Random Sunday Mix

Dungen - "Gjort Bort Sig" - at least I think that's how you spell it. Pristine Swedish psych-pop. Like sliding into an ice cavern.

The Delays - "Valentine" - best pop song I've heard in a year or so. Makes me wish I was still studying abroad so I could drink 18 pints of Harp and dance to this.

Hard Fi - "Middle Eastern Holiday" - people shit on this band. I don't get why. The lyrics can be dumb. But Christ, I like them better than the Arctic fucking Monkeys.

Belle and Sebastian - "Sukie in the Graveyard" - God bless B&S for deciding to be a bubblegum band instead of a soft-rock band.

LCD Soundsystem - "Tribulations" - for all the lovin' James Murphy gets, this does sound a lot like it belongs on the Trainspotting soundtrack. Which, obviously, is why I like it.

Black Grape - "Reverend Black Grape" - multihued funk, and a drunk, shouting Shaun Ryder. "Put on your Reeboks, man and go play fucking tennis!" If this band ever was straight enough to play a live concert - well, shit, I would go.

The Stone Roses - "Fool's Gold" - More Madchester. Except with Ian Brown's druggy whisper instead of Ryder's manic shout.

Editors - "Munich" - the reverby guitar wail on this song is better than anything since "New Year's Day." The bridge, weirdly, sucks ass.

Interpol - "Obstacle 1" - have there been many albums, ever, with traditional rock dynamics as solid as Turn On the Bright Lights? The coiling-uncoiling-recoiling that happens in this song is extraordinary.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Turn Into" - folks who liked "Art Star" are prone to shitting on Karen O for writing this kind of song. Of course, those folks can always - what's the expression? - go fuck themselves.

Art Brut - "Emily Kane" - this is sort of old now. Eh. Is it incredibly funny or is it tremendously moving? Yeah.

Pavement - "Carrot Rope" - Pavement for They Might Be Giants fans. Cuddly, odd, bouncy. As the last song on their last album, does a pretty good job of foreshadowing SM's solo career.

The Go! Team - "Huddle Formation" - New Order, played through a chewing-gum-encrusted boombox, and recast as the most exhausting aerobics video ever.

Sonic Youth - "Teen Age Riot" - Thurston Moore, meet Brian Wilson. Well - good, then.

Robert Pollard - "Dancing Girls and Dancing Men" - a great song from Crazy Uncle Bob, somewhat lessened by the suspicion that it was probably written in a doctor's waiting room, in the margins of Modern Drunkard magazine.

Gonna Give Big Daddy the Ol' Rain Man Sweep...

I was originally going to do a Wine of the Week post here, but I'm just home from a 4-day trip to Vegas. Which would you rather hear about. Yup, thought so.

So: what to do about Vegas?

It's the fastest-growing city in America, by some measures; everywhere you look there's construction. It's dedicated to the notion that anything, absolutely anything can be bought - a sort of "capitalists gone wild" atmosphere. It preys on everyone's addictions - gambling, sure, but also sex, alcohol, gluttony, and luxury. At times, it feels like the most depressing place on Earth - laden with bored-looking Hispanic guys handing out flyers for hookers, retirees slowly pumping their Social Security into machines of every stripe, and plastic guys 'n' girls laden with hair gel, spray tan, and unburdened by any apparent brains whatsoever. I'm not even fully prepared to talk about the ecological nightmare that the city represents: it's like a house where everyone was given complete and total license to leave the lights on and keep the water running 24-7.

So yes, I object to Vegas - I object to it strongly and passionately. It is built on a foundation of cheap material and human misery. There is simply no defending the place, unless you're willing to give total free rein to human greed and human self-destruction.

The problem: Vegas is fucking awesome.

The poorly-built, land-wasting rental homes have pools, flat-screen TVs, and hot tubs. The casinos feature strong drinks, hilarious characters, and the sort of adrenalin-charged atmosphere that inevitably keeps you up for days. For instance: my friends and I got stuck in line at a club for over an hour and a half, and then were told we had to pay a $30 cover charge to get in. Fuck that, we quite rightly opined. It was 1 AM. Instead of having our evening deflated, it was reinvigorated; the surge of anger carried us into a bar at the Venetian, which was free, played awesome music, and got us drunk with ease and style.

At home, all of that rage might have faded to a shrug, and we might have grabbed a drink somewhere and then headed home. Instead, we closed down the bar at 4 in the morning, grabbed (believe it or not) a limo to Jack-in-the-Box and then our house, and started up a new dance party at about 5 AM. It was like a fight to stay in constant, pleasurable motion; the dull, pleasant relaxation of sleep seemed like a defeat.

