Abacab, Anyone? Phil Collins Versus Irony

The term “guilty pleasure” is something of an easy tag to hang onto something that you like but that you’re pretty sure other people in your social circle would use as evidence of a clear lack of mental stability on your part were they ever to be made aware of it. For years, as an undiagnosed case of OCD, I’m used to hiding away those things that I love or am interested in (there is a difference: I love obscure British punk bands of the late Seventies, but I’m interested in the Second World War, particularly the aerial combat aspect of it) from prying eyes. The iPod sees all, of course, and there are plenty of songs and artists I’m not entirely sure I want the outside world to know what some of my most-listened to songs are.

Of course, one could say that they have a particular artist on their iPod as comic relief, or an “ironic” commentary on the sad state of music. Such posing is encouraged when your friends are fellow music snobs and you don’t have to defend your hatred of the Eagles or your abhorrence for everything that comes out of Celine Dion’s mouth. You listen to college radio stations because “that’s where it’s at,” even if where it’s at sounds like an unhappy marriage of too much reverence for punk and too little proficiency with any musical instrument (or if the college rock station just plain out sucks in terms of what it can and cannot play; if anything ever even sniffed the Top Forty charts, it is about as welcome at some college radio stations as Louis Farrakhan at a Klan rally).

As I’ve aged and (hopefully) matured from my “up against the wall when the revolution comes” stance (yes, I actually thought a violent revolution might clear the boards of all traces of Creed, Celine, and so on), I find that a lot of the music I supposedly hated isn’t actually all that bad. I still maintain that the Eagles took Gram Parsons’ life work of fusing country and rock together and turned it into bland middle-of-the-road mush, but “Desperado” is a beautiful song. John Denver, far from being a musical antichrist, turned out to be a strong defender of any artist’s right to express him or herself without fear of government censorship. Hell, I actually kinda miss Scott Stapp, someone should see what he’s up to.

Phil Collins is someone about whom very few people have a neutral response, at least in the circles I used to run in. He’s either the antichrist when it comes to synthesizer-heavy Eighties pop music or a great drummer and singer who can be excused his excesses because in the long run he contributed one truly great song to Western civilization (“In the Air Tonight”) and a lot of pretty good tunes with Genesis and on his own. I remember Collins during his heyday (not to turn this whole exercise into a nostalgic exercise where I constantly talk about the Eighties, but I’m a slave to the format and it’s bound to come up when you’re talking about Phil that you have to talk about the time period during which he was the balding, English version of Jacko). His story is a little sadder now; when last I saw anything about him, he was in “Rolling Stone” revealing that he has some sort of muscular or skeletal condition that means he can’t play the drums anymore.

Now that’s just sad, when someone who’s worked his whole life to be great at something is robbed of the physical ability to do so. The man who contributed the iconic drum roll to “In the Air Tonight” will no longer be able to render it live, if and when he does any concerts again. Its equivalent would be Pete Townshend losing an arm and not being able to do a windmill again, or the lead singer of Train losing his voice (okay, that last one wouldn’t be a tragedy…I kid. But no, really, not losing sleep over that).

It turns out that Collins has something that he’s interested in (as drumming was something he loved): the Alamo. The guy has a serious Texas-sized collection of artifacts from the battle and an abiding interest in the last stand that has come to define the Lonestar State. It’s not a connection you’d make (English drummer for Eighties band develops interest in heroic chapter of American history), but in light of his diagnosis it makes sense. I’m not a trained psychologist, but I did read the article and understand that the author was going for the easy “last stand of Phil Collins” angle. I have to admit, it is pretty attractive to jump to that conclusion. Of course, every solider serving in the Alamo died in the battle (Davy Crockett may have been killed by the Mexican army afterwards, as it turns out, but he still stands iconic as one of the last to fall, facts be damned). So I worry a little about Phil’s mental state.

