Backstabbing at the 11th Hour

i guess it’s not all milk and cookies being a vice-presidential candiate these days.  plucked from contextual obscurity and tossed into the debilitating lion’s den of Public Scrutiny, the world amuses itself by counting down how long you last before you get shredded and served up in Tueday’s Chipotle Barbacoa Burrito.

 

injury quickly turns to vengeful insult when you realise however that your selection had fundamentally less to do with any prior accomplishments listed on your CV, and instead was so callously based on the Vegas-style gambling odds of how well you can tourniquet the gaping wounds of your party’s aspiring wannabe commander-in-chief. 

 

i know it’s hard to stay on scripted message when Public Scrutiny seems fervently adamant against appreciating all those wonderful assets you bring to table, and you’re left to envision the next 4 years of your life as looking like that of an ugly back-up singer to the world’s biggest pop star. (afterall, it’s no small thing when you’re being expected to inject humanism into an automaton-like ticket,…or when you’re shoring up the no-foreign policy/no-economic/no-executive experience defensive line).  but openly questioning the strategic intelligence of a playbook you claim to be in maverickian lock-step with gets you no brownie points. neither does directly crticising the leadership, experience, and resolve of your proud sponsor.  such actions make it clear that personal ambition has taken the great leap forward, and “putting country first” got ousted to the back porch. 

 

but as we voters get to our touch-screening, chad-punching, lever-pulling exercises next week, we should at least be entitled to a full awareness of the goodies that might be down in the Palin and Biden Political Black Bag of Tricks.  because when we’re all just a mere heart attack/natural causes/trigger pull moment away from a fantastical reorganisation of the starting line-up, we should know what to expect when second string comes charging onto the field.

 

afterall, this forever-winding one-way road to Decision 2008 has been peppered with enough West Wing/Wisteria Lane drama as it is; and potential dissention amongst the ranks–at this late stage of the game–is no way to inpsire confidence. so it’s best to take your B-side status in stride: the vice presidency isn’t much more than a lame duck exercise in mediocrity that often leaves you with nowhere to go once the game is over but down.

   …unless of course you’re Grammy-Oscar-Nobel-Peace-Prize Winner Al Gore.

Houston, We Have a Small Problem Here

Rare is the album that features a Gold for every track; and “I Look to You” seems quite intent on dishing out Bronze after Bronze for one’s listening (un)enjoyment.  Much like the album art – a nice picture at first glance – closer inspection reveals something is amiss.  Is it the slightly sad look in her eyes?  Or perhaps the smirk of uneasiness on her face?  She seems keenly aware she is not dropping a true winner here.

It is obvious at the start of our long awaited Whitney journey that her reputation was not the injured party in the 14-year Brown-Houston Alliance – her voice, too, the collateral damage and unfortunate casualty of having to yell “Bobby!” and “hell-to-the-naw!” one too many times. Every now and then a dalliance into drugs can do wonders for a singer; but Whitney’s new raspy voice is less potential Janis Joplin and more early stage swine flu.  It is not an insurmountable obstacle for the listener; but you may find yourself imagining the clarity of what might have been had she found her way into a recording studio a decade earlier.

But her voice is really a mere disappointment when considered against the catalogue of infantile lyrics penned for these alleged songs.  With such moments as “you think your shit don’t stank, but it do,” they’re words one would expect to stumble from the under-developed maturity of a 14 year old little girl, not a 46 year old vocal and record-setting force that surely has a complex and complicated story to tell.

In the album’s final song, Whitney wisely tells us, “don’t call it a comeback.”  We won’t.  It’s a warm-up.  You can stay Whitney, but we all know you can (and need to) do better on the next one.

Track 1: Million Dollar Bill
It’s a bit odd, thanks to a strange rhythm; but it’s one of the more enjoyable tracks.

Track 2: Nothin’ But Love
You’ll find on page 17 of “The Fallen Diva’s Comeback” playbook, on is required to have a “you-can’t-keep-me-down” track.  And this is it.  However, I’m pretty sure proffering such saccharine lyrics and impaired musical arrangement aren’t supposed to be part of the deal, too.

Track 3: Call You Tonight
My advice would be to send it voicemail, and listen to the message later.

Track 4: I Look to You
I can only imagine she’s looking for the melody in this gem.  Sadly, it’s a group effort.

Track 5: Like I Never Left (feat. Akon)
Yeah, we could have done without Akon altogether.  Whitney Houston needs no teenage sidekick to enhance her relevance and legitimacy, thank you.  And the song shits the bed, too.

Track 6: A Song For You
There is no need to have Whitney doing cover songs, I say; she’s not completely done (yet).  Traditionalists will object to the turn this song takes; but multiple attempts compelled me to conclude it would be a pretty good song to run to.

At this point, you may need to brace yourself for an unapologetic slide through a series of odd, boring songs with simplistic production value.

Track 7: I Didn’t Know My Own Strength
If you manage to endure this one all the way through, you’ll at least have a better idea of your own pain threshold.

Track 8: Worth It.
It simply wasn’t.  And it seems a more fitting title for the track would have been “For the Lovers.”

Track 9: For the Lovers
The fast forward button gets a little breather here.  In fact, you may find yourself putting this one on repeat a couple of times…if for no other reason than to recover from the lackluster experience of the album thus far,…which the next track endeavors to remind everyone of.

Track 10: I Got You
No, you don’t.

