Looking Glass’ “Subway Serenade” deserves respect — a sleeper perfect album

The Fender Rhodes is briefly tickled when that familiar voice kicks in — the velvet voice of Elliot Lurie.

This is soft-rock at its core.

“Soft-Core” as some aficionados would call it.

But still — isn’t Looking Glass’ “Subway Serenade” in every way not a perfect album?

I define “perfect album” by a very demanding process.

Yes, a perfect album may contain some classics, that is irrelevant.

What matters in  “perfect album” (trademark pending) is whether you can press play on track #1 and not hit “skip” on any tracks. It has to flow like a perfect album would. That can be an album like The Beatles’ “Revolver” but not an album like “Sgt Pepper” (admit it, you skip “Within You Without You” every time.)

And this album fulfills that role.

They’re from Brooklyn, in the 1970s, when Ford told NYC to “Drop Dead.”

When all hope is lost, you turn to music, religion, and drugs. But especially religion.

But Looking Glass turned to music. This is important, because this is the crux of “Subway Serenade.”

I know you only know Looking Glass because of “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”

That’s OK. We all get into bands because of their hits.

But this album, riding the wave of “Brandy” was a masterpiece, should have been received better than it was. Maybe it was the NYC punk scene gaining momentum, or maybe it was James Taylor’s fault.

Point is, this is a great album many forgot.

I dare you. I double dog dare – nay – I triple dog dare you to listen to “Who’s Gonna Sing My Rock and Roll Song” when in a down mood and not sing along. It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s beautiful.

This is an album for the hopeless, to give them one ray of hope before they descend into depressive madness.

The album starts off with “Jimmy Loves Mary Anne,” the single they introduced as a follow up to “Brandy.” It’s a great starter, capturing that Fender Rhodes star of the show in Larry Gonsky’s Bachesque playing.

“City Lady” gives us an example on why Larry Gonsky is the real star of the band.

And it flows, and flows, like the Hudson River or time itself.

This album is the 70s.

Accept no imitations.

My Lunch with Hegenburgers

I just ate at “Hegenburgers,” the kind of place where working men and women go for decent burgers without hipster frills or expensive decor. The dress code seemed to be wet, reflective gear. Perfect for keeping you dry on a rainy airport day.

There are no double sided flat screen TVs playing every single game known to man. There is no list of expensive beers and wines and there are no corporate overlords that plans ingredients from spreadsheets and power points.

They have one thing, from a business perspective, going for it — they are situated right near the Oakland Airport. In fact, you could walk there from any of the aiport hotels surrounding the Bay Area’s Best Kept Secret.

Nobody was a stranger here. Not even me. People would strike up a conversation with you, or leave you alone. The tables were arranged where you had to sit next to someone you didn’t know. There was only one line chef, so chances are your order would take a while. It was a perfect opportunity to strike up a conversation.

But unlike the many chains in this area, there is but one TV, tuned via antenna sitting outside. It is tuned to the NBA network, the single most important channel to the city of Oakland at this moment.

There are Warriors schedules all over the walls, but none of the pickled memorabilia that adorns the plastic “sports bar.” No jerseys signed by Michael Jordan or even Steph Curry. They don’t need those. this place is not about proving what a sports fanatic runs this establishment.

This is the kind of place Bourdain would go if he were near the Oakland airport.

Good food, a burger done right – meat, salt, pepper. Toppings are extra.

A dying thing in the Bay Area where even greasy burger joints are feeling the threat of gentrification.

In short, you want this. You need this. And you need to preserve this.

For this type of establishment is dying. Neighborhoods that once were filled with locally owned restaurants, book stores and coffee shops have now given way to mini malls that sell whatever shit Starbucks calls their drinks these days. Funniccinos? Flat happiness? Whatever they are, they are your new normal in most neighborhoods.

It wasn’t always this way, and it wasn’t always this way in the Bay Area. When I came back from Peace Corps we first moved to Oakland. Grand Avenue had six coffee shops, none of them named Starbucks and all of them good. It had three bookstores, one of them decidedly communist. It had restaurants where they learned your name after the third time you ate there, and would tell you if the fish you wanted to order was fresh.

Now I don’t recognize it. All the coffee shops are gone except Starbucks. All of the bookstores are gone. In their place are Fantastic Sams, The Gap and a Buffalo Wild Wings.

So when I get a chance to stop by a place that looks like you shouldn’t, I do. And I say to myself “I should.”

Go places you shouldn’t. Be in places you think might make you feel uncomfortable.

