The Lotus Eater

There is something divinely just in the paradox that expects those who live hedonistically to suffer stoically.

It’s been awhile. Sorry. Much business in the land of the Lotus Eaters.

Anyhow, I went on a length about the National Review’s choice of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who as the #1 Conservative Rock song of all time. Pete Townsend’s response to this dubious honor is a fascinating read.

Vindication is a beautiful thing.

Oh, my stars! I’m finally invited! At long last, I get to go to the big dance! What, pray tell, am I going on about? Well, let me tell you…

* It is unclear whether the invitation was sent to Bigfoot or the Bondo Mystery Ape; in any case, they are very similar and can be treated equally in all regards.
**There are 132 words that mean “to smash” in the Sasquatch language.

Kim Jong Il (Dear Leader)
Location: N. Korea
Style: Bat Shit Do
Bio: No one is quite clear on what exactly Dear Leader hopes to accomplish in the Tournament, though it is suspected that he is motivated by his desire find the Perfect Universal Hairstyle and impose it upon the people of the world.
S/D: Immune to most diplomatic attacks.
Weakness: No diplomatic powers to speak of; very few powers at all to speak of.
Hobbies: Cinema Criticism, Famine Management.

Part the Second: Summer Lovin’

Part 1

Next week: See Pomo get institutionalized and analyze the analysts analyzing him!

My concern is that, on this Memorial Day, some of our recent memories needn’t be memories at all:

“The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies” –Maximillien Robespierre

(smart guy, but a crazy cat in his own right).

Now, we all know that the Lotus Eater’s memory is historically unreliable. However, he seems to recall a drunken moment, entirely given over to the self-pitying malaise that characterizes the immediate aftermath of collegiate graduation, when he told his girlfriend of the time that the distinctive power chords in The Who’s anthem “Won’t Get Fooled Again” were “the only meaning he had left in his life” (lucky girl!). By this point, we are also all pretty clear on Mr. LE’s political leanings. Imagine his surprise, then, when he discovered that “Won’t Get Fooled Again” topped the National Review’s new list of the Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs.

Jigga say wha?

Evidently, the lyrics “There’s nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by—the—bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss” are reflective of the fact that “the conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries” and “this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naive idealism once and for all”. Right. I totally didn’t catch on to the neoconservative, Horowitzian overtones the first 700 times I listened to the song. Perhaps that is because it a sympathetic lamentation for the failure of revolutions rather than a critique of the naivete inherent to revolutionary idealism. And National Review guys, there is a good chance that you may just be the bosses, old and new of whom Mr. Daltrey sings.

The list is remarkable for many of its similarly stellar interpretations of famous rock songs. To name a few:

#6 “Gloria” by U2. Latin is sooo conservative and Bono once hung out at the White House. Maybe Congress should honor W with a new name. That was something of a Roman tradition. Can you say, “Salve, Imperator Libertas Bush”?

#7 “Revolution” by the Beatles. Turns out that anyone who advocates absolute pacifism instead of violent revolution is a conservative. Also, there is the matter of the shout-out to Henry “Give Peace a Chance” Kissinger after the third refrain.

#15 “I Fought The Law” by The Crickets. Not ironic. At all.

#18 “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour. The lines “”I exploit you, still you love me / I tell you one and one makes three / I’m the cult of personality” only refer to liberals and fascists. The right has no sacred heroes who mislead the public.

#21 “Heroes” by David Bowie and #24 “Der Kommissar” by After the Fire. Liberals love them some Berlin Wall and miss it dearly. We prefer our East Germans under the yoke of oppression.

#40 “Wake Up Little Susie” by The Everly Brothers. The gents at NR say, “a smash hit in 1957, back when high-school social pressures were rather different from what they have become”. Heh, even back in ‘57, Billy Clinton would have nailed Little Susie something fierce (without protection, natch) and forced her to get a Tiujana abortion on the cheap, laughing gleefully all the while. Actually, The Lotus Eater wants Little Susie’s number and MySpace info. We’ve both been sound asleep, my ass.

#43 “Wonderful” by Everclear. You’re not a true leftie until you’ve signed the papers on your first frivolous divorce. There are clearly not enough single-parent families left to make the rounds anymore on that Sesame Street “What is a Family?” sketch.

#50 “Stand By Your Man” by Tammy Wynette. “Hillary trashed it — isn’t that enough?” OH, OH, OH–touché, monsieurs.

Whoops, I seem to have forgotten one:

#4 “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynryd Skynrd. Hmm. actually…you guys can have this one. Homages to apartheid societies and governors in bed with the Klan really are sort of conservative.

Until it is time to explore the Objectivist influences in hip hop, the Lotus Eater bids the staff at the National Review adieu and reminds them that all he ever heard were redemption songs. Those songs of freedom. Songs of freedom.

