A moment of levity, by my standards

Now that we've finally been rid of Hillary Clinton and her increasingly poorly managed (and racist) campaign, I can, I hope, safely say that I plan to vote for Barack Obama in this coming election. So, in case he was curious, he gets my oh-so-coveted endorsement.

This is not to say I am a blind partisan (or Obamabot, as they call them) drawn to unrealistic notions of "change." What appealed to me about Obama, and what always confused me with all these criticisms, was that he seemed to lay down in pretty concrete and intelligent terms what he planned to do. Partisanbots tried to paint him as having nothing but a bunch of vague utterances at the core of his campaign, and having seen the man speak a few times I can say that this is a mostly baseless accusation. I could give examples, and I might in a later post. Anyway, I will support the man, but not apologize for him. He seems like a good guy, and I find myself becoming more and more disturbed by McCain's behavior over the last few weeks, and Bob Barr is of course definitely out. Now Nader, I still might vote for him. Still though, Obama is not a perfect man, and in the interest of fair play, I present to you 10 Things I Do Not Like About Barack Obama

1. To start with an obvious one, his recent announcement to reject public financing. Not a bad idea in itself, but it seems the point he is trying to make is that, without big money interests, he can outspend McCain by however much he wants, while McCain is stuck with, at most, $84.1 million. Surely Obama, in the spirit of fair play, could have matched McCain's amount and offered to use the rest of the donations to do something else like, say, help people who are flooded or victims of genocide. As it stands, if Obama wins this thing, people will claim it is because of the money factor. Those of us who care about campaign finance reform, and we are a dying breed, weep.

2. The Obama campaign's response to accusations that he is somehow a secret Muslim. Obama's response was something along the lines of, "Of course I am not, I am a Christian like you." His response should have been, "Who gives a fuck?"

3. In one of the poorest examples of supposed "bipartisanship," Obama supported the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer house bill that grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies who collaborate with our administration to spy on people. This is wildly unconstitutional and is unfortunately being supported by Nancy Pelosi as well as the majority of democrats in the house. It's possible Obama thinks that, as president-to-be, he would not use these warrantless wiretapping powers in vain, but come on.

4. He supported Joe Lieberman in his reelection bid after being ousted as the democratic nominee by Ned Lamont. Now I'm not the hugest Ned Lamont fan, but there are few people in the senate or anywhere else that I find so dishonorable and downright disgusting a political creature as Joe Lieberman. That is the subject of another post entirely, but it's worth pointing out that Lieberman did not respond in turn, and has now become a strong McCain backer. That is by far the least of why he is a scumbag.

5. His position on gay marriage. Doesn't support it, but supports "civil unions." Say what you want, but that's discriminatory. For supposedly the most "liberal" person in the senate, this is a glaring problem and offensive to homosexuals and non-bigots like myself.

6. The fact that he used to be an agnostic, which would be a pretty big deal if he still was (and a good thing), but then fell in with that lame church in order to circumvent stupid questions about his "faith." Looks like that didn't work out the way he planned.

7. Supports merit pay. 9 times out of 10, doesn't really work out the way it should, and the NEA wholeheartedly opposes it.

8. Made some generalizations about rap music that are pretty par for the course for ignorant old white politicians, but for someone who claims to have Jay-Z on his iPod, seems kind of an about face.

9. Said he liked Leon Uris. Blech.

10. Support of ethanol, which is troubling given that gas prices nevertheless make me want to cry. What's more, food prices are going up, which is particular bad timing given that vast swaths of the United States have been ravaged by national disasters.

I was thinking maybe I would do 10 things I would like about John McCain, again in the interest of fairness, but I don't know if I can even do that. His good qualities seem to be disappearing, one by one.

My top 50

This is a last.fm meme I had been meaning to do for a long time. I would post it on my last.fm blog but I thought I'd do it here as well. I'm always interested to look at my top 50, in order to see what it perhaps says about me. Numbers here are rankings based on number of tracks scrobbled from each artist.

