Cipherdom (deprecated)

My Peops

The White Sox are one key to understanding that massive chip on Vernam's shoulder. With White Sox Interactive, he may be home at last . . . Tonight will be little Vernam Jr.'s sixth Sox game, and he hasn't seen them win yet. The kid is on his way to a lifelong persecution complex.

Alles Klar

Need any more evidence that Clear Channel is the anti-Christ? Look no further. "We want to be artist-friendly," says the company's VP for live recording. I'm sure the new PBS Frontline episode called "The Way the Music Died" will unleash similarly delicious ironies.

Reasons to be Fearful?

Now, far be it from me to claim our Attorney General is playing politics with terror, but some reporters are hinting at it. Certainly the timing of his "announcement" regarding an imminent Al Qaeda threat seems likely to distract people from the unremittingly bad news out of Iraq. Polls show that Bush's handling of terror is about the only aspect of his administration that meets with public approval these days. But only a real cynic would conclude that Ashcroft and FBI head Mueller trotted out their stale wanted posters to give their boss a bump in the polls.

I can't help wondering, though, why Tom Ridge didn't join the briefing. In separate interviews, he went out of his way to state that there is no specific new intelligence, and that the levels of "chatter" aren't very different from what they've seen since 9/11. Ashcroft disputed that there's a disconnect between his Justice department and Ridge's Homeland Security, which pointedly did not raise its terror-threat level today. It's still yellow for "Elevated." Hmmm . . .

The wanted posters mainly dealt with fugitives who've been sought for questioning over more than a year. One, a female former MIT and Brandeis student named Aafia Siddiqui, was rumored in 2003 to be held by Pakistani and FBI interrogators. There's been no sign of her or her children since, though the reported arrest seems not to have happened after all. She is allegedly an Al Qaeda "fixer" who passes money to operatives and handles logistics. Like many of us, she left a trail of UseNet posts, though nothing that would betray an intent to help kill innocent people. She did, however, suggest that people avoid seeing Nirvana in concert (see post "Re: WOMEN AVAILABLE FOR MARRIAGE"). Everyone's a critic, as the saying goes.

Slither

The Darkness has a new can't-miss video. These guys are a hoot, but has a consensus been reached as to whether it's a knowing homage or unwitting parody? God love 'em, but I miss the spaceship.

Memphis Cat

God, am I sick of seeing that Alfred E. Neuman picture each time I scroll down to click on the entries in my Links section. Speaking of which, Memphis Cat is streaming an entire album by the remarkable Waifs, available for a limited time only.

The Cat has been in a slight slump, IMO, but now has gone political for the first time, to my knowledge. He has an audio version of Sy Hersh's recent New Yorker article, "The Grey Zone," about Rumsfeld's alleged recent perjury before Senate and House committees. If the disembodied, automated voice is too distracting, see the text version.

Reasons to Be Cheerful

Paradoxically, this year the best thing that could happen to liberals -- and to the country -- may be for hardcore conservatives to act on their convictions and withhold support for Bush. A column by right-wing wack job Robert Novak neatly encapsulates why I'm hopeful we're in the waning months of the Bush dynasty's current incarnation:

1. Fiscal conservatives know in their hearts that Bush is the worst thing to come along since LBJ regarding government growth.

2. The Iraq adventure is bad for business. Overtly, the war got sold as a hunt for WMD. More quietly, it was pitched to the corporate sector as a bonanza for wildcat investors. So far only Halliburton seems to have bought the pitch. The other covert intent behind the war was to make the Middle East safer for Israel, a cause that the old-line conservatives don't care about on a good day, much less while Sharon is lobbing tank shells that kill scores of unarmed civilians in Gaza.

3. The red meat Bush feeds so successfully to evangelical Christians -- a ban on partial-birth abortion, an imaginary constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages -- don't inspire many formerly mainstream conservatives. These are intelligent people who've seen their party (and ideals, such as they are) hijacked by professional politicians and religious zealots. They got their tax cuts last year, and they know more cuts are not only unlikely but reckless. So what does that leave them to rally 'round in support of Bush? Only patriotic fervor during wartime, which gets trumped by #2 above.

Iraqometer

I'm all out of words -- just temporarily, of course -- to express anger and frustration over Bush's foreign escapades, so see this handy Iraqometer instead. Thanks to Mark-and-Marjorie's exemplary blog for the link.

When I first saw the Iraqometer there about a year ago, back during the "Mission Accomplished" days, my reaction was, "Gee, wish I'd seen it sooner." Silly me.

What, me lucky?

I guess we've all been let down by a relationship that seems, at least for a moment, not to have been worth the trouble. In some cases, time passes and we realize they were worth it. Others . . .

IDIOT WIND, by Bob Dylan. Album: Blood on the Tracks

Someone's got it in for me,
they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out,
but when they will I can only guess.

Self-explanatory. Presumably autobiographical paranoia.

They say I shot a man named Gray
and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks
and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it if I'm lucky.

Adopts a character to cover his tracks after the first two lines' candid admission that It Sucks Being a Rock Star. Dylan's recent albums are full of comic one-liners like this.

People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts.
Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at,
I couldn't believe after all these years, you didn't know me
better than that, sweet lady.

Wow. The _most_ devastating explanation of why it really does suck being a rock star. Fans stalk you, stammer when they meet you, project their dreams and frustrations on you, and maybe even sort through your trash. Even loved ones get caught up in it. But his understatement is beautiful: "People can't remember how to act." That lines pops into my head as much as any he's written, which is saying a lot.

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

If that's really directed at his loved one, it would take a better song than "Sara" (off Desire, the fwp to BOTT) to make it up to her.

I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's like.
There's a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door,
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done,
in the final end he won the war
After losin' every battle.

