Guest Cartoon: The Highwayman Returns!: "The Enemy Of The Good"

 

“We can’t run on progressive policies 

and not govern on them.”

<U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), 

Twitter statement>

"The angrier they get, the more obvious it seems that their desire for a reconciliation bill is nil. This substantiates the strategy of compelling them to get to yes."

<Fahiz Shakir, former adviser
to Bernie Sanders, responding
to Senator Kyrsten Sinema's
angry response to progressive revolt>

“We made all these promises to voters across the country
that we were going to deliver on this agenda,
it’s not some crazy left-wing wish list.

"I feel like we in the Democratic Party
have lost so many voters,
because they don’t see us fighting
for the things that might be
a little bit harder
to get across the finish line.”"

<U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal,
Congressional Progressive Caucus Leader,
speaking to reporters last Friday>

“It’s a huge departure from business as usual.
Progressives have a veto over
what Democrats pass in the House.

"It’s the beginning of an era
of progressive governance
that will shift power to working people.”

“They didn’t have any following,” Pelosi told 
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
“They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.” Harsh, but fair—their legislative threats went nowhere.”

<Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House,
reflecting on "the before times">

“Many people are misinformed. 
Or maybe they misunderstood the progressive movement.

"The thing about the progressive movement is
we’re challenging how Washington historically has worked. We’re pushing back and saying ‘hell no.'”

<U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY),
addressing the implications
of last week's progressive revolt>

“For one year?” the New York progressive 
asked rhetorically. 

“Instead of them asking everyone
to cater to themselves,
why don't we come to this process
as equal partners?” she said.

<U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY),
responding to reporters' queries
on her feelings of Sen. Joe Manchin's
$1.5 trillion "counteroffer">

“If progressives are treated as adversaries, 
all you’re left with 
is the disrupter role to play.

"But if progressives are treated as allies,
we can really help deliver things.” 

<U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA),
speaking to Mother Jones:
"What If The Progressive Revolt...
Isn't A Revolt At All?"
(10/01/21)>

Well, it's been a couple of years since The Highwayman last graced these pages, back in the fall of 2019, but our favorite outsider artist this back, with an honest-to-goodness strip this time -- and it's a doozy, if you ask me! If you've seen The Highwayman's cartoons here before, you know what to expect -- no fuss, no muss, no messing around, much like the original '76-'77 punk explosion, whose vapor trails still ricochet loudly across these pages.

So I've done the usual post-production treatment, with some appropriate quotes to ponder. One of the most interesting aspects of the fallout over the Democrats' dueling infrastructure bills is the reaction to the progressives' revolt. As usual, the mainstream media chooses to cover it as just another Beltway catfight, but in reality, there's way, way, waaay more going on behind the curtain.

And let's not kid ourselves. The road ahead gets a lot harder, especially when you read about how the obstructionists -- such as Senator Kyrsten Sinema ("D"-AZ), whose angry response ("I have never, and would never...") is referenced above, in Panel Five -- remain determined to stomp on the progressives' social spending wish list (negotiating prescription drug costs, tuition-free community college, universal pre-K, and so on) before it gains ground, and our dysfunctional Congress actually passes it, or something. I suspect that image is keeping them awake nights.

Not even a foot doctor's appointment in Arizona -- the excuse that Sinema pleaded, apparently, for skipping on a Democratic strategy meeting last Friday -- prevented the Senate's so-called engima from holding a high-dollar fundraiser that very same night, as she hobnobs with more of the high-priced lobbying hoi polloi who clearly command the lion's share of her attention. 

I suspect that she wasn't even limping after she picked up the checks.

The $750,000 in contributions that Sinema's collected from Big Pharma firms, for example, might go some way toward explaining her opposition to the prescription drug price negotiation aspect of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill. As our old friend, the Church Lady, might say...

"Hooowww...Con...ven...iii...ent!"

Not to be outdone, of course, is her ideological twin, Senator Joe Manchin ("D"-WV), who's already suggested "pausing" the $3.5 trillion version, even as he continues to preach austerity from the pleasant, undemanding confines of his 65-foot houseboat, the aptly-named Almost Heaven, where he prefers to spend much of his down time.

Manchin's blind fealty to the austerity idol reminds me of Queen Elizabeth's equally misplaced Christmas message of 2018, in which she pleaded for generosity and self-sacrifice -- right in front of an ornate golden piano.

Like the saying goes, you can't make this stuff up. Though maybe Manchin and Queen Elizabeth might think about getting together and sharing their austerity enthusiasms over an old-fashioned plum duff lunch at Buckingham Palace (courtesy of the British taxpayer, of course).

As for the rest of the fallout from the dueling infrastructure bills, we'll see how it all plays out. But from my end, anyway, it felt good to see somebody finally standing up to the bad actors -- the same ones who've broken faith, time and again, even as they plead, "Trust us, we've got this" -- and showing them that business as usual can't continue. 