1. How did you get into 29? Big Black

Read about them in Michael Azzerad’s book, naturally. I think of the 13 bands profiled in the book, Big Black was one of the last bands I listened to and got into. I think only Beat Happening and Butthole Surfers came later. Anyhow I got Songs About Fucking first, because it was recommended by Pitchfork, and of course I was blown away. I was aware at the time of Albini’s producing (sorry, engineering) work for plenty of bands I admired.

2. What was the first song you ever heard by 22? Wire
It would have to be “Reuters” because the first time I ever listened to Wire I listened to Pink Flag all the way through.

3. What’s your favorite lyric by 33? Kyuss

“My hair is real long/No brains, all groin/no shoes, just thongs/I hate slow songs” is a good one.

4. What is your favorite album by 49? Jeff Beck

My iTunes counts Truth as a Jeff Beck album as opposed to a Jeff Beck Group album, so I will say Truth.

5. How many albums by 13 do you own? Game Theory.

Just one, actually. I should get more, but Lolita Nation has a lot of tracks and all of them are excellent, even the 14-second ones.

6. What is your favorite song by 50? Crime

“Instrumental Instrumental” always gets me going.

7. Is there a song by 39 that makes you sad? Johnny Thunders

Oh, yes. His entire repertoire is pretty heartbreaking in light of what happened to him. Obviously, “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory” comes to mind, but I would probably choose “So Alone,” cause Thunders’ guitar can always make me a bit weepy.

8. What is your favorite album by 15? Guitar Wolf

J-J-J-Jet Generation!

9. What is your favorite song by 5? The Clash.

This has to be the hardest question yet. I’ll say “Charlie Don’t Surf,” but as I say it, all these songs from London Calling come welling back—shit, let’s say “Charlie Don’t Surf.”

10. Is there a song by 6 that makes you happy? Minutemen

There’s several, but one that comes to mind is “History Lesson-Part II,” a heartwarming story of friendship and band harmony that is unprecedented in its autobiographical candor as well as its kind disposition.

11. What is your favorite album by 40? Jay Reatard.

Blood Visions is the only one I got.

12. What is your favorite song by 10? Frank Zappa

Jesus, another hard one. “Trouble Every Day” is so magnificent, even if it is on his first album. It also has probably his best, least random lyrics.

13. What is a good memory you have involving 30? Butthole Surfers

I actually have a wonderful memory of being at Chameleon’s in Mt. Vernon with some friends and everyone was playing shit music on the jukebox (Lynyrd Skynyrd and the like) and me and my friends sunk a bunch of money into it and played “Who Was In My Room Last Night” first. We ended up waiting about an hour listening to terrible music until finally we heard the “I’m flying, I’m flying” part. Then we all started headbanging.

14. What is your favorite song by 38? The La’s

“I Can’t Sleep” is the jumpiest and happiest of many jumpy and happy cuts.

15. Is there a song by 19 that makes you happy? Elvis Costello

Elvis isn’t the kind of lyricist who writes “happy” lyrics—nevertheless, the music for “The Impostor” is pretty cheerful for what it is (ska).

16. How many times have you seen 25 live? Queens of the Stone Age.

Never, but I would love to.

17. What is the first song you ever heard by 23? Meat Puppets.

Obviously it must have been “Lake of Fire” via Nirvana, and it was also the Meat Puppets cut on the Rhino 80s underground box set.

18. What is your favorite album by 11? Dinosaur Jr.

Has to be You’re Living All Over Me. Stiff competition from Bug and that’s about it, although all Dinosaur Jr. albums have good tracks.

19. Who is a favorite member of 1? Bad Brains.

Dr. Know is the MVP of all Bad Brains albums, at least until that Soul Brains nonsense when H.R. took over. As much as I love every member of the band, consummate musicians all, if forced to take one on a desert island I would choose Dr. Know, for his consummately brilliant soloing abilities as well as his ability to play really, really fast. Like Johnny Ramone and Van Halen rolled into one.

20. Have you ever seen 14 live? Frank Black.

No, but I will in a few weeks in Des Moines hopefully, although this time under the sobriquet “Black Francis,” so who knows if that counts.

21. What is a good memory involving 27? Fugazi

Any memory involving Fugazi is a good one. Walking around campus while listening to “Public Witness Program” on repeat seems like a good one, it was like my way of calming down after my music theory classes.

