Christ May Be King, But At Least He Spares Us Monarchistic Thinking
Teachers at ten New York City schools went on strike Friday over the high cost of health care, but their union was not sued, their president not imprisoned and their members not fined two days of pay for every day out on the picket line. What gives?
The teachers in question work at Catholic schools in the archdiocese of New York so their union is not subject to the same draconian law that would apply to the city’s public school teachers. Is their strike not a “disruption” in the lives of the parents who enroll their children there? Do Catholic school-kids not rely on the structure and safety of the classroom as much as public school kids? Of course not. The simple truth is that while Catholic school teachers might arguably have to answer to a higher law, only public school teachers have to report to a Boss that makes the law and has the power of the state to enforce it. Hell hath no fury like Mayor Bloomberg and the Taylor law. It’s one more strike against monarchistic thinking.
A Cut-Out Bin Classic: “Self Abused” by S*M*A*S*H*
In the rock-n-roll hype that followed “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the UK had a brief “scene” that failed to take off. Dubbed the “new wave of the new wave,” it was compared to the summer of 1977 (although, doesn’t the N.M.E. compare everything to the Sex Pistols?) and lasted even shorter. The most prominent of the groups, S*M*A*S*H*, failed to make an impact when their only long player, “Self Abused,” landed on these shores. It can’t quite be called a cut out classic, because there probably weren’t copies pressed to put ’em in the clearance bins. This was a pretty hard record to find in 1994, and I’m lucky to still have my copy.
S*M*A*S*H* was a tight power trio, with a hard rock sound, a heavy bottom and lots of great hooks, and oddly fascinating lyrics that leave you genuinely unsure if front-man E. Borrie was a dope of a genius.
The record certainly starts off compellingly, on “Revisited No. 5,” a bombastic heavy metal lament:
Back to where my friend died
Not to the scene of his ugly suicide
but to where he used to live
Just to have him back, anything I would give
This theme of personal tragedy is hinted at on several of the album’s tracks, including the poppy single, “Real Surreal,” whose chorus includes the line “I’m not sad and you’re not dead.” The mixing of anger, sadness and euphoria suggest a real writing talent, but other songs give pause. “Oh Ovary” and “Time” come across like clunky attempts at, like, way deep political philosophizing. Or they could be satirizing the glib liberalism of many rock stars. That Borrie has a sense of humor is confirmed by the oh-so-serious spoken-word bridge on the title track:
I open my mouth and like Chinese whispers
Michael Jackson’s going out with my kid sister
but I’m an only child
You believe what I’ve said?
You’ve been mislead!
Combine the profane with the profound and the pretend, add in references to David Attenborough, the Brontes and Barabas and you have an almost Dylanesque mix. Perhaps Borrie’s most telling line is “Bob Dylan sucks my dick or am I sick?” Partly, it’s a punk rock “kill your idols” statement (and fairly traditional, at that, for its selection of a 1960’s icon). But more than that, it’s a bid to be taken seriously even when acting the fool. It’s a wink to the audience, I like to think, to let you know that this band is as smart as you want them to be. It’s a pity that they so completely dropped off the face of the planet.
Take a Break, Client 9
Born under a lame duck, for most of my living memory we’ve had only two governors in New York. Twelve years of Democrat Mario Cuomo and twelve years of Republican George Pataki. Now, in the blink of an eye, we just burned through another one. I’m not shedding any tears for Client 9, but I am somewhat dumbfounded that he was felled so quickly by something so…trivial.
At Monday’s Labor Research Association awards dinner, NYS Labor Commissioner Patricia Smith stood in for the governor-in-hiding and delivered a pretty convincing defense of his administration’s record. Hundreds of times more wage and hours claims against deadbeat employers than the previous administration. Hundreds of times more health and safety cases investigated than the previous administration. And, yes, he gave over 50,000 early childhood educators the right to organize into unions. Excepting that last one, what is really exceptional about that record? Have politics degenerated in such a way that we consider merely enforcing the law to be noteworthy and commendable?
