. Don’t get me wrong, in some ways this is better. Certainly the players are better – bigger, stronger, faster, professional. And so is the overall quality of play. But Team USA is only a slight underdog this time, if even that. They’ve already beaten Canada in the preliminary round and going into the playoff round, they had the best record, the best goal differential and the hottest goalie, Ryan Miller. But Canada is still Canada and beating them a second time will take some doing.

Sudden death is tense stuff. Next goal wins. This thing could end with an errant pass, a fluke goal, a deflection. Hockey is like that. But somebody is going to win this thing. And then, somebody does. 7:40 into overtime, Sidney Crosby wins it for Canada. A nation celebrates. I’m happy for Canada. This means more to their nation than it would have meant for ours. And that’s not sour grapes – I'd have loved to see the U.S. win - it’s just how things work in the world of hockey. Canadians will be comparing Crosby’s goal to Paul Henderson’s legendary game winning goal in the Summit Series against the Soviets in 1972. North of the border, there’s both jubilation and relief.

But I find myself wondering, what if the U.S. had won? Would the commentators be comparing it with 1980? You bet they would. So maybe we were spared at least that. To be sure, there are plenty of 11-year-old kids, in both the U.S and Canada, who saw something special and unforgettable. Countless American kids will become fans and even learn to play hockey because of what happened today. Countless Canadian kids have a memory that will last a lifetime. They saw great hockey – better hockey than we saw in 1980. And they saw something dramatic and inspiring. It fulfilled dreams and it broke hearts.

But they didn’t see a miracle.

______________________________________________

100 Best Songs of the Decade

2009-12-31T05:06:00.000-08:00

_____________________________________________

As with the 100 Best Albums of the Decade, the criteria for this list is pretty much non-existent. This is purely subjective. If anything, picking favorite songs is even more arbitrary and inexact than picking favorite albums. And if I were to make this list a week from now, it might look very different. But today is the day the year comes to a close. Here’s my take on the best songs of the decade:

1. The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
2. The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations
3. Green Day – Jesus of Suburbia
4. The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?
5. The Killers – Mr. Brightside
6. MGMT – Fated to Pretend
7. Eminem – Lose Yourself
8. The Strokes – Last Nite
9. Amy Winehouse - Rehab
10. Bruce Springsteen- My City of Ruins
11. Gnarls Barkley – Crazy
12. John Doe - The Golden State
13. U2 - Vertigo
14. Modest Mouse – Float On
15. Spoon - The Underdog
16. Rilo Kiley – Portion for Foxes
17. Johnny Cash - Hurt
18. Ryan Adams – New York, New York
19. Coldplay –Viva La Vida
20. Son Volt – The Picture
21. The Hold Steady – Constructive Summer
22. U2- Moment of Surrender
23. The Gaslight Anthem- The ’59 Sound
24. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps
25. Bruce Springsteen – The Rising
26. Franz Ferdinand – Take Me out
27. Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies)
28. Norah Jones – Don’t Know Why
29. Wilco – At Least that’s What You Said
30. Outkast – Hey Ya!
31. The Middle – Jimmy Eat World
32. Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You
33. Arctic Monkeys - I’ll Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor
34. The Walkmen – The Rat
35. Kaiser Chiefs – I Predict A Riot
36. Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken
37. Beck- Lost Cause
38. Rilo Kiley- Does He Love You?
39. Ike Reilly – Last Time
40. Bob- Dylan- Mississippi
41. Kathleen Edwards – Back to Me
42. Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
43. The New Pornographers – My Rights Versus Yours
44. My Morning Jacket - Off the Record
45. Pete Yorn- Strange Condition
46. Sufjan Stevens – Chicago
47. The Libertines – Time for Heroes
48. Amy Winehouse – You Know I’m No Good
49. Bruce Springsteen – You’ll Be Coming Down
50. Shout Out Louds – Tonight I have to Leave it
51. Coldplay- Yellow
52. Corrine Bailey Rae- Put Your Records On
53. The Pernice Brothers – PCH One
54. The Fratellis- Chelsea Dagger
55. Bright Eyes – First Day of My Life
56. Matthew Ryan - I Hear a Symphony
57. Elliott Smith- Son of Sam
58. The National- Fake Empire
59. Alejandro Escovedo – Always a Friend
60. Ray Lamontagne – Trouble
61. Stars – Your Ex-Lover is Dead
62. Wilco – Heavy Metal Drummer
63. The Shins – New Slang
64. Bruce Springsteen – Long Walk Home
65. The Raveonettes – That Great Love Sound
66. Iron & Wine – Such Great Heights
67. The Hives – Hate to Say I Told you So
68. Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
69. The White Stripes- Fell in Love with a Girl
70. Wilco – Impossible Germany
71. U2 - Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out of
72. Voxtrot- Raised by Wolves
73. Cracker – Turn On, Tune In , Drop Out With Me
74. Maximo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars
75. Bob Dylan – When the Deal Goes Down
76. Foo Fighters – Best of You
77. Wilco – Jesus, etc.
78. Phoenix - 1901
79. Okkervil River – Unless it Kicks
80. M83- Save us from the Flames
81. Lucinda Williams – Essence
82. M. Ward – To Go Home
83. British Sea Power – Waving Flags
84. Keane – Somewhere Only We Know
85. Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye
86. Emmylou Harris – Red Dirt Girl
87. Cold War Kids – Hang Me Up to Dry
88. Grand Archives – Torn Blue Foam Coach
89. Beck- E-Pro
90. Neil Young – The Painter
91. Panic at the Disco – Nine in the Afternoon
92. Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk
93. Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You
94. Joseph Arthur – In the Sun
95. The Thrills – Santa Cruz
96. Queens of the Stone Age – Go With the Flow
97. Andrew Bird – Fake Palindromes
98. Tegan & Sara – Where does the Good Go
99. The Kooks – Always Where You Need to be
100. Ray Davies – After the Fall

Happy New Year!

______________________________________

100 Best Albums of the Decade

2009-12-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

_____________________________________________________

Technically, the decade isn’t over ‘til next year but don’t tell that to the list-makers. Since I’m a list-maker too, I needed to get in on this.

I took the liberty of sampling a few other “Best albums of the decade” lists assembled by critics and magazines and decided, quite naturally, that they were mostly terrible. Was the decade in music really THAT bad? I had trouble believing it. And that’s what inspired me to jog my memory, peruse my iTunes collection and make my own list. When you surrender to your own biases and preferences and compile your own list, suddenly the decade looks quite a bit better. I highly recommend the experience.

So here is my own purely subjective list. There is no attempt to be fashionable, hip, culturally diverse, well-rounded or representative of different musical genres. Without further apology, here are my favorite albums of the first decade of the 2000s:

1. Green Day – American Idiot
2. The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
3. Bruce Springsteen – The Rising
4. U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
5. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
6. Brian Wilson – Smile
7. Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
8. Bob Dylan – Love and Theft
9. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
10. The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
11. Ryan Adams – Gold
12. Johnny Cash – American III: Solitary Man
13. Bruce Springsteen – Magic
14. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
15. My Morning Jacket – Z
16. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
17. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
18. The Strokes – Is This It
19. Elliott Smith – Figure 8
20. U2 – No Line on the Horizon
21. Arcade Fire – Funeral
22. The White Stripes – Elephant
23. Norah Jones – Come Away with Me
24. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
25. Pete Yorn – Music for the Morning After
26. Radiohead – In Rainbows
27. Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South
28. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday
29. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind
30. The Jayhawks – Rainy Day Music
31. O Brother Where Art Thou – Soundtrack
32. Beck – Sea Change
33. Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown
34. Coldplay – Viva La Vida
35. Wilco – A Ghost is Born
36. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake it’s Morning

37. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
38. The National – The Boxer
39. Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
40. The Gaslight Anthem – The '59 Sound
41. REM – Accelerate
42. The Felice Brothers
43. Old 97's - Satelite Rides
44. Johnny Cash – American IV: The Man Comes Around
45. The Walkmen – Bows + Arrows
46. Marah - Kids in Philly

47. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
48. Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous
49. My Chemical Romance- The Black Parade
50. Ike Reilly – Salesmen and Racists
51. Josh Ritter – The Animal Years
52. Belle and Sebastian – The Life Pursuit
53. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
54. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
55. Lucinda Williams – Essence
56. The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely
57. Radiohead – Kid A
58. Alejandro Escovedo – Animal
59. Ryan Adams – Love is Hell
60. Bruce Springsteen – The Seger Sessions
61. Beck – Guero
62. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
63. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
64. Elliott Smith – From a Basement on a Hill
65. The National – Alligator
66. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
67. The Avett Brothers – Emotionalism
68. Corinne Bailey Rae
69. Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
70. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
71. Pearl Jam – Backspacer
72. My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
73. A.A. Bondy – When the Devil’s Loose
74. Bruce Springsteen – Working on a Dream
75. Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of This Country
76. Glasvegas
77. Lucero – 1372 Overton Park
78. Paul Westerberg – Stereo
79. Oasis – Don’t Believe the Truth
80. Vampire Weekend
81. Fountains of Wayne – Welcome Interstate Managers
82. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
83. Ryan Adams – Rock N Roll
84. Okkervil River- Stage Names
85. Son Volt – The Search
86. Elvis Costello – Delivery Man
87. The Killers – Hot Fuss
88. Shelby Lynne – I am Shelby Lynne
89. Rancid – Indestructible
90. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
91. Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris – All the Roadrunning
92. Ben Folds – Songs for Silverman
93. The Whigs – Mission Control
94. Peter Bjorn & John – Writer’s Block
95. Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
96. Nada Surf – Lucky
97. Patty Griffin – 1,000 Kisses
98. Beck – The Information
99. Modern Skirts – Catalogue of Generous Men
100. Warren Zevon – The Wind

_________________________________________________________

The New Atheism

2009-12-24T19:13:00.000-08:00

I have a confession. I’m a fan of the New Atheism.

Of course there’s nothing “new” about atheism. Atheism, agnosticism, skepticism and godlessness are as old as belief itself. The new atheism isn’t all that new either, or different from earlier varieties. But it is more confident. Within the past 5 years, there has been an observable trend in book publishing, and in cultural attitudes at large, challenging religious orthodoxy and conventions of faith. It is a trend most clearly reflected in three books: The End of Faith by Sam Harris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. These three writers, Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens comprise a sort of Unholy Trinity. (When joined with philosopher Daniel Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell, they become the Four Horsemen.)

I like all three books, partly because they appeal to my own skepticism concerning religion and faith-based assertions, but also, because they are well-written, incisive and appropriately provocative. In raising consciousness about the nature of dogma and of evidence, these books are sorely needed in a society plagued by an assault on reason, and in a world where religion and its depredations have truly run amok.

All three books are polemical, bold, engaging and lots of fun even as they are deadly serious. Yes, they skewer religions’ easy targets - Al-Qaeda, Jihad, the Spanish Inquisition, Jerry Falwell, anti-Semitism, homophobia - but they don’t stop there. They insist that religious “moderates” are also part of the problem. We often hear it said that religion itself isn’t bad – the trouble starts when extremists carry things too far. Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens are having none of that. They argue that well-intentioned moderates contribute to religion’s toxicity because they provide cover for extreme fundamentalists and Jihadists by making a virtue of faith itself – as if believing something for which there is insufficient evidence can ever be a good thing.

Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens have been accused by their critics (including fellow atheists) of going too far in their hostility toward religion. It’s a charge that Hitchens, at least, would happily embrace. Each takes careful aim at his target, but goes after it in a slightly different way and with different emphasis. Dawkins, the scientist, sets out to address why religion’s claims are not true. Harris emphasizes why such beliefs are so dangerous. And Hitchens argues for why they are wicked. All three books challenge the presumption that entitles a person to a heightened degree of respect when a particular view they hold is said to be rooted in religion. We see this all the time. When a person says “oh well, but that’s my faith,” that person’s view of reality is immunized from the give-and-take and criticism that comes with expression of any other opinion or idea. Our Unholy Trinity says “Enough!” Believing nonsense has consequences, and we should be brave enough to say so.

I enjoyed Dawkin’s The God Delusion the best, probably because my own interest in this subject stems from my study of evolutionary biology. Learning about evolution in school piqued my interest in science and enhanced my sense of wonder about the natural world. I’ve never understood the fear, expressed by some religious believers, that Darwinian evolution degrades life by reducing all things to the cold calculus of materialism. I always felt that the opposite was true. It always seemed to me that science, and evolution in particular, heightens our appreciation of life by enriching our understanding and by offering us glimpses into the majesty of nature and its workings.

I’ve enjoyed Dawkins writing for years, having first encountered his work in college when I read The Blind Watchmaker, which explains how evolution produces an illusion of design, but not evidence for a process guided by the supernatural. Dawkins is the rare scientist who can effectively reach a popular audience writing about evolutionary biology. So why write about atheism? One reason is because he see first-hand how fervently religious forces push for Creationism (cynically packaged as “Intelligent Design”) to be taught in public schools. For anyone who cares about science and academic integrity, that would be toxic enough, but there is more. For Dawkins, the evidence of evolution and the belief in a supernatural creator who designed the world are incompatible. He struggles to comprehend how a renowned biologist like Francis Collins can be really be a faithful Christians. Intellectual consistency, Dawkins argues, requires agnosticism at a minimum. He even wonders if such Christian biologists really do believe all they claim to believe. He figures that whereas they may believe in a Creator and embrace the cultural values of their religion, they are unlikely to believe in the suspension of the natural order, Miracles? Virgin births? Talking snakes? Personally, I have no idea what percentage of theist scientists (or non-scientists) believe in such things. But even if religious faith seems like cognitive dissonance to Dawkins, I am far more hesitant to question the sincerity of those who profess to believe.

But Dawkins is on solid ground when he takes on the famous position advanced by the late Stephen Jay Gould (who was an atheist) that science and religion occupy different spheres of human experience (“non-overlapping magisteria”) and are therefore perfectly reconcilable. Gould’s proposition sounds nice and cozy, but it doesn’t work. Religion does not simply describe some separate compartment of reality to be labeled “spiritual.” Rather, religion constitutes a system of belief that makes all kinds of claims about the physical world. For example, there is the claim that living forms were purposefully designed by a supernatural intelligence that has special regard for humans (to say nothing of virgin births and talking snakes). These are not metaphysical abstractions. They are statements of the natural order. When such claims are treated like any other hypothesis, they simply don’t hold up. Dawkins effectively takes on the various talking points advanced by religion’s apologists (“The Universe is too finely-tuned”, “It couldn’t all come from nothing,” “Evolution can’t account for morality,” etc). While a tone of annoyance and intellectual superiority does sometimes emerge in his writing, so does the force of his argument as well as his love of science and reverence for the natural world.

In The End of Faith, Sam Harris examines the nature of faith itself and the dangers of surrendering to it. A philosopher and neuroscientist at Stanford, Harris is a rising star in this milieu, a clear thinker and a strong writer. He details how religious doctrines, incompatible with reality and with each other, have Balkanized the world and now threaten us with destruction. He has no use for political correctness and isn’t afraid to single out Islam as the monotheism that is most likely to get us all killed. He easily dispenses with the canard that that secularism, and faith’s decline, were responsible for the crimes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. Were Auschwitz, the Gulag and the Killing Fields really the result of too much rational inquiry? Too much skepticism? Too much insistence on evidence? Hardly. These atrocities resulted from dogmartic ideologies which operated all too much like religion.

