The George W. Bush Presidential Library With Adjoining IHOP and Funyuns Kiosk

Welcome, friends and fans, to the George W. Bush Presidential Library! Here we have all the highlights from Bush's eight years in office (that time Kanye West called him racist! Ricky Martin teaching him how to dance at the first inauguration! And so much more!).

When I first saw that the library was being dedicated today (with an opening date of May 1), it was on the Colbert Report that I learned of this grand event. So naturally, I turned to Fox News, which (wouldn't you know it) was camped out in front of the former Texas Roadhouse/Chili's where the library will be located! Hurray!

George W. Bush, in case you forgot, left office in 2009 with a solid to fair chance of ending up in the Warren G. Harding School of Presidential Boobs and Morons, with the caveat that he'd started an unnecessary war in Iraq and played hopscotch on the Constitution when it came to civil rights of the American people in the "age of terror." So he's no Nixon (a paranoid who sought to ruin his percieved enemies while undermining the very fabric of American democracy), but he's certainly no Taft (best remembered for not being able to fit his own bathtub or getting stuck in it, even). And then some guy on Fox News (Brit Hume, I believe, though he couldn't have been, cause that guy's been dead for years) starts editorializing about how history might "judge Bush differently" than he's been judged so far. At this point, dear reader, I turned the channel.

It may very well be true that history will judge Bush differently, but for now I'm comfortable saying that he's the worst president we've ever had. Period, end of story. And before you accuse me of "not knowing history," I know all the presidents who ever served. Not just your Nixons (who rates as the most interesting president to me, because of how fucked-up he was) but also your William Henry Harrisons, your Zachery Taylors, and the others who either died before making an impact or didn't do much while they were there (hello, Rutherford B. Hayes and Chester Arthur!). Presidential history is a favorite of mine, and yes I have my picks for the best (Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter gets a special place for being a decent human being despite having lost to the Human Cliche Machine, Ronald Reagan) and the worst (hello, the guy who'se getting his library this week? Also, Harding, Nixon, and I'm not that fond of the pre-Lincoln, post-Polk bunch who could've stopped the Civil War if they'd been competent). So I know my shit.

In time, of course, passions have faded, and I almost, kinda, maybe sometimes feel sorry for George W. He's like the guy who was pranked to be elected president by the popular kids in school, then some really bad shit went down while he was in office and the next thing you knew class was in lockdown and your civil rights were being compromised in the name of "national security." Plus, it didn't help that the Dark Lord of the Sith was vice-president. Still, there's a lot he has to answer for, and he hasn't even begun to do that.

So congrats on your library, Mr. President. Be sure to include the names of all the servicemen and -women who died in Iraq, alongside photos of you unable to open that door in China and the replica Oval Office where you ask people to make the same decisions you made, when faced with the historical alternatives. Because I'm pretty damn sure they'd like to know why you made that decision, you son of a bitch.

Bruno Mars, "When I Was Your Man"

Last year around this time, I was "inspired" (i.e. I co-opted the idea) by Jonathan Garren to start writing about favorite songs or just songs that popped up whenever I hit "shuffle" on my iPod, a la Nick Hornby and his whole "Songbook" concept. Then my computer died (or was murdered) and I had to wait to get a new one before I could re-start my iTunes. Imagine the frustration I felt when, on Tuesday night (partly to get away from the wall-to-wall coverage of the Boston bombing, partly because I had been putting off rebooting my iTunes since I got my new laptop), I was unable to get into iTunes because my account had been closed for security reasons (i.e., I haven't done anything iTunes-wise since last June, and I was on a computer not previously registered or some such whatever). What I'm saying is, for the forseeable future, it's gonna have to be songs on CD or the radio that I write about here, which is just fine. Because then I get to talk about a little gem by Bruno Mars.

