QOTD

"Don't confuse fame and money with accomplishments."

"Has he saved an animal from dying in the cold? Has he helped a mother broken down on the side of the road in the rain? Has he found a wallet full of money and returned it? Has he devised anything that would benefit his peers? Has he contributed to society in a truly meaningful way?"

One year ago today...

DEPECHE MODE 2009 TOUR

   Somewhere out there, standing proudly, is the ultimate travel magazine review of one of the world's most popular destinations I've never read, pondering the city's intellectual movements and -isms, bridges and buildings, the best place to find a sandwich and coffee at 1 A.M., last call.  "That ain't me."  Only dropping in to say that one year ago today, I was in Paris at Stade de France watching the 2009 Depeche Mode tour, the best concert I've ever seen (CLICK FOR SETLIST AND VIDEO).





   How they can bring all that energy to bear for scores of concerts is beyond me.  I guess it's like an act in Vegas or Broadway, you do the same show for a few months and move on to your next project.  I do get it now, how concerts have to be cancelled on the way because someone's ruptured his larynx of they're just exhausted. 

   The whole damn place shook during "It's no Good," 15 or so rows back, house-sized speakers delivered compressions that made my insides felt like they were going to cave in, and my chest was getting pissed at me.

   I'm always, always happy when I think about that trip, that journey.  I'm very fortunate to have been able to live it.  



   CD players came around early high school, and then music seemed to be more accessible. I remember the first kid strutting in class with a portable CD player - instant cool. I remember picking up my first player a year or so later and a Nine Inch Nails CD one night after rock climbing in Grand Rapids. I didn't have many cassettes; I must've listened to a lot of radio. I listened to the hell out of that little CD player. Soon after, we'd be scouring the bins in dingy little college record shops and listening to this "techno" stuff on the lower dial, my friends were picking up Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, I think I bought Stone Temple Pilots off a friend from soccer and asked for New Order - Republic for Christmas. My music "anthology" was more or less a blank slate; I can't even remember what I liked so much, but harmonic synth and the new romantic movement had staying power. I was standing in the shower today drawing connections on the migration from this post-punk phenomenon to these kids that favor the withdrawn thing or the black garbed thing, the vamp thing - is it a movement favoring traits that seem to appear in DM and other NRs, like yin, introspection, is that it? 

   I remember Angela, Caroline and I talking in French class about how bad we wanted to see Depeche Mode.  That was a fun class, a handful of seniors up to no good in the back of French I with all the freshmen. So definitely within my first five or so CDs I was back up at FBC picking up The Cure - Live in Paris - for the hit Lovesong, but really came to like A Letter to Elise, and Charlotte Sometimes (I've known a French Elise and search this blog for the Charlotte story), both which had strong connotations of a someday trip to France for me, travelling, putting pen to paper, expression.  Live albums took some time to grow on me, but the vibrance of the living, breathing fans pulls in the significance. Depeche Mode 101 came soon after, a two-disc album similarly dark and passionate thematically like The Cure.  From my perspective, information about your favorite bands, tours, and their cultural penetration wasn't maybe as accessible? as it is today, and I surely wasn't reading any Rolling Stone at the time.  While you're grasping for information, you cruise the shops, looking for maybe a foreign live album (probably too expensive), waiting for something new to come along.  You'd have maybe two or three albums to choose from, little did we know about others.  With DM,  I only ever saw Violator and 101, 101 was it for me for a long time.  And now, instead of hearing David Gahan yelling, "Good evening, Pasadena!!!" on 101 and imagining the full stadium, I can see this sort of thing recorded, and I was there. 


The quality of this video wasn't the greatest, but you can tell how disjointed the bass makes you feel up front, (not a complaint, just a test of endurance).

   So you might spend time reading album liners over and over, taking in the tone, reading magazines in the library.  You'd find your way into new music through borrowing your friends' stuff, genre radio shows, or often just grabbing something off the used rack and going with it.  I don't know, cultural transmission seems so different.  Knowledge is more easily obtained and often more disposable.  I have learned exponentially growing tons of shiate about 80s music since starting hanging out at my college radio station, grabbing a paycheck, and an internet connection. 



