Spooncat! gigs of the past

Volume one: December 30, 1996.

This was our seventh show ever, on a Monday night at Phil's Pub right near the end of the year. The first set is videotaped; this one remains on audio. I think the most charming moment of the videotaped first set was where we blew the fuses right after we kicked into "How To Run The World" and Omar throws his arms in the air like a heavyweight champion. We just took a break and celebrated, you know?

I have a setlist from set 2 (this was back in the day where we played two long sets during a night at Phil's). The set is titled "Caligula: The Saga Continues," and the order went like this:

1. Sittin' On Top Of The World (Lenny Kravitz cover)
2. How To Run The World--the full song, with no blown fuses...
3. Men From Mars, pts. 1 & 2
4. band intros by Captain Peever (including referring to Omar as the "Jolly Jester")
5. 2 In The Bag/ Split Yo Bag In 2
6. Truck Drives By
7. This Is What I Say
8. Half/ Why Don't We Do It In The Road--this was almost eighteen of Half and whatever else...
9. Tough Mama (Bob Dylan cover)
10. King Rat

So, there's a schedule of nine songs, and it ends up being 88 minutes of music. Seriously. King Rat and Half alone account for thirty-five minutes. Yahmo, who missed this gig, came rumbling in somewhere around 1:30 and did some pretty cool dance moves, as I recall.

This was eight freakin' years ago. And after doing about six Monday nights at Phil's, this was a full house. I remember Bob Keyes was in attendance, and it was the first time he had seen the band. He was the music writer for the Argus Leader at the time. One of my favorite quotes about the band is when Bob ended a short blurb in the paper with "Spooncat! spanks."

Your exciting, non-Hy-Vee Dateline: the last week of the year

You know, lately I haven't been able to hear a damn thing in the Hy-Vee. They've turned down their music, and, well, as a result they've lost just a little bit of business. That's right, a couple of times now I've chosen my neighborhood Sunshine Foods, just so I could check out the tunes!

And so far, Sunshine is an absolute two for two. A few days ago, when I was buying cold medication, I heard "Funky Broadway" by Wilson Pickett. Not the original Dyke & the Blazers version, but still a mid-sixties soul classic. Also, it was plenty loud. I could hear it. That's all I want, Hy-Vee--I want to be able to hear the tunes!

Today, I went to get some light bulbs for the SpoonHouse rehearsal space, and I hit the jackpot. Starting off, right when I walked through the automatic front doors, was "Just Got Lucky" by the JoBoxers, an obscure but infectious 1982 hit. It's one of those timeless-sounding songs, a bit of Motown, a bit of Tom Wolfe, a singer with a scratchy voice. If you haven't heard it before, and it comes on, you'd go "What is this cool song?"

Please, people, feel free to share your grocery dateline updates.

Places with jukeboxes don't count.

Oh, Happy New Year.

so THAT'S what I should be watching for...

I just realized why politics seemed like such a mess to me--I've been watching it wrong! See, the Republicans are the Harlem Globetrotters, the ticket item who can't lose (imagine what it would do TO THE CHILDREN!), the Democrats are the Washington Generals, the necessary foils, and the Judiciary are the lovable referees (who are obvious, and subservient, to the fix).

Well now I can enjoy it more. Say, which one is Curly Neal? So many of them are bald...

Richie's got it.

Richie, one of Jon and Brian's kids at the Children's Home Society, is quite familiar with the song "Dig Bunny." And he asked Brian, "Bwyan..." (Richie has a charming, but very overt, speech impediment) "Bwyan, why does Jewomy say 'mmmmmm' in 'Dig Bunny'?".

Brian replies that maybe he was just singing what he felt (I'm paraphrasing). At any rate, Brian asked Richie why I was singing "mmmmmm."

"Because he has candy."

And Richie is right about that. Twin Bing.

OK, everyone. Obscure candy bar references in the comments!

Intelligent design

The current brouhaha manufactured by the Religious Right's cult of victimhood appears to be manifesting itself in Dover, Pennsylvania. In this sleepy, Republican town the school board has voted 6-3 to mandate "Intelligent Design" be taught side by side with the Theory Of Evolution in the school's science curriculum. I wish I could say that this type of stuff surprises me, but it doesn't. It saddens me, and it worries me, in an abstract way (abstract because I don't live in Dover, and I have no children).

I guess that there are many people that just turn off their brains once their faith is invoked. I don't see the two as mutually exclusive, but I'm not clearly not in synch with the New American Christian (hereon referred to as NAC). Either the NAC doesn't know anything about science, or sees science as an adversary, or something. It's very disturbing. Obviously, in many primitive cultures there is a correlation between not learning science and having all kinds of kooky, unverifiable beliefs about the natural world. In biblical times, the men thought menstruation was contagious. Seriously. Until about 1700, men used leeches to cure diseases. Now, we actually take the heart out of the body and put a different one in there, and the person lives most of the time! And this new innovation isn't due to some thorough new reading of the King James Version. It's due to research, and the principles of science. Science and religion are two different things, just like science and volleyball are two different things. This is the reason that volleyball isn't taught during science class.

