The City Veins

Ah, those heady February days when Barack Obama stood for bold ideas and a grand new vision of American politics. They didn’t last long, but boy were they fun.

Watching him lately, I can’t help but hear the immortal words of The Who:

“There’s nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye”

It appears that yes, we have been fooled again. By both candidates.

Everyone knows the John McCain story: the only conscientious member of the Republican party has sold all principle in a desperate last chance to be President. He’ll now say and do anything that right-wing power brokers tell him to do, advocating the indefinite continuation of all the failed policies that got us in the mess we’re in now.

With all of McCain’s flip-flopping and unprincipled pandering, it sure is a good thing that our other choice in this election is… another flip-flopping, unprincipled panderer. Yay politics!

There was a time when Obama stood out as the anti-Clinton, a candidate promising a wholly different type of politics. Instead of aiming at the center like Billary, he had a true liberal agenda to combat the mess that conservatives have gotten us in. He appealed to voters by treating them as grown-ups who are capable of understanding complex issues.

Most importantly, he seemed to have that rare political ability to convince people to like and trust you so that, even if they don’t agree with you, they give you a chance to see what you can do. This is especially important in times of badly needed change; skeptical Republican voters warmed to FDR during the Depression, just as skeptical Democratic voters warmed to Reagan after the disastrous Carter years.

But somewhere along the way, Barack Obama has lost himself. Maybe he never was that person, or maybe the pressures are just now too great. But either way, the man who once refused to pander is now pandering left and right. He’s been arming himself with Clinton advisors, announcing plans to expand Bush’s faith-based programs, reversing himself on NAFTA and FISA, and trying to embrace all those “values” the red states hold so dear. And it’s only July.

After 8 years of horrendous Republican rule, Obama’s still got my vote. But I used to feel like that vote was truly a vote for change: a change in direction, a change in tone, a change in the stagnant American mindset. But then again, when politics have been controlled for so long by the same two parties, can true change exist anymore?

Again, rock and roll says it better than I can:

“Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss.”

This photo of Charles was taken a few weeks ago while on vacation.  What I love about it is how natural he looks with that hat and bottle of Jack - this was not posed, he was in the background of this pic and I cropped everyone else out.

Yesterday at practice we were discussing the fact that we haven’t had good public band fight on the blog in a while.

With that in mind, let me just say that Charles is freaking jerk. Aaron and I are so tired of his condescending bullshit and over-inflated ego. He thinks because he bought an Indiana Jones hat for $4 in NY a few months ago that he’s the shit. Well he’s not. And if he wears that f***in hat to the release party tomorrow, I’m going to punch him in the face, take the hat, and burn it onstage.

Am I kidding?

Come to IOTA tomorrow to see.

Now that we are close to the end of this seemingly endless primary season, I should be happy. Barack Obama, the candidate I voted for and for a while fervently supported, will be the Democratic nominee. Hillary Clinton, the real life Tracy Flick, appears to have gotten a well-needed dose of humility, and all seems right with the world.

Except it’s not.

Most Democrats are too self-delusional, culturally isolated, or just plain weak enough to say it, so allow me: President John McCain. Get used to hearing it - you’ll be hearing for the next 4 years.

I wish I was kidding, or just trying to be controversial for its own sake.  But I’m not. I honestly believe that, barring certain extenuating circumstances, John McCain is the next president of the U.S. because of Barack Obama’s nomination.

The promise of the Obama candidacy was one I still believe in: a politics that, in his words, “builds the nation up without tearing each other down.”  He called for Republicans and Democrats to come together and stop the vicious, nasty politics of the last 20 years in order to solve our most pressing issues. I still agree with him on that front. However, I no longer believe Obama is the person who can bring about that change.  Back in January and February, the country was getting real excited about him, on both sides of the fence, because they believed in this notion too.  Here, it seemed, was the guy who could bring an end to that, a charismatic guy that most everyone can get behind.

