Victor D. Infante's Blog, page 188

A Thanksgiving Tradition ...

It seems even more appropriate than usual this year ...

Morning thoughts

When I visited Canada recently, I was stuck by something: the customs officials on both sides of the border asked the exact same questions and were each equally thorough and exacting. The only difference was the first one managed to do it while being polite, while the other felt the need to be needlessly interrogatory.

Let me repeat: the only difference between the two was that the American customs official treated us as though we were criminals, whereas the Canadian -- while being no less cautious -- managed to do the exact same thing without doing so. As though being more openly hostile somehow makes the process more efficient. It doesn't. Nor are the TSA's newer, more invasive airport security measures. These measures would not have caught the Shoe Bomber or the Underwear Bomber (both of whom boarded in foreign airports) or the 9-11 conspirators (who didn't carry their knife cutters on board with them.) Most assessments at this point say that these procedures only really serve to, at most, stop lone nuts, but do not protect against organized terror plots.

It becomes impossible to avoid the conclusion that this is not about being more safe. It's about creating an illusion of authority. And that's a problem that's nestling near the heart of American culture. It becomes clear that, while this is something the American public is bristling at, it's a natural development in a country where citizens intrinsically treat each other with suspicion and disdain. It is the same culture that has tolerated the marginalization of minority groups and ratcheted homophobia to the point where children instinctively learn to torment anyone who is perceived as "gay" or even different. It is the same culture that glorifies guns despite alarming homicide rates in cities, and where "Driving While Black" is still a crime in some places (although in many areas its switched to "Driving While Latino.") It's the same culture that demonizes Latino immigrants who are taking barely a fraction of the jobs that they're accused of taking.

It is a culture that believes that authority is supposed to be intimidating, and that justice and security must be swift and brutal (so long as it's aimed at someone else) and the only difference between what's happening now with the TSA and the country's long history of degrading and humiliating people is that it's being spread around more-or-less evenly.   It's devoid of agenda or ideology. We're all subject now to being humiliated and degraded in the name of the ostensible public good. And in turn, that humiliation and degredation will breed resentment, fear and suspicion. As it always has.

It's a very difficult thing to say, without sounding horridly fluffy, but it's the bare truth: if we want to live in a country which treats us with respect, we need to treat each other with respect. Moreover, we need to insist that other people are treated with respect and dignity, no matter their ethnicity or political beliefs, no matter their gender or sexual orientation. We have to insist that everyone is innocent until proved guilty, and that sometimes even being guilty of a crime doesn't necessarily make someone evil. We need to stop projecting our fear and anger onto everyone around us, because eventually, that gets out of control, and leads to ... well, so far, it leads us to become inadvertent porn stars at airports, where we can be fully groped in a highly inappropriate manner, simply for the crime of traveling. The line between that and the threatening demeanor of a border guard on the Ontario-New York border is very, very thin.

The word "empathy" has had a hard time of it, recently, but the fact remains, an empathy for each other is the surest way to make sure this bullshit stops happening to any of us. 

Morning Thoughts

Been a little disconnected, lately. It happens from time to time, especially after particularly busy stretches. I become something of a hermit, the writing slows to a crawl, and I put on a bit of weight. None of which is good, really. It's all part of a mild depressive stretch, which I could really do without, but it's there and I'm there, and there's nothing to be done except either address or ignore. And the ignoring it always makes it worse.

I find it fascinating that my body so very well reflects my inner mood, how I become slower and heavier when I'm out of sorts, and more in shape the better I'm feeling. I think this might be true of most people, but they always seem to discuss it being the other way around. They say they feel better when they're in shape, whereas from where I'm looking at it, when I'm feeling better I'm able to work out. I'm certain one feeds the other, of course: My mood lightens enough that I can get back into a workout routine, my body feels better because I'm working out, so consequently my mood lightens further, and so on, until I inevitably come back around to distraction and a dark mood, throwing me off my schedule, leading back to a sedentary spiral.

But for now, I feel my mood breaking, somewhat, and the thought of typing words on the computer screen doesn't seem so daunting as it did just a few days ago. Probably best to keep the Wii EA Active around.

My projects have begun to whisper to me again. It seems I've been neglecting them. Must do something about that.

***

I've been a bit concerned about WormTown Taxi blogger Jeff Bernard lately. I was pleased that Mayor Joe O'Brien and City Councilor Rick Rushton presented him with the Key to the City,  and his last post, a love note to his wife, was extraordinarily moving, but it's hard not to suspect that his condition is worsening. If you have any spare prayers, please direct them to Jeff and his family.