Evolution has never been proven. And it has never been disproven. Nothing in science ever is; the universe is an open system, and no matter how weighty and influential the evidence, it must necessarily be considered incomplete. However, the body of evidence tends to back up certain theories, like Gravity, or Genetics, or Evolution, or the Atomic Theory. The evidence is so compelling that we consider certain things to be true, although they can not be proven, like the supposition that the sun will rise tomorrow. And yes, I believe the teaching of the sun's rising in science classrooms is safe. For now. But it's only a theory.

Theories in science are discarded if they don't hold up to rigorous analysis and peer review. People don't believe in the "ether" anymore, because we filled in the rest of the periodic table and realized that stuff was "hydrogen" or "nitrogen." Theories are named as such because they will always be subject to uncertainty or missing knowledge. In mathematics, theories can be proven or disproven, because mathematics is abstract. It's a closed system. It exists according to the parameters that we set to observe it. This type of stuff really should have been covered in everybody's eighth grade science class...

Since Darwin wrote "The Origin Of Species" in 1860 or so, evolution has undergone many changes and clarifications that have made the theory much more robust, as they say. It is the thread in biology which makes sense of both cellular time and geological time. It connects the most primitive bacteria to the most extraordinary spotted fur. Sure, some of Darwin's stuff sounds dated, since IT'S FROM 1860! Slavery was legal in our country in 1860! Then again, it is mostly from the slave-friendly parts of the country that this push to marginalize evolution is coming from. Read into it what you will. But since 1860, punctuated equilibrium, advanced genetics, molecular study, and the completion of the periodic table have clearly enhanced and focused our understanding of evolution. And, we've also come up with refrigerated food, motorcars, the NBA, and rock and roll music since then, too. Times change.

Intelligent Design appears to be a code word for "creationism," a religious belief which I do not understand, but which I do feel should be taught, in church, to those who wish to learn about it. ID backers claim to be interested in the SCIENTIFIC aspect of Intelligent Design, but there's always at least one remark, one sentence in that letter to the editor, which betrays their motives. They want creationism and evolution on equal terms. Because that way, creationism has already won. The U. S. loses, as we already finished behind South Korea (and a bunch of other countries) in science aptitude this year, and we don't have much to gain by ignoring the universally agreed-upon standard for teaching biology.

One of the first things I remember hearing about ID was the case of the human eye. There are so many parts, that are so complex, and it is so intricately designed, it COULDN'T have happened by "accident" or as a simple result of evolution. There had to be an Intelligent Designer (by which they meant the God of Moses). And I was reading about this, and I was squinting, and looking real close at the pages, BECAUSE MY EYES ARE DETERIORATING. Seriously, out of my family's ten eyes, my left one is the best, and it's a bit under 20-20. I would welcome a human eye with some intelligent design, to be frank...

The scientific answer to that, of course, is that natural selection keeps the winners and weeds out the losers. It's hard to type "MacBeth" from random, for instance. But it's not so daunting a task when the right letters are automatically kept for you. Take "to be or not to be;" to type those 13 letters, in that order, by chance, takes (26 to the thirteenth power) trials for success. But if you keep the right letters when they fall into place, it takes an average of 335 trials. The whole play can be done in less than a week. Natural selection is keeping the best options available, generally speaking. The animals we live among are pretty good versions, by now, of those animals. Even if they still stink.

I don't know how science fell into this adversial role with religion, but I don't like it. I just hope science doesn't adopt an adversial role with the Minnesota Vikings. Because the Vikings would find a way to lose that one, too...

It's the end of the year as we know it, and I feel fine.

Sorry about that, everybody. I was quite ill for a few days, by body purging itself of evil demons. And just in time!

First of all, two people have died in the last 72 hours, and the responses to their deaths on the radio have been revealing. Reggie White, a legendary football player, died Sunday morning at the age of 43. And, this morning, author and activist Susan Sontag died at 71. On the radio, White was lionized while Sontag was vilified by a couple of clowning right-wing guest hosts.

Reggie White famously signed with the Green Bay Packers in 1993, the first year of unrestricted free agency in the NFL. It started a steady importation of talent to Green Bay, surrounding young star quarterback Brett Favre with enough help to win the Super Bowl following the 1996 season. White had three sacks in the game. When he retired, he had the most sacks of anybody to ever play pro football, and he had been voted to thirteen consecutive Pro Bowls, a record. He was really good. Certainly he'll be swept into the Hall Of Fame next year, and the Eagles and Packers will retire his #92 jersey. This is big news in Green Bay; they don't retire very many numbers over there.

Anyway, White was also extremely religious. There are good and bad sides to this: he was, by most accounts, very charitable and generous with his time and money, starting after-school programs and such. He was very strong in speaking out against the wave of black church burnings in the mid-to-late 90's. I would add at this point, one does not need to be Christian, or religious in any way, to be charitable and generous with one's time or money, or to speak out against heinous hate crimes.