But along the way Obama lost the narrative and let Republicans define his campaign.  Not wearing a flag pin; Michelle’s poor choice of words; and of course, Jeremiah Wright.  Game over.  All those inaccurate rumors of being a Muslim and the whisperings about his middle name, which before had been renounced as despicable racism spread by the radical right, began to gain credence with mainstream America.  All of a sudden, “change” didn’t look so appealing.

Yes, these are all oversimplifications of nuanced matters.  But that’s politics, and in that sense (and I never thought I’d ever say this) Hillary is right.  You cannot beat Republicans without fighting - period.  Look at 2004 - John Kerry was a war hero, one who was given wealth and privilege growing up and chose to fight in the military anyway.  He was up against a president who started an unnecessary war, never fought in combat himself, and was running the economy into the ground.  That election was won on straight Republican fear-mongering and name-calling.  I know this firsthand; I worked for the company doing the exit polls that year and saw all the poll results of how people voted and why they voted that way.  Republicans use fear-mongering because it works (rent the documentary So Goes the Nation and hear them say it themselves).

Obama may be relatively inexperienced on the national stage, but he’s 46 years old and a U.S. Senator - he should know how the game is played.  You can’t have a Jeremiah Wright in your closet.  You can’t get caught up in an academic debate over the patriotism of wearing a flag pin.  Yes, wearing a pin is a cheap substitute for real patriotism, and yes, wearing a flag pin is no more than base pandering, BUT we are talking about presidential politics - PANDERING WORKS.  Don’t start an academic debate; the fact is most Americans don’t have the time to sit down and think about your nuanced arguments, and it just makes you look elitist and out of touch.  You have to get elected first, then you can win hearts and minds.

If you want to be president, and most especially if you want to be a new kind of president, you had better handle things like this early.  Obama did not, and the result is that in key battleground states needed for the election, Hillary would do better against McCain than Obama would (see for yourself on RealClearPolitics.com).  She makes a very legitimate case that she’d be the better nominee right now.  I think Obama had a little too much Obamania in his mind and not enough focus, and while he’ll win the nomination because of it, I find it hard to believe that he’s going to win the election.

His only prayer now, in my view, is to team with Hillary.  After all, he fashions himself to be the next JFK, but even JFK needed LBJ to win.

We got our first review of the new CD a few weeks ago. It was from my mother and it was basically, “this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” My mom then asked me why we can’t write songs with melodies that she, and presumably others, can sing along to.

I think this is a fair complaint, and one that we are aware of. In fact, Aaron and I have tried to write a simple pop song. We felt that it is easier to get away with songs in 9/8 if we can play something major and catchy as well. The problem is that we just are not very good at it, and struggled for a few hours before abandoning what we were working on.

I think that sometimes we give off the impression that we consider ourselves above writing pop songs. Writing songs in shifting time signatures, and with altered chords, certainly contributes to that impression. Personnally, that isn’t the case. I love pop music. Anyone can feel good about having Justin Timberlake’s album on their iPod, but what about *NSync or the Backstreet Boys? Anyone who has problems with “I Want It That Way” has problems with me.

The problem is that we don’t have the confidence to write and perform a pop song. From my perspective, a pop song is either really good, or really bad. If it doesn’t hit all the right buttons, and hold up to repeated listens, it is a failure. I just am not good enough to write like that. A pop song has to be perfect, and the process of trying to write one only reveals your own faults. It is a lot easier to write a song in 9/8. If people don’t like it, it is because it is too difficult and smart, and besides we are only writing for ourselves anyway (these are the lies you have to tell yourselves when you are in a band with very few fans). If you someone doesn’t like a pop song, a song meant to appeal to people, well then the problem is with the writer and not the audience.

The other reason we can’t write a pop song is because we are not good lyricists.

Also, Aaron’s melodies tend to be high because that is where he has to sing to hear himself in our practice space.

When Aaron and I abandoned our last attempt to write a pop song, we ended up writing Boy Makes Good. The verse is stolen from the first chords of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” You can take a listen to it over at our MySpace, or at our Facebook pages.

Photo by Flickr user kb35.