 

America is one big Mutt and Jeff (or Jeff and Mutt) Scheme

My father was a police officer for 25 years. The department he worked for really liked to recruit college grads especially those who majored in Psychology. My dad didn’t major in psychology, but he knew it, so they hired him.

Anyway, cops have a routine called “Mutt and Jeff” — you may know it as “Good Cop/Bad Cop.” The idea is this: you have one cop come in and he acts like a complete asshole.

“YOU WERE THE ONE WHO STOLE THE JEWELS! YOU DID IT! TELL ME NOW OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT RIGHT HERE!!!”

Then he, or “Mutt,” leaves the room. Then comes in “Jeff” or the “good cop.”

“Aw my partner, he’s a mean guy sometimes. He says things because you know, he’s got ‘issues.’ Anyway, I just brewed some coffee. If you like I can bring you a cup. Maybe a snack. By the way, you don’t know anything about any jewels do you?”

As far as I can tell, America plays by these rules, but in politics, and in reverse. Obviously switching the order serves a different purpose. Instead of getting us all to confess (sorry, that’s Facebook’s job) it gets us to make previously unlikable pols into “elder statesmen” and “eternal servants of democracy.”

“Elder statesman” and KKK member Jesse Helms

How does this work? Well say you’ve got a George H. W. Bush. Privileged son by all accounts. He wants to beat the communists in Central America SOOOO BAD too! So he, running the CIA, starts funding all these paramilitaries to go hunt down anyone who is a leftist. This works for a while, but just like in Vietnam it pushes ordinary people who are now without a father or son into the hands of the communists. The numbers swell.

Congress catches on that this is repeating the same process, but expecting a different result and says “INSANITY! No more money!”

So This G. H. W. Bush, now Vice President, decides to open other channels. He makes some calls to America’s sworn enemy, Iran, and tells them he’ll sell them a bunch of guns, under the table. They agree, with the “to” field being “Great Satan” signing them “Death to America!”

But congress catches on, and starts hearings. So what does H.W. Bush, now PRESIDENT, do? He pardons everyone, on Christmas, when nobody is paying attention (keep in mind this was in the age before mobile devices.)

Time marches on, and we get his son in charge. This guy does a whole bunch of crazy stuff. Invades Iraq with made up reasons, and in many ways, outdoes his father in terms of bad, evil, mistakes.

“I sure miss the FIRST Bush!” say way too many liberals.

Then we get Obama, and America loses it’s shit so much over a black President they elect Donald fucking Trump.

And then this George Herbert Walker Bush goes and dies, and liberals start lionizing him everywhere. They bring out letters — “The man wrote ACTUAL LETTERS! WHAT A NICE GUY!” say some liberals.

“Oooh and HE didn’t like Trump either!”

Well gabba fucking hey he must be one of us, right?

 

 

Donald Exposed as Cocaine Addict

Now I’ve seen quite a few people on drugs. I know your basic pothead, your coke-o-phile, your crankster, your acidhead, etc.

Your pothead will delay everything until the last possible moment. Your cokester will think he’s god and the last shit he took was on par with Gatsby. Your acidhead feels the walls talk to him in backwards Esperanto.

And ever since Trump ran for President, something about him looked familiar. I couldn’t put a finger on it at the time, but now it’s all coming together.

The man is high as balls on coke. And he’s been on a coke bender consistently since the 80s. Perhaps the 70s.

I mean if any man can secure a supply it would be him.

The facts add up: how many bankruptcies has he gone through? How many times has he been humilatingly wrong and yet claimed he was totally on top? How many times has he grabbed his daughter’s ass?

 

If you know your coke addict, you know they simply believe the rules do not apply to them. All rules. The laws of cause and effect, the laws of gravity, the laws of well — anything.

Lemme put it this way: Bob Ezrin, cokehead supreme, actually conceived of and produced Kiss’s “The Elder,” a concept album so bad that it had to be delivered to Camelot Music in a paper bag.

Yet he was utterly convinced he was TOTALLY breaking new ground and was a stable genius.

Stable genius.

That’s EXACTLY something a cokehead would say about themselves.

Now you may argue “he’s too fat to be a cokehead!” Well yes, cokeheads usually forget to eat and all but this is a man with a serious Big Mac attack going on. I’ve known cokeheads who love to eat — and when they get hooked on the Peruvian Marching Powder they apply that same insanity towards eating. And they get FAT.