22. What is your favorite song by 16? Radiohead

Currently, I’m partial to “All I Need,” because I have a lot of very good memories associated with it. Apart from that, “Paranoid Android” will always have a good place in my heart, despite its ubiquity.

23. What is the first song you ever heard by 47? The Rolling Stones

Who knows? The earliest I remember is dancing to “Jumping Jack Flash” as a youngster.

24. What is your favorite album by 18? The Replacements

I’ll say Pleased To Meet Me, an album that continually surprises and moves me—not only does it have the awesome opener “I.O.U.”—a piss-take on all the Replacements fans bitching about their moving to a major label—but it also has the perfect ending in “Can’t Hardly Wait.” In between, it has “The Ledge,” “Skyway” and of course the mighty “Alex Chilton.” I even listen to “Nightclub Jitters” when I’m in the mood.

25. What is your favorite song by 21? R.E.M.

Anything from their first five albums is tops, but I’ll choose “Harborcoat” because it embodies the two aspects of R.E.M. I always liked the most—the jittery, off-kilter dance rhythms and the anthemic (if obscure) chorus.

26. What is the first song you ever heard by 26? 999

“Homicide,” via its placement on No Thanks: The 70s Punk Rebellion, which was my bible for a while back in high school. Of all the songs that I played and replayed, “Homicide” is definitely one I listened to often.

27. What is your favorite album by 3? Steely Dan

The Royal Scam. Maybe a month ago I would have said Aja, but I can’t get over those first two songs, especially the end of “The Caves of Altamira” when the horns start going crazy. Plus, all of them have amazing lyrics, including “Haitian Divorce.”

28. What is your favorite song by 2? The Stranglers

This might be the hardest one to do yet. As much as I deeply love pretty much every part of the Stranglers’ discography, particularly the first three albums, I will go out on a limb and say I am particularly enamored with “Down In The Sewer.” If you haven’t heard it before, you should, it’s like the best sort of punk “rock opera” or whatever they call it, and it has this really righteous and exciting ending. It keeps building and topping itself, which is the sort of thing I like (that’s why I like the Wipers so much).

29. What was the first song you ever heard by 32? Magazine

“Shot on Both Sides,” also via No Thanks. I should add, though, that the stupid Rolling Stone record guide said that Magazine never made anything nearly as good as “Shot on Both Sides,” a simply stupid assumption. If you haven’t heard Magazine, you must. Great, probably the best, post-punk.

30. What is your favorite song by 8? The Germs

I know their discography by heart, and I can tell you pretty easily what my least favorite song is (that would be “Shut Down (Annihilation Man)”. As for my favorite, “Let’s Pretend” comes to mind. Some of Pat Smear’s best work there.

31. How many times have you seen 17 live? Warren Zevon

0, and it looks like I never will.

32. Is there a song by 44 that makes you happy? Led Zeppelin

Anything off Led Zeppelin III. Particularly, “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.”

33. What is your favorite album by 12? Pixies

Impossible question. Can’t answer it.

34. What is the worst song by 45? Stiff Little Fingers

“Here We Are Nowhere,” if only because it’s too short.

35. What was the first song you ever heard by 34? Sonic Youth

I remember hearing about Goodbye, Old Century on NPR but the first Sonic Youth song proper I heard was probably “Tom Violence” off EVOL. I remember being not that impressed, shows how stupid I was in middle school.

36. What is your favorite album by 48? Neil Young

On The Beach is the one I listen to the most, so I’ll say that.

37. How many times have you seen 42 live? Tom Waits

Never, but boy would I love to.

38. What is your favorite song by 36? The Jam

The one I listen to the most is probably their cover of “Heat Wave,” but considering that’s not a Jam original I’ll say “Set The House Ablaze,” which by the way Bloc Party completely ripped off verbatim.

39. What was the first song you ever heard by 28? Wu-Tang Clan

“Gravel Pit,” I think. I think I saw the video. Very weird video, if you haven’t seen it.

40. What is your favorite album by 7? Husker Du.

Once again, an absolutely impossible question to answer. What the hell, Zen Arcade.