   Today, I'd like to be able to tell the gals the dream was realized to see the band with the French name, the pillars of the new romantics, in freaking Paris, in a sea of people.  Wondering if a live album will be realized from this spectacular date, like that famous album from The Cure. 

More reading on New Romanticism:

1. "The New Romantics,"  Squidoo, last accessed 27JUN10.

2. "New Romanticism," Wikipedia, last accessed 27JUN10.

July 2010 Rad 80s Spotlight up - see at right.
- Ed.

More musings of little consequence

Same instructions as usual today: print, tape to stall. 

1. I recently submitted this ironic headline to Fark and was hoping to be rewarded with a "Page One!" but no joy.  "Students burning the -Mexican- flag presents rare dilemma for progressives"  I really was in the mood to rake some muck, no luck.

2. Presenting the worst cover of all time:  The Final Countdown  Heh.

3. Have any of you seen the 1980s flick "Streets of Fire"?  Looks like some essential 80s knowlege for the ol' grape.  Funny how I got there. I was looking up background on the soundtrack from "Bubblegum Crisis," (same kinda genre as "I Need a Hero," what is that called, allegrissimo?); which said it was influenced by Streets of Fire; which said Streets of Fire was a seminal work for the 80s despite low sales (a kind of Grease, Little Shop or Rocky Horror?). 

The Fixx, gods of English new wave music and featured in the credits, have always been a force in their own right. With all of their uniqueness and range, it would make sense that something on the cutting edge like their "Deeper and Deeper" would have found its way into a movie of this kind of significance, even though I was suprised by their appearance.  So, I'm hoping the movie won't be a disappointment. I don't always look at movies in the straightforward way:  "Bob is here. Bob gets in a pickle. Bob saves the day. The end." I'll be looking for cool cues from the period, looking laterally for influences, whether I like riding the vibe 'til the end...

4.  I'm pi$$ed off at Wal-Mart and their mega-pals as usual. I'm working on an editorial on the banality of a fifth Petco coming to town. We are a country that can't avoid steering into the most mordant irony.
People say, "Let the consumers decide," but there is no way that even the anti-WM crowd could gain a foothold in stopping them. There are too many dregs that would still go there even if they flew a red star.
 
5. I'm a centrist, but the presidential burger outing a few days back was inappropriate.  If I had just had this somber, solemn meeting with one of my at-war generals and relieved him, I think I would eat in that day. Jiminy freaking Christmas.  Aaaaand - with that off my chest, I'm back to refraining from political posts again.

6.  QOTD context comes from a discussion on incorporating lawyerly negotiation skills in dealings with tribal leaders in Afghanistan.

Lawyers spend years learning how to be adversarial. Very few law schools offer any training in mediation whatsoever, and the few that do only train their students in evaluative mediation (focused on property settlements).


They learn NOTHING about dealing with the human factor in a negotiation (such as when one party feels they need an apology from the other party before they can move forward w/ the negotiation in good faith).


If successful negotiation is what they want, they need people who have spent years learning how to resolve conflict in a cooperative way that can address the emotional content of a conflict as well as the material aspect, not attorneys who will likely stay so focused on the letter of the law that they will lose sight of the spirit of the law and inadvertently make matters worse.  - "fyrewede"

People seem to have this idea that "they" (for any given value of them) are aliens, with strange, unknowable, and often irrational motives; certainly, with nothing in common with "us" or our motives and ways of thinking. Instead, we ascribe stereotyped motivations to "them" and expect that if we believe hard enough, things will work out the way we think. "They" will welcome us as liberators. "They" hate our freedoms. "They" want to see the poor suffer. Pick your "they", pick your irrationality, and have at it. It's a surefire route to guaranteed failure.


Winning, whether it's in the marketplace or on the playing field or on the battlefield, requires knowing your enemy. You have to know how he thinks. How he reacts. What his motivations are. What his goals are. What he's done in the past to achieve them. If you don't study those, if you assign him some self-generated (and often irrational) motivation, you're going to lose, because you're not fighting the enemy -- you're fighting your own straw man. The enemy doesn't have to deceive you about what he's going to do and why; you're doing it yourself. You're the best player on the other team.