Bruno Mars first came into view as a collaberator on some big songs by B.o.B. ("beautiful girls, all over the world"...you know the song, it was everywhere in 2010) and Travis McCoy, started making his own music with the overly bad "Just the Way You Are" (even Lionel Richie thought that was a weak one), and has since been either very good or very bad, depending on the song. He's had the pre-requisite troubles with drugs that all musicians seem to go through (and many music journalist; I recently had to put away a book by a music journalist that was basically "and then I got hooked on heroin again" for the first two-hundred pages. I assume the next three-hundred would have been in a similar, ahem, vein). He's very polarizing, especially when he does a song for the Twilight soundtracks (can't remember which one). And he's probably not someone that I'd much listen to, except for his last single before this had hot lesbians in the music video (I'm sorry, but I'm a sucker for hot lesbians in music videos. It's my Achilles heel).

So along comes "When I Was Your Man," and I'm floored. First off, it's so simple and understated: just a guy at the piano, not Billy Joel-ing up the place necessarily but pouring out his heart about a girl that he done wrong. Then, whenever it started to become a staple of the various radio stations that tend to play new and old stuff together, it didn't *get* old, i.e. "there's that goddam Bruno Mars song again." Good songs can bear repeated listens, sometimes not on the hour every hour but ideally without becoming annoying. So far, anyway, "When I Was Your Man" is a good song.

Often when writing the history of our romantic lives, whether for a prospective partner or just in our head (who doesn't do that, right?), we tend to make ourselves out to be the victim in any "love gone wrong" story from our past. I sure as hell have, many times. But it takes a grown-up to acknowledge that, for every time you got your heart broke, you've probably broken a few yourself. Most of the time it's not intentional, but sometimes (regrettably) it is, because what are guys but penises attached to non-thinking talking boxes sometimes? Any guy between the ages of thirteen and a hundred who doesn't admit to rejecting someone because they weren't attractive in some way is a liar, and it's often karma that pays you back for a love turned away too casually. To be fair, sometimes it isn't meant to be, sometimes you're just a signpost on the way to whoever that person is really meant to be with.

But anyway, the song is beautiful, and it makes me think (with a cringe, often) of all the times I was the guilty party in a heartbreak, and wish that I could have a do-over to make things right. It's unrealistic, of course (outside of fantasies in which we can go back and talk to our younger selves about what a dick we're being), but it's comforting to think that maybe, by at least acknowledging that we screwed up this time, the next time won't be so bad. I admit that my firsthand experience with love and relationships is often lacking in real-world examples of how to make it work, but I'd like to think that eventually I'll figure this shit out. Until then, I'll have sad songs for when I've been wronged but also sad songs like this one for when I was wrong. That counts for something in this crazy world.

Boston

I had a great weekend, one that was more hectic than I would have liked for sure, but in the end it was memorable for all the right reasons. It was something that involved a lot of little moments, between family and friends, that might not amount to world-changing events in the long run but certainly had a positive impact on me for whatever they were. Then I got off work yesterday to the news coming out of Boston.

Having lived through 9/11 from the distance of several miles from any of the attack sites but with fond memories of wandering around Manhattan with a drama club tour group in high school, I was devastated that day to learn that the world could change like that, all because of ignorance and hatred. And no matter how lucky we've been since (at least until yesterday) to not have anything of that scale occur again on our shores, the price that we've paid in our peace of mind and sense of security can never be disregarded. What 9/11 brought about was a different America, one that, under a president whose very existence I continue to regard as unholy, lost its moorings and came oh so close to the brink of madness. I hope that doesn't happen again, I pray that it doesn't.

Boston is a city of which I know a lot more than I initially thought I might. For one thing, it's the home of my favorite baseball team (on and off since my childhood infatuations with the Braves and Yankees faded from memory, anyway), the Red Sox. And it's the home of one half of the greatest NBA rivalry of all time, the Celtics. Hockey is also big there, I'm led to believe. Music flows from there, whether in the band named after the city (other than "More Than a Feeling," I'm not a fan) or from Jonathan Richman, a former Modern Lover whose songs from the early Seventies involve Boston in some manner or another. "Cheers" was set there, as was "Ally McBeal." The Kennedys began their rise to prominence there, in the political environment dominated by their fellow Irishmen. Hell, a new VH1 reality show of dubious provenance is set there, "Wicked Single" (because, you know, all Bostonians use the word "wicked" in everyday conversation).