41. Is there a song by 31 that makes you happy? David Bowie
Bowie generally doesn’t generally make me cheery, but I guess “Modern Love” might fit the bill.

42. What is your favorite album by 41? Battles

Easiest question yet. Mirrored by default. I suppose I could choose one of the EPs but I’m not going to.

43. What is your favorite song by 24? Stevie Wonder

“As,” though I’ve completely overplayed that song over the course of the last year. Gets me going, I guess.

44. What is a good memory you have involving 46? Of Montreal
The first time I heard “Disconnect the Dots” and proceeded to spend the next few weeks listening to only that song.

45. What is your favorite song by 35? Big Star

“Feel,” I guess. Never topped that.

46. Is there a song by 9 that makes you happy? At The Drive-In
Oh, hell yeah. “Rolodex Propaganda” has great, loopy backing vocals by Iggy Pop and is of course righteous like everything else they do.

47. What is your favorite album by 4? Wipers.

Shit, yet another impossible question to answer. If pressed, I choose Youth of America. Chances are if you don’t like it I don’t like you.

48. Who is a favorite member of 37? The Who
Keith Moon is undoubtedly the greatest instrumental powerhouse of the Who, and of course that is saying a lot. I am feeling dubious about this Keith Moon biopic with Mike Myers (who will play Townshend? Adrien Brody? Who has the nose?).

49. What is the first song you ever heard by 43? Pink Floyd
Again, it’s difficult to remember. It might be “Learning To Fly” because of my dad. Ick.

50. How many albums do you own by 20? Portishead

All three of the studio albums proper. There's a band that should record more often.

Reconciling myself

Well, I certainly dropped the ball on this thing. I was seized, unfortunately, by one of those Salinger (or Residents!) moments where I felt like being a bit more anonymous. In fact, I don't even know what I'm trying to do right now. I'll give you a brief lowdown on what you may have missed, had you not been present during every moment of my life and don't happen to be a nu-nu. This is in relatively chronological order.

-On what I believe was 4/20, I delivered my symposium project on Philip Roth. Entitled "Telling a Man by the Songs He Sings: Claims and Counterclaims of Anti-semitism in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus and Letting Go," I had spent the last several months, reading through as much of Roth's work as I could while simultaneously producing a 15-page paper that my sponsor would find of enduring quality. Luckily, she didn't find my thesis or anything I said to be that bad (I was probably helped by the fact that, even as an American literature professor, and a Jew to boot, she wasn't that familiar with Roth). Of course, the day before I had to pare down the fucking thing to a manageable 10 minutes. It turns out that reading my entire 15-page paper took something like 25 minutes, so I spent all of Friday hacking it until I was pretty sure I had produced something utterly unintelligible. No matter: very, very few people showed up. I would wager there were maybe 10 people there, and that includes the three students also speaking during my session (entitled "Literary Landscapes: Paradise, Politics, and Religion"--check out my abstract and stuff here) and their respective sponsors, although my sponsor couldn't be there because, irony of ironies, she had to go home for Passover.

Anyhow, I finally did it, and at least my moderator seemed to like it, and was particularly impressed that I did all the research outside of class. I asked her if (as department chairman) this would be good to go as an honors thesis, and she said yes. So at that point I was pretty happy.

-All of the internships I applied for--and I won't bother naming them all here--turned me down. Every single last one of them. So, faced with few other ideas, I decided to go back home once again for the summer. Turns out this was a bad idea.

-I did, however, receive an academic award from the school, which was cool because along with the prestige (I'm aware, don't laugh at me) of it I got $100. It was the Winifred Van Etten award, in case you were wondering. It's not a big deal, there are enough of these to make me feel not so special. Still, it was nice, particularly because I had no idea what I was getting until it was announced at the English awards/Open Field party. Mouton, or someone in the English department wrote a lovely introduction for me too. The only reason I enjoyed it was because it was poetic justice for none of my stuff getting into Open Field, which is the campus literary magazine. This is even though Freeman thought one of my stories was good enough to be entered into the Nick Adams short story contest (which I lost unsurprisingly, although I should add deservedly--I read the story that won, and it is actually an amazing piece of work). Apparently, my peers didn't think anything I did was good enough. I was depressed, but that made it a bit better.