It's true in relationships, too. "She just likes driving me crazy" ... how often have you heard that? (substitute "he" as needed) Do you like driving people crazy? Well, this is Fark, that might not be the best question to ask some people here ... but in general. Do you like to drive your friends, lovers, family, etc., crazy, just for the sport of it? Unlikely. So why ascribe a motive like that to someone else? They're no more likely to be trying to drive you crazy than you are to do it to them. By blinding yourself with that false image, you're totally missing whatever is motivating them to do whatever is driving you crazy ... which means you can't fix it ... and in the end, you've got a broken relationship and a therapy bill; you lose.

It's easy to spot who's never served in the military in comments like that. They're the ones who start the name-calling and peen-waving at any mention of any tactic other than unrestrained slaughter. They're the ones who think wars are about killing, not about winning. - Worldwalker

The fireflies are out.  I've started mowing around the little flowers popping up in the back forty. I'm not a good gardner, I'm a good cook, though.  The neighbors all garbonzed my jerk chicken and skrimps. 

Baby's Breath, Black-eyed Susans...  I also picked a lot of clover flowers tonight (very fragrant), going to try to make tea with them.

Cagey's listening to

On the outgoing commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan/ISAF

   For the record, General McChrystal offered his resignation from his post today, he was not "fired."  I'm trying to imagine how he feels right now: hopefully at peace, and hopefully justified.

   General Petraeus, the CENTCOM commander with the Roman god-warrior name might encounter tight reins, I don't know. When he testified before Congress in 2008, he didn't seem to have any shortage of angry congressmen and media outlets breathing down his neck.  More, and more catch-22s will be revealed after the turnover, mark my words.

   I really wonder how much analysis the White House did of the actual Rolling Stone article, which purportedly is incompatible with anything the administration has ever heard about the military. Other than following the herd, I would love to see some more airing of grievances.  Part of what perpetuates this mess is that probably fewer than 1% of the people opining on the article or the debate - have actually read the damned article!

• Oh, and it is a magazine primarily for counter-culturists.  Serious news?  I do concede it was a very well-written article.  And if it creates pangs of disappointment of Obama for his core of voters (the hip sophists, maaaaaaaan), this poses a problem for the politics of control. 
• OH, and where is the part where Gen. McChrystal criticized the White House?  The only thing I infer from the article is that the staff behaves like men fighting a war.  These men have their hands tied behind their backs due to restrictive ROE, and counter-insurgency, when it succeeds, takes a long time. 
• And what is the end-state?  The questions Obama asked two years ago as Senator actually seem to make sense (Washington Post), and I don't get the feeling that he was overcritical of Gen. Petraeus at the time despite contrary assertions; everything made sense with the exception of his outrageous statement that he felt that Iraq was a "massive strategic blunder."  That there leaves me asking who the hell is the home team?
• What priority does Afghanistan hold?  We need a new key speech - but it has to be meaningful: something that will last longer than 5 minutes in the news cycle.
• Did the squirrelly little aides with chips on their shoulder queue up and relish using their slings and arrows on our General?
• What would be expected by allowing a Rolling Stone journalist this kind of access, and how seriously should criticisms be taken?  Well, I'll pre-empt us both and stab at an answer:  It probably worries our chiefs to a great degree, in a political environment that feels a need to formulate its own media messages.
• I have a friend, a Marine, who tells me Obama came away smelling like a rose today.  So what do you expect the prevailing sentiment "over there" would be?  (I can only speculate.) As my favorite Marine author says, "When you try to be their friend, you've already lost."  So the staff wasn't trying to make friends.  Blame them? 
• Two more quotes: "One thing worse than confidence in their weapons is lack of confidence in their leaders."  This applies to everyone, so bear in mind the historical difficulty with running counterinsurgencies.  Malaya (The Brits say that one was a success), The French in Algeria, the U.S. in Vietnam. 
• How do you promote unpopular policy?  As the Rolling Stone article reveals, the general had the thankless job of trying to provide the rationale for this kind of protracted war, and the restrictive operating environment.  By reading how the general set up his command center (a huge "open briefing"), joining in field operations (extremely rare, in fact unheard of), and by seeing that he didn't sugar-coat, the casual reader should get the sense that this man cared about what he did and he did it well.  "A lot of Marines from the 'old school' disdain telling their troops the 'why' of an order by saying they have no right to know why. That's hogwash! If that youngster is going to willingly go die by your order, he damned surely has a right to know why. Get into the habit with the little things."  - Gene Duncan, USMC (Ret.)   The general did his best to explain the "why" and never went around saying, "Those guys in Washington surely are messed up."