Of course, I’ve been avoiding the obvious question I’m sure anyone is reading this is asking: why the hell do I have Phil Collins on my iPod? Well, like a lot of things it’s because of a girl. I was gently teasing someone I kinda like about the Bald One when she said that she liked his work, and I thought about how, when I was a kid and I didn’t have music-snob tendencies just yet, I like him too, especially the “Land of Confusion” video where the ugly puppets of world leaders at the time all did silly things. It was the Eighties, you could have ugly puppets in your video. No one was going to confuse Phil with the guys of Motley Crue or heartthrobs like Corey “Sunglasses at Night” Hart. Anyway, I was at Best Buy and Genesis’ “best of” was just sitting there, looking forlorn and unloved. So I figured what the hell, it’s marked down to under ten dollars, and I can appreciate the cheesiness of the not-that-good songs (as it turned out, a lot of them weren’t that good, or at least I’ve not gone back to them much the few times I’ve listened to Genesis), and kick out the jams to the songs I remembered well. And yeah, I might cringe a little when I think about someone reading this and saying “you like Phil Collins?” in that snide, dismissive way I used to have when someone told me that they like the Eagles, Celine Dion, or Ratt. But you know what? They can get over it. Snobs are lonely, bitter people, and I’m tired of being one.

I’ll be damned if I ever buy a Creed CD, though…

Tinker Tailor Soldier Swamp Person

Taking a break from the songs-inspiring-blog-posts fever I'm in (it's more fun than swinging a bag of kittens around, though not for the kittens) just to say how nice it is that, even with the local libraries closed for the holiday weekend (National Frog-Catching Day...or Memorial Day, one of the two), I can still roll down to my former stomping grounds of Clemson's Cooper Library for a few hours and spend some quality time online wondering why no one has written anything on my wall for hours.

I mean, come on people...it's Facebook. That's what you do.

And I parked downtown, which means I have a nice hike ahead of me, but I'm cool with that because I'm parked in the parking garage downtown, which means I have plenty of time to make it back...and plenty of time to discover the damage from someone sideswiping me...or breaking into my car and stealing it...oh god, did I remember to lock it? I gotta go!

Nah, I'm sure it will be fine...unless it isn't...why  did I have to park so far away? And why hasn't anyone said anything on my wall on Facebook?

Oh, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the bomb-diggity of spy movies, finally saw it last night and loved it. I'm anxious to see if The Honourable Schoolboy is just around the corner. Check it out!

Now, about the graffiti on my car left by the clever French thief and rapscallion Jean-Marie Salamandier....

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa at Three in the Morning

It’s a lazy argument to make, one born of cynicism and perhaps too much exposure to Top Forty radio these days: there is no good music being made anymore, nothing that will stand the test of time quite as well as whatever we remember from our youths (and that music depends on your particular youth. For my mother, it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd; for me, it’s Weezer, Radiohead, and R.E.M.). Sure, there’s always a surplus of indie rock bands plying their trade, you might say, but none of them will reach the heights of whoever it is that you remember as being examples of “good” music when you were first becoming aware of the distinction between good and bad music.

I have been guilty of that fallacy myself, and I know from experience how wrong it is, and how wrongheaded it is too. Vampire Weekend probably won’t merit a multi-hour documentary about their artistic legacy when all is said and done, but for the purposes of giving me something to listen to other than whatever’s on the radio, they’ll do quite nicely.

And while I’m snidely dismissing the radio in the previous sentence, allow me to fold a little and admit that, yes, there is good music on the radio now, but it’s played to death by programmers and disc jockeys too lazy to try and mix it up. Thanks to the fact that most radio stations are owned by a few corporations, what’s good for the bottom line isn’t always good for the listener. Adele is fantastic, I love her voice, but if I have to hear “Someone Like You” every hour on the hour for much longer I might just storm the nearest clock tower and hurl verbal abuse upon all below (violence never solves anything, and I don’t know how to shoot a gun nor do I want to learn how to anyway. People I’ve known who collect guns are a little out there, even for me).