Harris is also interested in the possibility of transcendental experience and maintains that these are as available to the atheist as they are to any religious believer. But what seems to interest him most, is changing the nature of public discourse when we think and talk about things like faith and religion. As he observes in his follow-up work, Letters to a Christian Nation:

When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is the one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.

Hitchens is the most scathing and mischievous of the three writers. Ever the iconoclast, his glee is palpable in God is Not Great as he pokes a stick in the eye of the faith-based establishment and calls on humanity to emancipate itself from the infantile crutch of religion. He insists that monotheism is inherently totalitarian since God is, by definition, a celestial dictator who supervises you around the clock and promises to punish you for your very thoughts. Hitchens is not above blasting the easy targets like child-molesting clergymen and you can almost discern his smirk while he suggests that the motto of the Church might well be “No Child’s Behind Left.” Too clever.

The more serious charge is also more forcefully argued – that religion’s fundamental teachings are not moral teachings. Like Harris, he observes that not all monotheisms are equal and indeed, the Al Qaeda attck on 9/11 was the impetus for his book. He reminds us that theocratic terror takes many forms. Hitchens is good friends with Salaman Rushdie, who dared blaspheme Islam’s Prophet more than 20 years ago in his novel, Satanic Verses. Rushdie still requires a security detail because of a Fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah. Hitchens recalls the infamous Danish cartoon incident. The publication of a cartoon poking fun of Mohammed led to an international incident, a breach of diplomatic immunity and murderous riots by angry Muslims. Hitchens has no patience for those who make excuses for thugs and rioters or who call on cartoonists to be more “sensitive” about the offense that might be taken. He correctly calls it what it is: cowardice, capitulation and an erosion of freedom.

Judaism is not spared either. He blasts the zealotry of Israel’s Messianic settlers, the practice of circumcision (“genital mutilation”), the Old Testament’s warrant for sexism and genocide and the hideous lesson at the core of all Abrahamic monotheism - that a willingness to kill at God’s command should be seen as praiseworthy. (He does, however approve of the Jewish tradition of self-criticism, secularism and talent for atheism). But Hitchens is just getting warmed up as he moves to his next target: Christianity. Because as brutal as the Old Testament is, at least when you’re dead, your punishment is over. Only with the advent of Christianity and the teachings of the gentle Nazarene, are you threatened with eternal never-ending torture. Christianity also introduces the barbaric concept of vicarious redemption, the idea that you can be saved, absolved of your own wrongful conduct, by means of the brutal blood sacrifice of another, 2,000 years before you were born. Then there’s Original Sin, the Trinity and well…you get the picture.

Perhaps what offends Hitchens most is the notion that without some supervisory dictator calling the shots, humans would not know how to behave morally. Religion, he concludes, belongs to an earlier time when humanity lived in terror of nature, and understood little about disease, geology, astronomy, archaeology, physics, neuro-chemistry etc. We have far better explanations now. It is time to dispense with the superstitious wish-thinking, which insults our humanity and threatens our very survival.

Not surprisingly, given the success of these books, there has been something of a backlash. College campuses host debates on the existence of God, the blogosphere is alive with fury, and Christian Apologists have published screeds blasting the New Atheism for its militant tone, its unsparing naturalism and, predictably enough, for attempting to unhinge our moral underpinning as a nation. For Christian fundamentalists, the success of the New Atheists is simply the latest call to arms in the “Culture Wars.” For these right-wing holy warriors, this spate of atheism is part and parcel of the same godless secularism that seeks to separate church and state, supports gay marriage and teaches evil -ution. Of course this political effort to impose a fundamentalist Christian vision of America represents the very religious bullying that has given the New Atheism such traction and popularity.

More interesting are the objections posed by fellow secularists who insist that the New Atheists are too strident and aggressive for their own good. For these critics, many of whom are non-believers themselves, the New Atheism is like an unruly kid brother who speaks out of turn and must be instructed to tone it down in the presence of respectable company. Shhh! How can we expect to get public support for science if you are telling parents that science and religion are incompatible? And do you really think the Muslim world will be persuaded to curb its Jihadists and reform its society when you insist that the Koran is a fairy tale? These are valid points. But to the extent they are objections to the New Atheism, they are about tone and tactics – not propositions of truth.

Polls indicate that the percentage of Americans who are non-believers is on the rise in the U.S. To be sure, polls of this kind must always be taken with a grain of salt. So much is in the wording of the questions (asking “Do you identify yourself as an atheist” will produce a very different result than “Do you believe in the God of the bible?”). But the trend seems real enough. The New Atheist authors aren’t the cause of the trend, but it’s fair to say that their popularity is a reflection of it. Their arguments resonate with Americans who are tired of religious bullying at home and faith-based violence around the globe.

I don’t think that any of these books will actually persuade anyone, who isn’t already deeply skeptical of the divine, to suddenly become an atheist. But the books succeed on a more important level: They tear at the shroud of taboo that discourages people from thinking and speaking critically about articles of faith. They encourage a closer look at the consequences – intellectual, moral and geopolitical - of rejecting reason and evidence in favor of supernatural belief and religious authority. Finally, they invite us take part in the fullness of life’s experiences and celebrate the “awe of understanding” on human terms. On this point, I’ll leave the last word to Charles Darwin:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

And on that note, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

______________________________________________

20 Best Albums of 2009

2009-12-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

My favorite albums of 2009:

20. Hockey – Mind Chaos

Portland band combines elements of Brit pop, rock anthems, snarling vocals, and dance beats to create a fun, refreshing album.

19. The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control

Yeah, they’ve got a formula but it’s a pretty good one. Catchy hooks, rich Spectorish production and an 80s guitar sound reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain. Even songs about rape and suicide are coated with sugar.

18. Cracker – Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey

One of America’s best bands of the past 15 years, Cracker is still going strong, with David Lowery’s wry observations and off-beat humor very much intact. Standout track: Turn On Tune In Drop Out With Me.

17. Willie Nile - House of a Thousand Guitars

There's no mistaking the Dylan and Springsteen influence, but never mind. Nile is a solid songwriter who has flown under the radar for years and he delivers wear-on-your-sleeve rock and roll.

16. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast

To be as wordy as Andrew Bird is, you have to be at least slightly pretentious. Who cares? Bird delivers some musically lush, eclectic and beautiful songs.

15. Monsters of Folk

An unlikely "super group" with Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes, Jim James from My Morning Jacket and the excellent, M. Ward. Forget the dopey title and enjoy the music.

14. Rosanne Cash – The List

Some excellent guest appearances (Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Tweedy) contribute to this album of country covers, but it is Cash’s intimate vocal delivery that gives this album its poignancy.

13. James Maddock – Sunrise on Avenue C

Maddock was the voice of Wood, a group that scored a hit with the lovely “Stay You” about 10 years ago. He's landed in New York City and has put together an impressive, well-crafted album. Maddock's ragged voice (which sounds a bit like Ian Hunter) is full of heart.

12. Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream

Not as good as his last album, Magic, but this is still a solid work. I’m a sucker for the opening track, "Outlaw Pete," a lush, sprawling, over-the top, western epic. I’m less impressed with Springsteen’s Grammy nominations. Grammys are dumb.

11. Lucero – 1372 Overton Park

Describing the voice of lead-singer Ben Nichols as “whiskey soaked” is so obvious that it makes more sense to pin-point what kind of whiskey. I’m thinking sour-mash bourbon. The horns on this excellent alt-country album are a nice touch.

10. A.A. Bondy – When the Devil’s Loose

The former lead singer of Verbena, one of the better Nirvana sound-alike grunge bands of the 1990s, Bondy is charting an impressive course as a singer and songwriter with this moving stripped-down recording.

9. Pearl Jam – Backspacer

Their best album in years.

8. Bob Dylan – Together Through Life

I never thought I’d get so much pleasure listening to someone who sounds like death, sing about death. But if anyone else had made this album, they’d be calling him the next Bob Dylan. His live performance at the United Palace Theatre in November was a revelation.

7. Brakes – Touchdown

The lads from Brighton, England (including Hamilton of British Sea Power) have put together a wonderful recording of alternative pop-rock.

6. Allen Toussaint – The Bright Mississippi

A tasty helping of New Orleans jazz and blues. Allen Toussaint, pianist, singer and producer extraordinaire, is surely one of the most under-appreciated musical giants of the last half-century.

5. U2 – No Line on the Horizon

Some people like U2 best for their soaring anthems. Others prefer their willingness to experiment and play with dance beats. Here, they do both. This is an album that grows with repeated listening.

4. Green Day – 21st Century Breakdown

What could be more self-indulgent and audacious than following up a rock opera with yet another rock opera? Who do they think they are? The Who? Well, they just about pull it off. This soaring follow-up to American Idiot is masterful, including their faithful cover of the Who’s “A Quick One While She’s Away.”

3. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Neko Case delivers well-crafted, soul-baring songs with a powerful voice and expressive phrasing. This is her best album yet.

2. Wilco – The Wilco Album

I had the pleasure of seeing them play at Keyspan Park in Coney Island on a perfect summer evening. Tweedy and company are in top form.

1. The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You

The North Carolina roots band has made an album of gorgeous songs with their usual harmonies and emotional resonance. There's less bluegrass than on their last album, but it's a catchier, more accessible album and an enriching experience. Terrific stuff.

Honorable Mention:

Joe Henry – Blood From Stars (deep, haunting songs from Madonna's brother-in-law)
Great Lake Swimmers – Lost Channels (lovely, mellow, well-crafted songs)
M. Ward – Hold Time (hypnotic voice and acoustic guitar playing - a very good year for Mr. Ward)
Cage the Elephant (guitar riff rock with a hip-hop influence and Brit-Pop swagger)
Atlas Sound – Logos (eclectic, dreamy, psychedelic pop)
The Felice Brothers – Yonder is the Clock (roots Americana as authentic as it gets)
White Rabbits - It's Frightening (up-and-coming Brooklyn-based Indie rock outfit)
Patterson Hood - Murdering Oscar (fine solo release from Drive-By Truckers front man)

For most list-mania check out largehearted boy

__________________________________

Cocky Draw

2009-12-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Fans of U.S. soccer are ecstatic about Friday’s World Cup draw, which has set the U.S. in a group where they will play against England, Algeria and Slovenia. Predictably, that joy has been accompanied by an overconfidence that is entirely unwarranted. On ESPN, Alexi Lalas was practially giddy over the prospect of a U.S. cakewalk into the second round. Only the England game is viewed as a challenge. According to ESPN Soccernet, “there should be few problems for the U.S. as they survey their group.” Few problems? Personally, I think these people are out of their minds.

To be sure, the draw went as well as could be expected. The U.S. was going to have to face one of the top seven teams in the world and drawing England is surely more favorable than drawing Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany or Netherlands. (The only better draw would have seen them play the host, South Africa.) They were going to draw a team from either South America or Africa and Algeria, who struggled to qualify, is probably the weakest of that bunch. And from the final pot, drawing Slovenia is surely preferable to facing one of the European nations they might have drawn: France, Portugal, Serbia or Denmark.

Of course the goal for the U.S. has to be first or second place in the group, which means advancing to the knock-out round. They accomplished this in 2002 but disappointed in 2006, when they failed to advance in Germany. But the folks who think that the U.S. should be strongly favored to advance, or think that they will do so easily, have clearly swallowed the Kool-Aid.

For starters, anyone who thinks Algeria will be a push-over ought to consider the kind of adversity the Algerian team endured in order to qualify. And as the only Muslim nation to qualify for the World Cup, Algeria will be motivated and put all of their pride on display against the Americans. As for Slovenia, one need only look at what this tiny nation had to accomplish in order to qualify, finishing ahead of Poland and the Czech Republic (a team which beat the U.S. 3-0 at the 2006 World Cup) and then upsetting Russia in a qualifier. Here’s the deal: The U.S. has qualified for the last five World Cups and each time, it has lost to a team from Eastern Europe. It was the Czechs in 2006, Poland in 2002, Yugoslavia in 1998, Romania in 1994 and Czechoslovakia in 1990. You get the picture. They really play soccer in Eastern Europe. They usually play it better than we do.

But I’m looking forward to the June World Cup and as for as expectations for the U.S. team, there should be hope and humility. I’m especially looking forward to the game against England with all of the plots and sub-plots. (The 1950 U.S. upset win in Belo Horizonte, Beckham vs. Donovan, that whole American Revolution thing, etc.) And it should make for a fun scene at the pubs in New York City. Right now, I think the keys for the U.S. success in South Africa will be 1) the fitness of Oguchi Onyewu, 2) the emergence of Jozy Altidore (or another striker) as a true scoring threat, 3) avoiding that most fatal of conditions – overconfidence.

Ecstasy for Slovenia

2009-11-23T08:53:00.000-08:00

Lost amidst the Ireland-France handball controversy was a remarkable story - the surprising qualification of Slovenia for the World Cup in South Africa. With a population of just two million, Slovenia is the 2nd smallest of the Yugoslav Republics (after Montenegro) and the smallest nation to qualify for South Africa. The Slovenian soccer team will be playing on the world’s biggest soccer stage this summer while Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Croatia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic and, alas, Ireland will all be watching from home.

One of the fascinating things about International soccer is observing how a nation’s history, character, passions and tensions are expressed in its soccer culture, observations recounted in compelling fashion by Simon Kuper in “Football Against the Enemy” and Franklin Foer in “How Soccer Explains the World.” In the case of war-torn former Yugoslavia, this phenomenon has been more than fascinating, it has been utterly horrifying. A 1991 riot at a soccer match in Zagreb offered a prelude to the savage war that would follow. Meanwhile, thousands of hooligans – fiercely nationalist, violent and unemployed – came from the terraces of Red Star Belgrade to serve as shock troops for Serbian paramilitary units charged with war crimes. Now, 15 years after Dayton and nearly 10 years after NATO bombs fell on Serbia, there is relative stability, though the political situation in parts of Bosnia and Kosovo remains tenuous. What was once Yugoslavia is now 6 separate nations: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Slovenia. Life goes on and of course, this means there is soccer.

Serbia and Croatia, the two largest of the Yugoslav republics have had the greatest success on the pitch. Croatia, playing in their famous red and white checked shirts, was a surprise semi-finalist at the 1998 World Cup tournament and though they failed to qualify this time, they are still ranked 10th in the world by FIFA. Serbia, with their strong defenders, qualified easily in 2006 and again this time around, finishing ahead of France in their group. Bosnia & Herzegovina very nearly qualified but had the bad luck to draw Portugal in the two-legged playoff. When Slovenia last qualified, in 2002, fans and commentators thought it was a fluke. Yet here they are again..

Slovenia is the most western of the Yugoslav Republics, both geographically and culturally. It is also the most prosperous. From Venice, Italy, the Slovenian border is less than 100 miles away. This mountainous region, extending down to the Mediterranean saw fierce fighting in World War I, when Slovenia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Slovenia was fortunately spared the violence of the last decade’s Yugoslav wars and, by 2004, became a member of both NATO and the European Union.