"Best American Poetry" blogger time travels from 1997!!!

"Best American Poetry" blogger Janice Erlbaum outs herself as a pretentious twit. Money quote:

"In the ongoing battle to see which school of poetry can greater damage the reputation of the truly BEST American Poets -- the ones who, you know, actually read and write poems instead of watching poems, thinking them up and then performing them -- I ask you to consider these two contenders: Flarf and Slam."

Dear Janice, thank you for joining us in the "slam vs. academia" argument that was settled more than a decade ago. For fear of spoiling the ending, the rest of the poetry community long ago concluded that there was far too much crossover between the printed and spoken word for the argument to remain relevant, and that the far more important discussion was the quality and presentation of one's writing.

But hey. Since you raised the question, Buddy Wakefield and Andrea Gibson are fine poets, although I'm biased, as they're friendly acquaintances and on the same publisher as I am. I can fully see, however, that they may not be to everyone's taste. (But what art worth encountering is?) Still, there are any number of fine poets who have emerged from (or at least traveled through) poetry slam who may be more to your taste, including Patricia Smith, Rachel McKibbens, Jeffrey McDaniels, Tara Betts, Jeanann Verlee, Brendan Constantine, Anis Mojgani, Lea Deschenes and Roger Bonair-Agard, to name a handful, all easily orderable from one of these new-fangled online bookstores we have these days, as many of them are indeed published on the same small presses your so-called "BEST American Poets" are on.  

So, yes. Thank you for playing. And while you've achieved a score of EPIC FAIL for this stint of blogging, hopefully, you'll have some good sense to do some reading (an activity you claim to be fond of) before the next time you say something truly stupid in public, sullying the name of the "BEST American Poets."

Signed sincerely,

The 21st Century

New York, New York ...

Videos of Lea and me reading at The Inspired Word in NYC!

WeirdPolitick -- Journalistic Ethics Edition

Evidently, between the blow up with the heretofore mostly unknown Cooks Source Magazine and the suspension of the rather well-known Keith Olbermann, journalistic and publishing ethics are suddenly in the limelight. Or maybe that's a national conversation that's been brewing for a while, what with the dismissals of Juan Williams from from NPR and Rick Sanchez from CNN, or NPR's refusal to allow its employs attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, or any number of big media-related things. But no, it's this latter handful that seem to resonate, possibly because they seem so personal.

And what's also clear, at least to me, is that people outside the news world have only the vaguest idea of how journalistic ethics work. But let's separate things out a bit, starting with Cooks Source. I don't feel the need to retell the story, as it's been told ad nauseum and hey! There's a link up there! Suffice it to say, writer publishes article online. Years pass. Magazine publishes article without paying her or, indeed, even asking her, and when pressed, sniffs that the writer should be happy. Writer takes umbrage, tells the Internet. Internet explodes.

What's been striking in this debacle is that the real source of outrage, aside from the flagrant theft, has been the assertion that, as editor J.D. Griggs writes:

I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things. But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace.

Uh ... yeah. No one needs me to point out that the Internet is, indeed, not public domain. But what's really interesting here is the mixed signal as to whether or not content, particularly content published on the Web, has value. The answer would seem to be "yes," in this case, as an editor felt the need to pilfer it. But a later account, and forgive me if I paraphrase, the editor said something interesting. She pulled out the, "didn't you want it to be published?" line, inferring that the writer should be pleased. And this is concerning, on any number of levels.

For me, the business of writing appearing anywhere is a bit of a negotiation. I like to have a say in it. It is, after all, a good chunk of how I make my living. I write articles, poems and short stories, and either directly or indirectly, they contribute to me keeping a roof over my head.  (I'm rarely paid for the poems or fiction, but publishing them keeps me in reading gigs and book sales.) Everything I do, from the book to my book to the music column, from the blogging to the poems, is an aspect of the writing career I've built for myself. And do I give rather a lot of that away for free? Oh, yeah. Sure. You're not paying to read this blog, after all, and most poems give me two copies of the journal. But ultimately, it's my work, and I get to be the one who makes that decision, the one to weigh whether the "exposure" is worth the lack of reward. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I take it all on a case-by-case basis. Others have their own methods and opinions. My friends with Creative Common licenses, for example, are far less concerned with these things than I am, and power to them.