This man fucking loves Big Macs. And what is more emblematic of a cocainian than someone who fixates on one thing, obsessively, like two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

The only other drug that induces this level of fixation is methamphetamine. Which, actually, explains that 30% who love him.

They’re meth heads. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them.

Ever seen a Trump rally? Sure there’s you usual octogenarian who wants things white again. But behind her is someone who looks like a very skinny Jeff Foxworthy. And hes got the meth shuffle going on, the darting eyes, that look like he might just rip your throat out for the lulz.

So we got a cokehead leading a bunch of cranksters.

What could go wrong?

I mean say what you will about the Nazi, they had at least all synchronized on meth.

This has the potential to become something worse than it is.

Luckily, I hear the sound of T-26’s circling Berlin about now so who knows.

A Brief History of Why There is a Migrant Caravan in the First Place

Back in the 1946, we really wanted to win the Cold War.

Socialist candidates were winning in elections in Latin America, one of them being Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala.

So we created the School of the Americas in Florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for…

It was specifically set up to train anti-communist militaries and paramilitaries to stop the communists at all costs.

It became a kind of “Torture University” where various forms of torture were taught so that the militias could extract info, then send to their buddies in the CIA.

Waterboarding was invented here.

So was the concept of “pozole” which, if you remember your Spanish class, is a soup made up of leftovers. It is also how these militias were trained to dispose of bodies, using a mix of Hydrochloric acid and Hydrogen Peroxide.

Eventually Arbenz was overthrown by the CIA, and we installed a Right Wing dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, who sent many of his cadets to Torture University.

Many South and Central American dictatorships emerged during the 1950s-1980s, Democratically elected Salvador Allende was killed in a coup in 1973, auspiciously falling on 9/11. President for Life Augusto Pinochet sent many of his cadets to the Torture University.

The list goes on, but fast forward to the 1970s when cocaine suddenly surged in the US. Congress was cutting funding to fight the Contras in El Salvador (led by Torture University graduate Roberto D’Aubussion) so the CIA needed to do something.

So they seized the route to market for cocaine, popped a direct line of coke into LA to sell the drug in inner cities as “crack” (a refined, faster acting version of cocaine) and used the anti-communist militias to grow, harvest and traffic it into the US.

You might know one of these guys — his name was Manuel Noriega.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Alliance

Once the Berlin Wall falls and Russia is “defeated,” Germans dance on top of the crumbling wall in a moment all GenXers remember.

Meanwhile in DC, there is panic. You can see it in George H. W. Bush’s speeches at the time. His empire is about to fall.

So now all of these sadistically trained militias are all over Latin America. The checks have dried up but they do have to marketable skills (1) murder and torture, and (2) drug running.

So they set up the narco gangs we know today. They use the same methods to torture rivals, they use the same methods to dissolve bodies, and — this is key — they use the most current US military grade equipment.

When these guys run a town, they run it with kidnappings and terror as part of the game.

A friend of mine from Honduras was trying desperately to get her family here. Her brother was killed by low level narcos for not paying extortion. The gang held her family liable for the “debt” since her brother had no money.

Another friend of mine says the cops, the military, the gangs, they are all in on it.

This is what these families are escaping from.

This is why they run headfirst into tear gas knowing that as bad as chemical weapons can be, they face certain death back home.

Nothing we can do will stop this migration. They will die trying to get to a safer place. Wouldn’t you?

If your family faced death everywhere, you’d lead them into a burning building if it were safer.

And this is all on us. This is our fault.

We created the narco gangs when we built the paramilitaries that now rule the streets.

We built this

This is, as my dad would say, “our tax dollars at work.”