White's reputation took a mixed turn in the spring of 1998. He gave a talk at the Wisconsin Legislature where he strongly condemned homosexuals and used a flurry of embarrassing ethnic stereotypes (for example, in talking about Latinos, explaining that "they have a gift for family. They can fit 20 or 30 people in a house." Seriously, he said this in front of the state legislature!). White appeared on ABC's 20/20 a month later but refused to tone down his comments, amplifying his bigotry toward homosexuals and his strange back-handed compliments to just about everybody else. I would add at this point, one does not necessarily need to be Christian, or religious in any way, to be a raging bigot.

But White's brand of Christianity sure seemed to help. And I've heard very few people bring it up in the last few days, which is fine. However, when people unequivocally declare, "White was great on and off the field," I have to reply that I think he was better ON the field. I have too many friends that he doesn't consider worthy...

Of course, any and all of Sontag's various statements will be trotted out by the conservative media in the coming week to mute any serious analysis of her work. I found the whole thing to be sort of funny. Funny radio!

Graceland

This guy in the Top Hat last night, he's a fellow musician and a very vivid conversationalist, and he's going on about how much he regrets not getting into Captain Beefheart EARLIER. I mean, he's into him now, of course, but he's never going to get those years back, where he could have been into Captain Beefheart, but for whatever reason, wasn't.

And he says, "You know another album that's fucking good? "Graceland" by Paul Simon! I mean, maybe you give Paul Simon a FIELD GOAL because of his reputation, but I was listening to these songs, are they are REALLY WELL WRITTEN! Today, in my car, I had it going, and usually I skip over "You Can Call Me Al" and the one that Linda Ronstadt sings on, but I listened to those today, too, and they are REALLY WELL WRITTEN!"

He's probably right, you know. I was excited about how animated HE was in telling me about it. And it's the field goal that really got me.

Approval ratings

Here are the approval ratings for presidents right after they've secured a second term:

Clinton 58%
Reagan 61%
Nixon 62%
Johnson 70%
Eisenhower 75%
Truman 69%

Bush's current approval rating: 48%. Maybe it's a plus-or-minus 27% margin of error. That would get him right up there with Eisenhower.

One interesting note, as 2004 winds down, the year in which Ronald Reagan's life ended. He was not as popular as the current mythmakers would have us believe. In fact, although only Clinton and Bush have lower post-re-election ratings, Reagan polled lower than Clinton at the very end of their second terms. It was all parades and sunbeams this last summer, but 1985-88 brought us Iran-Contra, well over two dozen felony convictions of Reagan employees, the stark beginnings of the nearly-trillion-dollar Savings and Loan scandal.

Nixon's second term brought the disgrace of the Watergate revelations. Johnson's first full term brought the rapid escalation of the Vietnam War (sorry, Conflict). Clinton's second term brought us, well, Monica. Of course, Nixon and Johnson left office in disgrace, while Clinton left his second term polling higher than when he started it.

I don't know what all this means, except that the cable news spinmeisters certainly don't have it right. And, if nothing else, it shows that Bush probably has a little less wiggle room than his disgraced predecessors. What's really weird, Bush allegedly got 51% of the vote, but doesn't even garner that level of simple approval for his performance. That's weird.

It's all relative, or relatively unknown

Our President apparently announced in a recent press conference that Donald Rumsfeld was doing a "fine" job as Defense Secretary. Bob Harris, a very funny man with his own blog, asks, in the form of a poll: "If Rumsfeld is doing a "fine" job, what would a "bad" job look like?

1) Trees and birds starting to join al-Qaeda
2) Missile defense tests accidentally blowing up the sun
3) Elements of the periodic table starting to resign in protest
4) Soldiers going into battle completely naked, holding nothing but autopens.

It's a tough choice, but I have to go with 1.

Leave your pick in the comments...

Imagine Howard Cosell saying it, and it's quite compelling

I have been a fan of the Minnesota Vikings football team for many years, as long as I can remember being a fan of anything, I guess. It is for all the usual reasons: geography, Norwegian-ness, Grandma Aggie. In 1998, the Vikings reached an apex of sorts, and for a year they had what was clearly the best team in pro football. They were demolishing teams, winning by wide margins, scoring almost at will, setting all kinds of offensive records. I remember getting very wrapped up in the Vikings, reading all kinds of rah-rah stuff about them, leaning on each week's win like a junkie's fix. Then, against Atlanta in the NFC Championship Game, the game that decides which team goes to the Super Bowl, they lost. Somehow they lost.

Over time, I've given up much of my love for football. I still enjoy the game, sure, but I simply don't find it as compelling as baseball, and I don't find it as elegant or pure as basketball. It's an odd, continually modernized sport, like a big video game that combines the WWF and the board game Stratego. In one rare moment where I agreed with him, columnist George Will described football as "combining the worst elements of American society: violence and committee meetings."