As fervently as legislative darkling like Manchin and Sinema pray for a pausing in social spending, which surely ties in with social justice, the reality is starkly different for the millions of Americans whose needs they prefer to ignore.

For those cast adrift without the enhanced unemployment benefits, eviction moratoriums, and paused student loan payments that have characterized the COVID Era, the "dark night of the soul" -- coupled with the unflinching budget demands of a long cold winter -- are about to become stark reality, all over again. And it is their needs, not those of the greedy, grasping K Street crowd, whose self-entitlement knows no bounds, that Congress should put first. --The Reckoner

Showbiz For Ugly People: Unscrambling California's Recall Fever

 

<www.sarahepperson.com>


Cheap and tacky bullshit land
Told when to sit don't know where you stand
Too busy recreating the past
To live in the future.

Poor relations to Uncle Sam - 

bears no relation to the country man
Too busy being someone else to be who you really are.

<The Style Council, "Confessions 1-2-3">

<i.>

California's endless recall election is finally winding down today, after weeks of high stakes campaigning. If current polls are accurate, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom seems on track with survive by a double-digit margin, with roughly 60 percent of voters willing to back him, versus the 38 percent voicing interest in a totally different flavor, Republican Larry Elder.

Those numbers aren't surprising in a state when Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. Another reminder comes from the return rate for mail-in ballots that went out weeks ago to California's 22 million registered voters. About 35 percent of them are in, with way more coming from Democrats (4.1 million) than Republicans (1.9 million).

Newsom himself won his first election with a landslide margin of 62 percent, and enjoys approval ratings of 57 percent, give or take -- yet barely a month ago, pundits seemed poised to write his political obituary, as Elder's amped up rhetoric made him the frontrunner among 46 candidates seeking the state's top job. 

Just how did we get here after five failed recall attempts? And what does the anticipated outcome say about Elder's and Newsome's leadership styles, or lack thereof, depending on your perspective? For the answers, let's do a deeper dive, and see where it takes us.

<Gavin Newsom:

Wikimedia Commons>

                                                     

"No time to spare - 'spare me a dime'?

The Great Depression is organised crime

Their confessions are written in your blood.

"Kiss your ass an' dreams goodbye
Come back when you've learnt to cry
To busy tryin' to be strong to see how weak you are."

<The Style Council,

"Confessions 1-2-3">

<ii.>

As every political junkie knows, two words sum up Newsom's current predicament: "French Laundry." That's the name of the opulent restaurant in Yountville, CA, where Newsom and his wife were caught dining with officials of the California Medical Association -- in close quarters, indoors, without masks, as they'd constantly been reminding fellow Californians, even while COVID-19 rates were spiking upward for the holidays.

The resulting "Dinnergate" fiasco inspired plenty of howls from the usual mainstream media suspects (cue the New York Times: "Gavin Newsom, What Were You Thinking?"). But the setting proved as much a liability for him, as the timing. With prices starting at $350 a pop, "you need to be rich or have rich friends who are willing to pay the bill," as the Financial Samurai notes, in its overview of the French Laundry (see link below).

If you've got money to burn, there's plenty of options to set it alight, whether you plump for the historic dining room ($850 per person), New Year's Eve dinner ($800 per person), or a night of white truffles and caviar ($1,200 per person). That's before we get to the Governor's bar tab for the night, variously reported at $12,000 to $15,000.

It's not hard to see how such Marie Antoinette-style antics upset people in a state known for its astronomical costs of living, one that accounts for 20 percent of the nation's homeless (151,278 people), who report varying reasons for their plight. Not surprisingly, high rent is number one (68 percent), followed by lack of income (50 percent), poor housing availability (38 percent), and criminal records that cut off access to housing (20 percent).

Yet Newsom saw nothing wrong with his behavior, until the tidal wave of outrage forced him to do what corporate Democrats have done since time immemorial: backpedal, and scramble to play catchup Even so, Newsome seemed flat-footed and flummoxed, especially when pundits suggested that geeked-up Republicans might actually pull this off. 

And then came Larry Elder.

<Larry Elder, Camp Pendleton, 2013:

Public Domain>


 "Somebody smiled on Gavin Newsom and presented California voters with the opportunity to listen to Larry Elder."
<Danny Sragow, Publisher,
The California Target Book>

<iii.>

If Gavin Newsom is the Hapless Warrior, we might dub Larry Elder the Angry Viking. On paper, the leading contender to replace Newsom hardly seems like a fit for the job he craves so openly. He has no government experience, having spent two decades in the talk radio trenches, doing what people like him do best: fanning the grievances of a (mostly) aging white fanbase longing for a simpler time. It's a well-paying gig, and one you can keep forever, so Elder's platform shouldn't surprise anyone.

Abortion? Get rid of it. Texas's newly-enacted Orwellian law suits him fine. How to fix public schools? Give Mom and Dad vouchers. Mask mandates? We don't need them. Medicaid? Abolish it. Protections for pre-existing conditions, and public welfare programs? Scrap them. Let the SOBs stand on their own two feet. Racism? A figment of your imagination. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. State-funded healthcare? We don't need it. Let the market handle it.

