Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 803

They just have it in for him: Washington Post smears Bernie and his army of small donors

Washington Post writer Philip Bump published an article on Monday titled, “Bernie Sanders keeps saying his average donation is $27, but his own numbers contradict that."

The headline gives the impression that Sanders is wildly off-base about this oft-repeated figure. Bump presents the piece as a forensic examination of the question, “How is it that the average has stayed so consistent over time?” He offers a “few ideas” for why this might be, including that “averages change more slowly as you add more data,” and at some point, the $27 donation “became a thing.” In fact, Sanders’ website “encourages that number” by providing a $27 donate button on the website, Bump notes.

All of those observations are fine and good, if slightly less than newsworthy (last I checked, middle-school math lessons on how averages work aren’t exactly breaking). But the article gets fishy when Bump delivers his final point, declaring that, “$27 isn't really accurate.” After performing numerous calculations, based on data from the Sanders campaign, he comes to the shocking conclusion that the average donation is… $27.88 (gasp!).

Sanders' rapid response director Mike Casca replied on Twitter with a correction to Bump, stating that, as of 11:13 Monday morning, the average donation is $27.89—or as Casca calls it, “$27 and some change, but thanks for playing.”

Either way, the final figure is not far off from the basic claim of the Sanders campaign, and certainly is not as misleading as the headline of Bump’s article would have you believe. Not surprisingly, Bump’s article launched an angry response, prompting him write a followup piece on Tuesday titled, “The day I inadvertently jammed $27 into a very angry hornet’s nest.”

Bump reports that he “received thousands of negative tweets, negative comments on Facebook, and any number of emails—excluding the scores of spam emails I'm getting because someone signed me up for them in bulk.” The “tenor and volume” of the feedback was unusual, Bump added, “particularly given that the piece was innocuous, as I saw it. It wasn't a fact-check; it was a math lesson.”

“It's clear from the story itself that I don't see this as any sort of lie on the part of the Sanders campaign, but then who reads the story anymore?” he continued. “Part of the problem, though, is that the headline was viewed as suggesting dishonesty on the part of Sanders' campaign,” he said. “The working headline for the piece was ‘How does Bernie Sanders's average donation stay at $27?’ but we (my editors and I) ended up choosing a headline that was more provocative. And provocative headlines provoke.”

There is a problem, however: Bump’s title is misleading. Not provocative, misleading.

All journalists are under pressure to construct gripping headlines with the power to provoke and ratchet up article views. But we are also required to be accurate, especially in the midst of a hotly contested primary in the days leading up to the important New York vote. Especially those of us who write from powerful and far-reaching platforms.

Bump, who declined an interview with AlterNet, fell short of accountability for his misjudgment, instead rattling off a list of reasons why Sanders supporters might feel overly angry, when in fact they are not being slighted.

“First, it was viewed as an attack on the heart of what appeals to many Sanders supporters: his lack of big donors,” he writes, then adding: “Second, it came from the Washington Post, an outlet that some Sanders supporters view as being either biased or representative of the power structures that Sanders is challenging.”

Bump goes on to write that “there is an obvious willingness by Sanders supporters to assume that institutions of power are out to get them—and to lash out in response.”

Bump’s blithe dismissal of these concerns is telling, if consistent with the slant of his employer. I invite him to respond to the real concerns expressed by Sanders' supporters and media consumers, not the irrational and furious masses he has constructed.

Perhaps he could consider the criticisms of someone like Zein El-Amine, a Sanders supporter, Lebanese-American poet and university professor in Washington, D.C.

“This article is the height of absurdity when you look at the amount of research that the reporter went through to prove this minute difference,” El-Amine told AlterNet. “Especially in light of the fact that, if there is one thing that any American can say about the Sanders campaign, it is that it has proved that the super PACs are not going to rule the day with their big donations, that candidates can beat the super PACs by speaking directly to the public and speaking to their long-neglected issues." Washington Post writer Philip Bump published an article on Monday titled, “Bernie Sanders keeps saying his average donation is $27, but his own numbers contradict that."

The headline gives the impression that Sanders is wildly off-base about this oft-repeated figure. Bump presents the piece as a forensic examination of the question, “How is it that the average has stayed so consistent over time?” He offers a “few ideas” for why this might be, including that “averages change more slowly as you add more data,” and at some point, the $27 donation “became a thing.” In fact, Sanders’ website “encourages that number” by providing a $27 donate button on the website, Bump notes.

All of those observations are fine and good, if slightly less than newsworthy (last I checked, middle-school math lessons on how averages work aren’t exactly breaking). But the article gets fishy when Bump delivers his final point, declaring that, “$27 isn't really accurate.” After performing numerous calculations, based on data from the Sanders campaign, he comes to the shocking conclusion that the average donation is… $27.88 (gasp!).

Sanders' rapid response director Mike Casca replied on Twitter with a correction to Bump, stating that, as of 11:13 Monday morning, the average donation is $27.89—or as Casca calls it, “$27 and some change, but thanks for playing.”

Either way, the final figure is not far off from the basic claim of the Sanders campaign, and certainly is not as misleading as the headline of Bump’s article would have you believe. Not surprisingly, Bump’s article launched an angry response, prompting him write a followup piece on Tuesday titled, “The day I inadvertently jammed $27 into a very angry hornet’s nest.”

Bump reports that he “received thousands of negative tweets, negative comments on Facebook, and any number of emails—excluding the scores of spam emails I'm getting because someone signed me up for them in bulk.” The “tenor and volume” of the feedback was unusual, Bump added, “particularly given that the piece was innocuous, as I saw it. It wasn't a fact-check; it was a math lesson.”

“It's clear from the story itself that I don't see this as any sort of lie on the part of the Sanders campaign, but then who reads the story anymore?” he continued. “Part of the problem, though, is that the headline was viewed as suggesting dishonesty on the part of Sanders' campaign,” he said. “The working headline for the piece was ‘How does Bernie Sanders's average donation stay at $27?’ but we (my editors and I) ended up choosing a headline that was more provocative. And provocative headlines provoke.”

There is a problem, however: Bump’s title is misleading. Not provocative, misleading.

All journalists are under pressure to construct gripping headlines with the power to provoke and ratchet up article views. But we are also required to be accurate, especially in the midst of a hotly contested primary in the days leading up to the important New York vote. Especially those of us who write from powerful and far-reaching platforms.