Amazingly, Slovenia can claim to be one of the world’s great sporting nations. The Julian Alps dominate the north of the country and so it’s not surprising that skiing is popular. Several Slovenian skiers have won Olympic medals. And there’s hockey. When you think about European hockey, you probably think of Scandinavia or the former Soviet Union – you don’t think Yugoslavia. Yet the Slovenian hockey team is ranked 17th in the world, impressive when consider there are more people living in the metropolitan area of Denver than there are in Slovenia. A Slovenian player, Anže Kopitar, stars for the L.A. Kings and leads the NHL in scoring. The head coach of Slovenia national hockey team is an American named John Harrington. He knows something about being an underdog. He was a member of the miracle U.S. team that knocked off the Soviets and won the Gold Medal at Lake Placid in 1980.

In summer sports too, Slovenia can boast some impressive accomplishments. Like other Eastern European nations, gymnastics is a huge and the nation’s greatest sports hero, Miroslav Cerar, is one of the best gymnasts of all time. More recently, Slovenia won 5 medals in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, and led all European nations in the medals-per-capita category.

And then there is soccer. On Wednesday, Slovenia secured its place in South Africa with a 1-0 win over Russia, who is no pushover. (Russia was a semi-finalist in the last major tournament, Euro 2008.) Slovenia's traveling fans, nicknamed the Green and White Army, is a small, but passionate lot. BBC showed a clip of their supporters who travelled to Belfast for an April qualifier against Northern Ireland. In spite of a disappointing loss before a tough crowd, the fans played accordion and sang cheerfully. A fan who was interviewed spoke well of his visit Belfast and complimented the nation’s beer. What more can you ask for?

So watch for Slovenia in their green and white jerseys. They will have their work cut out for them in June and most observers would probably conclude that just qualifying for South Africa is more than anyone could have hoped for. Soccer fans looking for a World Cup upset or a radical overturning of the International soccer order, would probably place their hopes with an African team, or maybe one from Asia or North America (the U.S. anyone?). But there is something appealing about the prospect of this small, Alpine nation finding success against the forces of history and the great soccer powers of the world.

__________________________________

The Agony of the Irish

2009-11-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, the qualification matches for the 2010 World Cup were completed, settling the matter of which 32 national soccer teams will be heading to South Africa. The big story was the tragedy of Irish. Deadlocked at the end of their two-legged play-off match with mighty France, the match was in extra-time when it all came crashing down. France scored the winner when Thierry Henry’s blatant handball was missed by the referee. (The linesman also missed the two French players who were offside on the play.) The Irish are justifiably outraged.

If the Irish suffer from a persecution complex, it is more than understandable in light of their history, including their recent history in the world of soccer. Because the governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA (whose President is former French star, Michel Platini) changed the play-off rules midstream, the deck seemed stacked against Ireland from the start. But they kept it close and the inspiration of their coach, Giovanni Trapattoni, and the pluck of their players, notably Damien Duff, Keith Andrews, Robbie Keane & Liam Lawrence instilled the Irish fans with the deadliest of conditions – hope.

As a result of this infamous handball, we’ll probably see the introduction of video replay in International soccer but that won’t lessen the pain for the Irish. Everyone comes off looking terrible. It was shame for the sport and for the French team, whose presence in South Africa will now be widely regarded as illegitimate. And even Thierry Henry, one of the best and most graceful players of his generation, will be regarded as a cheat in much of the English-speaking world. It hardly matters that any player would have instinctively done what Henry did. Henry admitted to the handball and has even gone on record as saying that the game should be replayed (admittedly, he said this after FIFA ruled against this option). His legacy should survive this incident, but good luck to him if he ever tries to order a pint of Guinness.

Brotherly Love and Hate

2009-10-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

No Met fan wanted to see this World Series match-up. The Philadelphia Phillies, formerly as mediocre and innocuous as their green pear-shaped mascot, have become our hated rival to the south. They stand poised to become the first National League team to repeat as World Series champions since Cincinnati’s legendary Big Red Machine won in 1975 and 1976. All that stands in their way is the New York Yankees – the Evil Empire. I was tempted to compare this match-up to Hitler vs. Stalin but decided that this kind of hyperbole would be tasteless and inappropriate. This is baseball, not soccer.

But let’s be honest: hating another team is almost as essential to being a sports fan as loving your own team. Certainly, it makes for a more enriching experience. Just ask any Yankee or Red Sox fan about that rivalry. Mention Bucky Dent or Aaron Boone to a Red Sox Fan. Or Pedro Martinez or Schilling’s bloody sock to a Yankee fan and watch carefully. Their body language changes and you can sometimes detect a slightly wild look in the eye, an exciting suggestion of the violent impulses lurking just beneath the surface.

One Yankee fan I know considered my predicament: “For you, it’s probably the same as I felt in 1986 when the Red Sox played the Mets. I wanted both teams to lose.” I appreciated the remark - empathy is the rarest of traits in Yankee fans. But the analogy only goes so far. Yankees vs. Red Sox is an ancient and eternal rivalry, the best and most bitter in all of baseball, if not all of American professional sports. By contrast, Mets vs. Phillies is a recent phenomenon.

As cities go, Philadelphia and New York are natural rivals and have been since colonial times. Yesterday’s New York Post ran one of those humorous “Tale of the Tape” pieces (26 championships vs. 2, etc.) which dismissed Philadelphia as a second-rate city, whose greatest culinary contribution is a cheap steak sandwich covered in Cheez-Whiz, whose greatest sports hero is a fictional boxer, and whose boorish fans suffer from an eternal case of New York envy. But it’s not just the New York Post. I came across a New York Times article from 1852 expressing a similar sentiment.

That, under the quiet and subdued jackets of Philadelphia hearts should beat, so tumultuous with envy, so swelling with ambition and fretted with indignation, as the last few years have exhibited, might seem incredible to one who had not seen their desires incarnated in outward acts. That city has evinced a feeling bordering on positive malignity toward her sister of New York.

Nice! Now, I am a proud New Yorker who has always liked the city of Philadelphia. I enjoy visiting, I’m fond of my family and friends from the area, I’m a fan of the first two Rocky films and I highly recommend a stroll along South Street, a visit to the Museum of Art and a drive along the Schuylkill on a clear fall day. I’ve never harbored any particular animosity for their sports teams. The notable exception is the Eagles. OK, come to think of it, there’s no love lost for the Flyers either. But the Phillies?

The Mets and Phillies have been divisional opponents since 1962 but despite efforts by the media to create one, no real rivalry took hold. When the Mets were bad, the Phillies were good and vice-versa. The Mets first real rival was the Cubs, competing with them first for the 1969 division title and then for futility. In the 1980s, it was the Cardinals. A decade later, it was the Braves. And now, all of the elements of a heated rivalry have taken shape with the Phillies. For now, it has it all: the regional element, two closely contested title races (2007 & 2008), bad blood between players (Billy Wagner & Pat Burrell), arrogant boasts (Jimmy Rollins & Carlos Beltran), obnoxious fans (theirs), historical collapses (ours) and most of all, the pain and bewilderment of blowing it and then watching the other team go on to win the World Series. (At least Yankee fans also know what that feels like).

But, the Yankees. The reasons for hating the Yankees are of course too numerous to cover adequately. Their brand of “moneyball” represents perhaps the worst aspect of professional sports. Their arrogance represents what is most obnoxious about New York. Then there is A-Rod, who represents what is worst AND what is best about New York. And it is this: It doesn’t matter how much of an asshole you are, if you can perform, you can play here. Well, let’s see how he does now.

If I sound bitter, well, I suppose I am. But it’s a bitterness that is part of a proud tradition. My father grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers and, as a kid, saw the Yankees win the World Series six times in seven seasons. His beloved Dodgers lost four of those series, usually in heart-breaking fashion. Heartbreak builds character. Only in 1955 did the Brooklyn Dodgers finally break the spell. I was raised in this tradition and inherited an appreciation for the underdog, a love of the Mets and a healthy dislike for the Yankees. The old saying that "rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U. S. Steel,” always rang true for me. Imperious, bullying and soul crushing.

The Phillies manager, Charlie Manuel, also grew up as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He talked about his memories of the 1952 World Series, when the Yankees beat the Dodgers in seven games. My Dad used to talk about the same series. "I thought I was going to die," Manuel said. "I couldn't believe Gil Hodges went [0-for-21]." For some reason, reading this made me smile. Maybe it’s the way that childhood memories of baseball wins and losses stay with you more than 50 years later. Maybe it’s because my father shared the exact same experience. Whatever the reason, I liked Manuel for saying it and I was reminded of something that I’ve known in my heart ever since these two teams advanced to the World Series.

I’ll be rooting for the Phillies.

____________________

Roman Holiday

2009-10-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

Can someone, anyone explain why some of Hollywood’s best and coolest directors are defending Roman Polanski? Is it because he’s their buddy? Because he’s really talented? Because giving a narcotic to a minor and raping her is not a big deal (or at least it wasn’t in the 1970s?) Is it because it could have been any of them on Jack Nicholson's couch on top of a young girl? Because Polanski feels really bad about what happened? Is it because the victim is over it?

I’m listening, but I haven’t heard anything remotely sounding like a good reason. Correct me if any of this is wrong: In 1977, the 44-year-old director of celebrated films such as Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, conducting a modeling shoot with a 13-year-old girl, gave the girl narcotics and alcohol, and had nonconsensual sex with her. He was arrested and charged with six felony counts, was allowed to plead to a lesser charge, and then, prior to sentencing, he fled to France, where he would not face extradition, and where he continued to make films. Last month, he was arrested in Switzerland on a fugitive warrant and now faces possible extradition and prosecution in the U.S. Did I miss anything?

I’m trying real hard to put myself in the shoes of Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Wes Anderson and Woody Allen (OK, maybe not Woody Allen), all of whom signed the Petition protesting the “unfair” arrest of Polanski, who is now 76. I’m trying to imagine how I’d react if Polanski happened to be my friend or colleague (or if a friend or colleague of mine tested my loyalty by turning out to be a sex offender). Maybe they know that he is remorseful. Maybe they know some wonderful qualities that this man, who has undoubtedly lived a fascinating life, possesses that the public just doesn’t get. Maybe friendship and loyalty sometimes transcends heinous moral transgression. (Or maybe it's about what's politically correct in Cannes.) Well sorry, but if it were me, I’d like to think I’d say: “Roman. Look man, I’d like to help and sure, I wouldn't turn down a part in one of your films, but I can’t absolve you of your responsibilities. You’ve got to face the music.” But that’s surely being too generous.

The Hollywood folks who signed the “Free Polanski” petition should be ashamed. Studio chief Harvey Weinstein offered this gem, “Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time.” So-called crime? That one boggles the mind. Served his time? How? By living in the South of France and Swiss Alps, pursuing his trade, making films?

The victim, now a 44-year-old woman with children of her own, says she is “over it” and has come out in support of Polanski. Some defenders ask, “Why should she have to go through all of this again?” Well, first of all, she doesn’t – at least not in the manner that many rape victims do. There is no trial to be conducted or testimony to be given here. Polanski has already pleaded guilty. And if the lurid details have resurfaced and are being played out again so many years later, well whose fault is that?

But it’s not about the victim. It’s about all of the potential victims and future victims, it’s about our daughters and our friends and it’s also about the rest of us. It’s about the sort of moral order in which we choose to live. It may seem counterintuitive to say that our criminal laws are not principally about finding a remedy for the individual victim, but they are not. That is why criminal cases are always The People v. the Defendant, not the victim v. the Defendant.

Of course, it’s also about Main Street values vs. Hollywood values or at least that’s the way the story is sometimes covered. I don’t have much patience for that angle. That’s just red meat for the Culture Warriors. (and if THAT were the battle – religious social conservatives who preach "family" values vs. freewheeling, liberal, artistic & commercial Hollywood – I’d probably side with Hollywood every time.) And it’s a phony issue. The real issues are about women, privilege and justice.

The feminist issue is addressed head-on by Melissa Silverstein, writer and blogger at Women & Hollywood. Rape, she reminds us, is a feminist issue and getting away with rape is an outrage that ought to be condemned not encouraged – particularly by a community that supposedly prides itself in progressivism and social justice. But the old boy’s club is alive and well and so is the fear of not getting work. She correctly observed that Hollywood’s reluctance to condemn and criticize Polanski and his fan club was “deafening.”

That is not to say that Hollywood speaks with one voice. Clearly, not everyone sympathizes with Polanski. Jamie Foxx is nobody’s idea of feminist, but he stated it plainly, “If it had been my daughter who was barely a teenager — my daughter is 15 — Roman Polanski would be missing ... period.” Realizing that encouraging violence might not be the most responsible approach, Foxx backed down from a strict vigilante platform. "But, that's me and I wouldn't want anyone else to follow that because you should let the justice system work it out."

And that’s actually the point. Our criminal justice system is intended quell our most violent instincts, by taking revenge out of our angry hearts and placing the matter in the hands of the law and in our justice system. By why would anybody trust a justice system if all you need to get away with rape is artistic talent and low friends in high places?

LIGHTS OUT TONIGHT: Springsteen live at Giants Stadium - October 2, 2009

2009-10-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

“Outlaw Pete,” the opening track on Bruce Springsteen’s most recent album is my kind of song. Cinematic and musically ambitious, the song draws on themes familiar in Springsteen’s work: An outlaw on the run, part romance and part desperation, the haunting price to be paid, lush musical crescendos, a landscape that is both stark and sweeping and a lonesome harmonica. An epic western, the song is “Once Upon a Time in the West” (lifting the harmonica part from the Ennio Morricone movie score) meets “Rocky Raccoon” (the bounty hunter is even named “Dan”).

At Giants Stadium I watched on the giant screen as Springsteen belted out the chorus:

I’m Outlaw Pete
I’m Outlaw Pete
Can You Hear Me?

He repeated the line this time asking the crowd: “Can you HEAR me?” The crowd roared back dutifully, but I found myself answering, “Not very well.”

That’s the problem with these stadium shows. The sound sucks. It’s terribly frustrating because you just know the band is locked-in and you’re fairly sure something magical is happening on the stage but the full brilliance of it just doesn’t reach you. The music sounded muddy. It was as if a little kid was playing with the knobs as the volume and bass/treble levels fluctuated all night. The sound issues are particularly detrimental to a song like “Outlaw Pete, whose emotional power resides in subtle changes in dynamics.

But this wasn’t the night for subtlety, or the place. It was the second of five stadium shows, Springsteen’s farewell to Giants Stadium. For me, the real draw wasn’t the nostalgia of the wrecking ball, (Let’s face it. In New Jersey, the swamps reclaim everything eventually) but the announcement that came one week before the scheduled shows: Springsteen would be playing an entire album, start to finish, at each one of the shows. And the album for October 2nd would be “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” I was thrilled. This album, (along with “Born to Run”) made me a Springsteen fan. It was a landmark album for Springsteen, marking his development as an artist who would become more than a rock star – a songwriter who tells stories, who reaches intense emotional depth and who sings convincingly about the struggles of others. These are songs that have always been amazing when performed live. It’s not an accident that the 1978 tour following this album produced the most sought-after bootleg recordings. And it’s probably not too much to say that the E-Street band became the band that it is playing these songs.