So, good new music; it exists. Vampire Weekend is proof of that, even if they never follow up their first two albums with anything substantial. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” has a shout-out to Peter Gabriel, the immortal line “do you wanna fuck/like you know I do,” and a video that manages to remind me of “Teen Wolf” and just about any mid-Eighties movie “party scene” (in the horror movies, the parties end in multiple decapitations; in the comedies, misunderstood advances and crossed signals, which can be almost as painful as decapitations). I saw the video one night at a buddy’s apartment on campus, where I was in the midst of a drunken tear through pop culture (I believe I had quite an amount of verbal abuse to heap upon the hapless makers of “Beerfest,” though I think drunk or sober it’s an unwatchable train wreck of a film). MTV2, which sold itself as “the alternative to MTV”  in the sense that it showed videos instead of reality shows, was running the “Cape Cod” video, and I was stopped in my tracks from mocking it. I liked it, I really really liked it.

I’m prone to bouts of cynicism, indeed full-on meanness, and when it comes to popular culture I tend to be really cynical. In a world where three-fourths of the original Ramones line-up is dead and gone yet the Eagles remain alive and well, a world where the Kardashians are celebrities simply for being celebrities (or for being related to a sex-video star), a world where Howie Mandel can have a say in whether someone’s dreams of Vegas stardom can come true, I don’t think you can blame me too much for being cynical about good stuff being out there. Music has always been my passion, especially as I’m one of those lucky many who have no business trying to make it; karaoke night is the closet I’ll ever get to starring at Carnegie Hall, and I’m pretty sure that idea I had about a rock opera set during the Battle of Britain (but involving aliens who teach us all to love one another, before luring us to our collective doom) is best left on the drawing board of my mind.

I’m envious of musicians; I’m envious of the guys in Vampire Weekend, envious of their Members Only jackets in the video, envious of the cool guitar that the lead guy (who has the non-rock star name Ezra, of all things; Ezra is great for a poet, as the mother of Ezra Pound could concur) plays in the video and onstage the few times I’ve seen them live on TV (or pre-taped performing live on TV). I grew up not with MTV but with “Friday Night Videos” (I think it was Friday nights, I could be mistaken), which was when NBC would devote a whole hour (or half-hour) to music videos in the early Nineties (or maybe the late Eighties…whatever). The important thing is, when I thought of musicians, I couldn’t separate the visual presentation from the actual music. When I thought of R.E.M., I saw Michael Stipe pacing the floor in the “Losing My Religion” video, for instance. Gradually, I developed an admiration for artists whose videos might not get regular rotation if they made videos at all, but part of me still loves a clever or at least well-executed music video, and “Cape Cod,” drunk as I was, was clever the first time I saw it, and each time it subsequently aired that night, in between drunken rants at “Beerfest” (I have it on good authority that I threw an actual beer towards the TV during the movie, though I don’t recall if such a thing occurred). Perhaps it doesn’t hold up whenever I’m sober now (and rest assured, when I watch anything on TV now I do so sober; it’s been a while since I had a drink and I’d like to keep it that way). But I still like Vampire Weekend, and I still think (however passing their artistry may be) they’re a pretty good example to cite when people who are too young to be cynical say there’s no good music anymore.

You might have to be drunk at three in the morning to find it, but it’s there.

“Billie Jean” and the Michael Jackson Freak Show

When I was a kid, Michael Jackson was big. Kids today just don’t understand that, prior to all the whispers about why he was spending so much time with little boys, Jacko was not whacko at all. He was bigger than the Beatles, who were bigger than Jesus. Therefore, Michael Jackson was bigger than Jesus. And in the end, that’s what destroyed him.