   The "Runaway General" article appears almost a relief valve for ground truth.  Read the article!!!  And if you fancy more reading, read this article I alluded to earlier (The Examiner - Rush Limbaugh comments).  I'm left of his comments, but the ROE problem sticks out. 

   As Newsweek tells us yesterday, "What's essential is a public atmosphere of mutual respect between the civilian and military leaderships. Generals demand that political leaders respect their professional expertise. In return, it's expected that generals understand the multiple pressures weighing on their civilian leaders, and respect—even if they don't agree with—whatever compromises these pressures dictate. The system can cope with almost anything, so long as both sides understand the role and responsibilities of the other." 

   It's true this is the foundation of the relationship between civilians and the military (the missing dynamic is national will).  I remember a senior lieutenant-grade DoS civilian taking early leave from his post in-country as a sign of protest when the new administration left a very pregnant pause before beginning to reveal its mission objectives for the Afghan coalition.  Does the allegedly neutered new National Security Strategy offer insight how we get there?  And, is this Rolling Stone article a protest of the administration, or its strategy, or either?  I think it's reality.  If I were president, I might eke out a WTF, but c'mon.

   I did think it was hilarious that the article implied McChrystal cringed upon receiving an e-mail from the head State Dept. rep for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. "Try not to get any of that on your leg," a staff member joked to the journalist. Noteworthy is the paragraph on small DoS resources vs. immense DoD resources,  I can only imagine the friction between the entities. I don't have a fix on the civilians, but I feel that you don't find much decisive leadership in their ranks gaggle.

   Gen. McChrystal is a balls-out leader of warriors and the event of his early departure is a shame, unless new blood truly effects the conceptualization and execution of game-changing strategy.  Whether pragmatist, idealist, there is a long road ahead.  

Action Squirrel

The commencement gown

   For your review today is a quick human interest story on a young man just graduating from university, with a little twist in that he gained approval to wear a sentimental robe that has been in his family some 100 years.

  What are your first and second-order throughts on this?  "Why bother? Who would want to wear a robe that your great-great grandma crocheted?"   

   Why you should read this story: They say people don't appreciate history, right?  Sewn within are the names and universities of his predecessors, and in this ceremony, tangible history emerges.  As the young man feels honored to do this, he is honoring their legacies.  These kinds of traditions that take place during -commencement- are always salient, indelible touchstones.  What do you emulate?  What memories motivate you to make your imprint on blank pages? 

Story:  http://fairfaxtimes.com/cms/story.php?id=1494

Cooking with Cagey, and: On the passing of Meteor Smokehouse

**UPDATE (6/17) - check end for details

   I'm looking up the recipe for Minnie Lee's green beans, but I already know I'm going to get sidetracked thinking about Key West, the end of the world, the black spot on the map with the big white question mark.

   I keep a good amount of simple cooking supplies on hand for a bachelor, I can whip up something on short notice if need-be. Cleaning out my pantry as well, old gets pushed off to the right, new goes in on the left, just like skivvies. Thank you, faithful training.  This way, everybody gets a fair rotation and nobody feels left out. (I like that word "pantry."  It evokes a trip to the cellar, sorting out stores, feeling comfortably stocked.) 

   Cooking up some country boy chowda this eve, an update on that one.  You can add a few dried chile peppers (the evil red ones used in Thai cooking) to spice it up a bit...  the rain is pouring down, the dog is hiding under the printer table; and chopping up the celery, I pulled out some raisins and peanut butter. 

Echo the dog

Likes ants on a log

Pot is simmering

While I blog

  

   AABA - anything beyond two lines when someone tries to teach rhyme scheme leaves me like, "WTH?!"  These poetry savants break their own rules in leaps and bounds.

