Blah Blah Blog

So I have a MySpace page now.



It's like being in high school all over again.



Still getting the hang of it.



myspace.com/bryanthomas

Labels: music

From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Facing significant opposition to its plan to privatize part of the Social Security program, the White House is pushing reporters and lawmakers to use the expression "personal accounts," since polling data seems to indicate that "privatization" is an unpopular term with voters.

[snip]

"Private accounts" was the accurate term used by both sides of the debate until Republicans realized it wasn't polling well; they then started calling them "personal accounts," a deceptive term because citizens already have personal Social Security accounts that keep track of their individual contributions.

January 27, 2005

From Talking Points Memo

Needless to say, what's happened now is that Republicans are getting bad results in the polls. So they've come up with a new smiley-face vocabulary and they're hitting all the newsrooms telling editors that it's an example of bias to use the phrase 'nuclear option' since that's a slur devised by Democrats. [BT says: The New Yorker explains that the phrase was coined by Republican Senator Trent Lott.]

[snip]

There's no intrinsic reason why banning filibusters for judicial nominations should be called the 'nuclear option'... But one side in a debate shouldn't be able to order the refs in the game to rewrite the lexicon just because people don't like what's happening. And yet that's just what's happening. Republicans are now making a concerted push at a whole slew of news organizations, trying to convince them to stop using the term in their coverage, on the argument that it's an attack phrase concocted by the Democrats... Perhaps we can just call ending filibusters 'privatization'.

April 23, 2005

From Mr. George Orwell

"What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed you had used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?"

"No," said Winston. "I didn't think it had been issued yet. We are still using the ninth in the Records Department."

"The tenth edition is not due to appear for some months, I believe. But a few advance copies have been circulated. I have one myself. It might interest you to look at it, perhaps?"

"Very much so," said Winston, immediately seeing where this tended.

"Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The reduction in the number of verbs -- that is the point that will appeal to you, I think."

1984

PS: Why does it take The Daily Show to expose the president's fake town hall tour for what it is? To expose Frank Luntz for what he is?

Big ups to Samantha Bee.

UPDATE: The folks at Media Matters have much more on the evolution of Trent Lott's "nuclear option." Orwellian, Orwellian, Orwellian. Double plus good.

Labels: in the news

They're here: behind the scenes clips from the set of the 'Babylon' video. Nothing Earth-shattering, mind you - Hearts of Darkness it ain't - but it should give you a good sense of what went down in Tess' attic that day.

Now how much would you pay? But wait - there's more!

In video-capture mode late last night, I also stumbled on the director's cut of the 'Jennifer' video, which was shot in the fall of 2001. It includes intro footage revealing the Lark Street whereabouts of the stalker as well as quick cameo appearances by a certain quartet of punk bluesgrassers and a columnist for a certain local alternative weekly.

[UPDATE 4/23: it's now online here]

I'd forgotten all about the extra footage, but I'm sure glad I discovered it: in my small mind it enlarges the song's "too big for Schenectady" and "all the critics love you in New York" themes.

I'll try to webify it over the weekend, so expect a cleaner and slightly longer version of the Jennifer video online soon.

With that said: don't hold your breath for behind-the-scenes footage from the 'Jennifer' shoot. A girl has her secrets.

The Babylon video should be online in May. I promise. In May.

In anticipation, I'll be posting video clips of behind-the-scenes footage this week. I put together a couple clips late last night: gonzo, voyeur cam night shot footage from the set itself, plus performance footage from the "Shock and Awe" show at Firlefanz Gallery on the eve of the production.

I'll try to crunch 'em into a web-ready format tonight and post them over the course of the next week or so. In the meantime, dig the revamped live blog from the set.

Labels: in the news

A discussion on Derek Sivers' Musicthoughts list prompted by the recent Wall Street Journal article on Joni Mitchell inspired me to post the following.

There are many, many, many things I love about Joni Mitchell: one is the fact that when she finally gave in to the pressure to write a so-called hit for radio, she got through it by making the song a joke about writing a so-called hit for radio.

She's long since admitted that she wrote "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio" as a love song with a cheesy radio metaphor because she knew that deejays would be inclined to spin a song that was ostensibly about deejays and radio. But even then, she assumed that the song would not be a hit just like all the others were not hits.

And peeling back the layers - always so many layers with her stuff - the song is not just a lyrical listing of radio metaphors, simple rhymes and sophomoric sexual innuendo ("broadcast towers"), which anyone could come up with to write a hit with a radio conceit. It's really Joni lyrically flirting with the deejays (and the industry, and the masses, for that matter), saying here I am, here's my music, come and get it. The so-called weak/confessional stuff may bore you, and the so-called strong/experimental stuff may scare you.

"But if you've got too many doubts
If there's no good reception for me
Then tune me out, 'cause honey
Who needs the static
It hurts the head"

It's one big "Take it or leave it, y'all." And she's bitter and funny about it at the same time. For all of the confessional stuff, and for all the talk about how bitter she is about the way the industry's treated her, we tend to forget how much of a sense of humor she's had about it all, too, laughing about it even in the music itself.

And if you're going to give in to industry pressure, the least you can do is give them what they think they want while simultaneouly giving them, and everyone else - and yourself - so much more.

And in the end, it was a hit. The joke's on them.

Lessons from Joni.

I'm a recovering English major (with the same alma mater as our dear Mr. Lefsetz, no less) so you know I've got it in me to go on and on about this, but I won't, I'll just offer up this link to the lyrics and go back to lurking.