I can remember when people still had record players, because we had records, big black discs that scratched up when you placed the needle on them. Records had sleeves, into which you placed them when you were done or you held up to your face to look at as you listened to the record. When I went through my pretentious-music-snob phase (lots of Joy Division and Smiths vinyl that I found at used record stores and various other dives of ill-repute), I sought out the post-punk that I had become entranced with during my brief stint at that school with the chicken for a mascot, but back when I was a kid my album collection (which was really my grandparents’ record collection, which they bought for my uncle and aunt who were close in age to me) was whatever was popular on the radio, and we often opted for the singles rather than the whole album package (though we did have a very funny Bill Cosby comedy record from the early Eighties, because Cosby was king). It never occurred to me that there was such a thing as “alternative” music, and while R.E.M. was just a stone’s throw away down in Athens, I would never have known it prior to “Losing My Religion.”

Michael Jackson was already an old hand at being a star by the time I became conscious of him, thanks largely to Joe Jackson’s unbending desire to live his musical dreams through his kids (he was the forerunner to all those horrible parents on “Toddlers & Tiaras”). The Jackson Five were a distant memory, and Michael was on his own, dominating the charts and opening the door to MTV showing black artists on their channel (ironic when you consider the lengths to which he allegedly went to alter his appearance to not look black. Allegedly). Sure, he had Bubbles the chimp, and a weird desire to be Peter Pan, but when you were a kid in the Eighties, you wanted a pet monkey just as much and you were catered to with an ever-increasing number of sugar-powered cartoons promising that if you bought the tie-in products, you could buy happiness. Michael Jackson like to play with toys? I like to play with toys, too. Nevermind that Michael was in his twenties; he was living the dream, right?

Turns out he was living a nightmare; having survived Joe Jackson’s Gestapo-approved methods for turning your children into cash-cows, he ended up a frustrated adolescent, and if he wasn’t guilty of molesting kids, he was guilty of letting himself get into situations where parents who might have been just as opportunistic as his father take advantage of his generosity. In court, he was never found guilty, but in the public he was convicted before either of his trials, simply because of how odd he was. Part of it was the endless celebrity desire not to be forgotten, the Ozymandias Syndrome as I like to call it (“look upon my might works, and tremble”). But part of it was his genuine strangeness, his otherness because first of his fame, then because of his ever-changing appearance and bizarre coterie of celebrity friends (who hangs out with Elizabeth Taylor *and* Liza Minelli?), and the allegations against him for something as heinous as child molesting.

When “Glee” devoted an entire hour to his music, it was predictable but sad at the same time; the kids of today don’t know Michael the way that I know Michael, but I don’t know him the way that people who remember the cute baby-faced singer backed by his brothers know him, or think they know him. Michael was a wounded soul, whatever his misdeeds, and I guess that explains why he’s still held in reverence despite what we know, or think we know. True artistry is said to be born of suffering, and while Michael’s early solo work does betray some pain behind it, it’s hard to see much worth in anything he did after the first wave of allegations against him became public. When I think about him, I try not to think about the mugshot where he looks like Johnny Depp in “Edward Scissorhands,” or the marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, or the many noses and poor children born of a test-tube who have to grow up as “Michael’s heirs” (because I’m guessing Joe Jackson is already planning to exploit them somehow). I prefer to think of the young man in the “Billie Jean” video, the one who could light up whatever he stepped on (a trick that looks old now, but was revolutionary at the time). That was the Michael I knew, whenever we put the record on and his voice floated through the room.

That guy was pretty big when I was a kid. I don’t know what happened, I guess we all had to grow up at some point. Michael never did, though.  

Mr. Travolta Would Like a Discreet Massage Now...

After some three months now of no gallbladder attacks worth mentioning (most of the ones I've had have been fleeting enough to barely register, thanks to my new diet of food that doesn't taste good, or more likely indigestion from the few times...okay, the many times I've strayed from said diet), I had something of a relapse into pain territory Saturday night. The beef stew or whatever it was that was prepared in house and advertised to me as "probably not anything that would upset your stomach" did just that. It's my own damn fault for eating it, mind you, but still...someone's trying to kill me (melodramatic music).