I still watch the Vikings whenever I can. This year, though, I've had more fun dispassionately analyzing the team's strengths and woes. It's the same pattern as when I watch cable news: the fun is in picking them apart and being a harmless critic. So, allow me to pick apart the 2004 Minnesota Vikings. For those that detest football, you'll want to skip the rest of this post, or at least skim over it to catch the innovative analogies.

The Vikings were heralded, as the season began, as a legitimate title contender in the NFC. This is the third year of coach Mike Tice's regime, and the team very publicly bragged up its offseason dealing, centered around the big-money signing of cornerback Antoine Winfield. The 2003 draft turned out very well, by any measure, and there was much excitement about the 2004 draft picks. The assumption was, this staff knows how to draft, this staff has a plan to put together a terrific team, and this team is doing it all while skillfully managing the league's salary-cap rules for player salaries.

In my view, the last part is very true: the Vikings have become very good at managing the salary cap. The cap is one of those economic mirages, much like household debt or tax shelters. Teams can't spend more than a certain amount every year, under the terms of the league's collective bargaining agreement. The amount is largely derived from the amount of the NFL's television contract, in which there are no local networks for football. Everything is national (a unique thing in pro sports), and all the money is shared equally among the teams, making them all, well, rich. Very rich. The league's merchandising deals are also similarly shared, much to the disgust of uber-capitalists like Jerry Jones (Cowboys owner) or car salesman Red McCombs (who owns the Vikings), but these egalitarian measures are precisely the reason the league is so financially sound. The NFL is a model among professional leagues; consumers can't get enough of the stuff on TV, most of the teams enter each season realistically believing they can win a title, and teams have come out of nowhere to win titles in the past few years. As opposed to baseball, where the Yankees take in about $150 million more in TV and radio contracts each year than the Minnesota Twins (and spend accordingly), the NFL splits all that money equally, right down the middle, among all the teams.

Vikings Red McCombs has loudly lobbied for a new stadium for years. He has owned the Vikings since 1998, and his modus operandi as a sports team owner is to buy low and sell high, which corresponds nicely to his legendary car-salesman reputation. Red has found that it's harder to fool an entire state into buying a lemon, and it's led to an interesting pas-de-deux now where the Minnesota State Legislature and team officials go back and forth about the other's responsibilities. Basically, Minnesota voters and legislators have been exceedingly smart in voting down publicly-funded stadium measures. These deals are usually boondoggles foisted on local taxpayers, and with regressive tax policies starving local governments more than ever, it is hard to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a stadium where a billionaire will reap all of the profits. I know, I know, you're probably thinking: what about if the public funds part of the stadium, and then makes part of the money? But that's what we currently have, in the Metrodome. And owners around the league complain about how poor a stadium it is, and how poor a stadium deal it is for the Vikings, since the public actually does get back some of its investment under the terms of the lease.

Now, the Metrodome has the Vikings signed up through 2011. After that, it's anybody's guess where the Vikings might go or what they might build. Red will probably have sold the team: after the next round of TV talks, the owners will be sitting on a fabulous return on their investment. McCombs is 76, and it's hard to ignore that much profit. McCombs knows that the Vikings are much more likely to build a stadium with a local owner (like Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, who is the likely suitor), and McCombs knows that his threats to move the team are so much bluster: the NFL really needs the Vikings in Minnesota, because Minnesota is one of the highest-rated TV markets in the country, and there isn't a metropolitan area on earth, including Los Angeles, that can make up for the image fallout. The league's recent franchise moves have a very mixed record: the Cardinals moved from St. Louis to Arizona. The Cardinals were terrible in St. Louis, and they're even more terrible in Phoenix. More fans from the opposing team go to the games in Phoenix, which hasn't even bothered to build the team a stadium yet. The Los Angeles Rams then moved to St. Louis, leaving the NFL without a team in L. A., the country's second-largest city. But no one goes to football games in L. A., and the Raiders continued the trend by moving from L. A. back to their original home in Oakland.

There are two examples which are relevant to the Vikings' situation: the Colts and the Browns. The Colts left Baltimore in the middle of the night (seriously) in the 1982, and set up shop in Indianapolis, building a new facility called the RCA Dome. Dome teams don't do very well in football, because it's rather fake, and so the Colts have been an erratic team which hasn't been a real threat to win a championship, despite some real star power like running back Eric Dickerson in the 1980's and quarterback Peyton Manning now. The Colts are currently very good, but their legacy is in Baltimore, playing outside, where they won numerous titles in the 50's, 60's and 70's, and where they spawned legends like Don Shula and Johnny Unitas. Sure enough, the NFL ended up sticking a team in Baltimore (more on that in the next paragraph), and that team, the Ravens, won a title in 2001, while the Colts still haven't won in their new home.

