Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 250

The night AC/DC stormed CBGB

(Credit: Robert Barry Francos/FFanzeen/Bloomsbury Publishing/Salon)

AC/DC made it to New York City in 1977, opening for the Dictators and the Michael Stanley Band on August 24, at the Palladium, the original “Academy of Music,” a converted movie house that provided touring and local bands with a venue size between a small club and a large arena. Located on East Fourteenth Street in a neighborhood bordering scruffy, downtown mania, the Palladium was an exciting place to play, and a baptism by urban fire for AC/DC. Two days after the show, John Rockwell in The New York Times described the night as “a deliberate attempt to bring punk rock to a major concert hall” before admitting that the bill “wasn’t actually quite a punk night, after all.” AC/DC, he noted, “was the closest thing to the punk norm,” even as they exhibited “showbiz pretension” — i.e. “Mr. Young” prancing about the stage like a manic, drooling child. Lamented Rockwell: “the band is tight but the singer is undistinguished and the songs rarely ride above the puerile-provocative.” One man’s infantilism is another’s statement-of-purpose. AC/DC would commemorate this dynamic for their entire career.

Andy Shernoff, founder of the Dictators, remembers the show and the Aussies well. “They were great, very friendly,” Shernoff says. “They were not superstars yet, they were easy to hang out with, no pretension, no attitude.” He adds, laughing, “Angus is a midget! Bon Scott was small, too. It’s amazing. How can short guys make a sound like that? It’s almost technically impossible.” Angus is five-foot three, his band members only a couple inches taller; watching from the wings, aware that his own group wasn’t delivering onstage as they could, or should, Shernoff was knocked out. “They had killer live songs, better than on the studio albums. People loved them. They were fantastic, no bullshit.” Shernoff watched Angus fearlessly head out into the sold-out crowd of 3,400, a tiny, guitar-shredding kid riding the shoulders of a burly roadie, possessed and obviously getting off on the air-punching excitement.

Following the show, AC/DC decided on their version of an after-hours party: they toweled off, climbed into the tour van, and headed downtown. Their destination was a mile away, but felt mythically distanced from the cultural boundary of Fourteenth Street. In the sticky and steamy summer of 1977, New York City was a simmering stew of social unease. David Berkowitz — aka “Son of Sam” — had been arrested two weeks before AC/DC arrived in Manhattan, the killer’s year-long span of murders mercifully ended. The city was reckless, loud, anxious and brimming with a downtown-bred music revolution, and on a dilapidated avenue, a derelict bar became the epicenter of no-frills, streetwise rock & roll. CBGB had opened to little fanfare several years earlier, but by the time AC/DC brashly pulled up to the tattered awning in August, the club was national news. Punk Rock had a name and fervent disciples. John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil co-founded PUNK magazine in 1975; the magazine’s cartoons, maverick writing and sensibility was shaped during many late hours on the Lower East Side and became, in large part, the movement’s standard bearer. Fresh from the co-bill with the Dictators, a major-label band associated with the punk movement, and curious about CBGB and its risky vibe, AC/DC were eager to play for as many folks as possible, whether they were raising fists in arenas or threatening fists in dive bars.

An hour after the Palladium show, the guys surprised CBGB management by showing up uninvited. (The lead band on the bill that evening was Marbles.) AC/DC plugged in and hastily played a handful of songs, including “Live Wire” and “She’s Got Balls,” each clocking in at over seven minutes, with long guitar solos pushing the limits of the edgy punk ethos. Bon Scott was wearing his standard stage attire (he’d probably just wrung it out after the Palladium show): crotch-choking jeans and a sleeveless denim vest, soon removed to give his chest hair and medallion more exposure. His hair was shaggy and shoulder-length. He was covered in ink. And the band was loud.

A howl and a scowl. CBGB, August 24, 1977. (Credit: Robert Barry Francos/FFanzeen)

“AC/DC were marketed as a punk band around that time,” Holmstrom remembers. “CBS bought ads for them in PUNK, we interviewed them for PUNK.” Holmstrom’s riotous dialogue with Angus and Bon Scott ranged in subjects from herpes, the band’s “favorite disease,” to taste in literature. Bon’s most recently devoured book was a collection of eighteenth-century erotica, what Angus happily called “about the filthiest book I ever read.” Characteristically, AC/DC shrugged their collective shoulder at the punk tag. “We just call ourselves a rock band,” Angus said at the time. “We don’t like being classified as a ‘punk rock’ band. Not everyone can be punk rock. It’s great that there are new bands, fresh faces and all that, but there are good bands and bad bands within that punk rock.” He considered for a moment, adding, “Actually the punk thing is pretty cool in America. It’s not like England where it’s a very political thing — a dole queue type thing. There’s too much money over here to classify all the punk bands as dole queues and dropouts. It’s just a young thing — a new breed type thing.”

What Holmstrom remembers of AC/DC is the band’s bone-simple, timeless approach. “They certainly weren’t your traditional heavy metal band,” he notes. “The heavy metal of the mid-70s was a ponderous, bombastic, slow music. They were a high-energy rock & roll band and, before the Sex Pistols changed the image of punk rock from faster and louder to a more political and anthemic music, AC/DC could be classified as punk.” Holmstrom continues, “Then again, so were the Bay City Rollers, Alice Cooper, the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Eddie and the Hot Rods, and hundreds more bands. AC/DC were a great rock & roll band, and that’s basically what punk rock was before things went nuts in 1977.” A few months after the Palladium show, New York Rocker writer Howie Klein put it this way: “AC/DC doesn’t use safety pins, never went to art school, and they sure don’t limit themselves to 2 or 3 chords, but if new wave is a reaffirmation of rock & roll’s traditional values, this band is an important part of it.”

The detonation at CBGB, witnessed by a small crowd on a muggy Wednesday night, has been widely bootlegged, archivists digging the idea of AC/DC playing an infamous club during an epochal year. (My favorite moment: some unknown fan, between beers, idly curious about this little band, is caught on-mike asking, “Isn’t Angus the name of the monster in Lost in Space?”) In the crowd at CBGB that night was Robert Francos, who at the time was editing and publishing the New York rock & roll zine Ffanzeen, as he explored the street-rock scene. Francos remembers the band’s impromptu appearance: “As Marbles’ set was ending, suddenly there was a commotion at the back of the club and I figured, Oh, I bet some drunk was getting tossed. Then I noticed part of the crowd moving toward the stage, surrounding a cluster of people. That’s when they announced the next band to play over the speaker, and it was not one who was scheduled. One of the group of people had long-hair, muscles and a grainy face; the one behind him was diminutive, wearing short pants that looked like part of a school uniform, and was carrying a guitar case.

“At one point, Angus switched guitars that either had a remote or a really long cord (I can’t remember which). He then made his way through the crowd, while playing wild solo licks, and went outside. So, there was little Angus, while still playing, talking to the transient gents from the Palace Hotel milling outside CBGB.”