About an hour into the show, he introduced the album. Some of the songs are concert staples that Springsteen plays all the time. But I was eager to hear the songs in order, within the context of the album, especially since few of us listen to albums anymore. Here are my sketch notes of the performances and the songs:

Badlands: A popular favorite for good reason, the song is has become such a fist-pumping crowd-pleaser that I’ve almost come to lament hearing it live simply because the ferocity of the song becomes lost in all of the sing-along stuff. Almost. There’s the breakdown part after the guitar and sax solo when the crowd sings along. It’s easy to sing (there are no words) and easy to project, so it really is a rousing communal moment and lots of fun. But, at the risk of clinging to glory days, it’s worth listening to a recording from the “Darkness” or “River” tour to hear how the band used to play it. Instead of a beery chorus from the crowd, Little Steven (or "Miami Steve" as he was then known) would hum the melody, then Bruce and other members of the band joined in with harmony, gradually building to the big delivery:

For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside,
that it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive,
I wanna find one face that ain’t lookin’ through me,
I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these Badlands

It captures the theme of the album perfectly. It’s the voice of someone who would take on the world - shitty stadium sound, or not.

Adam Raised a Cain: When you think about the songs Springsteen recorded prior to “Darkness” there is nothing that would suggest a song as angry and tormented as this one. Springsteen brought the song’s ferocity alive with forceful vocals and malevolent sounding guitar. I was struck by the way the themes of this album can be heard in more recent songs. In 1978, Springsteen was singing about his father and drawing on Catholic guilt and biblical lore to express the frustration of feeling trapped by circumstances – economic, familial and existential. He practically screams:

You’re born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else’s past.

Nearly 30 years later, on “Long Time Comin’” he sings to his own children:

If I had one wish in this god-forsaken world, kids,
It’d be that your mistakes would be your own,
Yeah, your sins would be your own.

Something in the Night: One of the real treats was hearing the deep album cuts, the tracks Springsteen rarely plays in concerts. And because the crowd wasn’t singing along, this was one of the songs you could hear the best. The defining element of this song is Springsteen’s moan (which is partly a growl). It’s one of those vocal things that isn’t quite singing, but delivers a raw physicality and emotional resonance that never fails to impress me. It’s the equivalent of a man howling at the moon. And who hasn’t been there?

Candy’s Room: Another song which, because it relies so much on crescendo and explosion, was undermined by the terrible sound. Still, the sheer propulsive energy of the song came through as did the bite in Springsteen’s guitar solo. Bruce looked drained at the song’s end. Nobody expected that to slow him down for a second. And it didn’t.

Racing in the Street: For my money, Roy Bittan, the keyboard player, is the one indispensible member of Springsteen’s band. His lovely phrasing and lyrical accents work perfectly on this hauntingly beautiful song. It was a rare moment when the intimacy of the album penetrated the massiveness of the stadium. Again, I’m struck by how the songs on “Darkness” differ from the romantic fables and colorful escapes that appear on the earlier albums. The songs on Darkness are never about just one thing – there is hope, anger, desire, despair, love and redemption. And of course, lots of driving.

The Promised Land: True story. When I was 12, I saw a clip on television of Springsteen playing “The Promised Land” at a No Nukes benefit concert. It inspired me to go out and learn to play the harmonica. And I did. I learned every Springsteen song, several Dylan songs and all sorts of blues riffs too. And had I gone on to become a famous harmonica player (instead of someone who merely annoyed his roommates), that story might even be interesting.

Factory: To the casual fan and to the non-fan, Springsteen’s identification with the working man might seem contrived. He is, after all, a multi-millionaire and has been for decades. But his blue collar upbringing in Freehold is real enough and, more importantly, so is his gift of empathy. I was always struck by the complexity and contradictions he describes, even within the factory walls: Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life. Springsteen’s social consciousness emerges on this album. But he’s not a class warrior. He’s a story teller. That’s key.

Streets of Fire: Another intense album cut that is rarely played live. Amazingly, the sound trouble seemed to go away during this song. There’s a certain irony in this because the recording of the album version is an anarchic mess of distortion and feedback. Live, Springsteen’s guitar work was again impressive, emotional and menacing. As always on this album, it is the suggestion of something simmering beneath the surface, ready to explode.

Prove it All Night: This song has always sounded better live and this night was no exception even though the sound problems returned. In the past, Springsteen has added a piano intro and extended guitar soloing. This time, we were treated to an extended guitar solo by Nils Lofgren at the end of the song. It marked the only time during the playing of the album when someone other than Bruce played lead guitar. Nils is the most technically gifted of the band’s three guitar players and he matches his skill and fretboard harmonics with emotion, always crafting the solo to fit the mood of the song (to fantastic effect on the live recording of “Youngstown”). Unfortunately, that emotional element was lost in the muddiness of the sound board and his solo, while surely impressive, came off as somewhat flat and robotic – at least from where I was sitting.

Darkness on the Edge of Town: There's something about this song. It’s the perfect bookend to the album because, as on Badlands, it goes right to the heart of things, the struggles and sheer intensity burning within his characters:

Everybody's got a secret, Sonny,
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step that they take.
Till someday they just cut it loose,
Cut it loose or let it drag it drag ‘em down.

Bruce still changes up the lyrics on one line. On the album it’s:

I lost my money and I lost my wife, them things don’t seem to matter much to me now.

But in concert, he sings: I lost my faith when I lost my wife. He’s done it that way since his first marriage failed. In the final chorus, Bruce gives it everything and belts out the last note, reaching the higher octave, with power and abandon. His voice isn’t better than it used to be, but it’s probably more powerful. And his greatest vocal gift – the ability to convey emotion with conviction – was as strong as ever.

The rest of the set list was terrific. Springsteen’s additional offerings included “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” “No Surrender,” “Thunder Road,”“Be True,” and a surprise cover of “Jailhouse Rock.” I especially enjoyed his version of “Long Walk Home” which somehow sounded clearer than most of the songs. When he played his next song, “The Rising,” the skies above the Meadowlands opened and the rain came, but it was light and fleeting. Encores included “Cadillac Ranch,” “Bobby Jean and the obligatory “American Land.” I figured there was a 50% chance he’d play “Rosalita,” the ultimate concert closer. He did.

But for me, Darkness was the highlight. Shortly after the album was released in 1978, Pete Townshend famously had this to say about it: “That’s not ‘fun’, that’s fuckin’ triumph, man.” For those of us lucky enough to be at Giants Stadium that night, it was both.

Diver Down

2009-09-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

_______________________________________________________

One reason why Americans don’t care more for soccer is the prevalence of diving. We’ve all seen it – players who throw themselves to the ground at the slightest contact (or none at all) in the hope of fooling the referee to award a penalty. I love soccer, but the critics have a point. But what bothers me more than the diving itself is the hypocrisy and national chauvinism that often surrounds it. One of the great myths is that the English, with their tradition of sportsmanship and fair play, don’t dive or otherwise cheat. British television played on this stereotype in a very funny television commercial before Euro 2004. The commercial shows foreign players training for a big tournament by flopping to the ground and simulating injuries. But the reason the English find this funny is because they see themselves as different. Unlike those latins from South America and Italy, they play the game right. For proof that this is rubbish, one need only look at England’s best player, Wayne Rooney.

Wayne Rooney is a prodigious talent. He looks like a bulldog and battles like one, but he has world class skill, great instinct and wonderful touch with the ball. He’s also a cheat. In 2004, his first full season with Manchester United, this flop resulted in a penalty shot against Arsenal. And here is again diving against Tottenham (which did not fool the ref) and against Chelsea (which did). Here is a particularly bad bit of playacting against Blackburn. (And for another display of his famous “sportsmanship” watch the video at about 0:40).

This season, there’s been renewed attention to the problem of diving. The European soccer association (UEFA) even suspended an Arsenal player, Eduardo for this bit of simulation. But Rooney flops on. Here he is, last month, diving before the goalkeeper ever touches him. And here he is proudly representing his country in a match Slovenia, falling at some imaginary contact. But Rooney didn’t get suspended, just the opposite. In both instances, he was rewarded with a penalty kick. "Everyone who watches me play knows I am an honest player," Rooney told the The Manchester Evening News, presumably with a straight face. Anyway, it’s hardly HIS fault that he dives – that’s the fault of the officiating. "The decisions are down to the referee,” Rooney said. “It is a difficult job but they do the best they can. England has always had a good record of being honest," So there it is. He’s English.

Thanks largely to Rooney, England will be one of the favourites at the 2010 World Cup. I won’t be rooting for them.

On Liberty and the Ballpark

2009-08-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

I am the sort of secular humanist who rolls his eyes at those public figures and politicians who feel they must constantly invoke God and proclaim, “God Bless America.” At best, it’s pandering. At worst, it hints at a disregard for separation of Church and State, a principle enshrined in our Constitution and the basis for our most cherished freedom, freedom of conscience. What’s more, it’s annoying.

But I must admit, I have always liked the song God Bless America. Musically, it is superior to both The Star Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful. The former is derived from a popular British drinking song and the latter is almost dirge-like, a plodding number (except, of course, when Ray Charles sings it). It manages to soar in its final verse but it doesn’t succeed nearly as well as the crescendo and finale of God Bless America. Lyrically too, Irving Berlin’s composition enjoys poetic simplicity and a feel that is contemporary, even timeless. It can’t match The Star Spangled Banner for historical authenticity or patriotic expression. (Francis Scott Key did not work on Tin Pan Alley, he really did write his poem aboard a prison ship with live ordinance exploding around him). But it is superior to America the Beautiful, a song weighed down by piety and stodgy phrases. (“and crown they good with brotherhood”).

The singing of “God Bless America” has long been connected with sporting events. There is the great tradition of Kate Smith singing before the home games of the Philadelphia Flyers. In 1980, when the U.S. hockey team upset the Russians in the Miracle on Ice at the Lake Placid Olympics, the fans in the arena burst into a spontaneous singing of “God Bless America.” It was remarkable. When patriotism wells up in our hearts, when America wants reach for something extra, this is the song that we go to.

And then 9/11. On the day of the tragedy, members of Congress sang God Bless America on the Capitol steps. When professional baseball resumed play, the song was added to the between-innings repertoire. Take Me Out the Ball Game seemed insufficient by itself, and at the same time, frivolous. How could we sing about peanuts and Cracker Jacks when the smoke was still rising from the rubble at Ground Zero? No, we needed something solemn but also uplifting. Something to make us feel good, strong and together. God Bless America seemed the perfect expression of what needed to be expressed. Who can forget the first time they heard the “singing policeman,” tenor, Daniel Rodriguez called upon to sing at Yankee Stadium? Even the most cynical atheist could not hear his soaring rendition and fail to get goose bumps.

Over time, the spontaneous becomes routine and the routine becomes ritual. I was at Citi-Field last month for my first baseball game in some time. The announcement came in the Seventh Inning. “Please stand at attention and remove your hats for the singing of God Bless America.” I found myself wondering, why are we doing this? Of course we’re still at war. The enemies who would destroy America are as threatening as ever. And sure, a baseball audience provides an opportunity for the expressions of national unity. But we’ve already saluted our nation and our flag during the singing of the National Anthem. We already gave cheers of thanks and appreciation for our troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But none of that is enough, it seems. We must also beseech God. It was the first time I ever heard the song that way and I found myself resenting, not so much the song, but the ritual that had been created for it.

Some will say I am overreacting. It’s just a song, not a prayer, right? It’s not as if Major League Baseball, much less the government, is establishing religion in the ballpark. Don’t we do this same thing, more or less, for the National Anthem? Well, not exactly. First of all, the song was indeed written as a prayer. Irving’s Berlin’s introductory lyrics make that clear (“as we raise our voices, in a solemn prayer.”) And when we remove our hats and stand at attention for the National Anthem, it is our nation’s flag, and its ideals, we are saluting. When we are asked to show the same reverence for God Bless America, who is it we are saluting? Clearly, it is not just a song. And if you happen to be one of the tens of millions of Americans who do not believe in God, (or even if you do, but don’t care to invoke his blessing to be bestowed on a single nation during the seventh inning stretch), the social pressure may be very real.

In John Stuart Mill’s famous essay On Liberty we are warned about the dangers of this form of social coercion:

Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.

No, I am not accusing Major League Baseball or the New York Mets of instituting tyranny at the ballpark. Nobody is forced to stand at attention, or salute or sing, but there is an expectation of conformity, an expectation that grates against individual conscience. Now we all face pressure to conform in various aspects of our lives, but this here is not the routine sort of pressure we face when society chooses the fashions and tastes it prefers. Here, we are pressured to publically acknowledge God and beseech him to bless the nation. It is the exact kind of social coercion that J.S. Mill described. One can easily imagine the social cost you’d pay if you dissented, if you failed to conform or actually sought to “disestablish” the singing of God Bless America. At a minimum, your patriotism would be questioned, your motives impugned.

In most ballparks, the singing of God Bless America is now an occasional feature rather than an everyday one, But that isn’t because ballparks were persuaded to honor freedom of conscience. It’s because they’ve decided to roll out their sacred number on Sundays and special occasions. To be fair, you do have the choice. You are not obligated invoke the Deity in the seventh inning. You can stay home or you can ignore the announcement, remain seated, leave your hat on, fold your arms and hope nobody notices or, if they do, that they respect your principles and in no way regard your choice as one that reflects poorly on your patriotism, your character or your standing in the community. But why bother? It’s so much easier to simply conform. It’s only a song. Just sing along or, alternatively, mouth the words and convince yourself that they have no meaning. What’s the harm? Peanuts and cracker jacks are just around the corner.

Impressions of Citi Field

2009-08-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

___________________________________________________________

Just before the All-Star break, I finally made it out to Citi-Field. Twice. Nicole and I saw a Wednesday night game against the first-place Dodgers and then on Sunday afternoon, I joined my Dad, my brother and his six-year-old son for a game against the Reds. Amazingly, the Mets won both games. But what made the outings especially pleasurable was the experience of Citi-Field, which earned a big thumbs-up from this Mets fan.

Like other jaded Mets fans I was initially turned off by all of the new-stadium hype. Some of my ambivalence was simple nostalgia. Sure, Shea Stadium was nobody’s idea of a cathedral but it was the only baseball home I had ever known. To me, it was a place of magic and memories, the place where I saw my first baseball game, where the miracles of 1969 and 1986 were surrounded by years of frustration and futility though, on occasion, hope. Who needs a grand new ball park? The Mets were never a team of grandeur or glory. The dynastic tradition of pride and power belongs to that other club, the one in the Bronx. The Mets were born out of broken heart – lovable losers, transplants & refugees landing almost accidentally in Queens. Shea Stadium, that blue & orange speckled coliseum of concrete, set on the faded fair grounds between the airport and parkway cloverleaf, was good enough for me. But it was not good enough for the moneyed interests that always seem to ruin sports. And let’s talk about timing. In 2008-09, America’s culture of excess hatched a credit crisis sending the U.S. economy into the dumpster. Did we really need more debt, more excess, just to build a stadium where the price of a ticket would require a second mortgage?