It's also the place where the American Revolution took off, first with a massacre and then with a tea party. It's from the city that the first African-American troops in the regular Union Army, the 54th Massachusetts, marched through on their way to fight slavery in the land where many of them came from. It has a long and proud history of not giving a fuck what you think about the Patriots. It's a great city that I'd love to visit someday, take in a game in Fenway or something.

But now, of course, it's also a city that's been touched by terrorism. Whoever did this, whatever their motivations, they achieved only one thing: they brought the full wrath of the Birthplace of American Liberty on their heads. I hope the fuckers rot in jail (the death penalty is too good for them). I hope we catch them soon. I hope, for those I know who call or have called Boston home, that something good comes out of this, whether on a general level or just an individual coming-to-terms with the events. That is my hope, anyway. As after 9/11, I'm fully aware that my hopes might not be realized, that it may be too late already. But I hope anyway.

Roger Ebert 1942-2013

When I was a kid, Roger Ebert was "the fat one." Gene Siskel was "the skinny, bald one," of course, and they came on TV at various times over the weekend to tell me what was opening at the local movie theater and whether or not it was worth my time to see it (and as I grew up in the Eighties, a lot of the time it seemed that it wasn't worth my time). I say "various times" because, with the way that "Siskel and Ebert" was syndicated to local TV stations in my area, it could come on at any time, or not at all. But when it did come on, for thirty minutes or so, I could witness two grown men arguing over the relative merits of, say, the latest Christian Slater vehicle or a horror movie in which all the teenagers were young and pretty until they were slashed and bloody.

To say that Ebert was a movie critic is like saying Mickey Mantle played outfield; it's accurate but inadequate to reduce either man to such easy description. In his writing and in his vocal position on television until cancer robbed him of that voice, Roger Ebert made it fun to think deeper about movies and life. The man never met a movie that he didn't like, until he did, and then he could pen such a great review of a bad movie that you almost wanted to see it anyway, in case it was really as bad as he said. When "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" came on VH1 once, I was surprised to see his name in the screenwriting credit; it turns out that he knew firsthand what it was like to be part of a bad or "cult" movie. He was unabashed about the films that he loved, penning entire books about "great movies" that I would recommend to any aspiring film enthusiast, much less an aspiring critic. Yes, he was populist in that he brought movie criticism out of the salons of intellectual circles and brought it to the masses. But he did it because of a genuine love and wonderment at the beauty of an art form.

Criticism is a dirty word, because it's generally thought of as a "negative" word; after all, if you're "criticizing" something, it's assumed that you're not saying nice things about it. But the role of criticism in art is more nuanced: what you're doing is not just pointing out whether a movie or book or album or song or painting is good or not, you're identifying what makes it good, or bad, or average. In criticism as it applies to film, nobody was better than Ebert. Pauline Kael may have had more weight in some circles of film enthusiasts, and much of her writing remains witty and incisive. But when I read her essays and reviews, I sometimes felt that she was being unnecessarily contrarian, just for the hell of it. If Ebert didn't like a movie, really didn't like it, you knew it. And those were the reviews I enjoyed reading most of all, because he loved movies so much that when one rankled him or challenged his belief in the beauty of cinema, he would unleash a verbal assault the equivalent of the Allied landings at Normandy.

Of course, when I began to see film as an art form instead of just entertainment, there was a natural inclination to be dismissive of him, to mistake the TV talking head for the man. It happens with any aspiring artist or (in my case) aspiring snob, to look upon the work of your forefathers with disdain because obviously they didn't "get" it. But then I started reading his work, the reviews that went deeper than his quick "thumbs up/down" judgments on TV. There's some good stuff there, especially in his memoir from a couple of years ago. The man was more in tune with the film revolutions happening around him, and he knew a good film even when other people might be slow to recognize it. Reading Ebert makes you wish you could be as smart,funny, opinionated, sarcastic, and all-around good at writing as he was.