America, welcome to AC/DC.

My boyfriend and I answered those 36 questions that make strangers fall in love with each other

Young couple not having sex. (Credit: pixdeluxe via iStock)

Over cocktails with friends one recent night, my boyfriend was recounting a story about his crazy college days when an important call forced him to step aside unexpectedly. “Don’t worry, I can take it from here — through the plot twist and all the way home,” I said. That’s when I realized that I could probably finish any of the anecdotes in my boyfriend’s repertoire of identity defining tales. After five years of dating and three years of cohabiting, I’d catalogued it all — drink preferences, the number of Adidas Rod Laver sneakers he needs to own to feel whole, the exact amount of force required to shove him mid-sleep so he stops snoring without waking, and every idiosyncrasy in between.

There’s something wonderfully comforting about knowing someone so thoroughly that you can complete their sentences and anticipate their every need. But there’s also something terrifying about feeling as if you’ve reached the mutual knowledge saturation point as a couple. Like a vast expanse of calm seas after years of riding the rapids, the future suddenly looks peaceful, but boring as hell.

Is it even possible to grow closer once there’s nothing left to discover?

In a 1997 study published by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the psychologist Dr. Arthur Aron guided pairs of strangers in tasks specifically designed to generate closeness. Part of the experiment involved answering a series of 36 questions and then staring into your designated partner’s eyes for four straight minutes. Dr. Aron’s methodology famously resulted in an official marriage. According to his findings, reciprocal self-disclosure plays a critical part in relationship building, perhaps more so than common interests, expectations, or pheromones.

The notion that we can accelerate intimacy is incredibly encouraging, but anyone who’s ever been in a serious, long-term relationship understands that there’s a difference between falling in love, and staying in love. The only thing better than a shortcut to finding Mr. or Mrs. Right would be a handbook for rekindling the affection flame between couples over time. So can we apply what we know about triggering closeness to preventing couples from reaching the closeness bottom?

Curious about the impact of Dr. Aron’s technique on long-term lovers, I enlist my boyfriend to go through the process with me.

After a candle lit dinner at home, we pop open a second bottle of red wine and sit on our couch, three-page questionnaires in hand. While my boyfriend and I aren’t immune to occasional raging fights, our bond is impressively strong. Still, I’m way more nervous than I thought I would be. What if I hate his answers? What if these flimsy sheets of paper reveal that we’re mismatched? Or, worse yet, that there’s not a shred of mystery left between us?

We agree to take turns reading the questions aloud. The first few include some tedious hypotheticals (e.g. ultimate pick for a dinner guest) that make me feel like I’m preparing for a job interview. Moving on, we arrive at a series of questions incorporating superlatives. I’ve never had an easy time picking a favorite color, movie, or ice cream flavor, so the prospect of zeroing in on my “most treasured” and “most terrible” memories and my “greatest accomplishment” is challenging. It’s not until I engage in the thought process such seemingly simple questions require that I recognize their significance. Maybe there’s value in pushing ourselves to make a choice — to commit, so to speak — to an answer, or a person.

Gradually, the questions become more and more personal. I can’t help but note that my boyfriend and I interpret several differently (for instance, he believes that knowing the future means you can change it, whereas I don’t), and that we both feel strongly about our conflicting views on some weighty issues. One telling question reads: “If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose?” We answer simultaneously, equally emphatic about our opposite choices. I pick the mind, he chooses the body. Interesting. Or disturbing. I can’t decide.

Until I realize that this dialogue is entirely new for us, and that I’ve learned something about my boyfriend.

Prompted to describe childhood experiences, relationships with family and friends, future hopes and fears, we continue to visit the innermost corners of each other’s psyches. Neither of us anticipates what’s revealed through discussing embarrassment, a topic I’m guessing most avoid without realizing how refreshing it can be to divulge a secret to someone you love.

About three quarters of the way through, we’re instructed to alternate listing positive characteristics about each other. Aside from “your body, specifically tits and ass” (in all fairness, a response to the statement “I love your penis”), my boyfriend cites my loyalty to friends, sometimes brutal truthfulness, and lack of concern for what others think. I’m overwhelmed by the sense that he truly respects me.

After an hour and three minutes, we begin the staring portion of the program. This directive might sound straightforward, but staring contests aside, when else have you held eye contact with someone for an extended stretch?

We don’t move for six and a half minutes, not even to wipe the tears from our cheeks. In a way, the eyes reveal more than words ever could.

When our time is up my boyfriend announces, “I love you so much,” then kisses me and scoops me into his arms.

As we head towards the bed, I ask, “Were you thinking about sex the entire time?”

“Not at all,” he says.

The lovemaking is superlative.

Come morning, I’m still giddy. So we don’t feel similarly about the tradeoff between sound mind and body, or the ability to pre-select the physical appearance and sex of our hypothetical child (he’s for it, I’m against). He watches Fox News, and I’m an MSNBC gal anyway. Compatibility isn’t necessarily a function of similarity. Above all, I welcome the reassurance that there’s always something more to learn about another person.

Of course, it’s impossible to guess how long the amped up intimacy will last. But I’m more certain than ever that I’m with the right person. And that openness and vulnerability are powerful tools we can use to spark love, and sustain it.

Male woolly mammoths were the Wile E. Coyotes of the Ice Age

(Credit: Getty/Aunt_Spray)

It was a conundrum for biologists: Of all the woolly mammoth specimens discovered preserved in fossils or permafrost, why were so many of them male?

Most animals that reproduce sexually (humans included) tend to be evenly split by biological sex upon birth. Yet a team of scientists analyzing mammoth specimens noticed a disparity: Out of 98 preserved woolly mammoth samples, 69 percent were male and only 31 percent female.

A new academic paper published in Current Biology suggests that there was a simple reason for this discrepancy: The males were more likely to die in the kind of traps that might preserve their corpses for long periods of time. “We argue that this male bias among mammoth remains is best explained by males more often being caught in natural traps that favor preservation,” wrote the paper’s co-authors.

The discovery was made accidentally during data entry, according to a New York Times interview with the scientists.

Love Dalén, one of the paper’s co-authors and a biologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, told The New York Times that “in many species, males tend to do somewhat stupid things that end up getting them killed in silly ways, and it appears that may have been true for mammoths also.”

Per the paper, the scientists noted that the “silly ways” of male mammoth death included “drowning in pools,” “getting caught in a mudflow” and “falling through thin ice.” One wonders if these mammoths were pursuing irksome roadrunners at time of death.

The paper also noted “multi-individual accumulations, such as Big Bone Lick in Kentucky and the catastrophic accumulation in Waco, Texas” — a morbid shorthand for a number of mammoths dying together in similar traps. Perhaps they held up hastily-constructed “YIKES!” signs in the moments before their demise.