Another explanation for my bad attitude was the way the Mets closed things out at Shea. Two consecutive September collapses of historical proportion would leave even the most fervent Met fans sick to their core. When you’re young, you turn heartbreak into a badge of loyalty. Great defeat has a way of cementing your affection and you end up feeling even closer to your team. When you’re older, such disappointment turns to apathy. We all have our defense mechanisms. But this last September collapse was so total that it was difficult to imagine a recovery. The magic was gone and seemed to be replaced by some dreadful curse. I was forced to consider, maybe the wrecking ball really is the only way to move forward.

And so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel when I arrived at Citi Field but there were positive signs at the outset - the shorter-than-expected walk from the parking lot and the beautiful weather. A refreshing breeze rolled in off the marina. I was struck by the ease of entering the stadium and the friendliness of the ushers and other stadium personnel. “Welcome to Citi Field!” Even the workers serving hot dogs and beer at the refreshment stand smiled. “Are we still in Queens?” I wondered. I reminded myself that we’re still in a honeymoon period. Give it time.

As Nicole and I walked through the stadium, toward our seats along the right-field line, I felt like a kid – the enchantment of seeing that rich green field for the first time. The Dodgers were taking batting practice and I was reminded that the very first game I ever attended was also Mets-Dodgers. The Dodgers won that game – they were a first place team then, and the eventual National League Champions (1974). And once again, they are in first place, this time with the best record in baseball. The connection between the Mets and Dodgers is everywhere at Citi Field, most obviously in the Jackie Robinson rotunda, the spacious corner entrance that honors both Ebbets Field, the model for Citi Field and Robinson himself. It has been suggested that the Mets, by clinging so blatantly to the Brooklyn Dodger legacy are peddling in nostalgia. But the bond is real. My own father became a Met fan reluctantly, but inevitably, in the years after the Brooklyn Dodgers abandoned him. Back then, before ESPN or even national telecasts, it was nearly impossible to closely follow the fortunes of a baseball team that played 3,000 miles away. You couldn’t even get the box score in the morning paper. My father got married in 1963 and moved from Brooklyn to Queens just as the expansion Mets were leaving their temporary home in northern Manhattan’s Polo Grounds for the brand new Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows. Countless first generation Met fans were born this way and we are their children. Celebrating our Dodger heritage helps to ground us as fans, and remind us who we are. It may not have made sense to do this in 1964, when the Mets were in their infancy, when Flushing-Corona buzzed with 150 Pavilions at the World’s Fair, when crowds poured in on newly constructed highways and bridges, when everything seemed new. Then, in the beginning, the fledgling club needed to establish its own identity. But baseball clubs have an organic element. Like individuals, and nations, they mature over time, gaining confidence and character. Brooklyn was once a place to escape from. Now, in adulthood, the Mets could comfortably give Brooklyn the embrace it deserves.

I watched the Dodgers take batting practice. Manny Ramirez was back with the team after serving a suspension for steroid use. He sauntered around the cage without a care in the world, his baggy pants flapping and he effortlessly jacked several shots over the center field wall. Nicole and I briefly ducked into the '47 shop where Mets nostaligia is sold (from caps to jeans to embroidered pillows). We settled into our seats in section 306 and looked out at the field with delight. There are fewer seats than in Shea, they’re well-angled and there’s more leg room. It was nice to see a drink holder affixed to the back of the seat in front of me. (“How long before some asshole snaps it off,” the New Yorker in me wondered) The outfield is jagged and irregular and the bullpens are behind the centerfield wall, instead of the right and left-field corners. You can see the game from anywhere which is nice if you’re on line at the refreshment counter. The brick-lined corridors running through the stadium feel open and airy, unlike the concrete tunnels of Shea. As we were walking through, I thought, “This really is beautiful.” It had never before occurred to me to associate that adjective with a baseball stadium, or at least with MY baseball stadium. I looked over at Nicole who was smiling beneath her Dodger cap. As a frequent visitor to Dodger stadium in Chavez Ravine she could, of course, imagine beautiful baseball parks.

Like all of the new ballparks, Citi Field is also part shopping experience and part theme park. There’s an international food court, a batting cage, a dunk tank, a whiffle-ball field for kids, video games and a booth where you can be photographed with the creepy Mr. Met. Not to mention, all of the usual shenanigans (racing trains etc.) on the Jumbotron video display. The purist in me scoffed at such extravagance but Andrew, my six-year-old nephew loved it. Maybe I'm a curmudgeon but I couldn’t help but wonder how a new generation of baseball fans could possibly be cultivated in the face of all of these circus-like distractions. How can they possibly learn the game? How can they grow to love it? But this is 2009. Without the extra engagement and constant stimulation, how do you even get kids out of the house? Just get them there. Some will become baseball fans, some won’t but if you get them to the game, there’s at least a chance. For kids, and also many adults, the experience is about much more than the game on the field. Maybe it always was. And who’s to say what memories these kids will have of their first baseball game at Citi-Field? The experience just might be magical. For the price of these tickets, it had better be.

But even as I prided myself in the game's purity, I too fell prey to the seduction of the carnival. It was between innings and I had just started walking up the stairs toward the refreshment counter when I noticed the people around me looking up at the sky. They all moved toward me and stretched their arms toward the air above my head. Clearly, some object was falling. Instinct took over. I reached up and the next thing I knew, a rolled-up T-shirt landed in my hands. In one motion I cradled it and turned my body, lest some would-be defensive back attempt to strip me of my possession. This was the Pepsi T-shirt launch – the interlude when Mr. Met and some young female assistants, wielding some air pump-gun apparatus, fire promotional T-shirts into the crowd. And they did it again a few innings later. This time I was paying attention. I followed the trajectory of one T-Shirt as it hurtled its way toward our seats. I was ready but so were most of the people setting in our section. I jumped to my feet and reached up, knowing that l would have to earn this one. As soon as I felt the soft cotton hit my hands, I squeezed and pulled, wrenching the shirt free from the hands of the man standing next to me. A modest prize for sure, but what a thrilling feeling it was. Triumph! The man standing next to me, who lost out, happened to be my father.

Still more good fortune. The Mets, who had not hit a home run in eight games, homered twice that afternoon. Andrew missed the first one. He was watching the Jumbotron or Mr. Met or perhaps his sneaker. But the noise and excitement of the crowd grabbed him. He stood on his seat, practically convulsing with joy as my brother pointed at the giant Home Run Apple flashing as it emerged from the giant magic hat behind the centerfield wall. This is how every Met homerun has been celebrated since the Apple was introduced to Shea Stadium in 1980. The Mets were a terrible team then and, as if to compensate, they rolled out a new slogan one offseason. “The Magic is Back!” and to demonstrate the “magic,” they installed the fiberglass Home Run Apple and Magic Hat. Suddenly I was kid again. I remembered how much I longed to see that apple light up in celebration of a home-run, as rare then as they are this season. (Did the purists then sneer at such carnival contrivances?) The Mets were anemic offensively but every once in a while, Dave Kingman would blast a shot into the back of the bullpen and, on occasion, across the parking lot. And there goes the Apple! This was before the wave and before giant video screens. Teams were experimenting with new and frivolous ways of celebrating home runs. The Milwaukee Brewers had Bernie Brewer, a mustachioed mascot who slid down a chute into a giant mug of beer. We got the Apple.

Two batters later, Fernando Tatis, hit a home run to leftfield. Such offensive fireworks! The crowd roared with delight. But wait. Even before Tatis touched home, there were murmurs and then boos. Beyond centerfield, the Magic Hat was quiet. There was no sign of the Home Run Apple. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough that the Mets enjoyed a 9 to 3 lead on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Where was the Apple? Was it rusted from lack of use? Was one appearance per game all that the Apple (or its operator) was capable of? The crowd grew indignant and a chant began. “A-PPLE…A–PPLE!” I started doing it too. I looked over at Andrew who wasn’t sure what was going on but he was alert and clearly understood that some real drama was unfolding. The next Met batter was retired and the chant grew, “A-PPLE…A–PPLE!” Then, the inning was over. The Reds in the field jogged to the dugout and the chant faded. And just then, the Apple! The flashing Red Apple rose above the center field wall as though it was taking a curtain call. The crowd exploded. Finally.

Tell Me Friend, Can You Ask For Anything More?

2009-05-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

__________________________________________________________________

I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen in concert more than a dozen times, 14 times to be exact. That’s not very many shows if you happen to be a big Springsteen fan, which I am. But because it’s a manageable number, each performance marks an event, a sort of ritual that hasn’t lost the power to delight and surprise and even, I dare say, replenish the soul. Since my first concert in 1984 I have averaged just over one Springsteen show every two years. It has been like growing up with a trusted friend and there are standout moments from each show that hold a special place in my memory.

There were several such moments last Monday night at Nassau Coliseum. One was the encore performance of “Jungleland”, surely the most majestic nine-minute rock-n-roll fable ever recorded. There was no reason to expect it. It’s a song he’ll play on occasion, but not every night. But then the lights went down and it happened. The opening notes on the piano and violin accompaniment sent chills down my spine. The realization that this sensation is still possible, even when you’re tired, when you’ve had a bad day, when you’re sure you’ve heard it all, when you’re forced to park on the grass embankment abutting Hempstead Turnpike because the idiot parking lot attendants let in too many cars...this sensation is one of the wonders of live performance, and the joys of being a fan.

The crowd was transfixed from the start, but they were not so stupefied that they didn’t remember who they were. Or where they were. A humorous moment came when the opening line “The Rangers had a homecoming…” was met with a chorus of boos. (No, they were not cries of “Bruuuuce.” They really were boos). This shitty concrete slab of an arena is still sacred hockey ground. You are in Islander country. Rangers are not welcome.

But there was something different in this version of “Jungleland", something more forceful and pronounced in Bruce’s vocal delivery and the way the band was locked in, some quality of purpose that cut through the distance and the pot smoke all the way to the last rows of Section 315 where we sat in the nose-bleeds. “From the Churches to the jails…” And the organ soars. Two lines later: “Down in Jun…gull…laaaand” and the entire audience sings along full-throated with him. The drums kick in and the energy shifts into the next gear. Little Steven, ever scowling, plays a killer guitar solo. After the bridge, the tempo downshifts and Clarence's long soothing saxophone notes over a slow steady beat are an incantation - a prayer washing over the audience.

The concert was sort of homecoming for me too. I rarely get back to Long Island, except to see my family. Before the concert, I drove to TGIF’s on Merrick Avenue to meet up with my old High School friend, his wife and my brother. These are “Springsteen friends” with whom I’ve attended several shows. They speak a language that non-fans don't truly understand. Driving along Old Country Road and Merrick Avenue and seeing familiar retail landmarks and then the Islander jerseys in the parking lot, brought me back to my teens and early 20s. In those years I lived with an uneasy sense that the place where I grew up wasn’t really my home. The last time I had seen Bruce in Nassau Coliseum was in November of 1992. Bruce had released “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town” and was touring without the E-Street Band, choices that disappointed many Springsteen fans. The dumping of the band (with the exception of the essential Roy Bittan) seemed especially unforgiving. But as much as I loved the signature sound of the E-Street Band, I didn’t really mind. For one thing, I was at a place in my life where I understood that growth means change. Out with the old? Why not? Who was I to question? I was going through some changes myself at the time. I was a college graduate with a professional degree, but had no job. I had no girlfriend. I lived at home with parents and Long Island, this place where I grew up felt static and stultifying. I wanted out. Springsteen’s earliest songs are about romance and escape. His more recent work was about going home and finding fulfillment in family and community. Both themes pulled at me.

But that show delivered. Some fans dismiss the 1992-93 tour as an aberration. His albums were probably the weakest of his career and the whole period is regarded by some as some sort of musical mid-life crisis. But even without the E-Street Band, there was amazing energy and no shortage of treats. An acoustic “Thunder Road,” a rollicking “Light of Day” and a guest appearance by Billy Joel, who was introduced by Bruce as “a local hero.” Joel was warmly received but he didn’t do very much. He mostly danced with Roy Bittan at the back of stage during “Glory Days” occasionally vamping on a keyboard. It was fun but I sort of felt bad for him, especially given the song they were playing. Even then, it seemed that the best of his musical output was squarely behind him. And it’s just a cruel fact of life that a guitar gives you rock and roll street cred in a way that a piano never can (unless you’re Jerry Lee Lewis). Still, there’s always been a connection in my mind between Springsteen and Billy Joel. They are the same age. They were signed by Columbia Records at about the same time. Both were assumed to be Jewish (partially true in the case of Billy Joel). Both married uptown girls, models, ending in divorce. Bruce is New Jersey and Billy is Long Island, both places defined by the highway, the Turnpike and the L.I.E. Both artists claim the voice of the underdog and wear their bridge-and-tunnel outsider status as a badge.

Springsteen is keenly aware of a cultural bond between New Jersey and Long Island. At Monday night’s show, he quipped about the land mass that connected these places millions of years ago and he gave a shout out to his “long lost brothers” from Long Island. This connection may explain why Nassau Coliseum has been home to so many great Springsteen shows. None are more famous than the legendary show he played New Year’s Eve in 1980. Bruce and the band played 38 songs that night, possibly the longest set he’s ever played. That was slightly before my time but these earlier concerts loom large in my imagination and, judging by quality of some of the bootleg recordings, for good reason. Part of being a fan is lamenting the great shows that you’ve missed. You envy those older fans who say “Yeah, I was at the Agora in ’78.” And every time you go to another Springsteen show, you secretly hope to experience something that no other fan has experienced before.

Another memorable moment came when Springsteen took requests from the crowd. This ritual originated during the last tour. Banners and signs with written song requests are produced by the crowd and passed up to the stage where Bruce makes a campy show of sifting through them, deliberating which ones to play. He typically selects three songs – one cover song, one older gem and one of his more obscure tracks For his cover, he played a fantastic version of the Philly soul classic “Expressway to Your Heart” (a tribute to Long Island’s most enduring feature - the L.I.E.) followed by a passionate “For You” and a punchy “Rendezvous.” For good measure he played “Night” putting us back on the highway with some hope of escape. There’s always a catch though. You’re just a prisoner of your dreams.

Springsteen is a political artist. Ever since 1978’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” he’s revealed a social consciousness in songs about the plight of the working man and more generally, the American Dream. Monday night was no exception. He kicked off the show with the “Badlands” the opening track on “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” The song is a fan favorite, a sing-along, fist-pumping anthem. It belongs in any Springsteen concert but he didn't let anyone forget the struggle at its core. About 20 minutes into the show, he played “Working on a Dream” the title track of his most recent album followed by three songs that grimly explore what happens when that dream goes south and the highway goes nowhere. In “Seeds” “Johnny 99” and “Ghost of Tom Joad” there is poverty, despair and darkness but no resignation, certainly not in the music. “Johnny 99” pulsed, almost joyfully in a full rockabilly arrangement. The ordinarily spare “Tom Joad” was also given the full band treatment highlighted by Nils Lofgren’s blazing guitar solo that seared with desperation and release.