... on deck:  an attempt at Minnie Lee's green beans.  This place just closed, and it's too bad, because it had a more authentic feel to it.  This is no problem for eclectic Key West though, where you can actually drive for a mile without seeing a McDonald's.  Yes, Minnie Lee's...  I found this spicy, snappy concoction at the Meteor Smokehouse on Southard St.  I used to spend time down there before setting out on a few assignments and often had a few days to beat the street on my own.  The Meteor Smokehouse was one of my favorite destinations (I had about 4 or more "obligatory Key West" visits, below) for the - smokiness, right next door to a another curiously named tavern, The Green Parrot.  At Meteor, I was happy alone getting the beans, and have never been able to come anywhere near cooking this.  I was going to send a real live handwritten snail correspondence note their way, but as of a few weeks ago, well, the internet says they're gone.  Damn shame.  Oh, the beans: part of my problem was using canned beans.  

"You so STUPIIIIIIIIID!"

   KEY WEST

   So excluding Meteor, here's the rest of the top 5 places to spend your nickel and dime while in Key West.

'Captain Tony's - the REAL location of the Ernest Hemingway pub (not Sloppy Joe's); and the namesake of one of the greatest personalities of the Keys.  I've mentioned him elsewhere here, the night of his birthday when he stepped out of the limo with the two hot cougars on his arm.

 

'Willie T's: The Bar - Soul of all People" - My favorite bar in the entire world, beating out anything from Barcelona to Yokohama.  Nights, I used to play the hell out of Journey in their jukebox and walk to the nearby pay phone after getting heavily soused, which I thought was a rather cosmopolitan thing to do.  Wind jostling the palms, me fumbling around for a phone card.  Would make a great short film. 

"Chicharrones" - the closest place to Cuba to get a Cuban sandwich - I love how like Andre said, they mash them down and grill them - you can replicate this with a George Foreman grill to some extent.  Mustard, jamon, pickles, what else?

"Café Solé"  - "A meal in Provence."  Its outdoor terrace, trellises and French cooking makes it something resembling what would be the officers' club of Key West.  They have the finest dishes, maybe plan on spending $25/pp.?  Not trying to be snooty, but it's just neatly tucked away (thereby easy to miss unless you're looking for it), and... chawming!

   Which brings us to the main event:

MAIN EVENT !!

   "Does anyone have the recipe for minnie lee's spicy green beans?"
   Granny Sue Answered:
   "I don't know the Minnie Lee recipe, but here''s one suggestion":

   "Mix together soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, sesame oil, olive oil, and chili flakes. Fill a frying pan 2/3rds of the way with water. Bring water to a boil and add beans and salt. Cover and cook, stirring once, until beans are bright green and still sorta crunchy, 8 or 9 minutes. Drain and rinse beans in cold water. Stir soy sauce mixture and add to pan. Bring to a boil. Add the beans and cook through. Garnish with sesame seeds."

(Source: Yedda.com)
I'll let you know how they turn out another time, but I'm headed back down... to the kitchen.

6/17 - This came in from a fan of this blog, thanks Keith & Rob.  If this works, someone liberated the secret recipe! Unbelievable.

MINNIE'S BEANS (from "keywesmoke")
*Sautee chopped onions and sliced/diced red & green peppers, set a side (I add a little garlic)
*Clean & dry some fresh green beans
*Pour about 1/4" oil into pan (I use olive) and heat. Add green beans and stir fry them (I watch for them to change to that nice bright green color and are still crunchy)
*Add onions and peppers back in, add crumbled cooked bacon
*Stir in House of Tsang Szechuan Spicy Stir Fry Sauce, enough to coat. Sautee covered a few minutes.
I use the regular House of Tsang Szechuan Stir Fry sauce and mix in a little bit of the spicy one with it. I imagine whatever similar product would be just as good.
[End recipe]
I added poppy seeds at the end, and probably some of those insanely hot "chile arbol" spicy dried red death peppers.  Once you are done stir-frying, they need to be broiled until crunchy.

Cagey's listening to

My name is Cagey.

I drink at dive bars.

I report to happy hour while the light still streams through the blinds.