Track 11: Salute
At least she did us a favor of ending the album with an enjoyable song.  Like the album, the song itself is uneven. There are a couple of moments when you frown slightly and just have to give the nation’s favorite former crack addict the benefit of the doubt.

But not to be outdone by her longtime nemesis, this month Ms. Mariah Carey reminds us of her own battered voice that, too, is slightly past its prime.  To her credit though, the Mimi Butterfly is a better lyricist.  She may be our last opportunity to prove the power ballad was not just a long, lost treasure of the 80s and 90s.

the army has a lot of work to do

hello campers,

blah dee blah, lah dee dah, peace and hairgrease.

 

i typically shy away from discussions of race, mostly because i rarely see the utility in them.  however, i was especially disturbed by a news segment on NPR earlier this week. 

 

West Point, in its infinite military wisdom, recently dispatched a mini regiment of cadets to New Jersey to live for three or four days amongst the minorities, most notably in communities of people they, as soldiers, will be apt to encounter while patrolling the streets of Afghanistan or Iraq.  the intended goal of this experiment in immersion was prefaced by a Major (and class instructor): we need to introduce our uncultured army-tykes-in-combat-training to the intricate, undiscovered facets of life that are the everyday experiences of peoples whose cultures they do not understand.  (this sort of thing is expected to come in handy while the Bush Administration strives to (1) bring democracy to their otherwise lawless native homelands, and (2) figure out why not everyone is so keen on its methods). 

 

NPR then trotted on a cadet, a young man from Arkansas, who prefaced his short-winded testimonial with a quick overview of his background: “white [and] from a town with 1500 people,” etc.  he then went on to describe the welcome-with-open-arms, amiable nature of these [pre-selected], [America-based] families and mosques, and how he learned that they have families (gasp!) and pray and eat dinner (you don’t say!).  granted, these might be valuable insights in the right context (they’re really not all terrorists!), there’s no getting around the superficiality of these revelations, particularly as they do nothing more than echo the typical talking points of culture shock.

 

the story, in its totality, amounted to nothing more than a bizarre exposé of “white ignorance” — the dissatisfied and disgruntled parent to “white guilt.” and i’m sorry, but this not news, nor is it worthy: everyone is ignorant to external (a.k.a. “foreign”) customs and cultures; that’s actually part of the point.  moreover, being a minority does not give you some special magical insight into the life experiences of other minorities.

 

NPR should have instead focused on the substantive new learnings these cadets acquired: what types of misinformation about Muslims or Iraqis or Islam have been corrected?  In what ways will Sir Cadet be better enabled to serve and protect the Sunni or the Shia? How do we respect fundamental distinctions amongst groups of people we so callously lump under the heading “Middle Eastern?”  simply knowing they have families just isn’t going to move the needle. and as the listener, how exactly have i been educated with anything of value?

 

it seems our military might be trying to undo some of the unfair, imbalanced, and skewed perspectives rampant in American culture.  but [American] media continues business-as-usual, inculcating a plethora of misconceptions and stereotypes with its oftentimes sensationalist journalism.  in the end, we get more “news reports” long on superficiality, short on substance, and absent on opportunity for public enlightenment.

 

the army has realised the quid-pro-quo is hurting them; will the general public ever realise we’re not being well-served by it either?

 

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“99.99% of what happens is not on the news.”  - Loesje –

 

random theorem 1: bloomberg’s secret ambition

you know, for a man who insists on disavowing any Big Boss aspirations, my beloved michael bloomberg certainly has been talking a lot of rhetoric of a political theme at quite the suspect decibel lately.  as the presidential non-candidate with outside-the-beltway and corporate saavy appeal — not to mention billions of dollars in petty cash coffers – he gets to indirectly blast the political process and insinuatingly insult each of the  seven thousand chumps who are idiotic (or egotistical) enough to think they can effortlessly Ctrl-Z our 9-year enduring Bush Blue Screen of Death.  and much like the Best Supporting Actor in a summer blockbuster, we find Bloomberg in tow right behind the televangelical political A-listers, undermining and bolstering their machinations.

testing the waters, getting his feet wet, or dipping his elbow into the bath water he may be doing.  but, really, to what end?  it’s a question i pose, as it will be fascinating to witness which of our would-be presidential Prince Igors (or their Karl Rove boy wonder consultants) will be the first to wise up and offer him the vice-presidential ticket.  because as a democrat/republican/independent can’t-put-baby-in-a-corner wise guy, there’s really no other reason for the mayor of new york city to be motoring into and out of oklahoma and new hampshire right now.

and were he to accept, a presidential candidate he still would not make; and therein, of course, lies the beauty. 
but, were he to decline, that too would prompt a rather telling press conference indeed.

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“…rhetoric never won a revolution yet.” – Shirley Chisholm 

sports heroes who are better off retired

hello campers,
blah dee blah, lah dee dah.

you know, i’d like to believe sir roger clemens and his pontifications of innocent substance enhancement; but somehow, i just can’t.  his willingness for heartbeat depositions aside, it’s his self-serving inquest of ”tell me, where did i get ‘em?!” (the drugs, the steroids, the human growth hormone), that is pretty reminiscent of Whitney Houston demanding to be shown her cocaine receipts.

maybe we’ll all find out the truth after O.J. bounty-hunts the real killer,…or killers.

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“One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred teaching it.”  – Knute Rockne