The encores included a multi-part harmony version of “Hard Times” a Stephen Foster folk song about, well, you know. When it comes to politics and social justice, Springsteen is not above getting on the soap box and saying his piece. But other than delivering a short plug for a worthwhile charity, the Harry Chapin Food Bank, he let the music do the talking. I was glad for that. It’s not that Springsteen isn’t thoughtful on matters of politics, but like most serious artists, he’s at his best when he lets the songs tell the story. A few years back, on the “Devils and Dust” tour, he criticized the Bush administration and spoke to the audience about the need for a humane immigration policy. It felt out of place, not because I didn’t agree, but because it felt clumsy and forced. What can he possibly tell us about immigration that isn’t more powerfully expressed in “Matamoros Banks?” I’m quibbling now, but quibbling is also what fans like to do. Even as we get older and more jaded, we get impossibly demanding. This makes it all the more remarkable that Springsteen the performer so rarely disappoints.

One highlight for me was his performance of the “The Wrestler.” Not exactly a rocker – it’s one of his quieter and sadder songs, but it’s on just those songs, when the crowd isn’t shouting along, that Springsteen is at his most expressive. The same gift of empathy that permits him to sing credibly about factory workers and outlaws on the run, has allowed him to successfully pen songs for movies. Most notable of these is “Streets of Philadelphia,” which poignantly captures the plight of a man with AIDS, as well as the overall feel of the movie. For my money “The Wrestler” is even better. Hearing Springsteen sing it live, the song took on a different meaning. Suddenly, the song is no longer about a bloated Mickey Rourke playing a washed-up wrestler. Now it is about Springsteen himself, a prisoner of his trade - the lonely gladiator who leaves it all on the stage.

The ultimate pleasure of fan is this: Just when you think the performer has given everything, he gives you a little bit more. Springsteen closed the show with a raucous “Rosalita” just as he did the first time I saw him in concert, 25 years ago. My first glimpse of a Springsteen live performance was a video of “Rosalita” airing on MTV in 1984. (Back then, before YouTube and before the Internet, MTV was only three years old and it actually showed music videos). I had just turned 16 and though I was an enthusiastic listener of rock radio (1st choice, WNEW, 2nd choice, WBAB), I had never seen or heard anything quite like it – the sheer energy, the playful yet powerful expression of desire and the joyful abandon of the live performance. The video offered a window into a rock & roll experience that I never knew existed. And when I saw my first Springsteen concert a few months later, my fate was sealed.

In some ways, growing up is harder when you become a fan, when you realize that music, art and live performance can reach you and move you in ways that even the reality of your life does not. There are moments of doubt when you feel you are clinging to something self-indulgent, unreal or childish because stuff that isn’t supposed to matter really does matter just as much now as it did when you were 16. But try as you may, you can’t fake it. You really are a prisoner of your dreams. But you also realize – especially after seeing a show like the one I saw – that you wouldn’t have it any other way. The music you love isn’t some alternative to reality. It’s part of reality and part of you. This is what I was thinking about when my brother and I left the arena after the show. I felt lucky. We walked through puddles in the parking lot and found the car on the grass embankment. Then I merged into the chaos of traffic, each car jockeying for position, trying to escape the Coliseum parking lot and drive off into the night.

_________________________________________________________

Chelsea Dagger

2009-05-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

_______________________________________________________________

My first soccer post.

I'm a fan of the "beautiful game" even when it gets ugly. And, let's face it, it often does. I caught the second half of the second leg between Chelsea and Barcelona in the European Champions League Semifinal. My affinity for Barcelona comes in part for my love of the Catalan city but there's also something about the club's democratic soccer culture, history, passion and cosmopolitanism, that make Barcelona an appealing bandwagon option for the curious American soccer fan in search of a European club. (The New Republic's Franklin Foer examines this phenomenon in his interesting "How Soccer Explains the World." ). It also helps that they play an attractive, attacking brand of soccer.

Chelsea, on the other hand, play a more cynical defensive-minded game though it might be said that against a fast, free-wheeling team like Barcelona they have little choice. But Chelsea also represents the noveau riche and their money is changing the face of the game. Their owner, Roman Abramovich, is one of the Russian oligarchs and he has thrown a lot of money around trying to buy a championship for the West London club. They've won a couple of English titles, but have yet to conquer Europe.

I'll skip the full recap of the game. You can find that here. But the finish was one of the most exciting I've ever seen. Barcelona was down a goal and down a man and looking desperate. Three minutes into extra time, they found a miracle goal that seemed to come from nowhere. Bedlam! Because of the tiebreaker rules of these two legged matches (peculiar to Americans) a 1-1 tie was good enough for Barcelona to win the series. They'll meet Manchester United in the finals on May 27th.

In the time honored tradition of soccer, the losing team claimed they were robbed. Chelsea players and fans insisted that the ref blew four calls, any one of which would have resulted in a penalty kick (and surely a Chelsea win). One of the outraged players looked right into the TV camera and called the ref a "fucking disgrace" The ref had to be smuggled out of England for his own safety and will probably receive death threats for the rest of his life. Sports blogs are aflame with apopletic Chelsea fans. What's great about soccer is the passion. But is this pathetic display of whining and poor sportsmanship the inevitable other side of the same coin?

A brief response to those Chelsea fans who say they were robbed:

You don't "deserve" to win just because you claim the greater number of penalty appeals.

Only one of those appeals (Pique's handball) was clear cut, the rest were borderline at best and none of those non-calls was more outrageous than the absurd sending off of Abidal, who didn't seem to even touch Anelka. Actually, Anelka could easily have been carded for diving (the same is true for Drogba several times over).

As a result of that sending off, Chelsea had a man advatage for over 25 minutes but they couldn't manage to score a goal in open play. Over two games, Chelsea scored a single goal (albeit a spectacular one) and didn't dominate the play in either game.

We get it. Losing a close one hurts, especially when calls go against you. But this ugly Chelsea whine is a bit much. Here's hoping that when Barcelona plays Manchester United on May 27th, we get to see the beautiful side of the beautiful game.
_____________________________

The 100 Greatest Yankees of All Time

2009-03-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

____________________________________________________________________

Mr. Yankee?

Baseball season is just around the corner. So let's get started on some lists and the delightfully inane debates that such lists generate.

First, here are the usual disclaimers:

· There are no Jamesian mathematical formulas here – this is a purely subjective exercise.

· I have indulged in the absurdity of comparing players from different eras.

· Baseball is a game of numbers. Statistics do count for a lot, but they are not everything.

· Service to the club counts for something. This is not a list of the 100 greatest players. It's the 100 greatest Yankees.

· A player’s standing is helped by contributing to World Championships – this is the Yankees after all. Championships are their currency.

· Standing is hurt by cheating (A-Rod, Petite, Giambi, Hal Chase, etc.)

· Standing is helped by legendary accomplishments and heroic post-season moments (Don Larsen, Reggie Jackson, Bucky Dent, etc.)

· The purpose of list is to generate discussion, argument and appreciation for great and memorable players, not to establish a hierarchy or pantheon.

Finally, although this list is subjective and arbitrary it is not burdened by sentiment. After all, I don’t like the Yankees. But let's face it - this is the most successful American sports team of all time. At least they were last century.

Here are the 100 Greatest Yankees of all time:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Lou Gehrig
3. Joe DiMaggio
4. Mickey Mantle
5. Yogi Berra
6. Mariano Rivera
7. Whitey Ford
8. Derek Jeter
9. Bill Dickey
10. Bernie Williams
11. Roger Maris
12. Reggie Jackson
13. Don Mattingly
14. Red Ruffing
15. Tony Lazzeri
16. Lefty Gomez
17. Phil Rizzuto
18. Jorge Posada
19. Joe Gordon
20. Ron Guidry
21. Elston Howard
22. Earl Combs
23. Allie Reynolds
24. Thurman Munson
25. Bobby Richardson
26. Graig Nettles
27. Paul O’Neil
28. Goose Gossage
29. Bobby Murcer
30. Bob Meusel
31. Sparky Lyle
32. Mel Stottlemyre
33. Andy Petite
34. Willie Randolph
35. Dave Winfield
36. Tino Martinez
37. Billy Martin
38. Bill Skowron
39. Waite Hoyt
40. Dave Righetti
41. Alex Rodriguez
42. Tommy Heinrich
43. Herb Pennock
44. Eddie Lopat
45. Bob Turley
46. Red Rolfe
47. Tommy John
48. Roy White
49. Hank Bauer
50. Spud Chandler
51. John Wettland
52. Charlie Keller
53. Catfish Hunter
54. Vic Raschi
55. Joe Girardi
56. Bob Shawkey
57. Roger Clemens
58. Chris Chambliss
59. Jack Chesbro
60. Luis Arroyo
61. Don Larsen
62. Wally Pip
63. Wade Boggs
64. Joe Pepitone
65. Mickey Rivers
66. Mike Mussina
67. Lou Pinella
68. David Wells
69. Gil McDougald
70. Hal Chase
71. Tony Kubek
72. Orlando Hernandez
73. Ben Chapman
74. Ricky Henderson
75. Bucky Dent
76. Johnny Murphy
77. David Cone
78. Hideki Matsui
79. Jim Leyritz
80. Roger Peckinpaugh
81. Joe Page
82. Jason Giambi
83. Frank Crosetti
84. George Selkirk
85. Scott Brosius
86. Snuffy Stirnweiss
87. Jimmy Key
88. Tom Tresh
89. Mark Koenig
90. Jeff Nelson
91. Chuck Knoblauch
92. Ralph Terry
93. Ed Figueroa
94. Clete Boyer
95. Gene Woodling
96. Fritz Peterson
97. Joe Dugan
98. Jim Bouton
99. Mike Stanton
100. Horace Clark

_________________________________________________________________________

Super Bowl Prediction

2009-01-30T19:19:00.000-08:00

__________________________________________

When it comes to the Super Bowl, you can pretty much bet on anything.

For example, you can get odds on the color of the gatorade that will dumped on the winning coach (I like orange at 7 to 1) or you can bet the over/under on the length of Jennifer Hudson's rendition of the National Anthem (The current line is 1 minute, 54 seconds).

And you can also bet on the set list for Sprinsteen's half-time show - or at least you could until earlier today.

Here's my prediction:

1. Radio Nowhere
2. Glory Days
3. My Lucky Day
4. Born to Run

But I'll be more specific. When he sings "Glory Days," he will substitute football lyrics for the baseball ones. To wit:

I had a friend was a big football player
back in high school
He could throw that pigskin by you
Make you look like a fool boy...

Now can I get odds on that?

_____________________________________

Confessions of an Antisocial Apostate or "Why I Skip the Super Bowl"

2009-01-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

________________________________________________

I rarely watch the Super Bowl.

I watched last year and I watched Super Bowl XXXV in 2001 but that was only because, my team, the New York Football Giants, was playing. And I caught the last few minutes in 2004 when Adam Vinatieri’s field goal sealed the win for the Patriots. But the last time I actually sat down to watch a non-Giant Super Bowl, John Elway was playing. It has been more than a decade.

Blowing off the Super Bowl feels like apostasy. Well actually, double apostasy. Not only am I a red-blooded American male, but I work in advertising.

The strange thing is, I like football. OK, I happen to like baseball more. And maybe I don’t relish watching football the way I did when I was a kid, but that seems normal enough with age. There is still plenty about the game that I enjoy - the anticipation of those Autumn Sundays, the gladiator-like theater of the arena, the athleticism of a great run or catch, the pain and glory of rooting for a team, the smash-mouth pleasure of it all, and the Monday-Morning quarterbacking and arguments at the water cooler. Still, I can’t bring myself to watch the Super Bowl.

Here is my problem. Super Bowl Sunday is a national day of observance, bearing all of the ritualistic trappings and social obligations of a religious holiday. But it isn’t enough to worship, that is, to watch the game before the altar of some giant screen. You have to do something for the occasion. Like Christmas or New Year’s Eve, it is an event that calls for parties and plans and hanging out with people you wouldn’t hang out with otherwise. I hate Super Bowl parties. For me, watching television rarely works as a communal activity. Yes I suppose there is something to having a shared experience – the conversations, the cheering and the chicken wings. But Super Bowl parties have always struck me as a way to spend time with people without really spending time with them. (“Oh don’t mind him, he’s watching the game.”)

It sounds terribly antisocial of me. But watching the game by myself doesn’t really appeal to me either. There is still this overriding sense of pressure, this sense that you MUST watch this game and swallow all of the hype and the ads and spectacle for the masses. And then there’s the time commitment. Between the pre-game coverage, the extended television time-outs, the halftime show, and post-game wrap-up, we are talking about anywhere from five to 10 hours.

As acts of rebellion go, mine is rather modest. But here is my strategy. On Super Bowl Sunday, I like to pretend that the rest of the world is frozen in time in front of their giant screens. While they are trapped in their own dimension, eating nachos and pizza, drinking beer, thinking they are having a good time, here is the chance to seize the day and do something special with the time before you. Read a book, clean your closet, paint a picture, write a letter, call a friend (who is not a football fan), re-arrange your sock drawer or make that list of resolutions you thought about making on New Year’s Eve. Make it yours. It’s an opportunity to strike a blow against social convention and orthodoxy and take back the day.

Oh, but don’t forget to watch Springsteen at half-time. You really must.

_______________________________________________

Happy Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

_____________________________________________________

Some random observations and thoughts on this historic day:

As exciting and inspiring as the day was, I'm sure glad I wasn't in DC. You couldn't pay me. Crowded, cold, jacked up prices and one port-o-john per 1,000 people? No thank you. That's what television is for.

Rick Warren's invocation was dreadful, truly an awful embarrassment. Sure, I can appreciate the rationale and the politics behind the choice, but Obama should never have invited this self-aggrandizing, sectarian crackpot.

So in administering the oath, Chief Justice Roberts and Obama fumbled the exchange. Is this disconnect between the President and the Chief Justice a sign of things to come?

On to the speech. It was good speech and Obama did an excellent job. But for all of the eloquence and inspiration, the substance of his address wasn't all that remarkable or memorable. What will be remembered by history is the occasion, not the actual speech.

I still think my favorite line of his speech was: "We will restore science to its rightful place." Refreshing.

One other interesting touch was Obama's inclusion of "non-believers." I'm trying to remember an occasion when a U.S. President even acknowledged atheists or agnostics as valued citizens. That's pretty amazing when you consider that atheists and agnostics comprise somewhere between 15 and 20% of the population.

(And to be fair, we can argue that it's not accurate to refer to atheists as "non-believers." Atheists believe...they believe in reason and explanations of the world based on evidence).

I liked the classical music - I thought it sounded great.

But did we really need the poet?

It was interesting that the one historical figure that Obama quoted at length was George Washington. An unsual choice, especially for a liberal politician. You'd expect maybe Jefferson, FDR, Lincoln, Kennedy or MLK. Why Washington? Because Washington strived to appear above partisanship and to put love of country, and the greater good, first. He wasn't really above partisanship - he was both human and a politician, but that was the ideal that he stood for. Obama was clever to tap into that.

United We Stand

2009-01-19T20:59:00.000-08:00

_______________________________________

But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
-- Thomas Jefferson's inaugural address 1801

We have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America
-- Barack Obama, November 4, 2008.