A lot of the push toward publishing on the Web raises a lot of thorny questions for the professional writer. A lot of my journalistic colleagues are now working for online news sources, and have taken steep pay cuts in the process. They do this because they see a future there, even if I'm dubious. Others have taken jobs at those sites because they'd lost their ones at traditional news sources in the waves of cutbacks, and frankly, I'm grateful they're working at all. But the writer's pay scale keeps dwindling in this process, and that should be a source for alarm, because it won't be too terribly long until very talented journalists will be faced with the very realistic choice of putting up with low wages or taking work outside the field, and it's the readers that will ultimately suffer. (And indeed, we're seeing that effect infect the print business. One newspaper of my acquaintance, that I do not work for, seems to be amazed that it's having difficulty hiring a senior reporter for wages barely suited to a kid just out of college. Even in today's journalism environment, you get what you pay for.)

Ultimately, I think it's the brazenness with which the writer was treated that makes the Cooks Source debacle so compelling, how the editor obviously wanted what she had to offer, but also treated her with contempt. That's something a lot of writers, of all stripes, have to wrestle with constantly. Frankly, I'm glad the editor wasn't able to get away with it.

With Olbermann, it's a different kettle of fish entirely. Do I think MSNBC was wrong to suspend him for interviewing politicians whom he made political donations to without disclosing it? Well ... no. No, I don't, actually. I don't think they need to punish him forever and ever, but yeah, I think he deserves a slap on the wrist. I also think there's a lot of other people in TV news media who do, too, particularly Joe Scarborough, who did the exact same thing, and I also think Fox News should have been prevented from donating immense amounts of money to the GOP.

I think all of this because, ultimately, I believe there needs to be firewalls between news and politics, and the line gets fuzzier every day. Now some people, most notably Bill Kristol, have pointed out that Olbermann's not a journalist, he's a commentator. It's the same defense that Fox News throws up to shield the behavior likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. (So, actually, points for consistency.) But here's the problem: More and more Americans are getting their "news" from these sources (and "The Daily Show") with very little recognition of what is a "fact" and what is an "opinion." A traditional journalist, even one who's worked in alternative media, has fairness pretty much beaten into his system. Oh, you might not think it, especially when you're reading things you don't want to read, but you can walk into most newsrooms, even most TV newsrooms, even the Fox News regular news broadcast, and find most reporters are pretty fanatic about getting both sides of the story. Of any story. One old editor of mine, an unapologetic liberal, once told me that the story's always better if everyone involved gets their say. And it is.

Recently, I heard the story of a confrontation between a reporter friend of mine and a Tea Party chapter, who was upset with her for reporting on both their event and the supporters of the local Democrat. To their mind, she was supposed to only report on the event, nothing else. She was correct though, in looking at the situation and seeing there were two sides, and reporting both. That's what reporters do. But what's interesting -- and to my understanding, the conflict actually got worked out amicably -- was that the Tea Partiers had no idea this was how it was supposed to work. That the reporter's supposed to tell as much of the story as possible, not just the parts  they want to see printed.

I can't help but think that's due in part to the fact that so many people now consume news second hand, mostly through pundits or comedy. That's deeply concerning. And so, with the entire culture kind of murky on that line, yeah, I think pundits need to be made to step to the same ethical standards as journalists, or they and their corporate masters need to start better differentiating what is news and what is something else entirely. 

Rock 'n' Roll Worcester

I always get annoyed with people who say there's nothing to do in this city. Seriously. They can't be trying. I'm usually drowning in things to do, more than I could ever possibly get to, let alone if I want to spend time with my wife and get my own writing done. As it is, I'm already sacrificing quality blogging time.

I talk to Greg McKillop, AKA Speaker for the Dead, in my "What You're Listening" To column, and in The Weekend Starts Now, I've got recommendations for Pamela Means, Catie Curtis, Danny Bedrosian & Secret Army, Dimmu Borgir, Judy Halebsky (Note! This event is Monday, not Sunday, becuase I evidently suck.), dualing pianos and a hip-hop conference at the DCU.

Saturday, I ventured out to the Halloween bash at the Hotel Vernon, and caught excellent sets by Mack the Knife and the Egos. Mack the Knife was electric, every song charged with energy and ferocity. The Egos, likewise, were a lot of fun, channeling a sort of Cramps vibe, which is never unwelcome and suited the Halloween vibe perfectly. Alas, left before the Gobshites went on, but such is life. Did catch the preview of Helen Sheldon Beaumont's upcoming "honky-tonk gospel" project with James Keyes. All in all, good fun, and a great show.