It's an agenda that feels elastic and simplistic at the same time, since Elder hasn't exactly specified how he'd ever pull it off in a State Assembly, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 60-19, or the State Senate, where they hold an equally lopsided 30-9 edge. My sense is, he'd spend much of his time scheming how to punish his presumed enemies, like some aging mobster trying to hold his turf at any cost.

What's even more troubling, though, is the brittle defensiveness that Elder often shows, whether in trying to fend off some previous color quote coming back to haunt him ("Women know less about men than political issues, economics, and current events": 2000 column), or brushing off when minority voters question why the self-styled "Sage of South Central" hangs out with white nationalists like Stephen Miller, the infamous architect of Trump's brutal immigration policies.

Guess where Miller got his start? On Elder's radio show, of course, a fact that caused him to sputter to Cal Matters: "Why would you bring up Stephen Miller? I'm just wondering what the agenda here is. What's the point? Am I somehow -- what? A Nazi? A fascist?"

How Cal Matters responded, we don't know, because their article (see below) doesn't say. But it reminds me of the saying that politics is "showbiz for ugly people." By that standard, Larry Elder may be the among ugliest to emerge yet from the proverbial swamp.

<iv.>

So what should we make of all this noisy chaos, if Newsom survives? For Californians, the situation should prompt some serious tweaking of a recall law that's barely changed since they adopted it in 1911. The potential for freakish results looms large in a process that needs just 12 percent of registered voters to launch, allows an unlimited number of replacement candidates to run, and requires only a simple majority to win.

For Gavin Newsom, the recall should serve as a wakeup call. As many voters have made clear, from the stories I've seen, they're sticking with him because they don't view Elder's bomb throwing style as a good fit for the world's fifth largest economy. Nor do they see any point in recalling a governor who's entering the final year of his first term in office.

The pandemic politics that landed Newsom in so much hot water now hold the key to his political survival, an irony that needs no further elaboration. Still, Newsom's Dinnergate gaffe should also remind him that perception paces reality. When the overall vibe comes across as, "Do as I say, not as I do," it's not hard to see why  buyer's remorse sets in. Good leaders ignore this reality at their peril, as Newsom did, when his flagship business, PlumpJackGroup, continued to operate its dozen-odd hotels, restaurants and wineries, while Main Street had to shut down.

For Larry Elder and his cultish fanbase, it's hard to imagine a failed recall inspiring any real introspection. Yet if he wants to continue his political career, Elder will have to take California's electoral math into account. Pitching your message to those who already agree with it doesn't seem like a winning formula in a state where Democrats hold such commanding advantages.

Good leaders "read the room," and make adjustments when whatever they're doing -- or saying -- isn't going over. Elder's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to do so raises serious questions about his skill set. It's a drawback that violates "Healey's first rule of politics," as the late British politico defined it: "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

But such foibles carry their share of ironies, as Elder inadvertently acknowledged to the LA Times last week, in responding to criticisms of his "Sage of South Central" tagline as a misguided attempt to buy himself some "street cred":

"I didn't think very much about it. I probably came up with it within a few seconds of being on the air and it stuck. People call me that, but I can't say there's anything deep behind it." 

In a campaign silly season largely defined by his hectoring, high-decibel persona, that simple observation may well have been the most truthful -- and revealing -- thing that Larry Elder has ever said. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:
California Globe
Gavin Newsom's Dinnergate Apology:
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/gov-gavin-newsoms-dinnergate-apology-grows-from-little-white-lie-to-whopper/

Cal Matters: Who Is Larry Elder,

And What He Would Do As Governor?:
https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/08/newsom-recall-candidates-larry-elder-interview/

CNN: "Women Exaggerate The Problem Of Sexism":
Top California Recall Candidate Larry Elder
Has A Long History Of Making 

Disparaging Remarks About Women:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/19/politics/kfile-ca-recall-larry-elder-on-women/index.html

Downtown Streets Team
The Truth About Homelessness:
https://streetsteam.org/causesMythsMisconceptions?gclid=Cj0KCQjwkIGKBhCxARIsAINMioILBoWzfdw55Gt5jilGkCgHEtGXjhSMU1IdWfLOFVXUAQKdxQCyxWAaAk8sEALw_wcB

Financial Samurai
How Rich Do You Have To Be 
To Dine At French Laundry Like Gavin Newsom?
https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-rich-to-dine-at-french-laundry/

Los Angeles Times
Larry Elder And The Danger

Of The "Model Minority" Candidate:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-13/larry-elder-model-minority

Guest Post (Chairman Ralph): Here Comes Johnny Yen (And Then Some): Lust For Life, Celebrated

 

<https://www.superseventies.com/sppopiggy2.html>

<Intro>

I remember how and where it all started: January 1980, a lifetime away now. My dad and I were getting into one of our usual two-bit arguments about the usual two-bit teenage crap I'm halfway through high school, so you can just imagine the kind of sparring going on in the kitchen. What do you wanna be when you grow up blah blah blah what are you gonna do with your life blah blah blah have you thought about college yet? blah blah blah what about a summer job? blah blah blah you need better grades to get into a decent school blah blah blah and so on and so forth, so on and so forth, round and round the drain we circle, one more time...