I have added two new and wonderful links to my blogroll. If any of you crave a few hours of highly amusing, but pointless entertainment, please check out The Comics Curmudgeon and Overheard in NY. They won’t let you down.

John Tierney likes to think that he is one of the cool kids. Not only has he been inducted into the Club of Five Paragraph Philosophers on the NY Times’ Op-Ed page–get this–he has never lost a presidential election . In his latest column (not available for those of you without Times Select, a fact which Johnny-boy probably rues since he didn’t have enough time to build up his visibility in the heyday of free access), Tierney takes on Al Gore’s recent cinematic turn in Cannes. Now, the second half of the column actually takes issue with some of the arguments presented in the documentary (however disingenously), but, for some reason, Tierney feels compelled to trot out the old Al-Gore-as-annoying-grade-grubber trope for his first few paragraphs, as if that makes his conclusions stronger:

If Al Gore’s new movie weren’t titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” I wouldn’t have quite so many problems with it. He should have gone with something closer to “Revenge of the Nerd.” That’s the heartwarming angle to global warming. A college student is mesmerized by his professor’s bold measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Our hero carries this passion into Congress, where no one listens to him, and then works up a slide show that he inflicts on audiences around the world, to no discernible effect.

But then his slide show becomes a horror movie — and it turns into a cult hit. The nerd becomes the toast of Hollywood, Sundance and Cannes. He is cheered at premieres across America. Audiences sit enraptured through a film starring graphs of CO2 concentrations and close-ups of ice cores.

The documentary doesn’t open in theaters until tomorrow, but it’s already a cinch for an Oscar, and deservedly so. Getting anyone to voluntarily endure 100 minutes of Al Gore and his slides is a historic cinematic achievement.

A stunning insight, really. Al Gore is lame. I bet that, soon, we will find out that Hillary is a frigid bitch and Howard Dean is cray-zee.

Here’s where I am going to take issue with you, John–I don’t think you are Prom King material either. Sure, they let you into Deke back at school, but both you and I know that it was only because the brothers needed a grateful beer-run bitch who could smooth out all those date-rape accusations with the Dean and actually complete the chapter’s required hours of commuity service. Your bi-weekly pontification in The Grey Lady is just as dull as (and far more masturbatory than) any screentime we might share with the Vice President, and does a whole lot less to further the cause of global progress.

John-boy, I think it’s time for you and all the other right-wingers of the commentariat who champion jockstrap notions of public policy to come to terms with your identities. We’re all nerds here. You’re a nerd and I’m a nerd. The only difference is that you are self-hating nerd, and feel the need to persecute fellow intellectuals for their (sometimes socially awkward) intelligence. Pathetic.

Who Needs A Bridge?

The causeway dominates the lower bay
It’s smooth curves stretch out and away from Nature’s portrait
Straight concrete conquers irregular surroundings

The causeway is almost too magnetic
The eye has a hard time resisting its temptation
Because it cannot dismiss a purpose
Because reason wants to distinguish between the foreground and the periphery

Waves may look like triangles waiting to be measured
But they are no more than fleeting estimations
Changing in the sunlight
Moment to moment.
The causeway is an unlayered, irresistable truth

The causeway even gives the pelicans a sense of direction
Though they are the last to admit it
They glide along its railings, sensitive to traffic law
Outgoing on the left
Ingoing on the right

The best time of day to follow the outgoing pelicans
Is during a convalescent dusk,
After a recent afternoon thunderstorm.
Dissipating clouds sit like loners at the back of the horizon,
Colorfully infected with just enough pollution to make the sunset tacky
(which is saying alot, because we are all very permissive when it comes to sunsets).

The first time I was witness to this display,
I realized that postcards and Frenchman might actually have a sense of restraint
I shook my hands at the sky
And loudly called God a Painted Jezebel,
As if the causeway were His fault.

I ventured upon these lyrics, again, this evening:

The Walrus and The Carpenter
Lewis Carroll

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright–
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done–
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun!”

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead–
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
“If this were only cleared away,”
They said, “it would be grand!”

“If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

“O Oysters, come and walk with us!”
The Walrus did beseech.
“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.”

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head–
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat–
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn’t any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more–
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed–
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”

“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
“Do you admire the view?

“It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf–
I’ve had to ask you twice!”

“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
“To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“The butter’s spread too thick!”

“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.

You may recall that, at first, Alice liked the Carpenter best, because “he had not eaten so many oysters as the Walrus”, but was no longer even able to hold onto to her sense of relative morality when it became clear that “he [the Carpenter] ate as many as he could get”.

Unfortunately, my friends, this is where I believe we are (and always have been and future tense). Personally, I am a fan of the Walrus. If I am going to be dinner, I’d prefer to be both the object and subject of an interesting conversation.