Okay, no one's trying to kill me, but if they were they'd likely find me a pushover if they offered me pizza. I miss pizza like the dickens (though not like I miss Charles Dickens, whose Great Expectations is about the only novel of his I've read, and that was a "dumbed down for high-school English students" version, with I'm guessing all the sex and nudity and random gunplay edited out. Right?). I miss spaghetti too, and hamburgers...god, I'd sell my soul for a hamburger with ketchup, pickles, onions mustard, general all-around greasiness, if I didn't know for a fact that it would turn my stomach into the Atlantic Ocean mid-hurricane season, and myself into the Pequod (look, two literary references in one post! I'm getting the English major feeling back in my bones, perhaps).

Living with my gallbladder over the last few months (now that I know what the issue was, thankfully nothing like an alien living in my chest as I suspected) has proven to be both stressful and managable, and as I consider the fact that yes, I'll have to get the sumbitch yanked out sooner rather than later, I can honestly say that I won't jump right away back onto the junk-food bandwagon that has gotten me into this mess in the first place. I mean, sure, I want to eat me some hamburgers, but not immediately after surgery. And I hope I can scale back once I do start back on the junk, because too much of anything ain't good for you. People say I've lost weight since I started not eating crap.

This means I must have been something of a fat-ass before.

Anyhow, with the support of my felloe Scientologists and L.Ron's wisdom to guide me, I'm sure that I can conquer whatever alien-created issues come my way.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Jay-Z: "99 Problems"

On my iPod, I have many, many songs of the indie-rock or alternative genre, with some more classic rock (as opposed to "classic" rock, a genre tag I despise because it seems to celebrate groundbreaking music by tagging it as unworthy of a youngster's time unless they want a history lesson) and other such songs from other genres. Perhaps the least well-represented genre (other than "singer-songwriter," which is odd because a lot of the music I listen to was penned by singers and/or songwriters, but I guess it was meant more for the James Taylor/Cat Stevens style of troubador) is rap, or at least it was initially. Growing up with it, via the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and Public Enemy, I felt like the inventiveness of the genre's early days had become lost amid the B-boy posturing and any old excuse to drop an F-bomb into the mix when a simple "Goddam" would've sufficed.

In order to get my iTunes account active, in August of 2008 (the same month I graduated from college and got my heart broken for the umpteenth time, though not in that order), I had to set it up via my brother's account, and let's just say our taste in music did not coalesce. Where he had Fall-Out Boy, I had Death Cab for Cutie, and so on. My mom had given me the iPod as a Christmas gift the year before, and I'd been content to play the games on there for only so long before it occurred to me that hey, this was meant to hold music. And so it was on one gray August day that my sister helped me set up the account, and I proceeded to delete most everything from my brother's/my account (don't worry, he was able to keep his music somehow, though I'm not sure of the specifics and leave that to my more techincally-minded peeps to ascertain), except for one song.

That song was Jay-Z's immortal "99 Problems (But a Bitch Ain't One)."

I was bowled over by the tune, which I'd heard before but only in edited versions on the radio, and was always fond of it. I like a good rap song, especially a good dirty one, and you didn't get dirtier than bitching about the cops, getting into fights that landed both you and your opponent in jail, and rap magazines using your black ass to sell copy. To be sure, I could not relate to any of these experiences, as a white kid from Bumfucksburg, South Carolina, but I could identify in Jay's story a sense of anti-authority rebellion that had appealed to me for a long time, since I read Catch-22 and heard John Mellencamp's "Authority Song" (you may laugh, but remember two things: Mellencamp was big in the Eighties, and the song kicks ass. Springsteen wishes he wrote that one).