At this point, I get up from my chair. All this (mostly) one-way dialogue is making my head buzz. The white noise of oncoming adulthood is ringing in my ears. Yeah, the discussion's relevant, I tell myself, but not f#cking now! My birthday's Saturday. I don't really care about anything else tonight. 

"I gotta go," I announce, without fanfare. I get up briskly, and start heading for my room, to grab my jacket. 

"Where are you going?" A flash of worry clouds my dad's face, then my mom, who doesn't typically participate in these discussions.

"Ah, the mall. I'm gonna do the usual, look at the cut-outs, the eight-tracks, the imports..." I fumble around for the keys to our '78 white LeMans. Technically, it's my mom's car, but she's not driving it much lately.

That means I can periodically "borrow" it, to hone my driving to a fine art (or finer nub, depending on my day, and mood). Theoretically, I'm preparing for my driving test, but the trouble is, my learner's permit makes it easier to put off that day of reckoning a little bit longer. Back then,you had to go out with a local cop, armed with a clipboard, ready to check off his list, and all that stuff.

Guess what, though? It's my birthday, and I sure as hell am not doing anything like that. I have other things in mind, like the punk rock/New Wave explosion that's captured my imagination, of which I'm getting a healthy fix via eight-tracks. (More about that momentarily.) I'm sixteen, dammit, and I need a suitable soundtrack. 

 

Within half an hour, I've gotten my latest fix at the mall...something called Lust For Life, by Iggy Pop, somebody I've been reading about a lot lately in Rolling Stone. He curses out out his audiences, cuts himself on broken glass, flicks lit cigarettes at 'em, flips 'em the bird...and that's when they're sufficiently appreciative, and actually paying attention. Imagine what he does when they're spacing out!

Anyway, the various album reviews, live reports and interviews trickling into my vision through Rolling Stone, and whatever mags I'm picking up at the grocery store make all these antics sound interesting. It certainly sounds way cooler than what I'm used to seeing -- hairy guys with pornstaches, hiding banks of amps and keyboards, through which they crank out the lamest, most inoffensive, middle of the road sounds imaginable. 

Whatever, I tell myself, as I slide Mom's LeMans into the driveway. At this point, I don't need any convincing. I'm in.

<"He's Nude 'N' Rude..."/The Reckoner>

<ii.>

Here I am now, I'm grooving to Lust For Life in my bedroom. One song, in particular, captures my attention, driven along by a nagging, yet undeniably catchy guitar riff, that goes something like this:

<BUM-BUM-BUM, 

BAH-BUM-BUM-

BA-DA-DAH-DUM...>

Cool as it is, that riff wouldn't mean anything without that whomping drum intro that Hunt Sales whacks out on his kit. Every time I hear it, I think, this is how drums should sound, big and strong. Even on headphones, it sounds like you're in the room with him, as brother Tony's bass falls in, followed by the respective rhythm and lead guitars of Carlos Alomar and Ricky Gardiner.

Next come the Burroughs-inflected lyrics ("Here comes Johnny Yen again, with the liquor and drugs/And the flesh machine/He's gonna do another striptease") that Iggy barks out with a staccato urgency ("I've been hurting since I bought the gimmick/About something called love, something called love/Well, that's like hypnotizing chickens"), because he's got somethin' to tell ya, anyhow. Iggy was fresh from two years in the wilderness, following the breakup of his pioneering band, The Stooges, with The Idiot (1977), whose dark narcotic throb propelled him back into the public consciousness. 

<"Come In, Nipper (You've Met Your Match At Last...)/
The Reckoner>

<iii.>

Sure, he'd spent much of those two years struggling with drugs, and sleeping on peoples' couches, surfing the margins without a record deal. But this time around, he's determined to do better, as he tells you later: "Yeah, I'm through sleeping on the sidewalk/No more beating my brains, with liquor and drugs/No more beating my brains, with liquor and drugs." Lawd have mercy!

Making those promises is one thing, of course. Making them stick would take a decade and a half or so, but no doubt about it, "Lust For Life" signaled a new attitude, a notable shift of priorities. From my perspective, it's getting the job done. My head's no longer buzzing with arguments about college or grades or summer jobs or what I "should" be doing with my life. The white noise of oncoming adulthood is no longer ringing in my ears. I've forgotten all about what Dad said.

Right now, I'm just sitting on my bed, savoring another song that's caught my ear. It's "Sixteen," your classic ode to teenage jailbait, more or less ("Sweet 16, in leather boots/Body and soul, I go crazy/Baby, I'm-a hungry'), driven along by a nagging cowbell and trash can-sounding guitar. 