Bump, who declined an interview with AlterNet, fell short of accountability for his misjudgment, instead rattling off a list of reasons why Sanders supporters might feel overly angry, when in fact they are not being slighted.

“First, it was viewed as an attack on the heart of what appeals to many Sanders supporters: his lack of big donors,” he writes, then adding: “Second, it came from the Washington Post, an outlet that some Sanders supporters view as being either biased or representative of the power structures that Sanders is challenging.”

Bump goes on to write that “there is an obvious willingness by Sanders supporters to assume that institutions of power are out to get them—and to lash out in response.”

Bump’s blithe dismissal of these concerns is telling, if consistent with the slant of his employer. I invite him to respond to the real concerns expressed by Sanders' supporters and media consumers, not the irrational and furious masses he has constructed.

Perhaps he could consider the criticisms of someone like Zein El-Amine, a Sanders supporter, Lebanese-American poet and university professor in Washington, D.C.

“This article is the height of absurdity when you look at the amount of research that the reporter went through to prove this minute difference,” El-Amine told AlterNet. “Especially in light of the fact that, if there is one thing that any American can say about the Sanders campaign, it is that it has proved that the super PACs are not going to rule the day with their big donations, that candidates can beat the super PACs by speaking directly to the public and speaking to their long-neglected issues."

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Noam Chomsky defends Julian Assange: “He should be given a medal”

Noam Chomsky had a complex answer when asked if he sees a difference in the role technology companies play compared to Washington lawmakers in protecting and encouraging privacy:

WikiLeaks is a democratizing force. It’s giving individuals access to decisions and thinking by their representatives. In a democracy that ought to be reflexive. But on the contrary. WikiLeaks is under heavy attack by the government, and corporations are participating in that by closing down their websites. But Julian Assange shouldn’t be the subject of grand jury hearings. He should be given a medal. He’s contributing to democracy.

Assange and others established WikiLeaks in 2006. Since the release of the Chelsea Manning material, U.S. authorities began a long-term investigation of WikiLeaks and Assange, aiming to prosecute them under the Espionage Act of 1917.

However, classification is nothing new.

"Long before the technology revolution there was declassficifation of documents and ... anybody who’s worked through the declassified record can see very clearly that the reason for classification is very rarely to protect the state or society from enemies. Most of the time it’s to protect the state from its citizens," explained Chomsky. "So they don’t know what the government’s doing. ... Which raises the question: Should we even have the classification system? Why shouldn’t these things be open?"

Chomsky did acknowledge that an exception to the unnecessary classified documents is copyright protection. "There are things that we want to keep secret like the characteristics of your latest fighter plane or something like that," he said.

Watch: Chomsky discusses WikiLeaks:

Noam Chomsky had a complex answer when asked if he sees a difference in the role technology companies play compared to Washington lawmakers in protecting and encouraging privacy:

WikiLeaks is a democratizing force. It’s giving individuals access to decisions and thinking by their representatives. In a democracy that ought to be reflexive. But on the contrary. WikiLeaks is under heavy attack by the government, and corporations are participating in that by closing down their websites. But Julian Assange shouldn’t be the subject of grand jury hearings. He should be given a medal. He’s contributing to democracy.

Assange and others established WikiLeaks in 2006. Since the release of the Chelsea Manning material, U.S. authorities began a long-term investigation of WikiLeaks and Assange, aiming to prosecute them under the Espionage Act of 1917.

However, classification is nothing new.

"Long before the technology revolution there was declassficifation of documents and ... anybody who’s worked through the declassified record can see very clearly that the reason for classification is very rarely to protect the state or society from enemies. Most of the time it’s to protect the state from its citizens," explained Chomsky. "So they don’t know what the government’s doing. ... Which raises the question: Should we even have the classification system? Why shouldn’t these things be open?"

Chomsky did acknowledge that an exception to the unnecessary classified documents is copyright protection. "There are things that we want to keep secret like the characteristics of your latest fighter plane or something like that," he said.

Watch: Chomsky discusses WikiLeaks:

Continue Reading...

Victory for Hillary: New York Democrats pick Clinton in primary, dealing huge blow to Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton has been declared the winner of the Democratic presidential primary in New York by the Associated Press.

While early exit polls had Clinton only leading in her adopted home state over the Brooklyn-born Bernie Sanders by a few points, with 98 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton now leads 58 percent to 42 percent. Polling going into Tuesday's surprisingly closely contested vote had the former New York senator beating the Vermont Independent senator by an average of 12 points.

Clinton's win was called 45 minutes after polls closed in the Empire State.

For a quick-and-dirty breakdown of early exit poll data of how New York's Democrats split their votes, 538's Harry Etnen:

Sanders is winning voters ages 18 to 24 by a margin of 85 percent to 15 percent, while Clinton is winning voters ages 65 and over by a margin of 70 percent to 30 percent. Among racial groups, Sanders carries whites by 9 percentage points, while Clinton takes Latinos by 18 percentage points and blacks by 43 percentage points.

Despite drawing big crowds in all of New York City's boroughs, according to WYNC's data news team, Sanders perhaps underperformed in some of his bases of support throughout the city while Clinton's dominance in other areas appeared overwhelming.

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/st...

Get the latest election results here, via the New York Times.

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Donald Trump delivered a huge win in New York

As soon as polls closed at 9pm in New York Tuesday night, the Republican presidential race was called in favor of Donald Trump.

Hardly a surprise, the businessman and novice politician will handily take his home state by large margins when all votes are tallied. With 9 percent of precincts in New York state reporting, Trump currently leads with 69 percent of the Republican vote.

Trump's commanding performance may give him 50 percent in every congressional district across the state he needs in order to win all 95 of New York's delegates. The Republican frontrunner sorely needs as many delegates out of New York as possible to avoid an ugly open convention in Cleveland this July.

Ohio Governor John Kasich will likely finish ahead of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who explicitly attacked Trump for his "New York values" early in the campaign. Cruz has only garnered 12 percent support so far to Kasich's 19 percent with less than 10 percent of precincts fully reported.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s...

Get the latest election results here, via the New York Times.As soon as polls closed at 9pm in New York Tuesday night, the Republican presidential race was called in favor of Donald Trump.

Hardly a surprise, the businessman and novice politician will handily take his home state by large margins when all votes are tallied. With 9 percent of precincts in New York state reporting, Trump currently leads with 69 percent of the Republican vote.