For all that is new and different about Barack Obama, the message of unity he extends is a time-honored tradition. Since Jefferson took office in 1801, the incoming President has always sought to heal political divisions and make a show of unity. Whether the effort is seen as cynical or sincere depends on your own view of politics, but it's certainly the case that any incoming President has an interest in winning over his doubters and detractors, boosting his popularity and building consensus.

In Obama's case, communicating a message of unity goes to his strengths as politician - a political style that is conciliatory and pragmatic and, of course, his skills as an orator. It will be interesting to see how he goes about delivering his message of unity at the inaugural address today.

Two observations though:

1). For all of the rancor and partisanship in American politics, our country is not nearly as divided as members of the media make it seem. Sure, Obama has his work cut out for him, but "unity" isn't really a problem. We are far more unified than we were in the 1960s, not to mention the 1860s. Or for that matter 1801, when Jefferson took office.

2) Whether it's a Democrat or Republican who takes the oath of office, there's something truly inspiring about the peaceful transition of power - it is an occasion that is still so rare in many parts of the globe. We tend to focus on the many things that are wrong with our government, but seeing the orderly transition of power is a reminder that the fundamentals of our Constitution really do work.

Canadian Terrorists Strike Again

2009-01-16T21:47:00.001-08:00

___________________________________________________________________________________

I’ve often wondered what New York’s Native Americans thought in 1609 when they first saw Henry Hudson sailing up the Hudson River in the 85-foot Half Moon. Was it big news? Did they gawk? Were they frightened? Did they see this strangely shaped European vessel as a thing of wonder, or as harbinger of their doom? Perhaps neither. After all, many natives had heard tales of Europeans. Some had encountered their sailing ships before and perhaps even traded with them. It had been almost a century since another European, Verrazano, in the service of France, sailed into New York harbor. Still, it must have caused some excitement.

And just yesterday, 400 years after Hudson made his New York debut, the river that bears his name saw another splash of excitement. A commercial jet, which had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport, was forced to make an emergency landing right onto the river, just west of Midtown Manhattan. Incredibly, all 150 passengers and the the crew were rescued.

Now I fly occasionally and I am one of those people who routinely disregards the flight attendants when they give their instructions before take-off. “In the event of water landing…” Water landing? Are you freakin’ kidding me? Isn’t “water landing” just a nice way of saying crash? Well no. Thanks to the skill of a US Airways pilot, I now appreciate the difference. Most especially, so do the 150 passengers on the flight. So it’s a feel good story of rescue and resourcefulness, an intrepid pilot, plucky New Yorkers and blessed good fortune. (The pilot, Captain Sullenberger already had over 100,000 fans on Facebook - and counting).

But there’s a dark side to this story as well. What forced the emergency landing? What caused the plane’s engines to fail? Well, the official story is that a “double bird strike” took out both of the plane’s engines. But as a savvy and cynical New Yorker, I’ve learned, ever since 9/11, to disbelieve all “official” explanations. After all, the “official” version of 9/11 would have us believe that 19 Islamist hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center. Well, by know, everyone knows the real truth – it was the Canadians.

A double bird strike? Now what kind of birds would be so cunning and malevolent as to pull off a move as complicated and daring as the double strike? And then it hit me.

Why of course.

____________________________________

20 Best Albums of 2008

2008-12-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

_____________________________________________________________

One more list. It is the end of the year, after all. My favorite albums of 2008:

20. Asking for Flowers by Kathleen Edwards

It takes a Canadian songwriter, and a talented one, to put former hockey enforcer Marty McSorley into a song and make it work. From I Make the Dough You Get the Glory:

I'm a Ford Tempo,
you're a Maserati.
You're The Great One,
I'm Marty McSorley.

Awesome. Edwards deserves the top 20 for that line alone.

19. West Texas by Sleepercar

Impressive alt-country outfit fronted by Jim Ward of Sparta. Standout track: A Broken Promise

18. Consolers of the Lonely by the Raconteurs

Gotta give Jack White his due. He and Brendan Benson kick it old school, like Motor-City madmen of yesteryear.

17. The Hard Way by James Hunter

Speaking of old school, James Hunter seems, at first, like a 1960s retro-soul act but this album is the real deal. He sings like the love child of Van Morrison and Sam Cooke.

16. Oracular Spectacular by MGMT

A cool melding of psychedelic, electronica and pop - the song Time to Pretend is one of the standout tracks of the year.

15. Brighter than Creations Dark by the Drive-by-Truckers

Another solid album from one of the best bands in America.

14. The Felice Brothers

I learned of these guys from my favorite radio program, Vin Scelsa’s Idiot’s Delight. There’s a timeless storytelling and sepia-toned Americana here that recalls The Band and The Basement Tapes.

13. Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis

An expressive singer and talented songwriter, Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley is equally comfortable with pop, rock and alt-country – it’s all here.

12. Evil Urges by My Morning Jacket

Nice to see this excellent band finally getting its due.

11. Vampire Weekend

I was completely prepared to dismiss these Columbia grads as pretentious poseurs but their album delivers – it’s interesting, adventurous, catchy and fun.

10. Mudcrutch

Tom Petty reforms his original band from Gainesville Florida and puts out one of the best albums of the year.

9. Cardinology by Ryan Adams

Amazing to think that since the dissolution of Whiskeytown in 1999, this guy has released 11 albums without sacrificing quality for quantity. This album is one of his best.

8. A Swingin’ Christmas by Tony Bennett featuring the Count Basie Big Band

No kidding. This is simply terrific.

7. Viva la Vida by Coldplay

I used to think that Coldplay was bland and overrated but for my money this album, produced by Brian Eno, has them sounding their majestic best.

6. The ’59 Sound by the Gaslight Anthem

Bruce Springsteen meets Joe Strummer. Not the most original band in the world, but this album delivers a certain Gaelic swagger, Jersey grit and infectious pop-punk that’s irresistible.

5. Lust Lust Lust by the Raveonettes

Ronnie Spector meets the Jesus and Mary Chain. I’m going to go out on a limb and call the Raveonettes, Denmark’s greatest rock duo of all time.

4. Little Honey by Lucinda Williams

I don’t think Lucinda Williams is capable of making a bad album. Standout track: Jailhouse Tears, a duet with Elvis Costello.

3. Real Animal by Alejandro Escovedo

This guy’s been flying under the radar for years. What a great rock n’ roll album.

2. The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell-Tale Signs by Bob Dylan

I figured that a collection of unreleased tracks from Bob Dylan’s recent period (1989-2006) would be less interesting than the bootleg recordings of his more iconic material of the 60s or 70s. I was dead wrong. For fans of Bob Dylan, this is as good as it gets.

1. Stay Positive by the Hold Steady

A Brooklyn band, by way of Minnesota, that combines Springsteen’s working class anthematic rock, the slacker sensibility of the Replacements, the word play of Leonard Cohen and the retro-rollicking booziness of Thin Lizzy. I don’t think there’s a band (or album) out there right now that better captures the redemptive power of rock n’ roll.

Gottta Stay Positive. See you in 2009!

The 50 Greatest Islanders of All Time

2008-12-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

____________________________________________________________

Hockey anyone?

I grew up spoiled. As a kid growing up on Long Island, I learned to enjoy the sport of hockey just as the N.Y. Islanders were emerging as one of the greatest teams in all of sports. It is stunning to consider just how far this once mighty franchise, now almost 40 years old, has fallen. But sport is about hope and nostalgia. As every sports fan knows, hope springs eternal. And in the interest of nostalgia, here is my purely subjective list of the top 50 greatest Islanders of all time.

50. Roman Hamrlik

Solid defenseman who specialized as a power play quarterback, "Hammer" was the Islanders All Star representative in 2003.

49. Lorne Henning

An original Islander, Henning played nine seasons as the Islanders transformed from an expansion squad to a dynasty. He specialized in killing Power Plays and scoring short-handed goals and famously, assisted on Bobby Nystrom’s overtime goal which gave the Islanders their first Stanley Cup.

48. Gord Lane

A rugged defenseman who possessed little in the way of hockey skills, Lane was nevertheless a key contributor to all four Stanley Cup wins.

47. Travis Green

A productive center, Green broke in with the Islander in 1992 and totaled 237 points before being traded to the Ducks in 1998.

46. Mick Vukota

Sure he was a goon but every team needs at least one; he bled Islander blue and orange for 10 seasons racking up 1879 penalty minutes.

45. Jason Blake

Speedy skater scored 40 goals in the 2006-07 season.

44. Kelly Hrudey

Goaltender made 73 saves in the “Easter Epic,” the classic four-overtime game 7 playoff game won by the Isles over the Capitals in 1987.

43. Wayne Merrick

A solid two-way center, Merrick centered Bob Nystrom and John Tonelli on the “Banana Line” and was a member of all four Stanley Cup champion teams.

42. Alexi Yashin

There was no denying his talent, but Yashin ended up symbolizing the era – overpaid and underachieving.

41. Michael Peca

An inspirational two-way player, Peca played only three seasons but made his mark as team Captain leading the Islanders to the playoffs in 2002, and winning the Selke Trophy, awarded to the league’s best defensive forward.

40. Glenn Healy

Healy’s goaltending was instrumental to the Islander’s playoff run in 1993.

39. Gary Howatt

An original Islander, Howatt was an energetic and combative terrier who, despite being only 5’9, was willing to take on anyone.

38. Maurice Czerkawski

Productive Polish winger had two 30-goal seasons and two tours of duty on Long Island.

37. Steve Thomas

All energy all the time, Thomas enjoyed his best season in 1992-93, scoring 37 goals with 50 assists.

36. Roland Melanson

Rollie the Goalie shared netminder duties with Billy Smith and won three Stanley Cups before he was traded in 1985.

35. Trent Hunter

A physical winger who can also score, Hunter is the heart and soul of the current Islander squad.

34. Dave Lewis

Very solid defenseman 1973-80, who missed out on the Stanley Cup when he was traded with Billy Harris for Butch Goring in 1980.

33. Benoit Hogue

A left winger with talent and flair (and a great name), Hogue was key contributor to the Islanders playoff run in 1993.

32. Anders Kallur

A smooth skating Swedish forward, Kallur won four Stanley Cups and is probably the most underrated player from the dynasty squad.

31. Rick Dipietro

A highly regarded goaltender, DiPietro is the team’s most important player (even if he is overpaid). Injuries are all that are keeping him from star status.

30. J.P Parise

Hard working winger is best known for scoring an overtime goal 11 seconds into overtime to beat the Rangers in famous 1975 Playoff Series.

29. David Volek

Talented Czech forward would probably be remembered as an underachiever but he provided a golden moment when he scored the overtime goal to defeat Pittsburgh in the playoffs in 1993. His goal represents the greatest Islander highlight of the past 20 years.

28. Duane Sutter

Nicknamed “dog”, Sutter was a feisty corner man and as tough as any of the Sutter brothers. A member of all four Stanley Cup teams.

27. Darius Kasparitus

Combative defenseman whose devastating hip check made him an instant fan favorite. As a brash rookie he consistently punished the great Mario Lemeiux as the Islanders upset the Penguins in the 1993 Playoffs.

26. Tomas Jonsson

Agile defenseman won two Stanley Cups with the Islanders and is one of three Swedish players to win the national championship, the World Championship, Olympic gold and the Stanley Cup.

25. Billy Harris

The first draft pick of the Expansion Islanders, Harris was a productive right winger on the famous “LILCO” line with Brian Trottier and Clark Gilles. He totaled 443 points as the Islanders grew into a powerhouse, but Harris was traded to the Kings in 1980 and never won a Stanley Cup.

24. Claude Lapoint

Gutsy center and terrific face-off man, LaPoint played over 500 games for the Islanders and was the three-time winner of the Bob Nystrom award to honor his leadership, hustle, and determination.

23. Rich Pilon

A solid stay-at-home defenseman, Pilon was a crushing body checker and intimidator who played over 500 games (1988-2000).

22. Derek King

Productive left winger with great hands, King quietly scored over 200 goals and is 10th on the Islanders all-time scoring list.

21. Ray Ferraro

A gutsy forward and likeable guy, Ferraro was one of the inspirational leaders of the team during the unlikely playoff run of 1993.

20. Dave Langevin

Bammer was a solid stay-at-home defenseman and important physical presence the four-time Stanley Cup championship team.

19. Ziggy Palffy

It’s too bad his teams weren’t better because Palffy was an exciting player and fun to watch. The Slovokian national scored 168 goals for the Islanders (1994-99).

18. Kenny Jonsson

A terrific all-around defenseman, Jonsson was perennially underrated as he played 597 games for the Islanders 1996-2004. He achieved well-deserved recognition in 2006 when he helped Sweden win the Olympic Gold Medal.

17. Butch Goring

A terrific skater and accomplished penalty killer, Goring proved to be the missing piece to the championship. He was great fun to watch too – tirelessly making his presence felt all over the ice. He joined the Islanders in 1980 and helped them win four straight Stanley Cups.

16. Ed Westfall

The former Bruin star joined the Expansion Islanders in 1972 and enjoyed four 30-goal seasons as the Islanders transformed from mediocrity to greatness.

15. Stefan Persson

Persson was a well-rounded defenseman and one of the first Swedish stars in the NHL. He played in over 700 games for the Islanders and was an integral part of their dynasty. He scored 5 goals in the 1980 Playoffs.

14. Pat Flatley

Flatley was one of those hard-working inspirational forwards that every team needs if it wants to win. He was a slow skater for a winger and he didn’t score many pretty goals but he did everything else so well – checking, passing, digging in the corners etc. He totaled 780 games and 170 goals for his Islander career (1984-1996).

13. Pierre Turgeon

There were high expectations for the talented Pierre Turgeon when he came over from Buffalo in a trade for Pat Lafontaine and very nearly met them, scoring 58 goals and 132 points in the 1992-93 season before Dale Hunter’s cheap shot effectively ended Turgeon’s season and the Islanders playoff run.

12. Glenn Resch

One of the most popular Islanders of all time, Chico Resch was an All-Star goalie but lost playing time to Billy Smith during the first Stanley Cup run and was traded to Colorado in 1981.

11. Bob Bourne

Probably the fastest skater ever to wear an Islander jersey, Bourne had three 30-goal seasons and was a key member of all four Stanley Cup squads.

10. Ken Morrow

Morrow joined the Islanders just one a week after winning the gold medal at the 1980 Olympics. He went on to play 550 games with the Islanders and his solid defensive play helped the Islanders win four Stanley Cups.

9. Bobby Nystrom

A physical right winger who often mixed it up and occasionally scored, Nystrom is appropriately remembered as “Mr. Islander.” His 900 games is third behind only Potvin and Trottier and his overtime goal to win the Stanely Cup in 1980 assured him of immortality.

8. Pat Lafontaine

One of the greatest American players of all time, Lafontaine joined the Islanders just after the 4th Cup victory. A terrific skater and scorer, only injuries held him back.

7. Brent Sutter

Probably the most gifted of the multitude of Sutter brothers, Brent won two Stanley Cups with the Islanders, succeeded Denis Potvin as captain and totaled 610 points and 287 goals.