Iggy's normal baritone croon is now a cracked-sounding yelp that ripples through my primitive eight-track player speaker ("I'm an easy mark, with my broken heart"), and I couldn't care less about anything else. I'm turning 16, listening to a song called "Sixteen," and right now, nothing else matters, full stop. This is how that unholy duo of Iggy Pop and Lust For Life entered my home. 

http://www.collectorscum.com/8tracks/

Not mine, obviously, but nice to see...

<iv.>

No doubt about it: how you perceive the likes of Lust For Life depends on when and where you first came across it. In Iggy's case, I imagine countless millions found out through Trainspotting's opening sequence of its junkie trio dashing through Edinburgh's mean streets, or that Royal Caribbean Cruises ad, to name two of the higher-profile corners that they've probably heard "Lust For Life," the song. 

My experience was different, as I've noted. Scoring Lust For Life on eight-track wasn't my goal, but I couldn't always fork over the $6.98 list price that most new releases normally commanded then. But sometimes, you could scoop up the eight-track version for at least a couple bucks off, making them an attractive fallback, even if the format restrictions (11.5 minutes per track, 46 minutes total) meant that your favorite song often got chopped in half.

They weren't always in great condition, either. Sometimes, you'd get only get half a dozen or so plays before the tape broke, forcing you hunt down another copy, if you felt motivated enough. Even so, I'd just gotten an eight-track player for a Christmas gift, so I needed to feed that particular beast, anyhow. Without eight-tracks, I wouldn't have heard the likes of Elvis Costello (Armed Forces, My Aim Is True), Bob Marley (Babylon By Bus, Burnin', Natty Dread), The Police (Outlandos D'Amour), Talking Heads (Remain In Light)., and -- Lust For Life, to name a few.

Eight-tracks also exposed me to less obvious fare, like UK's self-titled debut album, for instance, and a lot of '60s-related fodder, such as The Best Of The Electric Flag (1971), which marked my first taste of Mike Bloomfield's supernatural guitar wizardry, and inspired me to track related albums, like Live At Winterland (1969), and My Labors (1970), on dust-coated cutout cassettes. (Both tapes broke quickly, though, so I wouldn't get to hear them in full until 20- or 30-odd years later.)

You had oddities, too, like this tape of off-brand Saturday Night Fever soundtrack covers I got that Christmas, along with my eight-track player. Hearing those journeymen Bee Gees wannabes struggling to hit those high notes on something like "Night Fever" ("We know how to do it for-EHHH-VERRR, can't you feel it?"), and never quite making it, provided hours and hours of cheap yuks. Nice try, boys, I'd chuckle, but no cigar. And then came Iggy.

<http://www.collectorscum.com/8tracks/>

Never saw THIS ONE gracing
any bargain bin...oh, well.

<iv.>

"Lust For Life," of course, is only one jewel on an album brimming with them. As he'd done on The Idiot, Bowie played a major hand in the music -- co-writing six of the eight songs here. But Iggy also took a more direct musical role than he'd done on The Idiot, with crucial support from the band. This policy led to a looser, more collaborative ethic, with Iggy improvising lyrics with each take. (Bowie would borrow this technique, like he did so many things, for his next album, Heroes.)

Gardiner supplied the insistently catchy riff for "The Passenger," which falls into the "I Am A Camera" sub-genre of Iggydom. Basically, it's Iggy Pop as observer of the human condition ("He sees the stars come out tonight/He sees the city's ripped back sides/He sees the winding ocean drive"), as he casts a frown around the cityscapes that excite (and oppress) him at the same time. 

Gardiner, along with Bowie, also co-wrote one of my other personal favorites, "Success," a rollicking throwdown to the joys of going for it ("Here comes success/Here comes my car/Here comes my Chinese rug"). Like "Lust For Life," it's built around a rollicking call 'n' response riff, with the band repeating each lyric to increasingly hilarious effect, as Iggy ups the ante near the end: "I'm gonna out into the street and do anything I wanna...OH, SHIT!" Hearing the boys struggling to keep up, as Iggy sings those lines faster and faster, still cracks me up, all those 40-odd years later. 

Gardiner's blunderbuss guitar style also lends an air of throbbing menace on two other rockers -- "Neighborhood Threat," and "Some Weird Sin," whose dark, droning chord sequences (E-flat, F-sharp, G-sharp, B-flat) complements its "If you're skating on thin ice, you might as well dance" sentiments.  The mood darkens considerably on "Tonight" ("I saw my baby/She was turning blue/I knew that soon her young life was through"), which offers a loving tribute to a partner about to expire from an apparent overdose ("I will love her till I die/I will see her in the sky/Tonight"). It's powered by a piercing lead break from Gardiner, and swirling keyboards from Warren Peace (a/k/a Geoff MacCormack).