Life throws you a lot of motherfucking curveballs; I've had jobs fall out from under me through no fault of my own, but I've lost jobs because I was a bit too loose with my views or eager to name names for my own amusement. In short, I've had more than 99 problems, and a lot of them have to do with things other than romance. Jay's swagger throughout the song is what I'd like to think I could feel like when dealing with all that life throws at me, though more often than not I've wanted to crawl into a fetal position and cry my eyes out. Rarely does this opportunity afford itself after you supposedly reach maturity, however, and the thing I've learned over the years is that no matter how many problems, or how often they seem insurmountable, life has a way of working itself out so that many times you wonder just what the hell it was you were bummed about that particular month or year or decade.

I kept "99 Problems" on my iPod, where it holds a revered status among my rap songs and indeed my entire collection. When "Empire State of Mind" came out, I got it too, and if I never buy another Jay-Z song it's not a big deal, I have the two best ones to listen to anytime life starts to give me hassles. I might not bust a grape in a fruit fight, but when the chips are down I like to think I could draw some strength from past problems and remember how these things too shall pass. For that, I owe Jay-Z some gratitude.

Ministry of Silly Walks

Just a quick one tonight, met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in forever to have dinner and catch up. Always nice to do that, I must say. I've been spending a lot of time with either co-workers or family, so to remember, however briefly, that I have a life beyond the demands of my family or the confines of my workspace is always welcome.

Anyway, HIMYM ended its season last night, and "New Girl" did so last week, as well as "The Office" (yeah, I still watch). That means that, with the finale of "Community" just around the corner, I'm all set for Rerun City when it comes to TV (i.e. lots of Travel channel or just spending more time with the TV off, reading).

I checked out a book about the Civil War recently, before remembering that I just finished Shelby Foote's massive trilogy and thus have no desire to read about the Civil War for the time being. Such is life...

Over and out

Where the Wild Things Be At

We lost another talented famous person (as opposed to just a famous person; don't expect me to mourn any of the Jersey Shore cast if and when they shake off this mortal coil, though I'll feel bad for their relatives). Maurice Sendak died this morning at 83.

What with Adam Yauch and George "Goober" Lindsay, it seems like a bad time to be a celebrity who has actual talent (My favorite thing about Lindsay was when he appeared on Newsradio to give testimony that a skull purporting to be his own was a fake. He handled the skull, paused to look at it, and answered "no"). It's the rule of three.

I only read Where the Wild Things Are a few years ago, when I was working at the local library, and I had ten minutes to kill. It's a quick read, from an adult perspective, but the real part of the book that sticks with you is the imagery, which is amazing. Having harbored aspirations of artistic talent (not really borne out by my drawings, though I think they're charming renderings of the Hindenburg in flames or a Sopwith Camel mid-pursuit of the Red Baron), I can appreciate good art. I love album covers that aren't just "this is the band, standing on a pier" or "hey, look, the band is making a pillow fort." My mom has a good eye for art, and underneath the picture I've seen of my dad, it says that he was an art major. Go figure.

Anyway, that's my view on the whole subject. Be sure to check out Paste Magazine online for my review of Levon Helm's book (I had a link to copy and paste, but I copy and pasted something else and I'm too lazy to go back and get it...or am I?)

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/05/this-wheels-on-fire-levon-helm-and-the-story-of-th.html

It turns out I am more industrious than I thought today.

To MCA, I wanna offer my love and respect to the end

I know it's unusual for me to write so much on here (I am not the most attendent blogger), but I feel like the passing of Adam Yauch merits a few words.

When I was a kid, rap music was the unknown, sounds emanating from an urban landscape that I and my friends in rural South Carolina couldn't begin to imagine. What's more, it was made by black people, and you didn't just listen to black people music in the South at that time, unless you did it while no one was paying attention, because it was odd.

(Of course, black music, be it jazz or R&B or blues or early rock and roll, was integral to any Southerners' soundtrack in the old days, but my perception of that time is that black music, especially rap, was not to be listened to).