It’s hard not to see a reflection of humans in these mammoths’ behavior. Some studies, including a 1998 paper in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, have suggested that (human) boys are socialized to take more risks than girls. Interestingly, the wayward woolly mammoth sons may have been similar in that regard.

“Woolly mammoths are thought to have lived in sex-segregated herds centered around a matriarchal group consisting of a dominant female and her offspring and solitary or loosely associated males,” write the paper’s co-authors.

“Without the experience associated with the matriarchal family group or more experienced bulls within a bachelor group,” the paper states, “young or solitary males unfamiliar with their environment might have been especially vulnerable and likely to enter unfamiliar terrain or take higher risks when dispersing.” The stereotype of the orphaned, rebel bad boy, it seems, extends beyond our species.

Netflix severs ties with Kevin Spacey amid mounting sexual assault allegations

This file photo released by Netflix shows Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood, left, and Robin Wright as Clair Underwood in a scene from Netflix's series, "House of Cards." A gift of membership to Netflix is a perfect present for a movie lover. (AP Photo/Netflix, Nathaniel E. Bell) (Credit: AP)

Netflix has officially parted ways with actor and producer Kevin Spacey, the star of its show “House of Cards,” following several allegations of sexual assault or misconduct.

The company has also said Spacey’s upcoming biopic of writer, Gore Vidal, would no longer be released, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Netflix will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey. We will continue to work with MRC [Media Rights Capital] during this hiatus time to evaluate our path forward as it relates to the show,” a spokesperson for Netflix said in a statement on Friday night. “We have also decided we will not be moving forward with the release of the film Gore, which was in postproduction, starring and produced by Kevin Spacey.”

Nearly a week ago actor, Anthony Rapp, became the first to publicly allege that Spacey had made sexual advances on him years ago, when he was only 14 years old.

Spacey issued a strange apology in which he said he was “beyond horrified to hear his story,” but said he didn’t remember the incident. He also came out as a gay man in the apology, which critics pointed out had nothing to do with his prior alleged actions.

Netflix then cancelled and later suspended the production of “House of Cards” as accusations against Spacey continued to mount, even from several people attached to the production of the show. Spacey was all but finished, when the company finally announced that they would no longer continue to work with him.

Media Rights Capital, the show’s production company, confirmed Spacey had been booted from the series.

“While we continue the ongoing investigation into the serious allegations concerning Kevin Spacey’s behavior on the set of House of Cards, he has been suspended, effective immediately. MRC, in partnership with Netflix, will continue to evaluate a creative path forward for the program during the hiatus,” the statement said, THR reported.

Spacey has become one of the latest prominent figures to be accused of sexual assault after women stepped forward and alleged years of disturbing behavior from Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Recently, female lawmakers have alleged that similar behavior has taken place inside Congress for decades.

Peter Buck of R.E.M.: “How many people write songs when they’re 70? I want to be one of them”

(Credit: Getty/Paras Griffin)

Peter Buck is the hardest-working man in rock ‘n’ roll — and that’s no hyperbole. This was always the case when R.E.M. was an ongoing entity; the guitarist could always be found producing bands or hopping onstage for guest appearances. But since the Athens quartet called it a day in 2011, Buck’s activity has accelerated significantly.

In fact, when Salon dials up Buck to talk about the reissue of R.E.M.’s 1992 opus “Automatic For The People,“ which is out on November 10, he’s brimming with news about new albums in the works with Alejandro Escovedo, Joseph Arthur and Filthy Friends, his band with Sleater-Kinney’s Corn Tucker. Plans are already set to record the second Filthy Friends LP, even though their debut, “Invitation,” arrived just a few months ago. That band in particular — which also features Scott McCaughey, Kurt Bloch and drumming from Bill Rieflin and Linda Pitmon — has Buck fired up from a songwriting and aesthetic standpoint.

“I just did this thing where, so I’m thinking, ‘Okay, Filthy Friends, the presentation,'” he says. “I went, ‘You know, I’m going to use the black Ric[kenbacker],’ the one I’ve used on every R.E.M. record, on most of the songs. It’s that important to me. I don’t like to travel with that guitar, but I’ll do it. But [I thought], ‘What about my other guitars?’ and I started thinking, ‘I’m going glitter.’ I’ve just gone out and bought five Gibson glitter guitars from the last 30 years that sound great and look great. I’m just thinking, ‘Yeah, you know what? An older guy wearing black or a flowered shirt and a glitter guitar, I can be that guy.'”

Buck has also been looking back a bit at “Automatic For The People,” which is being reissued in several configurations. One version includes a cutting-edge Dolby Atmos mix. “I’m very wary about that stuff, but I went and sat and listened to it, and it was incredibly moving,” he says. “It was like being in the center of the record. . . . One of the things I was kind of surprised at — there’s a feeling of a huge amount of space in a lot of the songs, but there’s all kinds of stuff going on. It was layered well.”

But, as ever, Buck is all about looking to the future. As is made clear during a candid, hour-long chat, he has new songs to write, walks to take and records to make. The freewheeling conversation starts with musings about Buck’s lack of online and social media presence — and turns to how he’s always being asked to blurb books or, especially recently, share memories about musicians who have passed.

“For me, I always get, ‘Whenever anyone dies, what is my comment?'” he says. “Grant Hart’s death meant a lot to me, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Tom Petty, it broke my heart. He seemed to be in a good place in life. But I don’t want to talk about that. And, at the age I am, so many more people that I loved, worshiped and worked with are passing. And it’s like, ‘I don’t want to spend my weeks writing obituaries.'”

We’re talking about “Automatic for the People,” which is so focused on mortality. It’s kind of weird, timing-wise; the anniversary comes up this year for the record.

At the time we were doing that record, and the time Michael was writing the lyrics, it was the first time in our life since we met when Michael [Stipe] was 18 and I was 21, and the other guys [Mike Mills and Bill Berry] were 20 — or maybe I was 22 — [that] we weren’t working 350 days a year. That gives you a little time for reflection. And it was also the time in your life when your older relatives start going. My father had already passed. Everybody’s grandparents were passing. And the AIDS stuff just swept through our community.

Mortality was on Michael’s mind a lot, which doesn’t, you know, necessarily make it a morbid record. It comes through, to me, as a record, that it tells you that life’s worth living, that that is a part of life that is not going away anytime soon.

I went back and listened to the record and, yeah, so many people think the record is this one thing. But there are a lot of different emotional shades on the record — it’s fanciful, and there’s anger and nostalgia. It’s not just, “This is about mortality.”

“Ignoreland” was our angry political rant about coming up through the Reagan years. “Find The River” has a lot of feel of remembered youth, [although] I think we can all analyze that song in a slightly different way — and I’m not going to tell you what mine is. It’s still leaves the feeling that the journey is sweet. “Sweetness Follows,” which is maybe my favorite song on the record, is not a negative song about death. As the guy who was coming in with guitar riffs and bass riffs and stuff like mandolin riffs, that wasn’t what was on our mind in rehearsal.