Casually brilliant imagery, equal parts self-pitying, messianic and apocalyptic.

I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars.

Some people connected this to Roger McGuinn, who wrote a song called "Chestnut Mare." Doesn't make sense to me, but who knows? Those sound to me like the only two throw-away lines in the song.

You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies.
One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes,
Blood on your saddle.

I don't know if Dylan ever copped to it, but some of his biggest putdowns seem directed at himself, in a veiled way. Costello has certainly admitted doing it -- quite a useful device. "You hurt the ones that I love best" sounds confessional to me. Maybe his evil twin will be in the ditch w/ flies. Eewww.

Idiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb,
Blowing through the curtains in your room.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

Did he really rhyme "teeth" and "breathe" again? Who cares -- he's rolling now.

It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart

The sneer on "apa-rrrrt" is priceless.

You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart.

OK, make that three throw-aways.

Now everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped,
What's good is bad, what's bad is good,you'll find out when you reach the top
You're on the bottom.

Did I mention that it sucks to be a rock star?

I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes don't look into mine.
The priest wore black on the seventh day
and sat stone-faced while the building burned.
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees,
while the springtime turned
Slowly into autumn.

Rock n Roll isn't supposed to be poetry, but these lines come pretty close. Powerful images that probably aren't to be taken very literally. Religious overtones mixed with outlaw sentiments: "Waited for you on the running boards," as in making a getaway.

Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

References to Woody Guthrie's "Grand Coulee Dam" and Charlie Poole's "White House Blues" (inspired by the McKinley assassination - - "from Buffalo to Washington"). The political allusion works for me but could seem out of place in such a personal song. By the third time, I'm guessing the teeth/breathe thing didn't bother him.

I can't feel you anymore, I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishin' I was somebody else instead.

Back to the failed relationship. An admission of inadequacy, shame and/or guilt.

Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy,
I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
And all your ragin' glory.

The admiration and love that he pours into that last line redeems all the vituperation that surrounds it.

I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I'm finally free,
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.

More doppelganger stuff, IMO. His evil twin won't come between him and his loved one anymore, though it may be too late to make a difference.

You'll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,
And I'll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,
And it makes me feel so sorry.

These lines and the way he sings "raging glory" elevate the song way above its closest antecedent, which I'd say is "Positively 4th Street." P4S is a terrific rant, but it doesn't have any of this song's empathy or remorse.

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,
Blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We're idiots, babe.
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

The change in pronouns from "you" to "we" is significant. Overall, I think the chorus doesn't quite do justice to the verses. Dylan's singing is some of his best, and that performance really carries the song.

This ain't Little House on the Prairie

Each new Sunday-night drama on HBO is inevitably measured against the Sopranos. Don't believe the person who says any of them compare favorably to it. But damned if some of 'em haven't come close. Where most fall short is in humor; the Sopranos is not only brilliant dramatically, it's the funniest show on tv. The latest series, Deadwood, comes close in terms of comedy, especially scenes with Ian McShane as heartless pimp/murderer/entrepreneur Al Swearingen and the brilliant William Sanderson as twitchy hotel owner E.B. Farnum. The Wire is just as compelling and has the most realistic characters, but it seldom has laugh-out-loud moments. Six Feet Under is darkly funny, though it strains for humor at times and the characters are often cartoonish.

But all these shows are excellent, and the one thing they seem to have in common is that their creators and writers are just left alone to do their jobs. I wonder if that would ever catch on in the film industry, which spends billions annually to produce fewer hours of art than David Chase does all by himself. Nah!

Herewith, Vernam's ranking:

1. The Sopranos. So great, it makes me wish I'd watched all of Berlin Alexanderplatz, so I could say, "The Sopranos is better even than Berlin Alexanderplatz." Ditto for reading "Remembrance of Things Past" and all the other high-brow reference points cited by critics who strain for superlatives to describe creator Chase's epic. His musical taste is also impeccable, and the narrative has a drive that none of these other shows can really match.

2. Deadwood. Sunk its hooks in deep from the first episode with made-for-HBO setting of lawlessness, sex and vulgarity. Serendipitous historical verisimilitude: Wild Bill Hickok's actual death let them kill off the cast's one weak link, Keith Carradine, who seemed to be doing an impression of Sam Elliott that's even more stiff than the original. Watch for Robin Weigert as Calamity Jane to get a lot of acclaim, but there are many others her equal in this cast. Obligatory pretty boy: Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock.

3. The Wire. Deep, intersecting story lines that put off some viewers; can take a few episodes to sink in. First season emphasized drug-dealing Baltimore street gangs and the detectives who shut them down, temporarily. Second season kept those same characters and storylines, while adding a new one about corrupt longshoremen. Very moving stuff about stevedores clinging to a way of life whose time has gone. Bonus points for George Pelecanos connection (writer and story editor) and admirable diversity of casting. Obligatory pretty boy: Dominic West as Jimmy McNulty.

4. Six Feet Under. Sophomore jinx after successful first season that prompted over-enthusiastic "Better than Sopranos" critical hype. Writing exhibits a lack of strategic thinking; characters and plots meander in an unsatisfying way. Funeral home humor got real tired, real fast.

5. Carnivale. Seemed like the weakest of the lot until topsy-turvy end of first season that shrewdly avoided tying together loose ends of parallel plots -- carnies wrapped up in weird, Lynchian supernatural melodramas and religious charlatans with apocalyptic intentions -- while setting stage for presumed Season 2 confrontation of carnival misfits and fundamentalist zealots. What could be better?! Lots of seemingly arbitrary weirdness turned out to have an actual point, or at least might have a point in the upcoming second season. Owes much to seldom-seen noir classic "Nightmare Alley." Obligatory Pretty Boy: Nick Stahl as Ben Hawkins.