6. John Tonelli

A battling left wing, full of heart and ability, Tonelli was equally at home on the top line (with Trottier and Bossy) or the famous “Banana Line” with Nystrom and Wayne Merrick. He had three 30-goal seasons and his defining moment was probably in the decisive playoff game against Pittsburgh in 1982. In the face of elimination, Tonelli scored the tying goal and the game winner in overtime.

5. Clark Gilles

A prototypical top line winger, Gilles was big and physical but also a gifted scorer and leader. He had six seasons with 30 goals or more and captained the Islanders to the first of their four Stanley Cup wins.

4. Billy Smith

One of top playoff performers in NHL history, Smitty won over 300 games for the Islanders and of course, four Stanley Cups. And he was one mean and nasty competitor.

3. Mike Bossy

Take your pick – you can place Bossy, Trottier and Potvin in just about any order at this point. Bossy scored 50 or more goals in nine straight seasons and totaled 573 career goals in just 10 seasons. One of the greatest scorers ever, his name is practically synonymous with the term “sniper.”

2. Bryan Trottier

A brilliant two-way center and the Islanders all time leading point producer, Trottier was probably the NHL’s greatest all around player in the early 1980s. When I was a kid, I got his autograph at Herman’s Sporting Goods in Huntington and was amazed by how normal he seemed, how physically unimposing. But he was freakishly strong on his skates. He had some bad blood with management at the end of his career, (and did himself no favors when he became Head Coach of the Rangers in 2002). But none of that should diminish his greatness as a player.

1. Denis Potvin

As a kid, I had a poster of Denis Potvin in my room. A skilled defenseman and devastating hip-checker, Potvin succeeded Clark Gilles as Captain and when he retired, he was the NHL career leader in playoff goals, assists, and points for defensemen. For me, he is the indispensible Islander - supremely talented, tough, arrogant and at the heart of every great Islander team and moment.

Sorry Ranger fans!

Tis the Season

2008-12-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

________________________________________

Like it or not, there’s simply no escaping Christmas music.

Do Christmas songs put you in that toasty warm and fuzzy holiday mood or do they make you want to drive an icicle into your skull? Well, there’s good and there’s bad. Naughty and Nice.

Here are my top 20 favorite Christmas songs:

1. The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole

Chestnuts Roasting on the Open Fire. For me, Nat’s rendition is the ultimate version of the ultimate Christmas song. Smooth and melancholy. Sweet and evocative.

2. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) by U2

The 1963 Darlene Love version is great - the power of Love’s vocals and Phil Spector’s lush production make this the best Christmas song of the rock-n-roll era. But I especially love U2’s version. For my money, Bono has never sounded better.

3. Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon

Sure it’s sappy and the children’s choir is a bit much, but this really is a beautiful tune. Some people think it’s too political. I don’t know. Is Peace on Earth political?

4. O Holy Night

As a rule, the more traditional and religious-themed songs don’t do much for me – probably because I’m not a Christian. “O Holy Night” is an exception. In the hands of a quality singer, this beautiful carol, composed in 1847 by Adolphe Adam, is a real holiday treat.

5. White Christmas by Bing Crosby

Too obscure?

6. 2,000 Miles by the Pretenders

One of the few Christmas songs of the rock era that manages to capture that melancholy feel of the more traditional standards.

7. Father Christmas by the Kinks

Santa gets mugged and the true meaning of Christmas comes shining through. This yuletide rocker is my favorite of the anti-Christmas songs.

8. Christmas Wrappings by the Waitresses

Another great anti-Christmas song with an infectious touch of ska and a 1980s new wave feel.

9. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

You can’t go wrong with a Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett version. (Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders does a nice job too). Ubiquitous and melancholy – a true Christmas classic.

10. You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch by Thurl Ravenscroft

In case anyone needed further evidence that Dr. Seuss was a genius.

11. Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Sure this one gets played to death, but it still manages to leave a smile on my face. The rollicking piano, glockenspiel and sleigh bells festively compliment Bruce’s giddiness.

12. Frosty the Snowman by the Ronnettes

My favorite version. There’s a sweetness and sadness in Ronnie Spector’s voice that works perfectly for Christmas songs.

13. The Christmas Waltz by Frank Sinatra

One of the great holiday standards, Sinatra’s phrasing and the ethereal arrangement create a magical, floating feeling.

14. Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth by Bing Crosby and David Bowie

Crooners spanning the generations, this was recorded just a month before Bing Crosby died. The pairing of Bing with the androgynous Bowie must have struck people as a strange idea, but it works nicely.

15. Christmas in Hollis by Run D.M.C.

Irrepressibly joyous and kicking.

16. Fairytale of New York by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.

Drunken, dysfunctional and poignant; a modern classic.

17. Merry Christmas Baby by Otis Redding

Springsteen’s version pales by comparison. Otis delivers holiday soul and sexiness with a Stax groove.

18. I’ll be Home for Christmas

Another melancholy classic. Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and the Carpenters all recorded beautiful versions. It occurs to me that my favorite Christmas songs are the ones that are full of either sadness or irony.

19. Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight) by the Ramones

Nothing melancholy here.

20. Merry Christmas from the Family by Robert Earl Keene

Family dysfunction, lots humor and plenty of booze. A fun Christmas tune that rings true.

In the spirit of ecumenism, I should probably also include a list of the top Chanukah songs. Instead, I’ll note that at least 7 of the 20 Christmas songs had Jewish composers.

I also considered listing the worst Christmas songs but found it to be far too depressing an endeavor. But the absolute worst? Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.”

Happy Holidays!

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right...

2008-12-02T07:28:00.000-08:00

____________________________________________________

After Obama was elected, one of the questions often asked was: Will he govern from the Left or from the Center?

His various appointments, notably the economists, Geithner and Summers, but also his choice of Clinton for State and his decision to keep Gates as Secretary of Defense, have suggested to many that Obama's political compass points closer to the Center than to the Left. Some commentators and economic analysts have even suggested that Obama is squarely “Center-Right.”

Whether any of this is good news or bad news depends on your own political views and expectations. Many Americans are relieved at what appears to be a centrist and pragmatic approach, though some conservatives are surprised and some progressives are both surprised and disappointed. My own view is that there is little about Obama's choices that should surprise anyone, unless they actually believed the bit about him being a Marxist (or were under the absurd impression that “change” entails appointing only individuals with absolutely no experience in government.) It should have been obvious that Obama is both a centrist and a pragmatist. He is also a liberal. These are not contradictions.

Part of the problem here is our media’s simplistic obsession with placing politicians along a linear left-right political axis. This sort of directional thinking, and the terms generated – right, left, conservative, liberal - is often misleading. At a minimum, it represents a very limited and superficial way of looking at politics. Some observations:

• The model of “Left” and “Right” that is used to describe political ideology presumes a single dimension. It imagines a single linear axis to account for political and economic philosophies, cultural values, theories about role of government, etc. This is deeply flawed. In reality there are multiple dimensions that influence any person’s political views.

• Why do we, as a nation, limit our political thinking to a single left-right axis? I think the most obvious reason is that we have a fairly rigid two party system. We think of our political system as two opposite poles with a line connecting them. The line reflects a sort of continuum and imagines that viewpoints necessarily lie somewhere between the poles. Psychology and Evolutionary Biology may also offer an explanation. Perhaps human beings are predisposed to categorize political ideas (like religious ideas) in a dualistic way: “Us” versus “Them.” “Good” versus “Evil.” “My Group” versus “the Other.”

• The error of this one dimensional left-right model is conflated when we use terms like “liberal” and “conservative” to locate us within the left-right political spectrum. For example, the opposite of liberal is not conservative. The opposite of liberal is illiberal.

• During the campaign, it was argued that Obama had the most liberal (left-leaning?) voting record in the Senate in 2007. The flaws in these kinds of rankings and arguments have been analyzed at length. For one thing, they purport to rank according to votes on legislation but they don’t tell you a thing about the candidate’s priorities. And when you scratch beneath the surface and look at the actual legislation, you can see additional problems inherent in these sort of rankings. For example, if you introduce legislation for better heath care for members of the Armed Forces and veterans, is that a liberal or conservative measure? If you support reform and seek greater transparency and accountability in government spending, is that a liberal or conservative measure?

• Globalization further shatters the traditional left-right single dimension approach to politics. Thomas Friedman offers the instructive example of India versus Indiana. The state of Indiana, in an effort to save tax payers $8 million, outsourced a contract (involving the processing of unemployment claims) to a firm in India. Curiously enough, this measure was supported by pro-labor Democrats and opposed by free-trade Republicans. So who are the liberals and who are the conservatives here? What is the “left” position and what is the “right” position?

The traditional paradigm simply doesn’t work. But at least we live in interesting times.

__________________

Life is full of Gutter Balls

2008-11-28T09:50:00.001-08:00

____________________________________

This is just wrong.

Bowling Alleys with bumpers so that kids no longer have to endure the painful humiliation of gutter balls? Please.

This is just another example of coddling children and succumbing to our spoiled culture of immediate gratification. I don't mean to sound cranky (or worse, like Andy Rooney) but how does this "everybody's a winner" nonsense prepare kids for life? What happened to perseverence? To practice? To learning to overcome failure?

I say, take a lesson instead from Barack Obama. His pathetic gutter balls probably cost him Pennsylvania in the Democratic Primary.

He bounced back. Your kids can too.

Top Singers of All Time?

2008-11-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

________________________________________________________

I’m a sucker for lists.

Recently, Rolling Stone magazine featured its top 100 singers of all time.

I’m especially drawn to these sort of lists – the ones that rank music and art based on purely subjective criteria. These lists are always absurd and often terrible but they’re also a lot of fun. The value of them isn’t in the ranking but in the arguments they generate and what they reveal about your own tastes and preferences (and of course the inferior tastes and preferences of your friends, not to mention the so-called rock journalists who arbitrate such matters). And once you get past the spirit of competition, these sort of lists can be appreciated as a celebration of all those great artists. And when a magazine features a well-written tribute (like Bono writing about Bob Dylan) you might even be reminded of what was once worthwhile about such magazines and music journalism in the first place.

To be sure, any list of singers that features Bob Dylan at number seven tells you something about the criteria. We are not talking about technical ability or the beauty of a voice, and certainly not any classical or conventional measure of what constitutes great singing. Clearly, we are looking at other factors: A measure of singer’s influence on culture or other musicians? A unique vocal style? Some intangible quality that speaks to emotion? Or touches the soul? Or tells the truth? I suppose it’s any or all of the above. (The judges consisted mostly of rock musicians and journalists with some industry big-wigs thrown in for good measure).

Within the pages of the magazine, Jonathan Lethem eloquently defends the subjective and unconventional nature of the criteria:

For me, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, just to mention two, are superb singers by an measure I could ever care about – expressivity, surprise, soul, grain, interpretive wit, angle of vision.

Amen. But now it’s time to tear into this crazy list because there’s so much wrong with it:

• No Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday etc. This isn’t necessarily a criticism given that the Rolling Stone's focus is on the “Rock Era” but still, there is something arbitrary about such designations. If the list includes country legends Hank Williams, Patsy Cline and George Jones, why not Sinatra?

• No Chrissy Hynde! For me, this is the most glaring of all the omissions. Absolutely unconscionable.

• Generational Bias. Rolling Stone, as ever, is a magazine by Baby Boomers and for Baby Boomers. The list features only a handful of artists who emerged within the last 20 years: Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley, Thom Yorke and Bjork. I would add Eddie Vedder for certain. Less famous but also up there in my book are Layne Staley, Alison Krauss, Greg Dulli, and Mark Lanegan.

• I don’t care how good Patti Labelle may have been once or what kind of other-worldly pipes she possesses. Her destruction of the National Anthem before Game Four of the World Series this year should automatically disqualify her.

• Other noteworthy omissions: Michael Stipe, K.D. Lang, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer and Eva Cassidy.

At some point, I’ll include my own list. In the meantime, something to think about:

What makes a great singer?

Why Hillary is the Wrong Choice for Secretary of State

2008-11-23T20:14:00.001-08:00

_________________________________________________

I don’t mean to dwell on the negative.

After all, these are heady times for liberals. Obama supporters are still marveling at the historical magnitude of what transpired on November 4th even as we embrace the promise of change. So a certain degree of generosity is to be expected as we follow Obama's lead in healing divisions and moving toward a new administration. But I don’t like the choice of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

It’s easy enough to appreciate the logic and the politics behind the choice. This part of the agument is compelling. Hillary is smart, tough, and well-connected. She’s also an influential and groundbreaking politician, the Democratic runner-up and, lest we forget, a Clinton. It is prudent that Obama reach an acceptable accommodation with her if he is to govern effectively.

But is she right for the job? What particular expertise or experience in foreign relations does she bring to the table? Whatever Hillary’s merits, doesn’t it make more sense to appoint a seasoned diplomat to the post, someone with actual hands-on foreign policy experience - someone like Richard Holbrooke? Hillary’s foreign policy experience is limited and it comes from her role as First Lady and from her time in the Senate. It also might be argued that the institution of the U.S. Senate is already overrepresented within the Obama administration – starting with Obama himself and Joe Biden. Senators tend to be, by necessity, generalists. There are more focused avenues of expertise within DC and expertise is what is needed here, probably more so than name recognition. Even among the big names that were considered, both John Kerry and Bill Richardson have more extensive and more relevant foreign policy experience.

And finally, and there is no escaping this: Hillary is an inherently divisive figure. This is not merely how she is perceived, it is how she operates. I don't mean to pick at old wounds, but Hillary ran an election campaign that was both stupid and nasty. Her attempts to exploit racial division in America were disgusting – as bad, if not worse, than any smears that emerged from the McCain/Palin mudfest. Ah but all of that is over now, insist the Hillary defenders. Isn’t Obama’s decision to elevate his former rival, a clever and magnanimous display of leadership? (Assuming one regards a move from the Senate to the Cabinet as an elevation. Presumably, Hillary does.) And, some have noted, if Hillary possesses a Machiavellian streak, is that really such a bad quality in a Secretary of State who will be sitting across the table from the likes of Vladimir Putin? But most importantly, isn’t it time to let bygones be bygones and find a way for Americans to set aside their differences and to work together?

Well, sure. But my objections to Hillary aren’t rooted in vindictiveness over the kind of campaign she ran. The point is that the kind of campaign she ran revealed some alarming deficiencies in her judgment – a deafness of tone and a lack of emotional intelligence. Her choice of staff, her frequent condescension and her inability to measure the consequences of her words and tactics should give us pause. A Secretary of State must not merely be smart, tough and have an extensive rolodex – she must be adroit at sizing up situations, forging alliances and seizing opportunities to win friends. In short, the post calls for a uniter, not a divider.

None of this has dampened my enthusiasm for Obama and for the most part, his cabinet seems to be shaping up nicely. Other Obama supporters remind me that Obama is a pretty smart fellow and that we should trust his judgment and his leadership which, so far, has been impressive. And I agree that it has. But it’s not lack of trust in Obama’s leadership that motivates me to write on matters such as this. I admire Obama’s qualities of leadership but I’m also aware that the truth of this nation applies to even our strongest and greatest leaders. My support for Barack Obama, as sincere and wholehearted as it is, does not move me to silent obedience - I do not work for him. Beginning on January 20, 2009, he works for me. For all of us.