When his memoir came along, I read it and was moved. The cancer that would kill him had at this point robbed him of his speaking voice, but he could still speak through his writing. I heartily recommend, if you haven't already, to pick up "Life Itself." Or pick up any edition of his movie guides, or any of the three "Great Movies" books he published (most of the reviews in those books are online, of course, so whatever format works for you). Roger Ebert was a humanitarian, in the sense that he believed in art's ability to inform your existence, to make you more appreciative of what it meant to be alive and attuned to your surroundings. In "The Apartment," Jack Lemmon's doctor neighbor implores him to be a mensch, which is Yiddish for "human being." Roger Ebert was a mensch, and we need more like him in this world.

The Smiths, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"

In late last year, a new book arrived that promised to tell in vivid detail the history of the Smiths, one of my all-time favorite bands. This past weekend, I decided to check it out from a local library (the college one at Clemson), and I've been engrossed in it ever since.

It's a story that, for me, goes back to my ill-fated turn as a Gamecock in Columbia, circa 1997-1998. I went there because Hootie and the Blowfish came from those hallowed halls, basically; I thought for sure that I'd fall in with like-minded music or comedy fans who wanted to start a group or something. What I found instead was a lot of douchebags in frat gear who never, ever suspected that I stole their newspaper every morning because I went to class at the crack of dawn while they slept in and got over their hangovers (well, the fact that such thefts stopped after I moved out at the end of the first semester probably clued them in to that fact). Where I ended up after that was rooming with Charlie Long, the first of my many post-high school "best friends" who only really were in my life for a brief period (mostly thanks to me flunking out that second semester). He was a kindred spirit, a fellow nerd from the academic team, and we bonded over our shared love of music. But he knew some stuff that I, classic rock fan that I was, had never heard of.

My first culture-shock moment was listening to Morrissey and the Smiths, the Manchester band that, for a brief period (not as brief as my Columbia existence, but close) ruled the indie-rock/alternative rock world. I was a country boy from Walhalla who had yet to know anyone like...well, Morrissey (there was one kid in high school who sure seemed to like wearing make-up and listening to the Spice Girls, but you don't think he was...? You know?). Charlie said that Mozza (as he is affectionately known) was celibate and even had a huge female following because he was "sensitive" and effeminate. I just nodded and sat through Meat Is Murder and "How Soon Is Now," the most famous Smiths song (you've heard it, even if you didn't know what it was at the time. It's a staple of Eighties-set "coming of age" soundtracks for films).

Against my early reluctance, I found myself getting into the Smiths, and eventually, when I stumbled across a copy of their best album (to me), The Queen Is Dead, used at a record store in Columbia, Charlie congratulated me on my astute eye. From the Smiths, it was a quick jump to that other legendary Manchester band, Joy Division (I think I've written about that before). It's kinda the way I work with pop culture; I started out liking Paul McCartney before realizing John Lennon was better, I discovered Truffaut because of Godard, etc. But the Smiths were and are one of my all-time favorites, becuase they're just so weird and awesome at the same time.

"There Is a Light..." should be the album closer on Queen (instead of the forgettable-if-not-for-its-clever-title "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others"), but it is the best song they ever did. It's an ode to death (of course, this being Mozza) but a romantic one, about riding around with the one you love until a double-decker bus cuts your joyride short (and, as is the case with those who buy into Morrissey's celibacy, there's no telling who he's singing to). It crops up in one of my favorite movies from the past few years, when Zooey Deschanel sings along to it in the elevator in (500) Days of Summer. If I had to pick an introductory song for the Smiths to anyone who hasn't heard them, this would be it. Then you might end up like me, giddy that a big book about the band has just come out and eager to read it despite the fact that it's close to six-hundred pages. Or maybe not. But it's your call, music is totally subjective. I'm a Smiths fan thru and thru. There's very little about that time in Columbia that I carry with me (Charlie and I lost touch long ago, and I am sure those frat douchebags wouldn't remember me if they tried). But I carry the Smiths with me, and the other bands I discovered at that time. When you hear the Smiths, Hootie and the Blowfish are just wannabes (though in closing, I do still like the occasional tune from the Blowfish. Maybe it's part of getting old).