Trump's commanding performance may give him 50 percent in every congressional district across the state he needs in order to win all 95 of New York's delegates. The Republican frontrunner sorely needs as many delegates out of New York as possible to avoid an ugly open convention in Cleveland this July.

Ohio Governor John Kasich will likely finish ahead of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who explicitly attacked Trump for his "New York values" early in the campaign. Cruz has only garnered 12 percent support so far to Kasich's 19 percent with less than 10 percent of precincts fully reported.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s...

Get the latest election results here, via the New York Times.As soon as polls closed at 9pm in New York Tuesday night, the Republican presidential race was called in favor of Donald Trump.

Hardly a surprise, the businessman and novice politician will handily take his home state by large margins when all votes are tallied. With 9 percent of precincts in New York state reporting, Trump currently leads with 69 percent of the Republican vote.

Trump's commanding performance may give him 50 percent in every congressional district across the state he needs in order to win all 95 of New York's delegates. The Republican frontrunner sorely needs as many delegates out of New York as possible to avoid an ugly open convention in Cleveland this July.

Ohio Governor John Kasich will likely finish ahead of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who explicitly attacked Trump for his "New York values" early in the campaign. Cruz has only garnered 12 percent support so far to Kasich's 19 percent with less than 10 percent of precincts fully reported.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/s...

Get the latest election results here, via the New York Times.

Continue Reading...

You’re welcome, indie rock fans: Meet your next favorite album, Car Seat Headrest’s “Teens of Denial”

Will Toledo, the musician behind the band Car Seat Headrest, sounds like he’s tapped into an endless font of melodies and hooks: Not since Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices has an indie rocker made turning out hummable songs seem so effortless.

Toledo started recording music as a Virginia teenager, sitting in the back of his family car with a laptop, the seats and headrests the only audience. He recorded hours and hours of lo-fi songs, parked in a Target lot, and dumped them onto Bandcamp. After almost of dozen of these albums, he was picked up by Matador Records. As Tim Sendra notes on his All Music Guide review, it’s a natural move since Car Seat takes elements of Matador’s best bands – Guided By Voices, Pavement, early Liz Phair – and makes them his own. At age 23, he’s nearly a veteran, but 2015’s “Teens of Style” was his first for a label.

Toledo’s upcoming album, “Teens of Denial,” due out May 20, is a departure of sorts: Made with a band, in a studio, it would be conventional if it wasn’t still a Car Seat Headrest album. It includes, for instance, an 11-and-a-half minute song that changes tempo several times and covers a huge range of subjects.

We spoke to Toledo – who comes across as friendly but very drowsy -- from his home in Seattle; the interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Your new album is more orthodox than what you’ve done in the past. It’s your first one made in a studio?

Yeah, that’s right – I had a sort of embryonic lineup playing on “Teens of Style,” but that was mostly a solo effort, and I mixed it myself. So this was the first time we were really working together.

How different was it for you to do it this way?

It felt like a different process. But parts of it were more similar than we’d anticipated. We recorded in two smallish studios in Seattle – just us and our producer, Steve Fisk. It felt like a practice session, but one that became an album. And the mixing we just did at Steve Fisk’s house. It was all pretty close to home.

Your aesthetic is stripped down, lo-fi… Did you hear musicians when you were young who did that? You listened to a lot of Pavement and Guided by Voices, I expect?

I guess – but I draw a distinction between stripped down and lo-fi. Because I think this album is both more stripped down and less lo-fi than what I was doing. I enjoy working on my own, producing my own stuff, to a very high degree, making the arrangements fairly complex – on the older ones.

The new one is more stripped down – I went into it with the mentality that it would be simpler this time. So my older stuff does have more going on, in terms of the arrangements and more instruments. This is a deliberate step back.

Part of this is the influence of that era, ‘90s and ‘2000s rock music. I think it was less Pavement and Guided by Voices – though those were on the list – and more Green Day and Nirvana, which is what I was listening to in middle school.

There are pieces on the album that actually date from high school.

If you had no limits, would you record an endless number of songs and albums?

I wouldn’t say that. Even before Matador, I was averaging about one release a year, and this album took me two years to write: I was slowing down from the earlier period of Car Seat Headrest. It used to manifest itself as lots of songs; now it’s about honing the songs into perfection…. It’s just a matter of changing focus really.

Your early stuff went up on Bandcamp. How would your music be different if you came up the old way, making records for an indie label?

It’s hard to say exactly, and I don’t know who would have picked me up in my earlier years.

I was writing simpler music in middle school and high school – it was in the beginning of college when I started Car Seat Headrest and it started out as more experimental stuff. I was willing to go back to the simple style if more people would listen to the music.

The reason the early stuff is so inaccessible is that it was designed for a much smaller audience, or no audience, really. I got time to experiment, with no eyes on me. It would have been different if I’d gotten popular earlier in my career.

What kinds of things do you do to put yourself in the mood for songwriting? Or do you just sit down with your guitar? Your lyrics seem to have all kinds of reference points.

I hardly need to be incentivized to write: Something happens, it creates an emotional response in me, and I’ve just sort of trained myself to ask, “Can I make this into a song?” And then if I can, it goes from there. These days I’m never starting with a blank page and asking, What am I gonna write this song about? Usually I have more ideas than I know what to do with.

Do you read a lot? Listen to music? Go walking by yourself a lot? What’s your life like?

These days my life is spent mostly sitting on a tour van, not doing much of anything at all. But I try to do all that stuff when I’m back at home. I’m trying to check out more music this year – for a long time I had, I don’t know, a low opinion of the music scene in general, and tried to stay out of it… I still don’t like most of it, but I’m aware of it.

I try and read, I feel like I don’t read as much as I should. I’m making progress on the second volume of the Frank Sinatra biography [James Kaplan’s “The Chairman.”] And the Leonard Cohen biography, [Sylvie Simmons’] “I’m Your Man.”

I spent a lot of time just hanging out online.

There’s not a lot of music that connects with me. A lot of it is a missed connection or doesn’t sound like it has a lot to it.

Do you find yourself going back to old stuff?

Definitely. I still regularly listen to Pink Floyd… Nirvana, I’ve been listening to a lot recently. And Guided by Voices is always a good go-to.

You recorded a lot of your music by yourself – is it strange to play in front of an audience?

It was at first, and for a while in Car Seat Headrest I didn’t play live much because there weren’t a lot of songs that would translate live. That’s what this new album is about, too – all of those songs are easy to play live and fun to play live.

Tell us a little about “The Ballad of Costa Concordia,” the longest song on the album.

