Radio Radio

From the Good Ol' Mailbag:

Sean,

Don had your back today on KIRO. The sad thing is I totally agree with you about it being more than time to open the military to Gays, but you hurt that message when you stuck your foot in your mouth and you need to do some serious soul searching, because I am not buying that there is “no part of you” that feels the troops are poor, uneducated victims of some trick. Some part of you said that with practiced ease this week. The only assumption I can draw from your Freudian slip was that you assume If THEY knew the truth you did, THEY would not be there. Any chance if you knew the truth THEY LIVE every day that slip would be impossible to make?

You’re in good company. Stephen King lost a lot of my respect earlier this year when he suggested the result of not finishing school would be going to Iraq.

Problem is both of you are working on assumptions and against facts.

FACT:
Through September 2004
99% of Army recruits and 98.5% of Navy Recruits had a HS diploma or GED level credentials vs. 80% of the general population
99.8% of the Marines and the Air Force had these credentials

That takes care of the uneducated part of your assumptions about the military.

FACT:
In 1999 18% of recruits came from the bottom 20% of incomes by neighborhood. That percent of has dropped steadily through figures available into September 2005, long after the WAR became unpopular.
On top of that the percentage of recruits in the upper 20% of income by neighborhood has gone steadily up from 18.6% in 1999 to 22.8% in 2004 and 2005. Economically the percentage of below average income recruits is down and the percentage of above average income recruits is up.

That takes care of the “poor” aspect of your assumption.

It’s simple… You don’t go choose to go stand in the dessert and be shot at for a low or average paying job, you do it out of a feeling of personal accountability for what you believe in. And I am sure that if you checked motivation no matter the income that he percent that are joining now out of duty or a desire to become something better personally is way up over “it’s a job” or “it pays for college.”

What you need to look for in your ACLU report, which I have not looked at yet, is what is documented by real statistics that show a pattern and what is documented by anecdotes that support what the ALCU wants to prove about the Military. There is not a system on the planet that is so perfect it can’t be shamed by its weakest members.

You’re a musician in Seattle, we all know that kind of comment over a beer makes you one of the cool kids at the table. The brave thing, if you REALLY believe what you said about respecting the troops and those in military service, would be to stop the conversation right there and say, “Excuse me, but those men and women, every single one of them, chose to risk their lives defending our right to be in Seattle and have voices like The Stranger, and we may not like this war, but you will not speak poorly of them in my presence again.”

And as unpopular as I know that would make you to have that kind of courage in this area and in your social circles, think about the courage it takes to drive an old lady 20 miles in the open dessert to VOTE in Iraq when the word is she and you might be targets of the thugs over there, or the courage it takes to be the lead truck on a road you know has IEDs, or to be the first one in the door of a room that might have armed opposition.

I have to say, kudos to you getting on the show today and being accountable for sticking your foot in your mouth. Being anti-war and even negative about the military is easy in Seattle. But you’re a writer for a paper that usually challenges easy assumptions. Spend some time figuring out how your foot got close enough to insert orally :) and maybe the result will be you choosing to go talk to some troops maybe even doing a USO trip to Iraq, come back and tell Seattle the Good and the Bad about Iraq and why many of these guys have re-enlisted and asked to go back to stand by their friends doing the hardest job on the planet.

If you do that you will be a better artist and writer.

My sources:
http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004/enlisted_accessions/education.html

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm They source their material too in this case I am using that material.

XXX XXXXXXX
Lynnwood, WA

Of course, I spent like two hours writing the archest, most piss-on-them-from-a-great-height response I could muster, then sent this:

Thank you for your passionate and informative letter.

Perhaps one day I'll post the real reply.

If, however, you're interested in hearing the "other" seattle curse my name (I know you're out there!), I recommend going all up in here.

Spring Sprung

From an e-mail address I didn't recognize: "List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring."

This isn't easy, given how little music I've been listening to lately, but why not try?

1. "Wichita Lineman," Glen Campbell.
I don't know how I managed to miss the incredible majesty of this song through all these years. The first time I ever heard it (I confess) was when R.E.M. covered it in a documentary around the release of Monster. Their version did not blow my mind, though it's good. Neither did song author Jimmy Webb's. But this one, by Glen Campbell, the definitive arrangement, is so powerfully melancholy, so epic (and still so camp) that I have been spending long hours of rehabilitation just walking around with it on repeat in my headphones. For like, hours.

2. "The Disappointed," XTC.
From Nonsuch, one of their lesser-loved latter day LPs, this is yet another of Andy Partridge's perfect songs, the kind that seem like someone must have written it 25 years ago. But no. The cleverness of the lyric and the construction form a typically effective sfumato to obscure the haunted emotions hidden inside. "I'm the king of broken hearts," indeed. And the leaping melody on the chorus. I can't wait till the world wakes up to Partridge. I basically believe that this song—like many of his best works—is exactly what pop music is for: a vehicle to both wallow in misery and elevate yourself up out of it.