Some of the songs came together at the tail-end of mixing “Out Of Time.” How did the instrumental demos come together then?

I remember strongly when we were mixing “Out Of Time,” Michael had this poem, and Mike had this music. And Mike started playing the music, and Michael looked at his poem and sang over the music — and, literally, in one pass, it was “Nightswimming.” If memory serves, the melody is almost exactly the same — I don’t think we changed it.

Knowing that we had that — I remember somebody saying, “Should we record this, like, right now and put it on the record?” And I remember someone saying, “You know, I think the record works the way it is. Let’s just save it until the next one.” At the very end of the process, I always get antsy, so I recorded demos. I had acoustic demos of “Drive” and “Try Not to Breathe.” So the first day of rehearsal for “Automatic,” those are the three songs that we had finished. Which kind of told us about where we were going.

“Monty Got A Raw Deal” you wrote in a New Orleans hotel room. That was another one where the demo and how it was finished are very similar.

I guess the story I said at the time, and I’m sure it’s true, I was playing mandolin. And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if a mandolin wasn’t quite so tinkly?” Someone told me about a bouzouki. We had just made a bit of money — and somebody said, “This company Sobell, they make the best bouzouki in the world.” For me, at the time, it was a lot of money. It was more money than I had ever spent on an instrument; it was $2,000. And I just went, “Gosh, I don’t know.” My transportation after “Out of Time” was a 20-year-old Schwinn bicycle painted with, like, gold paint that flaked off on every item of clothing I had. I didn’t buy a new car; I didn’t go out and buy a huge house. I thought, “Okay, I’m going to buy this instrument.”

I do remember being somewhere in some hotel. It might’ve been when I was doing my solo road trip. And that song came because there was something going on. I would stay in motels — crappy motels — road tripping by myself, grow a beard and [hang] out in old man bars. And [I remember] writing it because there was some drug deal, gang-bang something going on. It fell together so completely fast. Whatever I put down was exactly like what occurred the first time I played.

How else did your road trip influence the music you were writing?

It was ’91. That’s when I was getting to the end of a relationship, and it was one of those things where we weren’t working as much. I was traveling with the band, but then I’d traveled solo. Mostly after “Automatic,” but before it too, I would just get in my car and go somewhere, take a guitar and a leather jacket and a big box of cassettes and just be by myself. I did it for a couple of years.

I remembered it as a great time. There’s a part of me that, right now, just wants to put down all four albums I’m working on, and all my relationships, and put a bunch of shit in my car and go. My wife and I [recently] just got in the car. We were super overwhelmed with the whole shooting in Las Vegas and [the deaths of] Tom Petty and Grant Hart. We just got in the car and drove 4,000 miles down to the tip of Baja, California, and hung out there, and then drove back. I got to do my road trip, but I had the companion, which was nice.

Sometimes, as you guys did, taking that break and unplugging and getting back to your life and recalibrating yourself is so valuable. Because everything is so in-your-face and 24-7, it’s hard to do that.

I try not to go online — I literally do not know how to turn the television on, ’cause there are, like, four of those zappers. I don’t listen to the radio — I listen to either CDs or an iPod in my car. I don’t read newspapers. My circle of friends, we might be pissed off about whatever asshole move Trump or his people is pulling, but it’s not a big part of my life. But still, all this shit, it is. It seeps in.

We were in Baja and driving through mountains, so you wouldn’t see another car for like an hour, and then we’d stay in some so roach motel in a town of like 1,000 people and wander around. I don’t know — there’s a place where I live in my head that sometimes, I’ve got to make that literal and disappear out there in the real world. And, I gotta say, I feel 100 percent better after it.

The day [of ] the [Las Vegas] shooting, I woke up, and that just was so insane to me. And then I got a phone call that Tom Petty’s dead. Ten minutes later, Chris Martin called me — I was going to go see Coldpay [in Portland]. And he goes, “You want to play ‘Free Fallin'” tonight?” and I said, “Yeah, sure.” I got out my guitar and played the record and figured it out. I was playing a Tom Petty song for a couple of hours.

You know, I hadn’t been in front of 20,000 people in years. We walk onstage, there’s a moment of silence. And then we played “Free Fallin’,” and I just kind of broke down, you know?

And it was everything else — there’s a bunch of other stuff like that going on in my life. I was just . . . [makes noise of being at loss for words] Just had trouble getting a handle on it. So we got in the car and got the fuck out.

By the time I got back, after three weeks, I met Joseph Arthur in Todos Santos and we wrote this group of songs, played them at a bar there, and then we drove to Los Angeles and played them at his [art] opening. It felt like, okay, I’m bringing something living out of this death and sadness. I guess that’s what my life has always been about — life’s sad, and being able to touch some of that in your heart or your soul or whatever it is, and bring it out in some way. I don’t know if it makes the world a better place, or makes me a better or happier person. It worked, whatever it was.

You produced Uncle Tupelo [“March 16-20, 1992″] right before demoing for “Automatic” started. Did that have any bearing, from your perspective, on how you approached things?

I think it probably did. I went to see the Uncle Tupelo guys — I think their second record wasn’t out yet. There were like 30 people there. And the first song they opened with was that Louvin Brothers song “Atomic Power.” I wandered up and said, “Hey, loved the set, loved the songs. It was cool that you guys opened with a Louvin Brothers song.” And Jay [Farrar] and Jeff [Tweedy] looked at each other and smiled. I think Jeff said, “You know, we’ve probably played that song a hundred times, and nobody’s ever known that it’s a Louvin Brothers song.”

Somehow me producing a record came up. And they said, “Well, we want to make an acoustic record,” which I took to mean very little electric stuff. What it actually meant was absolutely no electric stuff. We did it in five days, and it was a performance-oriented group of songs, everyone sitting in a room. Although there were overdubs, they were live performances. The interplay of the acoustics was really moving, too. Those were cool tunes. I’m sure a little bit of that leaked into the writing and performing of “Automatic.”

Re-listening to “Automatic,” and hearing the interplay between the instruments, it is interesting how things fit together. A friend of mine observed how different the tones were on this record, and I think he’s right.

I don’t really use pedals anymore. I never used them much — I had a guitar, an amp and my hands. All of that — just by changing pickups on your guitar, volume on the amp and tone settings, and the way you use your fingers, you can get a completely different tone. As well as I have a ton of guitars and I switch them around. I don’t necessarily get a good tone and use it for a whole session. Every song is going to be different. My favorite records have that feel. It’s like . . . gosh, that’s a total metal-punk guitar sound, and then the next one’s got a ringy-chimey one, and the next has got some grimy blues feel. I love that.

I do too. And I think that speaks to why every song on “Automatic” has a different tone and emotional approach. Sonically, they’re very distinct — but they all fit together. The sequencing was well done to make everything hang together.