"Give the keyboard guy some" seems to have been the primary reason for Warren Peace's sole co-write, "Turn Blue," seven minutes of slow-burning, spleen-baring that I'd appreciate more, if I only knew what Iggy's actually going on about. At various points, he pants over a woman in a black El Dorado ("That black girl in the back looks pretty good"), then rapidly free associates through references to Jesus ("You might as well come with me"), and drug abuse ("Oh, Momma, I shot myself down").  Is he victim or villain? Who knows? I can listen to this song, if I'm in the right mood, but to put it another way...I didn't mind seeing this one cut in half. (For more info, see the Pushing Ahead Of The Dame links below -- both being must reads!)

"

Fall In Love With Me" -- the other epic here, at six and a half minutes -- works way better, due to its conceit of making each musician play an instrument they didn't already know. (Bowie also borrowed this idea for "Boys Keep Swinging," on his '79 album, Lodger.) Hence, Gardiner deputizes on drums; Hunt Sales, bass; and Tony Sales, guitar, burnishing the "fall apart any minute" mood at work here. It's a celebration of Iggy's German girlfriend of the time, Esther Friedmann, so there's nothing to think about too deeply, but it's a fine ending to a fine album.

<Dutch single, 1977: RCA Records>

<v.>

For all his newfound purpose and creativity, Iggy found himself in his usual spot: ahead of his time, and falling between two chairs at the box office. Lust For Life received little promotion from RCA on its release (August 29, 1977), a mere three weeks after the death of Elvis Presley, whose catalog received far greater attention (to put it mildly). Once its first pressings sold out, the album became hard to find, as Tony Sales told Iggy's biographer, Paul Trynka: "Lust For Life just disappeared from the shelves, and that was it."

As a result, Lust For Life peaked at #120 US, a considerable notch down from The Idiot (#72 US). RCA pulled only one single ("Success"/"Sixteen") in September, that made no impression whatsoever, and called it a day. Reactions overseas proved predictably stronge -- including the former Yugoslavia, of all places, and Holland, "Lust For Life" earned a #3 chart placing. The parent album peaked at #28 UK -- just two places above The Idiot, which had given Iggy his first Top 40 foothold.

In hindsight, it's hard to think of fewer albums that I liked better, yet weren't so celebrated at the time. RCA's apparent indifference is all the more grating, when you consider the purple patch of creativity that Iggy and Bowie were experiencing in '77. That stretch kicked off in January 1977, with the release of Bowie's album, Low -- followed by The Idiot (March '77), the Lust For Life sessions (May to June '77), and album release. 

Appropriately, the year ended in November '77, with the release of Kill City, overseen by former Stooges guitarist James Williamson. He'd recorded it two years earlier with Iggy, who did his vocals on weekend leaves from a mental hospital where he was staying, to beat his long -standing heroin addiction. 

The pair had intended it as a demo, in hopes of striking a new record deal, but no takers emerged -- until The Idiot and Lust For Life provided the obvious cues. Add in the usual ongoing tasks of demoing, rehearsing, and touring, and you're left thinking:

For guys who wanted to convince you they were decadent vampires, it's tough to imagine a pair of night stalkers who worked as hard.

<Iggy Pop Versus The World, Take I/

The Reckoner>

<Coda/Over 'n' Out...>

But all the commercial metrics of Lust For Life's performance obscure one other reality -- while mainstream audiences largely shrugged, those who bought it became ardent converts, who often became became groundbreakers themselves. For example, Paul Westerberg briefly played in a band called Neighborhood Threat, on his way to becoming the Replacements' frontman and songwriter. 

Bowie also recorded "Neighborhood Threat" and "Tonight" -- as a duet with Tina Turner, minus the drug references -- to no particularly great effect on Tonight (1984), which ties the inappropriately-named Never Let Me Down (1987), for the Starman's worst piece of platinum-seeking cow poop -- but the results reportedly bailed Iggy out of a tax debt to Uncle Sam. Even if the results were excruciating, I could support that cause, and if you notice a drop in quality, son, that's neither here nor there.

Not surprisingly, much of that action has revolved around "Lust For Life," the song -- which first began appearing in films like Spetters (1980), a gritty Dutch language dirt biker drama, and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). "On Lust For Life, the drums sound not huge, but massive!" New Order's drummer, Stephen Morris, noted with vivid enthusiasm:

"The loudest cymbals known to man, that riff! I wanted to sound like that, still do."

It's hard to imagine a better tribute, though I honestly don't need it to validate my experience, anymore than I need the Royal Caribbean or the Trainspotting images, nor all the various covers that have emerged over the years, nor all the assorted documentaries and TV shows and videos purporting to have uncovered that proverbial 800 feet of tape that somehow explains it all. 

Maybe Iggy and company didn't have work that hard to win me over, because by this point, I was actively reading magazines like CREEM and Rolling Stone, not to mention more highbrow establishment bastions like TIME, trying to get more and more of my hands on a piece of this so-called punk 'n' New Wave action that was firing my neurons into eternal overdrive. 