If You See Your Hero Walking Down the Road, Kill Them

Kill your heroes.
Has there ever been a more apropos call to action than this?
Kill. Your. Heroes.
Heroes don’t exist. They are characters we have created, in our heads, to fulfill father and mother fantasies we think we need. They have existed since we could put chisel to stone tablet. And they have always led us into trouble.
Humankind seems predisposed to this idea of some savior, whether god, demigod, spirit or extraordinary mortal that comes in, delivers us from evil and saves the day.
It is something we want so badly we are willing to kill anyone who disagrees with this. We are willing to die ourselves for that hero. We are willing to live with massive cognitive dissonance just to believe in the hero.
And all of that makes us weak, so very weak. So pathetic and powerless.
This is such a tragedy because humankind is not naturally predisposed to this weakness. This weakness is artificial and learned behavior.
When we put all of our faith, and by faith I mean ‘belief without evidence,’ in these heroes we give up our reason, our energy, our spirit and our empathy to this figure to do those things for us.
And where does that get us? Where did it get the millions of Soviet citizens who placed their faith in “Uncle Joe” Stalin? Where did it get the millions of Germans who placed their faith in Adolf Hitler? Where will it get the millions of Americans who place their faith in Donald Trump?
Besides getting you, and your family and friends killed, it also poisons the very fabric of society. Facts are changed to meet the belief. Critical thinking is jettisoned for authoritarian groupthink.
So it seems the root of this hero-worship is within us: a constant desire for a savior. And that weakness will destroy us, always.
Besides leading us like the Charge of the Light Brigade to our untimely deaths, and besides making us weak shells of what we could be – it also ignores the fact that leaders and heroes fail because they aren’t gods, they are mortals.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Give anyone that kind of unquestioned following and they will take advantage of it. They will abuse it. Power is a drug like any other, and not only is critical thinking removed from the follower, but critical thinking is also removed from the hero or leader.
They will eventually surround themselves with flatterers and eventually get rid of the necessary “Cassandras” that are needed to function.
Cassandra was a character in Greek mythology. She was cursed with the ability to predict the future, but no one would believe her.
In modern usage, her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate someone whose accurate prophecies are not believed by those around them. These are necessary to anyone, and they are the first people a hero, unchecked in their quest for power, gets rid of.
Thus, this weakness spreads like a virus among the group, so corrupting it that it either cannot function, or the only thing it can bring is death and destruction. See “The Battle of Berlin” if you want a modern example.
So eliminate heroes. If you respect someone, respect their work. Respect what they have done. Who they are should be of no consequence.
Worship no one and nothing.
Give authority to no one without it being earned.
And never, ever suffer a hero to live.

Foxygen’s “Hang”

 

Foxygen’s Hang is not the album America deserves, but it’s the album it needs.

In these dark days of Trumpie fascism, where simply being the wrong color or religion can get your life destroyed, you can break out your baklavas and start singing for revolution, you can ignore it and sing about puppy dogs and kitty cats, or you can respond with the only tried and true method to counter pure, unmitigated evil: silliness.

In the last days of the Weimar Republic, Germans escaping the Hitlerian nightmare around them turned to the Kabaret, which offered social and political satire, music, but most of all, silliness. Very un-Prussian silliness. There was a movie about it once. You might have heard about it.

 “When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.” – John Lennon.

So goes it with Jonathan Rado and Sam France’s Hang, who had no idea this album would the salve it would be in these violent times.

The album starts off with Follow the Leader, a Jagger-esque romp over a Fender Rhodes piano, met with cascading strings that just seem to work. Midway a horn section accentuates the bridge with a very late 70s visualization of 20s Hollywood.

Avalon continues this vibe, but ratchets it up to “eleven” by inserting an Abba-esque chorus and, yes, a tap dance solo. It is as if France showed up on the Muppet Show, slipped Kermit a hit of acid, strapped some taps to his feet and whispered in his ear “Come on Kermie…they’re all here to see yoooou! See you TAAAAAP DAAAANCE!!!”

In fact, this whole album, backed with a full orchestra, seems as if it’s not the LA Philharmonic but the Muppet Show Orchestra, complete with Electric Mayhem playing.

I could go on over each track. On Lankershim  is the greatest song Elton John and The Eagles never wrote. Upon a Hill is pure France silliness, with him bellowing the lyrics as if he were in a Junior High musical. Yet, it’s still beautiful work. Every note.

We need this. We don’t deserve it, having thrown away the republic for a poor man’s Hitler, but we need it.

An Open Letter to Democrats

Dear Democrats,

 

Please realize that after November, all of the inbreds and deplorables that Trump has raised up will not simply go quietly into the night.

 

The fantasy you have that they will respect the system is just that — a fantasy.

 

They are already armed to the teeth, they’re mad and they will want blood.

 

“Oh but they’re just a bunch of disorganized dumbshits! They’ll have no where to go after November!”

 

First, let me say only the ones who are caught are disorganized. Old saying: every rat you see means ten you didn’t.

 

They are already organized on social media, in mailing groups, and even in the old school Klans and Aryan Nations. Both groups have had huge surges in membership as of late.

 

They have infiltrated the police departments. Not a week goes by where a cop isn’t brought up on disciplinary measures because of some “off color” comment on social media.

 

And by “off color” I mean straight up racist “kill the minority and/or liberal” comment.