To my mind, Elliot Spitzer was never a reliable friend of labor and David Paterson will be a welcome replacement (at last, a governor who needs us!). As good as Elliot “Ness” Spitzer’s record was as Attorney-General, after three terms of Republican misrule, voters would have voted in droves for a department store mannequin. Spitzer, like Illinois’ Rod Blagojevich and Massachusetts’ Deval Patrick, translated his lucky landslide as some kind of mandate and declared war on everyone, including his own party and unions like NYSUT when it suited his purpose. Is it any wonder that his opponents in Albany pounced on him the first time he showed an exploitable weakness?
And, boy, is this a story that can be exploited! Already, the two days it took Spitzer to decide to resign gave us time to ponder lots of questions. Questions like, what’s worse: to be Client 8 or Client 10? Why did he choose to book a hotel room under a campaign donor’s name? Because George Fox sounded cool? Well, that’s the last time that guy makes a donation to your campaign fund, Nine. Note to Elliot: next time you’re looking for an alias, do what the rest of us do – read a Dashiell Hammett story and pick the coolest name (“Yes, I’d like to reserve a room. Name: Harry Brazil”). And, finally, what kind of things does Spitzer ask a girl to do that she “might not think were safe?” I’m imagining a well-lubed baseball bat up the backside.
The simplest lesson that any of us can draw from this is that it is high time that we legalize prostitution. The illegality of sex work is the thin veneer of credibility that let the Republicans threaten impeachment and push Spitzer out the door. Applying health code standards and regulation to sex work would doubtlessly improve public health, and, hell, at a thousand dollars an hour, taxing that shit would help keep the Social Security fund solvent for generations to come (or should that be “generations to cum?”). Play safe, comrades. You’re benched, client #9. Batter up, governor #5.
This Message Is Very Plain: I h8 ur txt msg
Writing in the Sunday Times, Megan Hustad laments the cultural decline of “the office phone call.” People prefer to use e-mail for petty confrontations and negotiations, and valuable diplomatic skills are lost and new employees lose the informal training that comes with eavesdropping on the boss. In my new fancy-pants position with my union, I’ve noticed that my phone calls to people at headquarters frequently go to voicemail, and that the responses come back via Blackberry.
This seems to be a weekend for hand-wringing and tut-tutting over the technological devolution of our social interactions. Elsewhere in the Times, Laura Holson notices that these kids today sure do like to send text messages, creating some kind of generation gap. Apparently. Meanwhile on livejournal (itself, a weird barrier to normal social interaction) a friend of mine protests the suddenly rigid tradition of getting into and out of relationships on Myspace, complete with the formal change of relationship status from “Single” to “In a Relationship” (or vice versa), a reshuffle of one’s “top friends” and gooey comments added or deleted from each other’s profiles. Funnily enough, another friend popped back up on Myspace this weekend after deleting her account some weeks ago. Her relationship status, I took note because this is the reason that we are on the Myspace to begin with, had changed to “Single.” Is this now a way of responding to a break-up? New hairdo, new city, new Myspace profile?
I’ve been listening to old Replacements records this weekend, after reading Jim Walsh’s spotty but genuinely exuberant book about the 80’s indie icons. Paul Westerberg has always been a preternaturally grumpy old man (one of the reasons I’ve always liked him) and he’s been complaining about the distance that technology puts between us since tape-recorded answering machine messages. On a beautiful, daring and angry love song that closes out a record full of them (1984’s “Let it Be”), Westerberg, accompanied only by his electric guitar, complains “How do you say I’m lonely to an answering machine?” The song ends with the flat declaration, “I HATE your answering machine,” and a fade-out refrain of “313, 212.” Those two numbers used to signify Detroit and New York City, but soon they won’t mean much of anything as “area” codes are allowed to roam the country along with the person who totes them around in a cellphone – another kind of virtual identity.
It’s a safe bet that Westerberg, if he’s paying attention, finds flirting on a Facebook wall or announcing a divorce via text message to be even more ridiculous than “I’m not here right now…” Still, it’s hard to imagine any songwriter finding pathos in being dropped from someone’s “top friends,” or sending a come-on that can’t help but read like a booty call via text message. I h8 ur txt msg? No thanks.