I have a tendency to do long songs – I like working with that big canvas. I had in mind to do a classic ballad, something that was long and slow and depressing. But it just unfolded in a specific way. It sort of became about various emotional issues in my life, struggling with relationships. And somewhere I got the idea to speed it up halfway through, and go into this fast part, which throws it into a more modern rock style. It originated in emulation of the rock ballad.

Anything in particular?

I guess I was thinking if some of Bob Dylan’s longer work. But some of his long ballad-y stuff I don’t really like; I guess I was trying to do a version of that idea that I liked. I guess Leonard Cohen is a good example – he has a song called “Death of a Ladies man,” which just unfolds for about 10 minutes, repetitive, AAAA song structure, just a slowly unfolding story with a lot of emotional baggage to it. That song and album was a big influence on me.Will Toledo, the musician behind the band Car Seat Headrest, sounds like he’s tapped into an endless font of melodies and hooks: Not since Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices has an indie rocker made turning out hummable songs seem so effortless.

Toledo started recording music as a Virginia teenager, sitting in the back of his family car with a laptop, the seats and headrests the only audience. He recorded hours and hours of lo-fi songs, parked in a Target lot, and dumped them onto Bandcamp. After almost of dozen of these albums, he was picked up by Matador Records. As Tim Sendra notes on his All Music Guide review, it’s a natural move since Car Seat takes elements of Matador’s best bands – Guided By Voices, Pavement, early Liz Phair – and makes them his own. At age 23, he’s nearly a veteran, but 2015’s “Teens of Style” was his first for a label.

Toledo’s upcoming album, “Teens of Denial,” due out May 20, is a departure of sorts: Made with a band, in a studio, it would be conventional if it wasn’t still a Car Seat Headrest album. It includes, for instance, an 11-and-a-half minute song that changes tempo several times and covers a huge range of subjects.

We spoke to Toledo – who comes across as friendly but very drowsy -- from his home in Seattle; the interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Your new album is more orthodox than what you’ve done in the past. It’s your first one made in a studio?

Yeah, that’s right – I had a sort of embryonic lineup playing on “Teens of Style,” but that was mostly a solo effort, and I mixed it myself. So this was the first time we were really working together.

How different was it for you to do it this way?

It felt like a different process. But parts of it were more similar than we’d anticipated. We recorded in two smallish studios in Seattle – just us and our producer, Steve Fisk. It felt like a practice session, but one that became an album. And the mixing we just did at Steve Fisk’s house. It was all pretty close to home.

Your aesthetic is stripped down, lo-fi… Did you hear musicians when you were young who did that? You listened to a lot of Pavement and Guided by Voices, I expect?

I guess – but I draw a distinction between stripped down and lo-fi. Because I think this album is both more stripped down and less lo-fi than what I was doing. I enjoy working on my own, producing my own stuff, to a very high degree, making the arrangements fairly complex – on the older ones.

The new one is more stripped down – I went into it with the mentality that it would be simpler this time. So my older stuff does have more going on, in terms of the arrangements and more instruments. This is a deliberate step back.

Part of this is the influence of that era, ‘90s and ‘2000s rock music. I think it was less Pavement and Guided by Voices – though those were on the list – and more Green Day and Nirvana, which is what I was listening to in middle school.

There are pieces on the album that actually date from high school.

If you had no limits, would you record an endless number of songs and albums?

I wouldn’t say that. Even before Matador, I was averaging about one release a year, and this album took me two years to write: I was slowing down from the earlier period of Car Seat Headrest. It used to manifest itself as lots of songs; now it’s about honing the songs into perfection…. It’s just a matter of changing focus really.

Your early stuff went up on Bandcamp. How would your music be different if you came up the old way, making records for an indie label?

It’s hard to say exactly, and I don’t know who would have picked me up in my earlier years.

I was writing simpler music in middle school and high school – it was in the beginning of college when I started Car Seat Headrest and it started out as more experimental stuff. I was willing to go back to the simple style if more people would listen to the music.

The reason the early stuff is so inaccessible is that it was designed for a much smaller audience, or no audience, really. I got time to experiment, with no eyes on me. It would have been different if I’d gotten popular earlier in my career.

What kinds of things do you do to put yourself in the mood for songwriting? Or do you just sit down with your guitar? Your lyrics seem to have all kinds of reference points.

I hardly need to be incentivized to write: Something happens, it creates an emotional response in me, and I’ve just sort of trained myself to ask, “Can I make this into a song?” And then if I can, it goes from there. These days I’m never starting with a blank page and asking, What am I gonna write this song about? Usually I have more ideas than I know what to do with.

Do you read a lot? Listen to music? Go walking by yourself a lot? What’s your life like?

These days my life is spent mostly sitting on a tour van, not doing much of anything at all. But I try to do all that stuff when I’m back at home. I’m trying to check out more music this year – for a long time I had, I don’t know, a low opinion of the music scene in general, and tried to stay out of it… I still don’t like most of it, but I’m aware of it.

I try and read, I feel like I don’t read as much as I should. I’m making progress on the second volume of the Frank Sinatra biography [James Kaplan’s “The Chairman.”] And the Leonard Cohen biography, [Sylvie Simmons’] “I’m Your Man.”

I spent a lot of time just hanging out online.

There’s not a lot of music that connects with me. A lot of it is a missed connection or doesn’t sound like it has a lot to it.

Do you find yourself going back to old stuff?

Definitely. I still regularly listen to Pink Floyd… Nirvana, I’ve been listening to a lot recently. And Guided by Voices is always a good go-to.

You recorded a lot of your music by yourself – is it strange to play in front of an audience?

It was at first, and for a while in Car Seat Headrest I didn’t play live much because there weren’t a lot of songs that would translate live. That’s what this new album is about, too – all of those songs are easy to play live and fun to play live.

Tell us a little about “The Ballad of Costa Concordia,” the longest song on the album.

I have a tendency to do long songs – I like working with that big canvas. I had in mind to do a classic ballad, something that was long and slow and depressing. But it just unfolded in a specific way. It sort of became about various emotional issues in my life, struggling with relationships. And somewhere I got the idea to speed it up halfway through, and go into this fast part, which throws it into a more modern rock style. It originated in emulation of the rock ballad.

Anything in particular?