So, what's the right choice? You could make the case that Vegas is like candy: it's not good for you, and you should have it infrequently. But that's what everyone does, and that's why the city exists. It demands getting rid of all your normal hang-ups, including hang-ups that you're quite right to have. Strangely enough, I don't need ideological consistency in my vacations - I think Florence and Siena are incredible, as are the volcanoes of Central America, and I think Vegas is incredible, too. I'll keep going there, and hell, maybe I'll win some friggin' money next time.

Meditation: Nation, Religion and Politics

God, this subject bores me to tears in some ways. Given the current state of things, though, it's been on my mind a lot. What should your rights be in a secular county when you aren't religious, and a religious majority outnumbers you greatly?

I ask the question that way ("What should your rights be?") because, frankly, discussing the Constitution and the intentions of our Founding Fathers bores me even more than the question in general. Asking what the Madison or Jefferson would have thought of South Park, 2 Live Crew, gay marriage, or submachine guns is a little beside the point, isn't it? They would think, "What the fuck?" and run away.

People mistake the originators of our laws as visionaries who were building a set of principles for a country to run on forever. In some cases, they were, and they succeeded. In some cases, they were crafting a set of laws based on: just having fought a bloody war with a tyrannical power; centuries of religious strife in Europe that many immigrants had come here trying to escape; and a sense of Enlightenment newly sprung in Europe and elsewhere, which embodied the sense that reason, not social standing, should give society its hierarchy.

Yes, much of this evidence weighs in favor of a secularist view of American government. But I'm simply not that interested in it; more interesting is the American ideal of a society governed by a 200-some-odd intention, but by people who strive toward a more perfect understanding of "freedom", "democracy" and a "republican" form of government. Fundamentally, the Federalist Papers say that our President, senators, and congressmen - not to mention the judiciary - are supposed to be people who we believe to be better than us at making decisions about the country. Not ideologues whose particular positions we believe in; not people who we personally like and are comfortable with, but professional politicians who have the best interests of the American people in mind, and are able to make unpopular decisions.

So much for that.

I'm getting around to the point. Religion is popular now - as popular as it ever has been - and AT THE EXACT SAME TIME, liberal people are doing more to piss off religious people than ever before. It's a situation that, to say the least, is a little combustible. Think of the last few years: school prayer, gay marriage, the Terry Schiavo debacle, public displays of the Ten Commandments, courtroom challenges of the Pledge of Allegiance - I could go on.

Some of these things are molehills that have been made into mountains - the ACLU's attempt to wipe crosses off of every town crest in the US is a little bit petty, if fundamentally right. At stake is a serious question, though: do you want your government to tell people what to believe with regard to their faith? Because, no matter how you slice it, the Pledge of Allegiance (and most currency) tells you that there is a God, and the Ten Commandments in the middle of a courthouse means that your local government believes in a Judeo-Christian monotheism, which must piss you off a little if you're, say, Hindu.

It's not that you can't legislate morality; whether you like it or not, some fundamental precepts of the law that we all agree on ("you can't kill people", "you can't rape children," or "you can't tear that tag off of your mattress") are fundamentally based on moral presumptions. And I will say this: you CAN think that abortion is murder and gay marriage is a moral outrage without being told that by your religion. And you can, if you want to, encode that into our laws; it might be contrary to our country's ideal of freedom, and the courts might strike it down, but it wouldn't necessarily be mixing church and state.

What IS mixing church and state is encouraging kids to pray and acknowledge God in schools; teaching creationism or Intelligent Design anywhere other than a church; slapping crosses and Biblical verses on public buildings; or creating an electoral atmosphere so rife with professions of faith that it practically amounts to a religious test. I'll say it again: government has NO RIGHT telling you what to believe in, or telling you to believe in anything. Religion is a cancer on our body politic right now, and it shows little sign of purging itself any time soon.

Wine of the Week - Kaiken!

2003 Kaiken Malbec, $7.98 (PA Liquor Store)

Kaiken, a low-cost Argentinean venture from Chilean vintner Aurelio Montes, always looks peculiarly like it should be full of sake.

It is, nevertheless, routinely one of the cheapest, most exciting things on offer at Pennsylvania Liquor stores. Quite simply, it's pretty effin hard to find a good red wine for 8 bucks; this is about it, as far as I'm concerned.

Nose: Plums, vanilla.

Taste: This is a little less concentrated than the Malbecs I've had earlier, but it also tastes a little less earthy, which is pretty welcome. It's a big fruity wine; big ol' blackberrys, grapes, and plums on the tongue, with only a little bit of a finish. Obviously quite ready now, and I bet it'd be awesome with some red, red meat or pears and cheese. Totally delicious and simple; the Jessica Alba of wines, if you will.

Back tomorrow with a concert review, maybe? I'm going to see the Microphones at the FU Church.