The Ravens became a team in Baltimore by leaving Cleveland in a very bitter and acrimonious pulling of strings. The fans in Cleveland were disgusted by owner Art Modell's bad-faith negotiating, and the NFL quickly realized by rectifying the situation in Baltimore they had created an even bigger problem in Cleveland. The Browns had dominated the NFL once they moved to the league from the rival AAFL in the 1950's, and they had one of the most passionate fan bases in sports. So, the NFL rewarded them with an expansion franchise, named the Browns, in 1999. They've been terrible ever since.

If the Vikings were to actually move, the NFL would have a problem on its hands that would easily rival the Cleveland mess, and it would probably be much worse. Leagues have made a habit of moving out of Minnesota (or threatening to), and then cleaning up the mess later with an expansion team. The Lakers left Minneapolis after winning several NBA titles, relocating to the sunnier climes of Los Angeles. The Lakers have since blossomed into the NBA's premier franchise, and the league eventually threw Minnesota a bone in the form of the expansion Timberwolves. After a decade of grave futility, the Wolves have built around a remarkable player that they drafted out of high school, and they may be the strongest team in the NBA. The North Stars of hockey left for Dallas, renaming themselves the Stars, and after people realized that Texans don't care much for hockey (but Minnesotans still do), the NHL expanded back into Minnesota with the Wild. The NHL might never play again, but I still use the example. If the Vikings left, the team would probably go to L. A., and they would be renamed, and there would be a huge negative fallout, and the loss of the Vikings-Packers rivalry, which gets the best TV ratings in the country for NFL matchups. Really, it does, every year. That's why every Vikings-Packers game is a nationwide telecast, either a game of the week on Fox, or a prime time special (like this coming Friday's Christmas Eve oddity). The NFL would waste little time in relocating a team to Minnesota, with, preferably, an outdoor stadium.

So, Red McCombs is from Texas, and he bought the Vikings in order to make money. Lots of it. And the league is flush with cash. The teams all have a bunch of money to spend on coaches and players, and in addition to a salary cap ceiling, there is a salary cap floor: in the name of competition, each team is required to spend a certain minimum amount on players. This is designed to increase the competitiveness of all the teams from year to year, and you don't have situations like those that occur in baseball, where smaller markets remain ever the paupers, selling off their big stars and pocketing the revenue sharing money while the team loses many more games than it wins each year. There are no Expos, or Royals, or even Twins in football, not in financial terms. Everybody can compete. There is no David-vs.-Goliath component. The only real way a team can get the shaft is if the owner is a bigger cheapskate than most owners.

Red McCombs is that cheapskate. For all the talk about smart cap management and making a serious run for the NFL title, the sad, plain fact is this: had the Vikings NOT signed cornerback Antoine Winfield to a big-money free agent deal, they would have been in violation of league rules for not spending the MINIMUM required to field a competitive team. The Vikings have taken to restructuring their two big contracts (Moss and Culpepper) to cover their lack of spending in other areas. This results in a very healthy financial picture, and lots of "cap room" every offseason. The fact that Moss and Culpepper are on the team means that even a drooling idiot could coach the team to a respectable record, and the team's loyal fan base isn't going to revolt anytime soon. So, Red has it good, because he pockets tens of millions of dollars each year that he ought to be spending on players. Patriots owner Bob Kraft spends the money on players, which tends to help the Patriots when they have to play defense, for instance, or if someone gets injured. And Kraft even spent his own money to build a stadium!! The old-fashioned way! He paid for it, he makes the profits! But, then again, Kraft is a blue-state owner in a blue-state. The Vikings' red-state owner clearly has a philosophy at odds with Minnesota's blue-collar progressivism. And the Vikings fans are being sold a false bill of goods.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing about coach Mike Tice and some of his decisions. Well, Mike Tice is only the coach because Red McCombs is a cheapskate. Red is looking to maximize profits, NOT performance. The two are rarely maximized concurrently, especially in a league where the wages are unionized, like football, or making cars. Japan has figured this out, as has Germany, as has the Saturn corporation. Even the Ford Motor Company is realizing this (after all, they have profited handsomely in fielding a perpetually shitty team in the Detroit Lions). Anyway, Tice was hired because he was the cheapest option, anywhere. He makes less money than any other NFL coach, and his club option for next year is similarly miserish. So Red McCombs would need a real change of heart, or a real show of public dissatisfaction, to replace his cheap coach. The other reason Tice was retained: he was offensive line coach when Korey Stringer died before the 2001 season, ostensibly from complications resulting from heatstroke. The Vikings were staring at huge potential liabilities for that death, as well as a string of damaging court procedures, and by retaining Tice, they helped cover their ass.