I guess I was thinking if some of Bob Dylan’s longer work. But some of his long ballad-y stuff I don’t really like; I guess I was trying to do a version of that idea that I liked. I guess Leonard Cohen is a good example – he has a song called “Death of a Ladies man,” which just unfolds for about 10 minutes, repetitive, AAAA song structure, just a slowly unfolding story with a lot of emotional baggage to it. That song and album was a big influence on me.Will Toledo, the musician behind the band Car Seat Headrest, sounds like he’s tapped into an endless font of melodies and hooks: Not since Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices has an indie rocker made turning out hummable songs seem so effortless.

Toledo started recording music as a Virginia teenager, sitting in the back of his family car with a laptop, the seats and headrests the only audience. He recorded hours and hours of lo-fi songs, parked in a Target lot, and dumped them onto Bandcamp. After almost of dozen of these albums, he was picked up by Matador Records. As Tim Sendra notes on his All Music Guide review, it’s a natural move since Car Seat takes elements of Matador’s best bands – Guided By Voices, Pavement, early Liz Phair – and makes them his own. At age 23, he’s nearly a veteran, but 2015’s “Teens of Style” was his first for a label.

Toledo’s upcoming album, “Teens of Denial,” due out May 20, is a departure of sorts: Made with a band, in a studio, it would be conventional if it wasn’t still a Car Seat Headrest album. It includes, for instance, an 11-and-a-half minute song that changes tempo several times and covers a huge range of subjects.

We spoke to Toledo – who comes across as friendly but very drowsy -- from his home in Seattle; the interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Your new album is more orthodox than what you’ve done in the past. It’s your first one made in a studio?

Yeah, that’s right – I had a sort of embryonic lineup playing on “Teens of Style,” but that was mostly a solo effort, and I mixed it myself. So this was the first time we were really working together.

How different was it for you to do it this way?

It felt like a different process. But parts of it were more similar than we’d anticipated. We recorded in two smallish studios in Seattle – just us and our producer, Steve Fisk. It felt like a practice session, but one that became an album. And the mixing we just did at Steve Fisk’s house. It was all pretty close to home.

Your aesthetic is stripped down, lo-fi… Did you hear musicians when you were young who did that? You listened to a lot of Pavement and Guided by Voices, I expect?

I guess – but I draw a distinction between stripped down and lo-fi. Because I think this album is both more stripped down and less lo-fi than what I was doing. I enjoy working on my own, producing my own stuff, to a very high degree, making the arrangements fairly complex – on the older ones.

The new one is more stripped down – I went into it with the mentality that it would be simpler this time. So my older stuff does have more going on, in terms of the arrangements and more instruments. This is a deliberate step back.

Part of this is the influence of that era, ‘90s and ‘2000s rock music. I think it was less Pavement and Guided by Voices – though those were on the list – and more Green Day and Nirvana, which is what I was listening to in middle school.

There are pieces on the album that actually date from high school.

If you had no limits, would you record an endless number of songs and albums?

I wouldn’t say that. Even before Matador, I was averaging about one release a year, and this album took me two years to write: I was slowing down from the earlier period of Car Seat Headrest. It used to manifest itself as lots of songs; now it’s about honing the songs into perfection…. It’s just a matter of changing focus really.

Your early stuff went up on Bandcamp. How would your music be different if you came up the old way, making records for an indie label?

It’s hard to say exactly, and I don’t know who would have picked me up in my earlier years.

I was writing simpler music in middle school and high school – it was in the beginning of college when I started Car Seat Headrest and it started out as more experimental stuff. I was willing to go back to the simple style if more people would listen to the music.

The reason the early stuff is so inaccessible is that it was designed for a much smaller audience, or no audience, really. I got time to experiment, with no eyes on me. It would have been different if I’d gotten popular earlier in my career.

What kinds of things do you do to put yourself in the mood for songwriting? Or do you just sit down with your guitar? Your lyrics seem to have all kinds of reference points.

I hardly need to be incentivized to write: Something happens, it creates an emotional response in me, and I’ve just sort of trained myself to ask, “Can I make this into a song?” And then if I can, it goes from there. These days I’m never starting with a blank page and asking, What am I gonna write this song about? Usually I have more ideas than I know what to do with.

Do you read a lot? Listen to music? Go walking by yourself a lot? What’s your life like?

These days my life is spent mostly sitting on a tour van, not doing much of anything at all. But I try to do all that stuff when I’m back at home. I’m trying to check out more music this year – for a long time I had, I don’t know, a low opinion of the music scene in general, and tried to stay out of it… I still don’t like most of it, but I’m aware of it.

I try and read, I feel like I don’t read as much as I should. I’m making progress on the second volume of the Frank Sinatra biography [James Kaplan’s “The Chairman.”] And the Leonard Cohen biography, [Sylvie Simmons’] “I’m Your Man.”

I spent a lot of time just hanging out online.

There’s not a lot of music that connects with me. A lot of it is a missed connection or doesn’t sound like it has a lot to it.

Do you find yourself going back to old stuff?

Definitely. I still regularly listen to Pink Floyd… Nirvana, I’ve been listening to a lot recently. And Guided by Voices is always a good go-to.

You recorded a lot of your music by yourself – is it strange to play in front of an audience?

It was at first, and for a while in Car Seat Headrest I didn’t play live much because there weren’t a lot of songs that would translate live. That’s what this new album is about, too – all of those songs are easy to play live and fun to play live.

Tell us a little about “The Ballad of Costa Concordia,” the longest song on the album.

I have a tendency to do long songs – I like working with that big canvas. I had in mind to do a classic ballad, something that was long and slow and depressing. But it just unfolded in a specific way. It sort of became about various emotional issues in my life, struggling with relationships. And somewhere I got the idea to speed it up halfway through, and go into this fast part, which throws it into a more modern rock style. It originated in emulation of the rock ballad.

Anything in particular?

I guess I was thinking if some of Bob Dylan’s longer work. But some of his long ballad-y stuff I don’t really like; I guess I was trying to do a version of that idea that I liked. I guess Leonard Cohen is a good example – he has a song called “Death of a Ladies man,” which just unfolds for about 10 minutes, repetitive, AAAA song structure, just a slowly unfolding story with a lot of emotional baggage to it. That song and album was a big influence on me.

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3.2 million shut out in NYC: Listen to Board of Elections tell resident “You cannot vote today being an independent”

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Donald Trump in his naked, um, glory: Controversial portrait finds a home at Las Vegas museum

(Editor's note: This post includes an embedded image that is NSFW)

Visual artist and self-described "Gender Fluid Futurist," Ilma Gore has, alas, found a home for her controversial "Make America Great Again" portrait of Donald Trump.