Well, sequencing was great. We spent a lot of time on that. I would say that having Scott Litt and Clif Norrell overseeing everything we’re doing. . . . Even though we covered a fair amount of ground, and there were, tonally, a lot of different things going on, they did a great job of pulling it together into a cohesive whole. It could’ve been very easily more like [The Beatles’] “The White Album,” say, where everything is really different. And I love “The White Album,” but they sound like different bands on different days. This feels like a coherent whole even though it covers a fair amount of ground.

“The White Album,” it sounds like they tossed the songs in the air and arranged them how they fell. I love that record too, but . . .

The weird thing about it is, I think it’s this great transcendent work — and yet fully half of the songs I never want to hear again. Do I want to hear “Rocky Raccoon”? No. Do I want to hear either one of the “Honey Pie”s? No. I don’t want to hear “Savoy Truffle” or “Good Night” or “Revolution 9.” The fact that so much great work is on there — and even the stuff that I’m tired of has quality.

We’re going to do the [next] Filthy Friends record in February, and I’m driving Corin [Tucker] crazy, because we keep writing. I keep saying, “We need to do a two-record set that covers all this ground.” And she’s looking in terror that I’m going to make her do it, which I’m not. But I think we want to have enough songs to cover that amount of ground, because we could do a lot of stuff that we haven’t done yet.

When you make a record, you’re always thinking, “Okay, what do we need? What do we have?” So over the last couple of months, I’ve been writing things that are unlike anything we’ve done, demoing them and giving them to Corin and adding her feedback as she tells me what to change, her notes. I went back to using drum machines on a couple of things, thought I’d give it this feel. Not sure if we’re using that on the record. It’s exciting. We might be making two records at the same time, who knows?

What was it like working with John Paul Jones on “Automatic For the People”?

He’s about what you’d think he is, given his post-Led Zeppelin career. He’s a very smart, kind of dry-humored guy. I mean, I’ve played with some of the best in the world — and he is maybe the best all-around player I’ve played with. We still play together really regularly; we’re friends. I played with him this summer; we’re going to play together in March. Having him as a string arranger — I picked him because I always loved the keyboard things that were like strings, or the string parts on [Led Zeppelin’s] “Kashmir,” but also knowing that he arranged all the stuff on the Donovan records, really eclectic. He used strings in a way that were not very romantic. They were a little edgier, which I liked. You don’t want saccharine; you want something that has a little edge and motion. We didn’t tell him that — he wrote the stuff down, he came in with it, and it was great.

You are on the upcoming Minus 5 holiday record, correct? What can we expect from that?

Not traditional holiday songs. They’re songs written by Scott [McCaughey] — I think I get credit on one or two of them, I don’t know. He just did it, and it’s his perspective on holidays. You’re not getting a happy, holly-jolly holiday record. It’s a little psychedelic. I think it’s a really cool record. [I was like] “We’re making a Christmas record? Cool, man!” My whole job is — Scott works in his basement, so he gets down a drum machine, and puts down keyboards and bass and guitar. Then he’ll go, “Peter, I need 12-string, and I need a riff.” And it’s like, “Great!” I keep a lot of the instruments at his house, so we’ll spend an afternoon [there], and we’ll do four songs. We probably would, like, have work in the studio one day a week on something — my new stuff, his new stuff, someone else’s stuff, overdubs. It’s my way of socializing. Musicians are better at hanging out doing music than they are hanging around talking about whatever.

I know you have that other band with Scott, The No Ones.

We did that thing in Norway. And I played with Frode [Strømstad] and Arne [Kjelsrud Mathisen], the two guys in this band called I Was A King. And they’re really talented. Scott had heard it and said, “Let’s make an EP for this festival.” I got a text from Scott, “I need 12-string and a riff.” I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” We decided, “Well, it’s a band called the No Ones, and everyone gets songwriting credit.” Right before the festival, somebody said, “Well, we decided we’re going to make a record. Let’s finish some more songs.”

So I threw in three or four things I had; Scott finished a couple. And they came over here and we made a record in five days. I haven’t heard the finished mix, and I think they had some cool people do overdubs. It’s a rock record, but it’s like a psychedelic, weird [record]. I really like it. That will probably be out sometime next year. I don’t have any great hopes anymore for anything selling, but I have this goal that it would be great to do a 20-date tour of Norway. You get on Norwegian radio and play — I would love doing that.

I’m touring with Alejandro [Escovedo] in a couple of weeks, and me and Scott and him have about 12 songs about three-quarters of the way ready. We’re going to try to finish in those weeks, and make another Alejandro co-write, co-produced record in the coming year.

On my little road trip to Mexico, I got a text that said, “Hey, it’s Joseph Arthur. I’m in town,” in Todos Santos. He showed up with this guitar and his backpack and goes, “Hey, can I stay here?” I was like, “Yeah,” and we wrote an album’s worth of songs in three days, performed them in a club on Thursday night. He’s coming up here Thursday to polish ’em up and finish a couple more and then go into the studio Saturday to put down good demos for the beginning of the record in November. I think Tchad Blake’s doing it.

And tomorrow, Corin’s coming over and we’ve got about six new songs we’re going to try to finish. She doesn’t want me to tell people how many we have finished, but we have a lot finished. We’ve got a list of things that we have demoed and worked on that are halfway there we’re going to go through. I’ve unfortunately got three new ones for her; I think she may have a breakdown. She can always ignore the ones that don’t say anything to her.

I’m just writing a lot, figuring they’ll end up somewhere, somehow, sometime. Maybe I’ll make a solo record someday, but maybe I’m done with that, I don’t know.

Mississippi Records did a good job with your solo records. It was nice to track them down — it was like the old days, when you couldn’t go online and get anything. It was an active process, which was kind of refreshing.

That was the whole point. I felt like, “I’m going to make these records. They’re definitely not for people who are R.E.M. fans. I don’t want there to be any hype about it. I don’t want radio stations to be playing them, I don’t want reviews comparing it to R.E.M. And I don’t want it on CD. I’m just going to put it on vinyl, make one announcement on my webpage and then Mississippi can deal with. In my mind, we went platinum — we sold 8,000 of the first one [2012’s “Peter Buck”].

Wow!

I know! That is with not one interview, no promo copies, no reviews, no airplay. I think the other two each sold around six [thousand copies]. The third record [2015’s “Warzone Earth”], I was going through a really personally bad time. I quit drinking about two years ago. And I made this record, and I kept on saying to people it was like the punk rock Big Star Third. And that third record — given the fact I can’t sing, is kind of that, punk rock Big Star Third. I mean, it’s a complete chronicle of a dissolution of a personality. Thankfully, things are much better now.

Oh, good. Sometimes you just get to a certain point where you’re at a crossroads and you’re like, “I gotta do something. I gotta do something drastic.”