Well, you get what you pay for. Tice is probably not the worst coach in the league, but he's not going to be confused with one of the best. He appears genuinely confused that the other team took all week to prepare a game plan to exploit the Vikings' weaknesses. His teams often appear overmatched, over and over, in ways that could be addressed, with a little more money spent on players, and a little more coaching experience and acumen. They need a defense, badly, since good teams find little resistance from the Vikings' defense. The Falcons needed a defense, too, and they hired a defensive coach, and they spent a little money on defensive talent, and they already have a defense, the VERY NEXT YEAR. The Vikings have needed a defense for seven or eight years, ever since former coach Dennis Green's talented stable of coaches left for promotions elsewhere. Consider that Green's staff in 1994 included Tony Dungy (now Indianapolis head coach) as defensive coordinator, Monte Kiffin (the architect of Tampa Bay's Super Bowl champion defense) as inside linebackers coach, Brian Billick (Baltimore Ravens head coach and 2001 Super Bowl winner) as an offensive assistant, Tom Moore (now Peyton Manning's mentor and coordinator in Indy) as an offensive coach, and Tyrone Willingham (new head coach at the University of Washington) as an offensive coach. The Vikings have much more talent than they had in 1994, but they have much less coaching talent. You get what you pay for.

More later. Perhaps the Vikings will play well against Detroit today and render much of my musing irrelevant. Perhaps not.

Dmusic!

We're working on a set of five EPs, all of which should be wrapped up in 2005. As we set out to create a batch of new tunes for our next recording, we've decided to do something with the gaudy abundance of stuff we started on last year. The EP set is tentatively titled "Spine 5" and will feature alternate mixes and remixes of some Tao Babies stuff, some hot horn tracks (really!), and some just delightfully strange material.

Captain has been working on some of the initial mixing work for some of this stuff, and he's posted a couple things on Dmusic. Go.

Go! Hurry scurry!

Harry Carey.

If you're going to be a reckless consumer, well...

If you'd like to purchase Tao Babies at a Sioux Falls store, be sure to visit Ernie November's (the 41st Street branch is the store that carries new stuff), Last Stop CD Shop, Zandbroz Variety, or Sioux Falls Music. You can also order stuff directly from the band by sending us a check (625 S. Phillips #7, 57014). Make sure you tell us what you want. We can be poor at guessing. Listen, all these stores are run locally by cool people, so we're happy to steer business their way.

The new website will be ready once we're good and ready. Then you'll be able to order stuff from there, if you're into that sort of thing.

In Minneapolis, Tao Babies can be found at the Electric Fetus.

Another local CD that would be well worth your purchase this Christmas is the new Violet CD, "All Things Possible." It's a terrific disc, and it features Brother Jon on keyboards.

The fallacies must be some sort of inside joke, I guess...

I was in Des Moines Wednesday, playing a show. In between set-up and performance, we had a nice chunk of a couple hours that we spent at the Valley West Inn. I decided to watch the Fox News prime-time lineup, something I almost never do, because I don't have cable, and because I treasure the things I have learned. You might think I'm being hyperbolic, but more and more studies are showing that people who rely on certain outlets for the entirety of their news exposure actually end up knowing LESS about the world, the more they watch. Seriously. It appears that, in its current form, Fox News can actually make you dumber.

But I watched. I saw the end of "The O'Reilly Factor," where Bill and a guest were discussing immigration, which actually can be quite a cogent issue. Also, reasonable debate on the issue is permitted in the media, unlike most important issues, so that was fine and good, I guess. I was very creeped out by Bill's strange, smarmy mugging of the camera for his minute-long farewell. Evidently he does this at the end of each show. I don't know how anybody can stand it. But compared to what followed, Bill once again came off as reasonable and informed, even balanced, in that Fox-News-Universe sort of way.

Next up was "Hannity And Colmes," live from Cupertino, California. Cupertino is the home of the school district that is embroiled in controversy over religious content in school curriculum. Reactionaries have been loudly claiming that the school district there has been "banning" the Declaration of Independence. It was a story that gained traction, not coincidentally, right before the long Thanksgiving holiday. The spinners were able to put out a version of events that millions would discuss over Thanksgiving dinner and family get-togethers. By the time Monday rolled around, real reporting on the issue would inevitably be split between 1) describing what actually happened, and 2) reporting and commenting on the rabid opinions that fomented over the holiday weekend. This is exactly what happened, but much more TV and radio time has been spent on 2) rather than 1), and conservative commentators were framing the issue in the larger context of an assumed left-vs.-right, God-vs.-heathen, traditionalist-vs.-radicalist conflict. It's ridiculous. Apparently the problem of liberals attempting to eliminate God is so pervasive that conservatives need to invent stories in suburban California to prop up their claims.

Sean Hannity went on an extended soliloquy about religious tolerance as the show opened. "Hannity And Colmes" is purported to be a balanced debate show, but it's anything but. Hannity's name appears first, his face appears most in all the promos, he talks much more than Colmes (this has been exhaustively documented). The guests skew heavily and fawningly to the right and the hard-right. Alan Colmes appears to be an affable centrist, and it has apparently never occurred to him to argue or defend liberal positions on the minimum wage, health care, regulatory systems, the environment, or worker's rights. So, either he's not a liberal, or he has impressive, intentional blind spots. I suspect it's the latter. Anyway, this is a long way of saying OF COURSE Hannity started the show with an extended, heartfelt speech about our nation's ideals and the need, nay the MORAL DUTY, for Americans to express religious tolerance.