The Erotic Heritage Museum gladly offered to host the drawing, which depicts a nude Trump with a micropenis, after a "slew of U.S. galleries ... refused to host the piece for security concerns," according to a news release sent out by the museum.

“As an institution built on the free discourse of sex, politics and culture, we have been following the question over Trump’s endowment since Marco Rubio mocked Trump’s small hands back at the beginning of the year,” said Dr. Victoria Hartmann, executive director of the Erotic Heritage Museum, also known as EHM, in a statement,  "Unlike other U.S. galleries, the EHM is not afraid to show work of a controversial nature … in fact we feel it is important to do so.”

Since originally posting a picture of her controversial drawing on Facebook (which subsequently censored the image), Gore has been "threatened with suit" following "an anonymous filing of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

The piece (11"x14" pastel based pencils, and oil paint on paper) is currently housed in London, at the Maddox Gallery in Mayfair.

"'Make America Great Again' was created to evoke a reaction from its audience, good or bad, about the significance we place on our physical selves," Gore wrote on her website about the portrait. "One should not feel emasculated by their penis size or vagina, as it does not define who you are. Your genitals do not define your gender, your power, or your status."

"Simply put," she added, "you can be a massive prick, despite what is in your pants."

Gore responded to subsequent outrage thusly:

https://twitter.com/illmagore/status/...

Find the un-cropped and, of course, NSFW portrait below (Warning: For better or worse, you will never again be able to imagine Trump without a micropenis.)

(Editor's note: This post includes an embedded image that is NSFW)

Visual artist and self-described "Gender Fluid Futurist," Ilma Gore has, alas, found a home for her controversial "Make America Great Again" portrait of Donald Trump.

The Erotic Heritage Museum gladly offered to host the drawing, which depicts a nude Trump with a micropenis, after a "slew of U.S. galleries ... refused to host the piece for security concerns," according to a news release sent out by the museum.

“As an institution built on the free discourse of sex, politics and culture, we have been following the question over Trump’s endowment since Marco Rubio mocked Trump’s small hands back at the beginning of the year,” said Dr. Victoria Hartmann, executive director of the Erotic Heritage Museum, also known as EHM, in a statement,  "Unlike other U.S. galleries, the EHM is not afraid to show work of a controversial nature … in fact we feel it is important to do so.”

Since originally posting a picture of her controversial drawing on Facebook (which subsequently censored the image), Gore has been "threatened with suit" following "an anonymous filing of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

The piece (11"x14" pastel based pencils, and oil paint on paper) is currently housed in London, at the Maddox Gallery in Mayfair.

"'Make America Great Again' was created to evoke a reaction from its audience, good or bad, about the significance we place on our physical selves," Gore wrote on her website about the portrait. "One should not feel emasculated by their penis size or vagina, as it does not define who you are. Your genitals do not define your gender, your power, or your status."

"Simply put," she added, "you can be a massive prick, despite what is in your pants."

Gore responded to subsequent outrage thusly:

https://twitter.com/illmagore/status/...

Find the un-cropped and, of course, NSFW portrait below (Warning: For better or worse, you will never again be able to imagine Trump without a micropenis.)

Continue Reading...

Don’t blame YouTube for screwing musicians, blame Metallica: Their fight with Napster set the tone for today’s crummy digital deals

For years now, musicians have complained about YouTube – the way the site’s business model depends on ad sales alongside videos, the way users post songs without permission, and the way YouTube’s streaming service allegedly bullied independent labels into signing music over with unfavorable deals.

One advocate for musicians – Metallica manager Peter Mensch – has stepped up the rhetoric a bit. According to BBC News:

"YouTube, they're the devil," he told a BBC Radio 4 documentary on the music business. "We don't get paid at all."

He said the site's business model, in which artists make money by placing ads around their music, was unsustainable.

"If someone doesn't do something about YouTube, we're screwed," he said. "It's over. Someone turn off the lights."

Now, it’s good to have musicians and industry folk pushing back against the digital services as a way of keeping the tech corporations honest. But to liken YouTube to Satan is not especially useful. Plenty of musicians are justifiably mad about the low royalties paid for music that runs there, and getting that money to musicians still doesn’t work as smoothly as it’s supposed to.

But a smaller number of musicians – mostly very vocal ones – have found real success by posting their music there and building audiences. Digital utopians would tell you that everyone can get rich online. It’s not true, but some certainly have.

Mensch’s statement is a bit strange, though, for reasons that go beyond its overstatement: It’s a reminder that one of the reasons musicians have so much trouble getting paid these days comes from a gargantuan mistake made by… Metallica. The first big battle in the digital services vs. musicians war was fought by Metallica, and the band misfired so badly that a lot of people who’d otherwise be sympathetic turned on musicians and haven’t turned back. And younger people inherit an atmosphere in which the artists seem like the greedy ones and the tech companies are – like the fans – rebels fighting for choice and freedom.

It goes back to the age of Napster, in 2000, when the members of Metallica saw that some of their music – including an unreleased song -- was floating around on the service. Any band would be angry about this. But Metallica not only sued Napster, it tried to sue three universities where students had downloaded music. When a chauffer rolled a Chevy Blazer with drummer Lars Ulrich and band lawyer Howard King to the Napster offices, with boxes of names of 335,000 fans who’d used the service to get Metallica songs, they created a narrative for the press and tech advocates to use: Millionaire musicians against “the kids.”

“Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered, and I think Metallica’s hogs,” Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx said at the time. “I think that it’s not acceptable behavior for an artist to do that to their fans. Elektra … [and] Metallica’s management, they’re puppeteering the guys in Metallica and they’re f—ing their fans, and I think it’s f—ed.” Instead of bringing musicians together over the right to get paid for their work, Metallica managed to drive them apart.

The fact that Metallica was looking for $100,000 for every violation of copyright didn’t make the band look humble. The PR was so bad that nearly every other band fled from the conflict, and even though Napster shut down a year later, Silicon Valley triumphed, and musicians got a reputation for being greedy and litigious.

It was the equivalent of the disastrous launch of the Tidal steaming service -- but since it took place at the very beginning of a conflict, it established the terms.