The Beastie Boys were white, but playing rap. And they were good at it. And after all these years, my childhood enthusiasm for them remains. Paul's Boutique was my soundtrack when I went to work at Anderson at five in the morning, cooking food for tourists staying at a hotel who wanted breakfast. Yauch had been battling cancer for a few years now, but it was still a shock to learn that he passed today. He will be missed.

Living Blue In a Gray State of Mind

Last night, I achieved a milestone, of sorts. I finished the third volume of Shelby Foote's massive (like, a thousand pages per volume) history of the Civil War (or as it was taught to me by the finest educators Oconee County had to offer, the War of Northern Aggression). I consider it an achievement, especially as I read the previous two volumes, beginning this time last year when the 150th anniversary of the war's beginnings came around (what do you get for the War that has everything?).

I knew of Foote from Ken Burns' epic documentary about the Civil War, which aired when I was a kid and helped facilitate a lifelong interest in the War Between the States. He was the kindly grandfather figure, with a slow drawl, who waxed nostalgic about the war and how it affected everyone, North and South. His writing, as it turns out, is in keeping with this kindly grandfather storytelling, though Foote was a younger man when he began the endeavor (the books were published in 1958, 1963, and 1974 respectively). I started out being skeptical that I could keep to such a protracted project of my own devising, even though all it meant was setting aside time to read about the war (I had read thousand-page books before, but I don't make a habit of it). Nonetheless, a year after I started with the first page of the first volume, I finished the last pages on my front porch.

I feel like this deserves some notice.

Anyway, in the year that it took me to read all three books (I took a break inbetween volumes, to cleanse my pallate of all such 1861-1865-related materials in my brain, before embarking on the next), a lot of things happened. I got a niece earlier last year, for one thing. She has been a pretty big part of my life since then. I also got gallstones, though I didn't know it at the time (I will always associate Roy Blount's book about the Steelers, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, with my first serious gallstone attacks). I went through ups and downs, then again and on repeat. And I discovered that Shelby Foote was a pretty damn good writer, if you could invest the time in reading his massive life's work.

Though written by a Southerner, the books are evenhanded, and I challenge anyone to find a better portrait of Abraham Lincoln in anyone else's writing. It's well worth all the time I spent in slogging through some of the less-interesting stuff to get to the things I found interesting. I might very well have saved the volumes at my local library from being deleted from the stacks, because I'm pretty sure I'm the first person in forever to check all three out at any time (and read them all the way through, to add to that).

I am awesome in my reading skills, then ;-)

Anyway, as a pallate cleanser (or is it "palate?" Spelling has never been my forte), I'm gonna read a Lewis Grizzard book.

Mormon Is the New Black

Some random observations about the upcoming election: it seems pretty much a certainty that President Obama will be facing a pretty tough opponent, one that will keep him up nights worrying about their next move, how to counter it, and what the American people will think.

I am speaking, of course, about Fox News. Mitt Romney? Can you say "four more years"?

But ole Mitt is more than just your cartoonishly out-of-touch rich guy; he's a religious out of touch rich guy, a Mormon, to be precise.

And that is causing some stir in the left-of-center blogosphere, of which I truck with even though I'm not gung-ho about Obama Version 2.0 myself (hey, he got Bin Laden, one year ago. What more do you want?).

It seems that Mitt is becoming the new JFK, by which I mean his religion is an issue (not his out-of-touch rich guyness, which I keep harping on because it's true. He has no idea how you or I live, fellow low-income holder). I won't pretend to know much about Mormons, other than that they own Utah, they can't have sugar or booze, and they seem awful smart (Ken Jennings is among the flock). I personally have nothing against Mormons because I don't know that I've ever come across much in the way of anti-me bias in Mormon theology (I'm a white male, I mean, of no deviant sexual practices do I partake, though there was that one time in Vegas...nevermind).

Mormonism is the punching bag in a lot of the "South Park" guys' work, I do know that. But they poke fun at anything and everything.

To me, what's important is not Mitt's Mormonism, it's his out-of-touch-rich-white-guyness. Is America ready for four years of that (again)?