*         *          *            *              *                *                      *

Cagey sing-a-long

It was long ago
Seems like yesterday

Saw you standing in the rain

Then I heard you say

(chorus)

I want to love but it comes out wrong
I want to live but I don't belong

I close my eyes and I see
Blood and roses

Dressed in leather, brandishing heavy guitars, and an unabashed fetish for British Invasion pop, the Smithereens were an anomaly in the American college rock scene of the late '80s. Lead singer/songwriter Pat DiNizio stood out not only with his strange beatnik goatee, but also because his catchy hooks were haunting, not punchy, and because his lyrics were morose. As time wore on, the group became more straightforward, turning into an excellent bar band, one that attacked pop songs with the weight of AC/DC. A few hits followed, but the Smithereens seemed hopelessly out of date in the alternative rock explosion of the early '90s, and they quietly faded into a working cult band.

Of course, the Smithereens essentially started out as a working band. After playing in several cover bands, including a handful of prog rock and metal groups, Pat DiNizio (vocals, guitar) was inspired to form his own band after listening to Buddy Holly. Placing an advertisement in a New York paper for musicians influenced by Holly, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and the Clash.

The Smithereens, according to at least one bio, had a dificult time getting started, sending demos to producers for years before their break with a college d.j. turned label promoter, ending up in an 80s vampire film.  Seems reminiscent of The Lost Boys and the surge in horror, otherwise campy make-out films of that day and age.  If that kind of exposure wasn't enough to cement them as authentic 80s rockers, their promotion of "Blood and Roses" on Miami Vice was.   

They will play in Virginia Beach on August 9 as part of their 2010 summer tour, and are being considered for my forthcoming compilation album, "80s Hinterland."

Sources: http://www.cmt.com/, http://www.allmusicguide.com/, http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-musicians/smithereens-biography

Thank you for this miracle.

It will do its job some 2.6B (2,600,000,000) times in your time, delivering the equivalent of over 212M L of life through your veins, ordinarily without missing a beat.  In religion, the pantheon of mythology, in common relationships, it is representative of love, existence, spirit, soul, being. 

Being.

A.M. radio blaring, windows down, traffic was stuck on the bridge, sweltering heat, broken A.C., and a haze covering everything in the bay. I ran late in what's ordinarily a 45 min. drive because of traffic, so I called ahead, and when I arrived they were waiting.  Moving about 10 m.p.h., the heat was memorable in its scintillating from the asphalt, and I wondered if I should pay to get the A.C. fixed.  Air rushing around, my place was secure in the world, a non-motorcyclist's quick moment of zen.  I was only about 15 minutes late. Finally, I was ushered off to a dark room and the lady put a few of those sticky electrodes on me and - good to go. 

In a routine exam today, I saw it.  I looked at the screen and asked, "Is that a sonogram?  Is that my...?"

Since I showed interest, from that point on, I was given the VIP tour.  "How much does that machine cost?"

"More than my house."

She continued to explain how the chambers opened and closed, asking here and there that I take a deep breath and hold.  I told her I'd have to reward it with a big steak for doing such a great job.  I asked about the patches of red and blue on the screen, and whether she'd seen her own before.  "It's different when you see your own," she said. 

I wasn't sure whether to keep looking or not.  Chances are I wouldn't see it (like this) again, I mean I've seen this sort of thing in books or on t.v., but seeing my own was disconcerting.  But I stole a few moments and did.  I let my guard down too, which felt not only good, but right.  This was a rare moment to be appreciate my own mortality and our gifts, so many which are intangible as ideas or simply because they are beyond reach.  I let myself be moved.  My eyes watered up.  It was unforgettable.

"O.k., now you're going to hear some amplified sound that sounds like a washing machine."  Ka-woosh, ka-woosh, ka-woosh.

She continued her explanation of ventricles, aortae, chambers and the like and said, "You're probably just like 'Whatever'." 

I told her that I wasn't in the least.

"The best G.I. Joe movie ever"

(Linked URL)

We used to do this stuff when we were kids, but not with directing, framing (close-ups, etc.) and great sound effects.  Firecrackers, bottle rockets, all that goodness.  At 3:00 in length, it's the perfect amount of time to keep our interest in the YouTube age.  Kids - we like to blow up G.I. Joes for some reason.