These days, when you talk about issues of artists rights, you’ll hear how bad the labels are, how musicians are rich and greedy, how music wants to be free, and how bands should stay on tour year round. You can’t blame Metallica for that entirely, of course. But you can’t pin it all on tech company lobbying, either.For years now, musicians have complained about YouTube – the way the site’s business model depends on ad sales alongside videos, the way users post songs without permission, and the way YouTube’s streaming service allegedly bullied independent labels into signing music over with unfavorable deals.

One advocate for musicians – Metallica manager Peter Mensch – has stepped up the rhetoric a bit. According to BBC News:

"YouTube, they're the devil," he told a BBC Radio 4 documentary on the music business. "We don't get paid at all."

He said the site's business model, in which artists make money by placing ads around their music, was unsustainable.

"If someone doesn't do something about YouTube, we're screwed," he said. "It's over. Someone turn off the lights."

Now, it’s good to have musicians and industry folk pushing back against the digital services as a way of keeping the tech corporations honest. But to liken YouTube to Satan is not especially useful. Plenty of musicians are justifiably mad about the low royalties paid for music that runs there, and getting that money to musicians still doesn’t work as smoothly as it’s supposed to.

But a smaller number of musicians – mostly very vocal ones – have found real success by posting their music there and building audiences. Digital utopians would tell you that everyone can get rich online. It’s not true, but some certainly have.

Mensch’s statement is a bit strange, though, for reasons that go beyond its overstatement: It’s a reminder that one of the reasons musicians have so much trouble getting paid these days comes from a gargantuan mistake made by… Metallica. The first big battle in the digital services vs. musicians war was fought by Metallica, and the band misfired so badly that a lot of people who’d otherwise be sympathetic turned on musicians and haven’t turned back. And younger people inherit an atmosphere in which the artists seem like the greedy ones and the tech companies are – like the fans – rebels fighting for choice and freedom.

It goes back to the age of Napster, in 2000, when the members of Metallica saw that some of their music – including an unreleased song -- was floating around on the service. Any band would be angry about this. But Metallica not only sued Napster, it tried to sue three universities where students had downloaded music. When a chauffer rolled a Chevy Blazer with drummer Lars Ulrich and band lawyer Howard King to the Napster offices, with boxes of names of 335,000 fans who’d used the service to get Metallica songs, they created a narrative for the press and tech advocates to use: Millionaire musicians against “the kids.”

“Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered, and I think Metallica’s hogs,” Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx said at the time. “I think that it’s not acceptable behavior for an artist to do that to their fans. Elektra … [and] Metallica’s management, they’re puppeteering the guys in Metallica and they’re f—ing their fans, and I think it’s f—ed.” Instead of bringing musicians together over the right to get paid for their work, Metallica managed to drive them apart.

The fact that Metallica was looking for $100,000 for every violation of copyright didn’t make the band look humble. The PR was so bad that nearly every other band fled from the conflict, and even though Napster shut down a year later, Silicon Valley triumphed, and musicians got a reputation for being greedy and litigious.

It was the equivalent of the disastrous launch of the Tidal steaming service -- but since it took place at the very beginning of a conflict, it established the terms.

These days, when you talk about issues of artists rights, you’ll hear how bad the labels are, how musicians are rich and greedy, how music wants to be free, and how bands should stay on tour year round. You can’t blame Metallica for that entirely, of course. But you can’t pin it all on tech company lobbying, either.For years now, musicians have complained about YouTube – the way the site’s business model depends on ad sales alongside videos, the way users post songs without permission, and the way YouTube’s streaming service allegedly bullied independent labels into signing music over with unfavorable deals.

One advocate for musicians – Metallica manager Peter Mensch – has stepped up the rhetoric a bit. According to BBC News:

"YouTube, they're the devil," he told a BBC Radio 4 documentary on the music business. "We don't get paid at all."

He said the site's business model, in which artists make money by placing ads around their music, was unsustainable.

"If someone doesn't do something about YouTube, we're screwed," he said. "It's over. Someone turn off the lights."

Now, it’s good to have musicians and industry folk pushing back against the digital services as a way of keeping the tech corporations honest. But to liken YouTube to Satan is not especially useful. Plenty of musicians are justifiably mad about the low royalties paid for music that runs there, and getting that money to musicians still doesn’t work as smoothly as it’s supposed to.

But a smaller number of musicians – mostly very vocal ones – have found real success by posting their music there and building audiences. Digital utopians would tell you that everyone can get rich online. It’s not true, but some certainly have.

Mensch’s statement is a bit strange, though, for reasons that go beyond its overstatement: It’s a reminder that one of the reasons musicians have so much trouble getting paid these days comes from a gargantuan mistake made by… Metallica. The first big battle in the digital services vs. musicians war was fought by Metallica, and the band misfired so badly that a lot of people who’d otherwise be sympathetic turned on musicians and haven’t turned back. And younger people inherit an atmosphere in which the artists seem like the greedy ones and the tech companies are – like the fans – rebels fighting for choice and freedom.

It goes back to the age of Napster, in 2000, when the members of Metallica saw that some of their music – including an unreleased song -- was floating around on the service. Any band would be angry about this. But Metallica not only sued Napster, it tried to sue three universities where students had downloaded music. When a chauffer rolled a Chevy Blazer with drummer Lars Ulrich and band lawyer Howard King to the Napster offices, with boxes of names of 335,000 fans who’d used the service to get Metallica songs, they created a narrative for the press and tech advocates to use: Millionaire musicians against “the kids.”

“Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered, and I think Metallica’s hogs,” Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx said at the time. “I think that it’s not acceptable behavior for an artist to do that to their fans. Elektra … [and] Metallica’s management, they’re puppeteering the guys in Metallica and they’re f—ing their fans, and I think it’s f—ed.” Instead of bringing musicians together over the right to get paid for their work, Metallica managed to drive them apart.

The fact that Metallica was looking for $100,000 for every violation of copyright didn’t make the band look humble. The PR was so bad that nearly every other band fled from the conflict, and even though Napster shut down a year later, Silicon Valley triumphed, and musicians got a reputation for being greedy and litigious.

It was the equivalent of the disastrous launch of the Tidal steaming service -- but since it took place at the very beginning of a conflict, it established the terms.

These days, when you talk about issues of artists rights, you’ll hear how bad the labels are, how musicians are rich and greedy, how music wants to be free, and how bands should stay on tour year round. You can’t blame Metallica for that entirely, of course. But you can’t pin it all on tech company lobbying, either.

Continue Reading...