(Big ups to Mr. Les Irvin and the gang for maintaining the greatest Joni Mitchell resource on the 'Net.)

Peace,

B.
- - -
BRYAN THOMAS. Soul Rock.
http://www.bryanthomas.com
New web site. New free music. Enjoy.

Labels: music

See this photo?

This is where Rosanne transported me while she was singing Katie's song "15 Minutes" at Why Can't I Be You last Friday night.

Back through time, exactly one year ago. The Larkin. April Fools Day. Songwriters in the round, with Katie, Earl and Karen.

Katie's singing "15 Minutes" and I'm hypnotized. Haunted. I'm thinking, God, why can't I write a song like that? Complex, deeply layered, yet completely accessible.

And the lyrics. I hear her sing "15 minutes" and in my mind take it to it's Warholian conclusion... "fame." Because she's next to me, her voice is soaring, and I'm looking out at the room - and what, are there, ten, twelve, fifteen people here tonight? I'm selfishly ecstatic to be experiencing this artist and her song in such an intimate setting, here in this little room in Albany, but part of me - a lot of me - is angry that it's only me and a dozen others, that this isn't being shared with many, many, many more.

Oh it's a fever I can't deny
Swimming deep in a mystery
Lined with melody and poetry
Consequences undefined
And how a soul learns to bend
Learn to break, to blend into its surroundings
Accept the one thing, for what it really is...
I've got 15 minutes to show you what I can be

And suddenly "every passer-by watching my creaky bike fly by" on her way home is the dozen souls in the room tonight taking it all in, and that creaky bike is her guitar, her piano. That creaky bike is the what's-it-all-for of it. The art. The music. The albums. The MP3s. The press kits. The press releases. The phone calls. The e-mails. The gigs. The studios. The late nights. The early mornings. The planes, trains and automobiles. The big slog of it all.

Sigh.

And I've felt this way in this room before. Three years earlier. Opening night at the Larkin. Sharing the bill with Rosanne herself. I finish my set, Rosanne takes the stage, and there I am in the front, taking it all in, feeling this strange mix of joy and anger.



Sent back, and back again, by these two haunting voices, and back again to now. A Friday night in 2005, April Fools Day, and it's Rosanne's voice singing Katie's words, rising and soaring above the room. And there's joy. And there's anger.

She finishes Katie's song, and I'm numb.

And then she announces she's going to sing "Babylon."

This, only moments after I'd sung the song that had inspired "Babylon" - the great MotherJudge's Revelation 17-inspired "Woman of Mystery."

And it's all happening in the room where we filmed the video for the song last year. The video whose narrative is a metaphor of this music thing I do. Playing my heart out to another sleepy, indifferent room.

But Rosanne is singing "Glory, glory, hallelujah" with such joy. Only joy.

And the anger melts away.

Thanks to Rosanne, Katie, MotherJudge, and every one who made Why Can't I Be You what it was this year.

Labels: hiddencity

From yet another brilliant White House Briefing column by the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin (subscribe already!) comes this dissection of yet another ridiculous briefing with press secretary Scott McClellan.

Eric Brewer, who's so new to the White House press corps he hasn't figured out he's not supposed to ask a real question, poses a real question: "Have the massive intelligence failures documented in the [recent WMD] report caused the President to rethink his policy of preventive war?"

Think about what our cynical friend Frank Luntz says - how mentioning September 11th is a "trick" that works to this administration's advantage - as Froomkin documents McClellan's responses, brilliantly using Google to point out how often McClellan goes back to the well for the same Luntz-inspired non-answers.

Here's what McClellan said, from the transcript. You can click on each phrase to see how many times he's used those same words before in previous briefings.

"You know, September 11th taught us a very important lesson, and that lesson was that we must confront threats before it is too late. If we had known of those attacks ahead of time, we would have moved heaven and earth to prevent them from happening. This President will not hesitate when it comes to protecting the American people. And in the post-September 11th world that we live in, the consequences of underestimating the threat we face is too high. It's tens of -- possibly tens of thousands of lives.

Brewer followed up: "What about the cost of overestimating?"

McClellan: "Are you talking about the Iraq situation?"

Brewer: "Going into Iraq, yes, with bad intelligence."

McClellan: I think we've talked about this before.The world is safer with Saddam Hussein's regime removed from power. The Iraqi people are serving as an example to the rest of the Middle East through their courage and determination to build a free future."

And at this point, Hearst columnist Helen Thomas piped in:

"The ones that are alive, you mean?"

Classic Helen. Makes me proud to have the last name Thomas.

A lot of people think that McClellan is a terrible press secretary because he never answers a question, just sticks to the talking points, the stock phrases. There's no art to his misinformation, the way that there was with, say, Ari Fleischer, whose back-and-forths with the likes of Helen Thomas were so entertaining they inspired this found poem by Hart Seely. (Hey -you can't spell "liar" with "A-R-I," said Middlebury '91 to Middlebury '82).

But I argue that McClellan is exactly what this administration needs: a broken record who nervously smiles and unsmiles through every unanswer with the same intonation, no matter the subject - be it the deficit or dead Iraqi children, same, same, same, and never a real answer. And still conflating September 11th and Saddam Hussein, even while discussing a 600-page report objectively pointing out how "dead wrong" they were to do so. Invoking September 11th per Mr. Luntz's recommendations.

Sigh.

I don't know if it's incompetence or if it's calculated, but either way it serves this White House very, very well.

Labels: in the news

Some initial thoughts on last night's "Why Can't I Be You" show are at the webcam. More to come. Peace, B.