Sunday, I ended up with a ticket to go see the Cult at the Palladium. I'd never seen the band before, even though (as it turns out) I knew almost every song in the set. Funny how that works. I'd gotten there eary, so hung out upstairs to catch local metal band Zamia play. I quite liked it, and their technical skills aren't in doubt, but it did all seem a bit hollow. There's this thing, and you see it a lot with nascent metal bands, where the song becomes a bit of a math problem waiting to be solved. It's impressive, but it's lacking something. Still, they're talented, and one expects when they develop some showmanship and presence, they'll be a force to be reckoned with. (And in truth, I thought some of the Cure-esque riffs the guitarist was playing were pretty neat.)

Downstairs, Black Ryder opened the big show, and I have to say, they were really the find of the week for me. I was expecting something a bit more shoegazer, but they've got an amazing energy about them, and an infectious indie-rock vibe. The first few songs, with the male lead singer, were a little rote, but once the female lead took over, they were soaring. Great set, and I intend to pick up whatever they have out soon.

And then there's the Cult, and really, that's a hard-rocking band that does it right. The musicianship is tight, but there's a sort of effortlessness about it, which probably comes from doing it for more than 20 years (although I've seen other long-haul bands before that have seemed, well, kind of tired. None of that here.) Frontman Ian Astbury has a remarkable presence commanding the room with very little movement.

A friend goaded me into the pit, which wa a bit of a mistake, as my head was ringing for two days afterward. Evidently, I'm getting old.

Monday, I was unable to make it to Ralph's for the Sarah Sapienza/Madam Psychosis show, which is a bit of a regret. Last night, Lea and I made it to the Frances Perkins Library for the Ballard Street Poetry Journal release party, which featured great features by Joe Fusco Jr. and Daryl Muranaka. Fusco, of course, was funny as always. Muranaka was a bit of a find. A lot of his work is still stuck in that "MFA mill" formula, but some of the newer pieces he read were a bit more interesting, and I'm curious to see what comes from him in the future. Certainly, the combination of him and Fusco was interesting.

All in all, it's been a good week for going out, and Halloween aside, it's not even an uncommon one. This is a vibrant, active city, whatever people say. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either willful or boring. But the next time i go see a big, loud band, I think I'll invest in some earplugs. Cause I'm getting old.


 

The Controversy

Evidently, out of all of the things I've done or not done in the past couple months, nothing has been more controversial than my hair:



I'm not making any fashion or political statement. Mostly, I've just been too busy to get it cut. But it seems its the subject of much discussion. On the one hand, my wife likes it, and her vote is worth more than all the rest put together. And really, most of the feedback has been good, although Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz asked me if I was trying to look like Taylor Mali, which is reason enough to take scissors to it right there on the spot. (Kidding, Taylor! Kidding!) On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure it suits me these days, and I've tried to maintain a more professional look, lately. Still, we'll see how long it lasts. It'll probably stick around until I get sick of it.  

November 3rd ....

So here we are again. Another November 3rd. And I'll admit, I'm somewhat less emotional this time around, as opposed to 2004, when I was a quivering, hungover mess. I haven't decided yet whether this sense of calm is a good thing, or a sign of detachment. I suppose we'll see.

On the whole, rhetoric aside, last night's election was a bit of a mixed bag. Sure, the GOP won the House in a surge bigger than the so-called Republican Revolution, but they lost the Senate, and indeed, lost the Senate in part due to the intervention of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, pushing out moderate Republicans from races the GOP would likely have won. And indeed, while the GOP racked up a lot of wins, the most egregious of their candidates went down hard. Sure, Rand and Rubio won, and handily, A lot of their brightest stars were a wash: Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Carl Paladino, Sharron Angle,  Christine O'Donnell, John Raese, Tom Tancredo. And of course, the guy who dressed up like a Nazi. A lot of people, including the Huffington Post, are still calling this a win for Sarah Palin, as a lot of her candidates, such as Nikki Healy, did get through, but it doesn't take much surface-scratching to see that it's really a win for the more "GOP establishment" leader, Michael Steele. Yeah, I said it. On the other hand, while a few of us out here on the left are at least counting our blessings about some of those folks not making it in, we're also mourning the losses of a lot of our great liberal progressives, such as Tom Perriello, Alan Grayson and the great Russ Feingold. So a lot of the extremes are filed off. (But Jerry Brown's back in office! How weird is that?)