What happened throughout the rest of the show, of course, is Hannity battered two rather homely California atheists with a remarkable stream of non-sequiturs and a Christmas bag full of fallacies. He threw in a bunch of personal cheap shots to boot. And when he wasn't, he relied on Oliver North (a criminal whom the Right has found the heart to forgive...) to do the cheap shots. It was unruly and truly unbelieveable. It also makes for great TV, in the Springer sense of great TV. But it's lousy debate. And the audience was reduced to cheering every North or Hannity salvo, while booing the atheists, even when they'd quote the Consitution of the United States ACCURATELY. It was quite a performance.

The MO is this: Hannity brings on a hapless atheist who was under the impression that this was a debate show, and that they would be able to articulate their beliefs on the issue, specifically as it relates to the context in which founding documents are taught to our public school children. Then Hannity quotes half a John Adams quote, out of context, to grateful applause from the adoring audience. The atheist corrects him, and correctly points out that most of the pivotal Founding Fathers, indeed most of the intelligentsia of Revolutionary America, were DEIST, not CHRISTIAN. The British had instituted Anglican Christianity as a state religion in England, and these students of The Enlightenment were avowedly non-Christian. But the vast majority of them were religious. This distinction isn't hard to grasp if you know anything about DEISM or CHRISTIANITY, or if you've read significant portions of the letters and works of Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Franklin, Paine, and so on. George Washington, of the founders, was the most famously Christian, and even he went out of his way not to bring it up. He actually campaigned against his Christianity in 1792. It wasn't risky, as he was assured re-election for as long as he wanted to be President; but he did it nonetheless.

Deism is the belief in a dispassionate God, a Prime Mover who, once creating the universe and the elements necessary for life, got out of the way. Deists deny the centralized paternalistic authority of God in the Christian sense. They deny the fall of man as a precursor for being eligible for blessings or grace. They don't deny the life of Jesus, but they do deny that Jesus, or anyone else, is the only way to find salvation. The founders, these Deists, placed God on a few things relating to the national discourse: a reference to Nature's God, and to the Creator (both very purposefully vague) in the Introduction of the Declaration of Independence. No reference to any God whatsoever in the Constitution. "In God We Trust" was put on some things, as was "Novo Ordo Seclorum" and "E Pluribus Unum." The Congress does have chaplains (which were supported in the name of religious freedom), but the first Congressmen also struck down several other religious references and customs. The very first act of the United States Congress, in its history, was to strike down a religious provision. It doesn't say anything about separation of Church and State in the Constitution, and it also doesn't say anything about God. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote about the issue extensively in other essays and correspondences, and neither one of them was any more Christian than Buddha or Osama bin Laden.

The Pledge of Allegiance has come under scrutiny lately because of its "under God" pledge, the only two words that were not part of the original Pledge. They were added during the Eisenhower Administration, as Communism was loudly atheistic and conservatives were lobbying, also very loudly, for America to distance herself from that ideology, including its atheism. The intent doesn't seem malicious, and the 1950's conservative was a much different animal from today's movement conservative (for one thing, their policy stands were actually fiscally conservative!). However, the "under God" addition is part of the same anti-Communist fervor that blacklisted many famous artists, musicians, and actors, spawned the ignomy of the McCarthy witch-hunts, and started J. Edgar Hoover's famous domestic abuses of power and privacy. The event that shook America back into shape was not religious tolerance, or sober reflection, or a divine intervention of some kind; it was Sputnik. The Soviets beat us to space, and God appeared to have nothing to do with it. The U. S. promptly ramped up science funding and education, and after a good hard decade of really emphasizing the Scientific Method, we actually led the world in advancing most scientific fields. Of course, we chose not to replace the words in the Pledge with "under Newton" in 1969.

The toxic religiosity in public life had made an earlier foray into twentieth-century politics: in the complex 1910's and 1920's, a Revival spirit cropped up all over the country. Many of the current Pentecostal strains find their seeds in the earlier 20th century, when a strange nonpartisan brew swept through America. This Revival gave us Prohibition and the immense increase in the Ku Klux Klan's influence, both very bad experiments. Lynchings reached an all-time high during this righteous period. However, the religiosity also helped lend a righteous anti-big-business crusade that was part of an overall Progressive politics of the time. Most of the middle-class improvements got their start in this period: forty-hour work week, regulatory standards, the establishment of workers' rights, the minimum wage. So, this fever of the 1910's and 1920's was a mixed bag. It resulted in racism and failed prudish legislation, and it also helped push the second great Middle Class wave in America into prominence. The era generally ended when the Depression hit and people again realized that survival trumped moralizing on their list of concerns.