I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety for years, since I was, like, eight, as well as I can remember. And I always could work it out or work my way through it. But I’ve been drinking and taking drugs pretty seriously since I was fourteen. It was made clear to me by a couple of people, in the nicest way possible, and I figured it out, but the place I was going was not a place that anyone wants to go. And I just said, “Okay, you know what? I quit. That’s it, I’m done.” And everyone went, “Yeah, right.” I said, “No, I’m serious.” Everyone kind of was like, “Well, you know, you have to go to AA, you know you have to go to therapy, you have to go to a clinic.” I said, “No, I can just quit.” So I just quit. Not to say that I didn’t go to therapy later [Laughs]. But you know, I just said, “Okay, that’s it, I’m fucking done.” And that’s it.

And you said it’s been two years now?

Almost.

That’s great! Congratulations.

When you see me backstage now, I’m drinking bubbly water.

Not La Croix? Everyone loves La Croix.

You know, La Croix is like crack — they started selling at, like, 25 cents a can and then tripled the price once they got some sales. La Croix would be good, but I get some Topo Chico.

I drink water, coffee and maybe some wine, and that’s it.

I never drank coffee in my life, and now I get a shot of espresso every morning if I can do it.

When you come to coffee later in life, that’s better. You don’t want to get hooked early.

I mean, I had one cup of coffee somewhere with a shot of whiskey in it. But I was 58 before I ever drank coffee. And I don’t have to have it — but when we’re done [with this interview], I’m probably going to walk downtown and get a little [espresso] shot on the way. There’s a guitar shop I’m going to go to. And I’ve got some songs to write. It’s the way I keep myself not focusing on the insanity and depression of the other stuff in the world.

Keeping going, keeping busy and doing what makes you happy — it’s such a simple thing, but . . .

Some of my friends are going through similar things. And, honestly, nobody I knew drank as much as I did. It’s not humanly possible. I’m immortal, apparently. A lot of my friends are changing lives in a lot of ways. And the feeling — or else my thought is — “Okay, you know, we’ve had this amazing run of great shit, and you don’t want to have the last 15 years be, ‘Oh, yeah, then he kind of worked and sat around the house fucked up all the time and didn’t make any work.'” We might have 30 more years of living, but who knows how long I get to . . . You know, I’ve got mild arthritis in my right hand, and it’s not a big deal, but it may be a big deal someday.

And how many people write songs when they’re 70? Not that many. I want to be one of them. I want to be one of those guys who, even if I’m too old to get onstage, makes records.

Gottfried on “Gilbert,” the documentary that may make you hate him less

(Credit: Getty)

“Gilbert” director Neil Berkeley’s fabulous documentary about comedian Gilbert Gottfried recasts the “obnoxious” performer as a family man with a wife and two kids. He still tells jokes — many of them as funny as they are tasteless — but viewers get a glimpse into Gilbert’s private life, his childhood, his fears and obsessions as well as, well, his cuddly side. Fans of the comic may develop a new understanding of Gottfried, and anyone who thinks a little Gilbert goes a long way will have a new appreciation for him — if they bother to see this film.

Gilbert, however, is the first to admit he does not want folks to see his documentary. This is not because he doesn’t always come across in the best light. That said, he is revealed as being cheap; hoarding huge quantities of hotel toiletries. The most endearing thing he says to his wife, Dara, is “Fuck you.” And his sisters reveal some things that might be considered too personal.

But Gottfried operates largely without contempt. He actually comes across at times as rather warm and fuzzy. A scene of him talking to parents of sick children at a St. Jude’s fundraiser is both touching and amusing. 

Don’t be fooled though. Gilbert has never been one to shy away from the inappropriate. Throughout “Gilbert,” the comedian makes colonoscopy jokes, Nazi jokes, 9/11 jokes, and in a famous gaffe, he tweeted insensitively about the Japanese tsunami. But audiences will be gasping and laughing as he reveals how he developed his sense of humor and earned the respect of his comic colleagues.

The comedian sat down to crack wise with Salon and talk about “Gilbert.”

Note: This Q&A was edited down from a video interview done at Salon in April.

Gilbert, you are a hoarder and you love dental floss, so I brought you some. It’s slightly used.

Thank you. I’ll put it with my mountain of dental flosses.

You’re very conscientious about cleaning your mouth. Is it because it’s so dirty?

Well no, I mean number one, it’s just to get something for free. If someone’s handing out Maxi pads on the street, I’ll take them because it’s free and I want it.

What is it about tasteless humor or a good dirty joke? Is it that we laugh at something that embarrasses us, or is it that tasteless humor is just funny because it’s wrong?

I think all the above. It’s like sometimes it shocks you into being funny. For most of my career, I would work clean. I would go out of my way to work clean, because it used to always worry me when I watch a comedian on television and let’s say the punchline was, “I wore a hat.” You go, what’s so funny about that? Then you realize the producers of that show saw him at a club where he goes, “I wore a fucking hat.” Then, everybody started laughing and then they said, “Oh it’s a great joke, it just need that one word there.” That word is the joke.

That’s something that’s very essential to your comedy: the words and the language. It’s not just the cadence and the rhythm, it’s more what the words mean — the order that they are presented. How careful are you in terms of choosing how to tell a joke? You tell the same joke several times in “Gilbert,” and yet each time it’s a little different because of the delivery. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. I don’t know, with me it’s more instinctive or something you learn over the years. Because I’m never really in my mind going, “Oh, well this word should go here or that word.” Maybe sometimes it just happens by itself after I told a joke a few thousand times. I’ll go, “Oh, maybe, ‘if’ instead of, ‘the.’”

What is the most embarrassing moment that you didn’t want to reveal in the film?

For me, every single moment of it. The film’s been getting great reviews, which I was never expecting.

I keep reading that the star is the worst thing about it. It would be great if it wasn’t for him.

I definitely respect their opinion on that one. Because to me, it’s like what hell must be like. I feel like hell is you sit in a chair and they just show you a movie where you watch your whole life.

I sat in a chair and watched “Gilbert” and it didn’t seem like hell. It was actually kind of funny. You have this sensitive side to you and you’re being recast as a family man. What was the impetus to say, okay now I want a documentary of my life, because I’m ready for hell.

Never. Never agreed to it, never said okay. I’m one of those people who could be pushed into anything I think. . . . The filmmaker Neil Berkeley said, “I want to do a documentary on Gilbert Gottfried.” I thought he should set his standards a little higher.

What made you trust him?

I never, never. I wake up every morning . . . after a while he just started showing up with his camera. I’d wake up and I’d go, “Oh God, is he here again?”

You’re always in your bathrobe, which I think is great. I bet it was a free bathrobe.

Absolutely. Yes, I swiped it from a hotel that didn’t have my credit card number.

One of the things that you disclose in the film is the struggle you’ve had with your father. The film suggests that you can’t fully enjoy things. Do you want us to sympathize with you? Do you want us to judge you? Do you want us to just accept you? It seems like this documentary is a form of therapy for you and we’re sitting there as you go through these twelve steps.