But it's hard to imagine fewer records that hit me harder -- once the Clash and the Sex Pistols dropped that potential aitch-bomb into my brain -- or grabbed me tighter by the throat. Lust For Life stands up, simply because it reminds you of what's possible, and then proceeds to deliver on that promise, rather than reneging it, like so many releases did (and still do). Copout isn't on the agenda, full stop.

And once that realization drops, like it did it for me on that rickety eight-track speaker so long ago, one other realization hits: No more looking back, because this is the real deal. Once you're in, you're all in, and whatever you do, don't settle. That's the moral of the story here, as far as I'm concerned.

So much for my history lesson; what you do with it is your business. Now, if you'll excuse me, that flesh machine needs my urgent attention. And I've really gotta get back to hypnotizing me some more of those chickens. --Chairman Ralph

Links To Go 

(For All You Modern Guys...And Gals):
A Pop Life: Lust For Life:
https://en.apoplife.nl/iggy-pop-lust-for-life/

CollectorScum.com: Punk 8-Tracks:
http://www.collectorscum.com/8tracks/

(Lots of cool eight-track pics, plus some neat related stuff --

check it out!)

Iggy Pop's "The Idiot":
http://idiotlust.blogspot.com/

Pushing Ahead Of The Dame: The Idiot:
https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/category/the-idiot-1977/

Pushing Ahead Of The Dame: Lust For Life:

https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/category/lust-for-life-1977/

Various Album Reviews:
https://www.superseventies.com/sppopiggy2.html

What Special Election Lessons? The Script Didn't Flip

<"Trust Us, Really..."

The Reckoner>

 <i.>

Our mainstream news media wasted little time clearing its collective throat Tuesday, once the dust settled from Ohio's Congressional special elections last week. No such drama for the Squawker and myself, as we also did our civic duty, in helping to whittle an eight-candidate field of city commissioners to six, which we'll winnow down to three seats in November.

I felt pleased that one candidate I particularly disliked wound up among the two who didn't make the cut. She sent a mailer that sounded like a political version of the dating game. It consisted of six bullet points, starting with this moth-eaten chestnut: "To be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars."

It reminded me of so many personal ads back in the day, from people whose chief desire amounted to "Going bowling/walking on the beach/walking in the woods with my mate." Right, who doesn't? But I'd skip to the next one, thinking, "Tell me about you, not your hobbies. I need more substance here." Evidently, my fellow voters thought likewise of Ms. Cliche Obvious Pants's precious bullet points.

The takeaways from Ohio seem more elusive. The 15th District Republican race offered little drama, as Trump-anointed ex-coal industry lobbyist Mike Carey swept an 11-candidate field. He garnered 18,655 votes to 6,724 for his nearest rival, Jeff Lane, a sufficient show of strength for a 12-county district that includes sections of Columbus, plus small towns and suburbs south and west of the city. He's favored this fall over Democrat Allison Russo, who netted an impressive 13,585 votes herself. We'll see how that turns out.

Carey played to Trump's cultish base, as evidenced by the photos I saw of him cradling an AR-15! (Or maybe it's an M-16...I can't tell, offhand.) Subtle, it ain't, but the Trump experience was never about that, anyway. Still, a lot of mainstream media headlines seemingly hedged their bets, coming off a Trump-backed candidate's defeat in another special election, in Texas.

Notable examples included the Canton Repository ("Trump Secures Win in 15th Congressional District With Mike Carey, But Low Turnout Clouds Picture"), and Jewish Insider ("An Early Test Of Trump's Clout In Ohio Special Election"). Even one of my favorite blogs, Down With Tyranny, raised a similar hope in its headline ("Will Trump Be A Double Loser In Ohio Tuesday?").

We know the answer: not really, amid continuing hype of "Republican civil war," and a "Trump resistance within the GOP," but I'm not seeing it here. For now, empty suits like Carey see a brighter future in lining up to kiss The Donald's ring. It beats ending up on the outs, as Liz Cheney has discovered.

Yes, turnout for the 15th District race was pitiful (only four Republicans, besides Carey, broke the 5,000-vote mark). Even so, Trump continues to cast a shadow over our democracy, because he has the money, the juice and enough warm bodies willing to aid and abet his quest. Short of his death, illness or imprisonment, we aren't wrenching free of him any time soon, especially if his army continues to reward the behaviors associated with him.

<"Silly Season TV":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

The results of the Democratic race in the 11th District, consisting mainly of Akron, Euclid and Cleveland, OH, are way more troubling. Establishment-backed favorite Shontel Brown eked out a narrow win over progressive firebrand Nina Turner by a roughly 4,000 vote margin (37,666 to 33,420 votes), while two other candidates barely registered, with less than 1,000 votes apiece.

The postmortem crowing is running on overdrive, as the Washington Post's headline made clear: "Nina Turner's Loss in Ohio Means Biden Doesn't Need to Keep Caving to the Left." Politico fell in line, as well, with this summary: "Establishment Prevails As Brown Beats Turner In Ohio Special Election." I'll spare you further examples.