Weirdly, I was invited to attend the English awards night as well as the interdepartmental awards night. Since I had already gotten my award previously, I was just asked to stand up to be recognized. There was no reason why I should have gone. The whole thing was like three hours and nearly unbearable, despite what was supposed to be fancy food. Apparently, there are a lot of awards here.

-Got hired to be the new Arts & Entertainment editor of The Cornellian, which, unlike my job back in high school, actually pays a salary. I was going for Opinions editor but I'm not surprised that they didn't choose me. To date, I have written pieces about the new Portishead album, the new R.E.M. album, and Iron Man. As is custom, the new editorial staff does one issue at the very end of the year, and it ended up not going so well for me as the result of some advertising mishaps, so I basically had to do the whole thing over again. The result: an epic piece on Iron Man that took up the entire page. It wasn't my proudest moment, and it was sort of another reason to be depressed. I couldn't look at it afterwards, that was for sure.

-I saw Iron Man. Loved it. I don't think my review is online, but I'll post it at some point.

-Took two classes, both of which fucked me up in unexpected ways: Grammar & The Politics of English turned out to be a mind-blowingly frustrating class, although not so much with the politics part as it was with the grammar. I don't know if anyone here has ever had to diagram sentences. I certainly hadn't before, but now I can say that it is a loathsome, disgusting, and surprisingly helpful activity. I think I am a better writer for taking the class, and it was sort of nice to have a professor who didn't like anything I did at all. I definitely needed that, but too bad it killed my straight-A winning streak for the semester. I'm not as concerned with that as I am with the way I was demoralized--somehow, even as someone with enough knowledge and passion of issues pertaining to language politics and linguistics, I found I had little of value to say. I did, however, get to do a paper on Salman Rushdie, who readers will know I am a big fan of. I think my thesis was something like the Ayatollah couldn't have possibly read The Satanic Verses before he issued his fatwa, and he definitely didn't read it afterward either. I know, it's so obvious. Story of my life.

Contrast this with Contemporary Fiction, a class I owned unequivocally. I found, astonishingly, that I was more in my element doing literary analysis, and what's more, I found myself enjoying the theory--yes, the theory--of postmodernists like Jean Baudrillard and Roland Barthes. Plus, we got to read some wonderful books, including one of my favorites, If on a winter's night a traveler. We also read Breakfast of Champions and J.M. Coetzee's Foe, amongst selections from a big Norton anthology of postmodern literature from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Sherman Alexie, Marilynne Robinson, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others. Philip Roth was in the anthology (excerpting The Ghost Writer) but we did not read him in class. I felt very much on top of things and was very proud of the writing I did in the class. In fact, I feel like I might put it on here, except it doesn't seem that profound on the internet as it did in the classroom. Anyway, my professor seemed to like it, and me, a lot. I think he liked that I would actually talk about some of the postmodern theory while most would complain it was impenetrable. As he would likely say, that's the point.

-I keep chugging away at Philip Roth. Just finished Deception, by the way, so I'm entering the home stretch. In my next post I'll talk about The Counterlife through Exit Ghost, assuming I can remember anything about them.

-I ended my junior year by doing my take-home final while having an extreme headache, and later, after attending quarter draws night at the bar, getting extremely feverish. Also, I hate packing and I knew I would miss my roommate, Jeremiah, although I'll see him again next year.

-Came home for the summer. The drive back was excruciating. Not only was I feeling extremely sick, to the point where I couldn't eat anything, but it was raining as hard as I've ever seen, to the point where I couldn't really see on the road. It was risky business, but I made it home okay. I've looked, in vain, for a job. It's hard, because pretty much everything has been filled up by people who came back for summer long before I did, as a result of Cornell ending pretty late. I need money and I don't know what to do.

So that's it. I'll get back into the swing of things, slowly. My question is this: from reading this, does this constitute a life well-lived? Obviously I'm not including stuff that is personal, but let's just say that that part is covered. Am I doing enough with my life? What should I be doing? What am I doing wrong?