Yeah, yeah. Of course I think they say there are . . . acceptance and denial, anger. It was produced by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.

What did you want people to get out of it? You want them to like you?

Well it’s too late now. Why ruin a good thing.

Because people sometimes cringe at the mention of your name or your voice . . . it’s like, you know maybe the film subject matter will change that and I think that sort of . . . 

I had a couple of people say to me, and it wasn’t my intention, but I had a few people say to me if they don’t like . . . if they like you, they’ll like you more now. If they hate you, they’ll like you now.

They’ll hate you less.

Yeah, they’ll hate me less. That’s all I hope for in my career, is that they hate me less! That’s all I’m asking for. Just hate me less. In fact on posters for anything or for shows I’m doing, the big blurb is, “Well, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever watched.”

I’m wondering if you feel a pressure to perform or be funny? What is expected of you? I mean, you are seen speaking at the St. Jude’s fundraiser and you could have just poured your heart out, but instead you just crack wise. Can you talk about that?

Well that’s what you . . . one number, that’s what you’ve been brought there . . . to entertain them. That scene in particular to watch it, I’ve been in situations like that before, but you see there are people there like one guy in particular making a speech about his daughter with cancer, and there are other people who are dealing with these issues, and so you go up there — and I feel like comedy won’t destroy tragedy, but if you make a person in that situation laugh for a second, for that second tragedy loosens its grip on them for a second.

Do you bring your family into the film as a way of humanizing you?

Well that was never my idea to make me human. That would be a little too much to ask for. To make me reptile would be close enough. Yeah, no, that was the filmmaker, and the big car chase was also his idea.

I liked the musical number.

Yeah. Wearing the Hawaiian skirt made me a little uncomfortable.

Well, the grass itches. You have tremendous respect from other comedians. Why do you think that is? When did that moment happen that you felt accepted by them?

I think the first time I noticed it was at the clubs, that when I would be on, the comics would sit in the back and watch me. Sometimes the comics would be the only ones laughing. I remember in particular, like Seinfeld back then, Jerry Seinfeld was . . .

Oh, thank you. I didn’t know who that was.

Yeah, yeah, I know I was saying Jerry Seinfeld, I thought I would say President Lincoln, Abe Lincoln, yeah. Jesus Christ, he was the guy on the cross. Yeah, son of God, yeah.

Heard of him. I think we met once at a party.

The light bulb, it’s that thing that lights up your room and yeah. Water, fish swim in it, people drink it. Seinfeld, Jerry, he has his own show . . .

But you have a Podcast.

Yes, I do have a Podcast.

Because you’ve got a great face for radio.

I wouldn’t trade places with Seinfeld to have a show that would support his great, great grandkids so they will never have to work ever again. Jerry Seinfeld . . .

Right, name dropper.

Yes, and sometimes Meryl Streep would stop by and tell a couple of jokes. Kirk Douglas was a really funny guy at the clubs. Moses would come into the club and first he’d take his sandals off to kick the sand out of it. Charles Manson, when he wasn’t killing people, he would just come into the clubs and the first thing Charles Manson would say to me is, “Is Seinfeld here?” I’d go, “Seinfeld?” He’d go, “Jerry Seinfeld.” I’d go, “Oh Charlie you’re such a nut.” Then, he’d go, “Dahmer is going to be here.” I’d go, “Dahmer?” “Jeffery Dahmer.” Yeah, oh okay, I know him. Yeah he’s good.

You got acceptance from other comedians.

Yes, so that’s basically the whole story. God came in, yeah so creator of the universe, God.

You’ve made me laugh. What do your wife and kids do to make you laugh?

Oh, let’s see, my son who’s very little he’s in Barnum and Bailey, he’s one of the midgets that runs around. This is absolutely true; one time I was in a restaurant and a midget came up to me and absolutely without joking said, “I’m your biggest fan.” I thought, “Oh no! Then I’m fucked. It’s time to think about a different line of work.”

Why these drag queens are taking on Trump

Jada Valenciaga; Jasmine Rice LaBeija (Credit: Peter Cooper)

“It’s not an easy platform to have, to be a man in a dress and to speak your opinions,” Jada Valenciaga, one of the drag queens featured on the series “Shade: Queens of NYC,” told Salon’s Alli Joseph on “Salon Talks.”

The new docu-series airs on Fusion TV and aims to pull back the curtain on New York City’s drag community. While drag queens and drag culture have become central to popular culture of late, particularly with the wild success of the drag competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Shade” takes a deeper dive into the multi-faceted lives of 12 drag performers.

When two of the queens, Valenciaga and Jasmine Rice LaBeija, visited “Salon Talks,” the conversation around their show quickly turned political. Both commented on the power drag has to challenge Donald Trump’s vision for America.

Rice LaBeija, who is originally from Korea, said coming to the U.S. was a life goal of hers and it felt “almost like heaven” when she was able to fully and freely embrace drag here.  Trump’s presidency, however, has changed her once positive outlook. It’s “really troublesome,” she said, “because that’s like almost destroying my dream and what I came here for.”

Valenciaga sees drag as tool for overcoming misconceptions. “It’s our jobs, not just as drag queens, but as fine, upstanding human beings of society, to let them know, ‘hey, we are human people too.'”

Watch the video above and the full “Salon Talks” conversation on Facebook to hear more about why drag is a political act.

Tune into Salon TV’s live shows, “Salon Talks” and “Salon Stage,” daily at noon ET / 9 a.m. PT and 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT, streaming live on Salon and on Facebook.

Milo Yiannopoulos becomes latest white nationalist to write for the Daily Caller

Milo Yiannopoulos (Credit: Getty/Drew Angerer)

After BuzzFeed News exposed his extensive connections to white nationalists, far-right columnist Milo Yiannopoulos became so politically toxic that even Breitbart News and its chairman Steve Bannon have renounced their associations with him. But just as Breitbart was closing a door to him, the Daily Caller was opening a window for Yiannopoulos.

The right-wing website announced on Friday that it would be publishing Yiannopoulos on a weekly basis.

“This is the first installment in his new weekly column for the Daily Caller,” the site’s editors wrote at the bottom of Yiannopoulos’ first bloviation, titled “A Round Of Applause For Kevin Spacey.”

The former Breitbart star has become the latest of several white nationalist writers to be welcomed by the Daily Caller. The site is owned in part by Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson although he has said he is uninvolved in the site’s operations. The primary financial backer of the enterprise is said to be Foster Friess, an investor who has donated to a number of Christian nationalist causes.

Geoffrey Ingersoll, the Caller’s editor-in-chief, told Salon via email that Yiannopoulos is receiving no compensation for his writing.

“He has no contract, he has no salary, he’s not being paid,” Ingersoll wrote.