Turner's principal offense seems to have been her derisive summary of Biden's march to the nomination last year: "It's like saying to somebody, 'You have a bowl of shit in front of you, and all you've got to do is eat half of it instead of the whole thing.' It's still shit." That commentary came in the wake of Bernie Sanders's second unsuccessful Presidential campaign, on which she served as his national co-chair.

Such comments raised the ire of Biden ally Jim Clyburn,  who didn't like being called "stupid" for not demanding more from his longtime buddy, as Turner stated during an appearance with hip-hop artist Killer Mike. Clyburn cited this moment as his reason for getting so personally involved, though I suspect it came down to a baser impulse: She doesn't belong here, because she backed Bernie. She led protests against Hillary Clinton's nomination. Let's put this firmly gal in her place.

The resulting race was as dispiriting as American politics gets,  complete with barrages of slick attack ads, charges and counter charges, super PAC spending orgies, and enough mud to keep the Mississippi River flowing for decades (climate change be damned). 

Clyburn's intervention stinks like the usual brutish machine politics, when The Kids (that's us, remember?) dare to question The Adults, like him and his crowd ("Sometimes, I have real problems trying to figure out what progressive means," a statement that revealed way more than he wanted it to, I suspect).

I know little about Shontel Brown. However, her campaign's go-along-to-get-along themes, coupled with her eagerness to hoover up special interest money from Republicans like New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft -- who donated $1 million to Trump's 2016 inauguration -- don't bode well for her future constituents. At least, those who can't drop a sufficiently heavy donation to buy the appropriate access to her conscience, such as it is.

It's the reason why critics like State Rep. Juanita Bryant ask, "As a Democrat who has helped Democrats all over the state, we cannot condone Democrats that are accepting money associated with Trump. How can we have someone who is the party chair and says that she's a Democrat's Democrat but is accepting Republican money?" 

It's a fair question, one that Brown will undoubtedly do her best to avoid answering. For the depressing nitty gritty, read "Lessons From The Nina Turner Race?" (see below). The donors lining up to buy the seat read, as you might expect, like a Who's Who of corporate America -- the same one, of course, that's busily donating again to Republican insurrectionists, after indulging in the usual 30-second spectacle of public moral outrage. You get the picture.

<iii.>

At the same time, the results show the need for progressives to work smarter. Hard work alone isn't enough when you're up against reactionary forces willing to spend whatever it takes to buy a seat. It's also fair to ask if Turner's dream was a realistic fit for a district where Hillary Clinton posted her strongest Ohio margin in 2016 (68 percent), and Biden ran equally well in 2020 (73 percent).

But if I were Clyburn and company, I wouldn't crow too long. The race also highlighted a continuing generational divide in a party whose senior leaders are, well seniors, in their seventies and eighties, from Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (70), at the lower end, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at the upper end (81). If I were Brown, I wouldn't crow too loudly, either. For all the dirty politicking on her behalf, Tuesday's result suggests she has a long way to go, before everybody feels the love.

"In the decisive Super Tuesday contests that effectively ended the Sanders campaign, the Vermont senator won an estimated 63 percent of 18-29 year olds and 42 percent of voters between 30 and 44," The Week notes, in its own commentary (see below)." These voters want sweeping change and aren't necessarily as put off as older voters are by the progressive left's broadsides against the Democratic establishment."

The recent scramble over last month's expiration of the eviction memorandum perfectly illustrates the last point of the above quote. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June that it preferred future extensions to go through Congress alone, yet Biden waited -- literally -- until the eleventh hour before the July 31 expiration date, before asking Congress to try and pass something.

How does this happen, with Democratic control of the Presidency, and both houses of Congress? Landlords, the last time I checked, aren't the most popular public figures. Shouldn't Democrats relish the idea of picking a fight with them? Sure, it's great that Biden rolling out a new 60-day extension, based on the pandemic, but it shouldn't have taken a public sleepover by Missouri Democrat Cori Bush to push him that way.

Such missteps make the Clyburns of the world look less like geniuses, and more like the Michael Corleone seen in The Godather, Part III (1990), as the aging wise guy struggles to hang onto his empire, while he gropes for a purpose beyond...well, continuing for the sake of it. But I'll give the Godfather this much: at least he sprinkled a little bit of sugar on that brown steaming bowl, if only once in awhile, when he wanted to win somebody over. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (The Dark Money Dance Continues):
Down With Tyranny

Lessons From The Nina Turner Race?:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/lessons-from-the-nina-turner-race

The Intercept 

In The Race Against Nina Turner,

GOP Donors Fund Shontel Brown:

https://theintercept.com/2021/07/27/nina-turner-shontel-brown-ohio-gop/

The Week

Democratic Leaders Should Think Twice

Before Crushing Progressive Primary Challenges:
https://theweek.com/politics/1003286/why-democratic-leaders-should-think-twice-before-crushing-progressive-primary