3. "Better Off," Let's Go Sailing.
I don't know. I just love this song. I love the whole record, actually, but this is the masterpiece, I think. I only wish the radio sounded like this. It used to, kind of, didn't it? College radio, anyway? Maybe? Sorta? A tiny bit? No? Ok. Well, there's a beauty in the way Shana Levy stretches for the high note on the chorus that pleases me more than almost anything I can think of. And of course, the jaunty, jangly feeling throughout the verses conflicting with the resignation in the words. The theme has emerged, I daresay.

4. "Keeping the Weekend Free," Liquorice.
I've never understood why no one seems to remember the impeccable Liquorice record Listening Cap (though once when I played it KEXP, the drummer—now a powerful indie rock booking agent—e-mailed me to say thanks), or, for that matter, why you can't find a Tsunami CD, even used, in a record store east of the Mississippi. (Funny, though, how clearly I remember how people loved to "debate" the morality of an indie-ass album like this being released by a major label like 4AD—imagine that debate happening today.) Written by Franklin Bruno, sung by Jenny Toomey and Dan Littleton (of Ida), this is another quiet ode to romantic agony—but, crucially, one whose narrator is prostrating herself rather than lashing out—that feels like it's torn right out of my unconscious. The songs I like best are the ones I feel like were written exclusively for me.

5. "Suedehead," Morrissey.
I never really paid special attention to this song, just kind of took it for granted as one of those perfect early Morrissey singles, not as flamboyant at "Hairdresser on Fire," not as exciting as "Picadilly Palare," just right there in the middle of Viva Hate, right at the end of Bona Drag. Just more evidence of his greatness. But just lately, I've been closing in on just how strong this number really is, how many levels it operates on, from sorry to sickened to vindictive (and so many things in between). The swerving emotions of a person trying to get over someone else, but still yearning to address them—the attempt to squeeze reason from a stone heart. "Why do you come here when you know it makes things hard for me?" So enigmatic, but so direct. And "you had to sneak into my room just to read my diary/it was just to see, just to see all the things you knew I'd written about you." There's even a punchline. "It was a good lay." Always a comfort. PS The proto-alternative rock production, guitar solo intro, prominent snare, and strings—are part of the solution, not part of the problem. Is it time yet to admit that it's possible to remember the sound of the early '90s fondly?

6. "A Really Good Time," Roxy Music.
Another dispatch from the crosshairs of epic melancholy and camp. I love singing along with Bryan Ferry always, but especially on this song, a highlight from my favorite Roxy record. Partly because he's usually so inscrutable, but also because of the piano and strings attack, Ferry sounds so vulnerable here—no trouble imagining him imagining someone specific when he talks about the girl he used to know whose face is her fortune and who has a heart of gold. Nor is it possible to imagine him thinking of anyone else but himself when he sings "you never bothered about anyone else. You're well educated with no common sense. But love, that's one thing you really need to get by" or "all your troubles come from yourself. Nobody hurts you, they don't care." That's the kind of self-pity I can approve of. This song is the chink in his armor. And then there's "all the things you used to do, a trip to the movies, a drink or two: they don't satisfy you, they don't show you anything new." By then, he's talking to me, I'm pretty sure.

7. "Crying, Waiting, Hoping," Marshall Crenshaw.
Written and originally performed by Buddy Holly. The first version I heard was a clean-cut, George-sung live take by the Beatles on the radio show "The Beatles at the Beeb" in the mid-'80s. I think the Stones did one early on, too. This rendition, from the La Bamba soundtrack (on Slash Records, thank you very much), puts them all to shame. Maybe it's that Marshall C. was acting the part of Buddy, and not trying to do too much of his own thing, maybe it's the players, I don't know. i just think this is definitive reading of a song that distills the essence of the pop singer voice—"maybe someday soon things'll change and you'll be mine"—in a way that's still being employed all the time by almost everyone who writes songs. It's a total bummer, but you listen again and again. I do, anyway. And I've been listening to it on the cassette I bought at Music Plus in Thousand Oaks, CA the day after I saw the film in 1987. It's the only song I like on that tape, I admit.

General observations: The most recent song is about three years old, the oldest is nearly 40. I don't think that means anything important. I suppose the absence of more difficult music on this list could have something to do with the choppy waters I've been swimming in lately, but it could also just be the case that this is the form I love best. In any case, my relationship to music is changing a lot lately, but I still feel an attachment to the infinite when I hear these songs. I guess that's the best criterion I can think of for enjoying songs, or for letting them shape my spring.