Founded in 2010 as a conservative response to the Huffington Post, the Daily Caller’s lower profile than Breitbart News has allowed its turn toward white nationalism to receive less press coverage than Bannon’s infamous attempts to make Breitbart “the platform for the alt-right.”

Primarily, the Caller’s reorientation has been at the hands of Scott Greer, the site’s deputy editor who was revealed in 2016 as having extensive friendship ties to prominent white nationalists, including Devin Saucier, the racist editor who also is connected to Yiannopoulos. Saucier is the assistant to Jared Taylor, the founder and publisher of the white supremacist website American Renaissance. Greer was also found to have regularly associated with the Wolves of Vinland, essentially a racist fraternity for the post-college set which also enjoys animal sacrifices.

Greer’s exposure would have been enough to get him fired from any other conservative publication. Even Breitbart News seems to have blanched at Yiannopoulos’ much less extensive connections to white nationalists. But the revelation seems to have had no effect on Greer’s career at the Daily Caller. He’s remained in his position ever since, in the process making a home for a number of racist writers, including Jason Kessler, the creator of the infamous “Unite the Right” march held in August in Charlottesville, Virginia which brought together various far-right factions from across the country and eventually ended in the death of a left-wing counter-protester.

Before Kessler’s racial views and connection to the Caller was exposed by ProPublica in May, he had been hired to write three separate pieces by the site covering smaller white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville.

The Daily Caller still features several columns from Peter Brimelow, a white nationalist author and publisher. Its senior investigative reporter Richard Pollock is currently listed as a speaker at a conference to be held this weekend in Baltimore where traditional conservatives are encouraged to meet and greet with racist pseudo-academics and writers.

This article has been updated to include Geoffrey Ingersoll’s statement that Yiannopoulos is not being paid for his work.

The Earth’s ozone hole is the smallest it’s been in 29 years — and that’s a good thing

The ozone hole (Credit: NASA)

The massive hole in the Earth’s protective ozone layer has shrunk to its smallest size since 1988, highlighting a rare piece of good news regarding the environment, and the further need for international cooperative agreements to combat the global threat climate change presents.

The ozone hole, which was largely caused by the release of synthetic industrial aerosols into the atmosphere, reached its annual peak on September 11, 2017, when it measured 7.6 million square miles, but then decreased for the rest of the month and throughout the month of October, according to a NASA press release.

“The Antarctic ozone hole was exceptionally weak this year,” said Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “This is what we would expect to see given the weather conditions in the Antarctic stratosphere.”

One scientific reason behind the historically small ozone hole is that it was “strongly influenced by an unstable and warmer Antarctic vortex – the stratospheric low pressure system that rotates clockwise in the atmosphere above Antarctica.”

NASA elaborated in a release:

This helped minimize polar stratospheric cloud formation in the lower stratosphere. The formation and persistence of these clouds are important first steps leading to the chlorine- and bromine-catalyzed reactions that destroy ozone, scientists said. These Antarctic conditions resemble those found in the Arctic, where ozone depletion is much less severe.

In 2016, warmer stratospheric temperatures also constrained the growth of the ozone hole. Last year, the ozone hole reached a maximum 8.9 million square miles, 2 million square miles less than in 2015. The average area of these daily ozone hole maximums observed since 1991 has been roughly 10 million square miles.

The smaller ozone hole is also as a result of the international community signing the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which brought forth regulation on certain ozone-depleting compounds like chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), the complex molecules inside aerosols. Once unleashed, chlorofluorocarbons wreak havoc on ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere, pinging from ozone molecule to ozone molecule as they break the weak bonds between their oxygen atoms.

“The ozone hole over Antarctica is expected to gradually become less severe as chlorofluorocarbons—chlorine-containing synthetic compounds once frequently used as refrigerants – continue to decline. Scientists expect the Antarctic ozone hole to recover back to 1980 levels around 2070,” the press release said.

If the Earth’s ozone layer were to completely dissipate, more ultraviolet light would get through to the surface, increasing incidence of cancer and cataracts in humans and further warming the planet. A NASA simulation showed that, without an ozone layer, one would get sunburned after five minutes of standing outside in Washington, D.C. Likewise, skin cancer rates would rise drastically, possibly killing plants as well.

Positive news about the environment is rare these days. Yet the good news about the shrinking ozone hole exemplifies the importance of international cooperation in the vein of the successful Montreal Protocol. President Donald Trump has announced he would pull the United States from the Paris climate agreement, which would make the U.S. and Syria the only two nations who refuse to be signatories. Such international agreements are pivotal to assuring that climate change is dealt with.

Ironically, late on Friday afternoon, the Trump administration signed off on an extensive scientific report on climate change from 13 federal agencies. The report — which states that humans are the dominant cause behind global temperature rise — is not only a stark contrast to the Trump administration and the Republican party’s stance on climate change, it proves their views to be scientifically inaccurate.

 

Climate change is happening because of “human activity,” Trump administration admits

(Credit: AP/Evan Vucci/Charlie Riedel)

Given that President Donald Trump was willing to nominate a former conservative talk radio host with absolutely no scientific background as the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist, it’s unlikely that the administration is going to take any sort of policy action in response to an exhaustive 600-page report issued today by 13 federal agencies and approved by the White House which found that “it’s extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”

Nonetheless, it is notable that the National Climate Assessment’s report has received no interference from White House policymakers, according to the Washington Post. One of the people involved with its authorship told the newspaper that the president’s political appointees had not attempted to make any changes to the report.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

The report, which stays away from political recommendations in favor of focusing only on the science, lays out a number of facts gleaned from over 1,500 studies.

“In addition to warming, many other aspects of global climate are changing, primarily in response to human activities,” the report finds. Those include “changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor,” according to thousands of studies.

Ocean levels have risen by about 3 inches since 1993. This small increase has already impacted several cities in the United States. “More than 25 Atlantic and Gulf Coast cities” have seen increased tidal flooding on a daily basis, according to the study. Heatwaves have also become more frequent in the country since the 1960s. By contrast, cold snaps and cold waves have become less common.

The report’s authors conclude that available evidence indicates that global sea levels are expected to rise by somewhere between 1 to 4 feet by 2100. But since “climate models are more likely to underestimate than to overestimate the amount of long-term future change,” it is quite possible that oceans could rise by as much as 8 feet over that timespan.

According to Richard Alley, a scientist who studies glaciers at Penn State University, “there’s a little rumbling” among his peers that the Trump Administration will not try to formulate any policies to deal with the report’s findings. This is a more than likely possibility considering that the White House has not nominated anyone to run its Office of Science and Technology Policy, NPR reported.

But the White House told CNBC that the Trump administration supports “technology, innovation and the development of modern and efficient infrastructure” to reduce climate-related risks.

“The climate has changed and is always changing. As the Climate Science Special Report states, the magnitude of future climate change depends significantly on ‘remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of Earth’s climate to [greenhouse gas] emissions,'” said White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah, in a statement.