And let's just add another interesting wrinkle to the mix: the GOP brought in an African-American senator from the deep south, a Latino senator in Florida, and put in office another Indian-American governor, all of which tells me that those demographic groups are not only growing in strength, but also in complexity. Which, on the whole, is actually a good sign: As groups grow less vulnerable, their politics tend to get more complicated, as existential threats seem more distant. Note there were also 123 openly gay candidates on the ballots this year, many of them winning, including in Kentucky.

So was this a victory for moderates? I'd say so. The GOP got their win, but it's almost meaningless without the Senate. They have such a thin majority that they can't get a whole lot extreme through, and even if they do, they don't have a hope in hell of overturning a presidential veto. Their options moving forward are a.) sit on their hands (a favorite tactic, but voters tend to look less favorably on that in majority parties) or b.) embrace a bit of bipartisanship. Of course, Republican decision making sometimes baffles me, so we'll see.

For me, it all goes back a bit, to the special election that brought us Scott Brown. Back then, the GOP was saying "As goes Massachusetts, so goes the country." And they were right: Scott Brown won his race against Martha Coakley, tilted the balance of the senate a bit, but ultimately, proved to be a more livable Republican politician than seemed likely at the time, occasionally bucking the party to get a few important bills passed. This time around, Massachusetts bucked the wave, re-electing governor Deval Patrick and keeping Democratic stalwarts such as Jim McGovern and Barney Frank in office. And why wouldn't it? While not immune to the woes plaguing the rest of the country, Mass. is coming out of the mire a lot faster than most. Does Massachusetts' liberal bent and its penchant for occasional bouts of moderation bode something for the Democratic Party's future? One hopes. But I'll tell you this much: If Mass. continues to pull ahead of states taking more austere approaches, and if the national economy begins to brighten, which seems likely at this juncture, then start looking for Patrick and Lt. Governor Tim Murray to be stepping up the national political stage. Hmmm. I've had my issues with Tim in the past (back when he was mayor of Worcester and I wrote the Infante's Inferno column for the InCity Times), but I've got to admit, "Senator Murray" has a ring to it ...

Game on.

Election morning!

As always, I voted before going into work today. No real surprises on my ballot -- I'm sure anyone who knows the first thing about me can figure out where my pen went down.

It always strikes me how convivial the polling places are, how so many people of obvious different backgrounds, ages and means are milling about, and are generally upbeat. Voting is a great shared experience for a community, and in a time when not everyone goes to city council meetings or the same churches or whatever, it may well be one of the few shared experiences a community has. Assuming, of course, everyone votes. Which they don't.

But still, I'm always surprised by how great the vibe is there (and this was my first time voting at Ana Maria College, as opposed to the Worcester Senior Center.) And why not? When we get right down to it and strip away the cynicism and the overly amplified jargon, we're really not all that different.

There are a lot of ways we fight for our country. Soldiers enlist and fight overseas to defend our freedoms, and while I often (OK, almost always) disagree with the circumstances in which they're used, I can't fault their courage or belief. And I know a lot of peacenick activist types who feel strongly that they're fighting for their country, too, trying to protect its soul. And I believe them both, and admire them both immensely. And then there are, as Jon Stewart says, those who don't live theire lives by an ideology, but rather live them as though they're late to do something they don't want to do. And I admire these people, too. The people who are fighting every day to build the best lives possible for themselves and their families. We forget how hard it is to move through the day sometimes. We become cavalier with other people's values. As though our own values were somehow more important than our neighbors'.
 
And elections are when it all comes together. In a lot of ways, I feel like this was a wasted cycle. Not so much that things didn't get accomplished politically -- they did, of course, and if not as much as I wanted, then at least more than my cynical heart dared hope. But no, I think, somewhere in there, we lost the conversation with each other, and let fear, misunderstanding and pathos drive us even further apart than we've been in the past. And yes, historically, that's always been the case in times like these. Times of change send people screeching, turn them against groups that are different, divide us into militarized camps. And maybe that's the way it's always going to be, that we'll only find those moments of community and togetherness in brief moments. Maybe we should just treasure them while they last.

But I do believe -- deeply and sincerely -- that, when you strip away the cynical political, religious and corporate forces that prod and take advantage of our divisions, we're really not all that different, and that each other's fears and hopes and needs aren't so incompatible. That ultimately, we're all just fighting to make our home a better place.

Vote. You may be on the losing side. That's life. But it's just as important to care, even if that caring only expresses itself as a protest. And who knows? People may surprise you. They surprise me every day.