The third wave is here now, I think, and it's been a long time in the making. This time, it appears to me to be a scary and potent mix of partisan ideology and a perverted form of evangelical Christianity. The intolerance is stunning. But the overall influence remains to be seen. Most practicing Christians, and even a decent chunk of biblical literalists, are not enamored of the Religious Right's political crusading. The White House encouraged the turning out of the RR voters, and the Republicans are very savvy about corraling and mining those votes, particularly through the placement of wedge issues in swing states (abortion funding, gay-marriage, etc.). But, as the Republican leadership surveys the post-election landscape, it appears very leery to get too cozy with the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons of the country. Most likely, this is shrewd politicking; it doesn't appear that the current brand of Pentecostalist is going to break for the Democrats, or any third party, anytime soon. It's entirely possible, and even LIKELY at some point in the future, but not 2006 and 2008.

But today's mix of religion and politics seems very unhealthy to me. I was raised as a Christian, and although I am no longer Christian, I can honestly say I read more and think more about religion and spirituality now than when I was in the comfortable habit of reciting a creed every Sunday. And today's Religious Right movement doesn't seem particularly Christian to me. It appears to be very much an Old Testament Stallone, more Rambo than Copland. Know what I mean? Jesus expresses physical rage at only one group in the gospels: moneychangers. Bankers. Jesus felt it was immoral to charge interest. The Reformation was born precisely when Martin Luther had his own "moneychanger" moment. I suspect it might be too much to ask that the current Religious Right start crusading on the "eye of a needle" business.

Similarly, Jesus appeared to embody nonviolence. At least, he did to the famous pracititioners of nonviolence, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Jesus hung out with the fringes of society, the homeless, the prostitutes, the thieves, the disabled, the mentally unfit. That's who he hung out with. Cynics might charge that Jesus struck Jewish society as a lunatic back then, so the only people that he COULD hang out with were the fringes. That may be true, but nevertheless, it's undeniable that Jesus preached inclusion to those disenfranchised members of society. You know, the ones who wait in line for ten hours to vote Democratic, and get hassled by and off-duty cop on their way into the polling station.

I'm being smarmy here, but it seems like today's movement conservativism is fueled by a mutant form of Christianity. That's what it seems like to me. Christianity has its merits and drawbacks, like any belief system, and the views of Christians are protected and treasured here in America, land of religious freedom. I find that I heartily endorse some of the stories and lessons in the Gospels, and I discard a bunch of others. It's led me to part ways with the Christian church, and I couldn't imagine being more comfortable with that decision. I also can't remember trying to talk anybody out of Christianity; that type of conversion just doesn't interest me. It occurs to me that I don't know a whole lot about many of my friend's religious beliefs, and it doesn't bother me. It's their thing, not mine. My current worry is that there is a big segment of privileged people playing the victim, claiming persecution where none exists, pissed off not because they're being marginalized, but because the truly marginalized haven't been Born Again. They are currently claiming that a Godly man inhabits the White House, and they are claiming that liberals are trying to take away Christmas. They are claiming that a school in Cupertino is taking the Declaration of Independence away from kids. They are welcome to those views, in the name of religious freedom. The fact that an audience full of them booed an atheist off the stage the other night leads me to believe that religious freedom is not what they're after.


P. S. The school district in Cupertino has not banned the Declaration from the curriculum, it turns out. Instead, it appears they banned a packet of supplemental materials which took ONLY the quotes and references to God by various founders, and invited kids to "make up their own mind." They were watching the teacher closely because he had come under increasing scrutiny due to his habit of engaging students in long religious discussions (some would call them sermons) at the slightest whim. He's a fifth-grade teacher. It appears the district was acting responsibly. I don't have all the facts on this; but part of the problem is, I watched on hour on Fox News about this, so you can understand how I may have gotten a slow start on the facts...

Tao Babies in stores...

By Thursday afternoon, Tao Babies will be on the shelves at Zandbroz, Last Stop CD Shop, Ernie November's, and possibly Barnes & Nobles. I'm out of town today doing a show; if you require a quicker fix, the disc is at Sioux Falls Music.

Happy listening.

You're damn right, Hy-Vee.

Your Thursday morning Hy-Vee Dateline (the last morning of the dark, forbidding, pre-Tao-Babies era):

"Take It Easy" by the Eagles, and "Take The Long Way Home" by Supertramp.

It looks like someone's trying to tell everybody to relax, and it's welcome news to me. That's sort of what our little record album is about, too.

We'll see you tonight. Don't be afraid to leave early and take the long way. And don't be afraid to come celebrate with us afterward (details on that must be obtained in person, I'm afraid...)

Oh, and I don't think I said "damn" or "cool" on KRRO this morning. I did say "inappropriate" in describing the size and scope of the drum riser and used the phrase "Dakota Territory," in a mock drawl. Then again, I wasn't getting paid... Cade said the album "tripped him out." I think that's a good thing. And I must say, "Dig Bunny" is pretty KRRO-worthy, in my alternate universe.

KRRO

I'll be plugging the concert and the CD tomorrow on KRRO, 103.7, somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30, with Cade and Jen X. Set your phasers on "stun."