 

These are the rats you are seeing.

 

Infiltrating the police departments has been a white supremacist goal since the 70s.

 

(http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2016/07/police_shootings_brings_into_s.html)

 

Is it any wonder why we are seeing so much blue-on-black murders today?

 

Some white supremacists were just caught trying to bomb a mosque on the day after the election. The FBI has come out and said white supremacists are far more likely to kill you than an Islamic jihadist.

 

And now, Trump’s supporters are letting their flags fly high. They’re coming right out and saying they are white supremacists, advocate murder of all minorities, etc.

 

(https://thinkprogress.org/trump-embraces-the-alt-right-cd91cc889154#.bqr6jcamj)

 

So dearest Democrats…get your fucking heads out of the sand and start seeing what is going all around you. Or, try asking a POC what is going on rather than telling them it’s all in their heads.

 

They’ll let you know. They have been trying to tell you for years.

Silence Like a Cancer Grows

Nobody out there, not Bernie, not Stein, not HRC, not Warren, nobody…has addressed the big question, the elephant in the room:

What are we going to do about our toxic racism problem?

We have cops executing black people and then salting the scene

We have white racists taking their side, despite the videos, the evidence and the overwhelming proof it was an execution

We have Trump and his monkeys openly parading their racist and anti-Semitic hatred all over the place. At rallies, online, openly in conversations with friends and co-workers

We have a SCOTUS that declared racism is over, and the Civil Rights Act is null and void

A little history lesson: South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) didn’t always have apartheid policies.

Like in many countries, World War II created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the cities to build the war effort. Before the war, cities like Salisbury (now Harare,) Johannesburg and Cape Town had white majorities. With the war effort in full swing, many rural blacks moved to the cities to build better lives.

After the war, 1948 to be exact, whites were in the minority and the Apartheid system was born. Out of fear.

The policies behind apartheid existed before the war, that’s for sure. But they weren’t codified into law until after WWII.

Fast forward to today and whites are becoming a minority in the US, and white racists are shitting themselves.

So what you are seeing is a last gasp from the dying white majority. Slogans like “diversity is white genocide” and the like.

The biggest question today is not about Russia, China or TPP but what are we going to do about the racist cancer that is metastasizing in the USA today?

Yes, it was there before, but it is now growing, unchecked.

The tumor must be removed, stat, unless we want to go the route of post-war South Africa.

Old Conservatives, bubbles and the “reality based community”

You know, dammit, sometimes I actually miss the “old conservatives.”

Not old in age, but more like the conservatives of yesteryear, before the GOP became the home of the “AltRight” and neo-nazis.

The conservatives who didn’t care much for church, and would tell you flat out “I’m voting this way because I’m stingy, so fuck you.”

These would be the William F Buckleys, the Al Capps, the Richard Nixons.

Oh fuck, did I actually say I missed Tricky Dick? The world really has gone topsy turvy.

These guys grudgingly supported civil rights, but that was as far left as they went.

Their concerns were their money, their client’s money and their other money.

They didn’t want to burn the whole place down or privatize everything because, well, money. They made good money with the way things were, dammit, and they weren’t going to fuck with success.

If you asked these guys what “America” they loved, they’d flat out tell you the government. Unlike today’s conservatives who think America and the Government are two separate things (hint: they’re not.)

I don’t miss them because I secretly thought they were right — far from that.

They were wrong and they knew they were wrong, but they didn’t care and would say so. They wanted money, and status quo was how they got it.

No I miss them because today we have two bubbles, the Democratic bubble, which seems to be anyone who doesn’t want to start a war with Mexico and the GOP bubble, which is kevlar-reinforced and is impervious to any amount of reason.

I think the turning point for this was Karl Rove with his discussion of “the reality based community.”

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities.” — Karl Rove, October 17, 2004, NYT.

Once they stopped living in reality and started making their own, any chance of a meaningful discussion died with it.

And that is how you get the bubble.

Bubbles make for mistakes. Bubbles are dangers and need to be broken.

Think about what a criminal trial is supposed to be. The whole point of one is for the prosecution to lay down their case, and the defense tries to poke holes in it. Without the prosecution, there is no trial, and without the defense, there is no attempt to establish the truth.

Right now, neither side is talking to each other. The Democratic bubble tried for eight years to talk to the GOP bubble, and they stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted “YOU LIE BOAH! YOU LIE!”

So I miss when both sides at least listened to each other, trying to find holes in the others’ arguments.