Roger Stone still doesn’t get it: Trump ally who ranted against Megyn Kelly, called Sharpton a “professional negro” doesn’t think he’s racist or sexist

Roger Stone, head of pro-Trump Super PAC called the Committee to Restore America's Greatness, told Media Matters reporter Joe Strupp on Tuesday that he had in fact tweeted and then deleted a number of racist and sexist tweets about political media figures — though he stopped short of conceding any wrongdoing.

Stone has at various times called The Rev. Al Sharpton a "professional negro"; Lawrence O'Donnell, a "talentless drunk"; Tom Brokaw, "#senile"; Jill Abramson, a "snot-nosed arrogant biased liberal-- and all around bitch"; and Gail Collins, an "elitist c*nt." The full list is too long to reproduce here.

Sometimes it's like Stone's computer was hacked by a pubescent Andrew Dice Clay: "Arianna Huffington has the hots for Herman Cain and wants to do him. #hotgreek #hungamerican"

But no, Stone was behind the tweets all along.

“Some of them were perhaps intemperate, but I, of course, vehemently deny that they were either racist or sexist,” Stone told Strupp, adding that he has "no idea" why Megyn Kelly (who, he tweeted-and-deleted, has a "nice set of cans") won't invite him back on her show.

However, "there are dozens of other media outlets" who have yet to ban him, Stone concluded defiantly.

Read the full report at Media Matters.Roger Stone, head of pro-Trump Super PAC called the Committee to Restore America's Greatness, told Media Matters reporter Joe Strupp on Tuesday that he had in fact tweeted and then deleted a number of racist and sexist tweets about political media figures — though he stopped short of conceding any wrongdoing.

Stone has at various times called The Rev. Al Sharpton a "professional negro"; Lawrence O'Donnell, a "talentless drunk"; Tom Brokaw, "#senile"; Jill Abramson, a "snot-nosed arrogant biased liberal-- and all around bitch"; and Gail Collins, an "elitist c*nt." The full list is too long to reproduce here.

Sometimes it's like Stone's computer was hacked by a pubescent Andrew Dice Clay: "Arianna Huffington has the hots for Herman Cain and wants to do him. #hotgreek #hungamerican"

But no, Stone was behind the tweets all along.

“Some of them were perhaps intemperate, but I, of course, vehemently deny that they were either racist or sexist,” Stone told Strupp, adding that he has "no idea" why Megyn Kelly (who, he tweeted-and-deleted, has a "nice set of cans") won't invite him back on her show.

However, "there are dozens of other media outlets" who have yet to ban him, Stone concluded defiantly.

Read the full report at Media Matters.Roger Stone, head of pro-Trump Super PAC called the Committee to Restore America's Greatness, told Media Matters reporter Joe Strupp on Tuesday that he had in fact tweeted and then deleted a number of racist and sexist tweets about political media figures — though he stopped short of conceding any wrongdoing.

Stone has at various times called The Rev. Al Sharpton a "professional negro"; Lawrence O'Donnell, a "talentless drunk"; Tom Brokaw, "#senile"; Jill Abramson, a "snot-nosed arrogant biased liberal-- and all around bitch"; and Gail Collins, an "elitist c*nt." The full list is too long to reproduce here.

Sometimes it's like Stone's computer was hacked by a pubescent Andrew Dice Clay: "Arianna Huffington has the hots for Herman Cain and wants to do him. #hotgreek #hungamerican"

But no, Stone was behind the tweets all along.

“Some of them were perhaps intemperate, but I, of course, vehemently deny that they were either racist or sexist,” Stone told Strupp, adding that he has "no idea" why Megyn Kelly (who, he tweeted-and-deleted, has a "nice set of cans") won't invite him back on her show.

However, "there are dozens of other media outlets" who have yet to ban him, Stone concluded defiantly.

Read the full report at Media Matters.

Continue Reading...

A week of election coverage melted my brain: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and America’s terminal narcissism

Think of the 2016 presidential campaign as the political equivalent of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  It’s loud; there are plenty of abusive special effects; the critics hate it, but the crowds turn out; a media company or three rake in the dough; and foreigners can’t get enough of this new vision of the American way of life -- or is it of a Bizarro world?

If you prefer, you could think of Campaign 2016, the never-ending blockbuster, as an affirmation that, whatever the hell this country is, it’s still, like Hollywood, at the top of the heap.  When it comes to gluing eyeballs, it remains the “sole superpower” on Planet Earth.  Think of it, in fact, any way you like, but just notice that the only thing you can’t do is notthink about it.

This came to my mind recently on my daily trip to the gym.  A TV is always on in the anteroom you pass through to reach the men’s locker room.  A couple of weeks ago, I started to jot down what was onscreen.  So let me give you a rundown of one week’s worth of my comings and goings.

Monday: This proved the oddball news day of my exercise week.  As I arrived, CNN was reporting from a “locked down” Capitol -- shots of people running hither and yon -- and it was still doing so with remarkably similar shots an hour and 40 minutes later when I left.  It turned out that some madman -- and I mean that quite literally since, on an earlier occasion, the same fellow was arrested for shouting that he was “a prophet of God” from the gallery of the House of Representatives -- had pulled out a pellet gun in the Capitol’s visiting area and been shot by the police.  In the new American media world in which 24/7 obsession is the definition of news, that minor story played nonstop for the rest of the day and I caught it again leading NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (“Gunman at U.S. Capitol Shot by Police”).

Tuesday, as I walked in, CNN was focused on the arrest of Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, for an “assault” on Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields in Jupiter, Florida (the American version of outer space).  As I left, Governor John Kasich on MSNBC was just “weighing in” on -- you guessed it -- Lewandowski’s “alleged battery,” with a Washington Post reporter on deck, ready to offer crucial analysis on the same subject, while a Donald Trump tweet was also under discussion.

Wednesday as I arrived, MSNBC was reporting that a new Hillary Clinton ad had just blasted -- you guessed it again -- Donald Trump for “xenophobia” and that she was four percentage points behind Bernie Sanders in the latest Wisconsin poll.  On the crawler at the bottom of the screen, Trump’s campaign manager was said to have declared himself “absolutely innocent” of the battery charge.  On my way out, I found correspondent Katy Tur “awaiting” Trump’s arrival at a stop in Wisconsin.  And oh yes, women, I learned, disliked Trump for his “some form of punishment” abortion comment.

Thursday as I came in, MSNBC was showing a Jimmy Kimmel Live! clip in which Ted Cruz half-jokingly told the nighttime host that, were he to see -- yes, you guessed it yet again! -- The Donald through his rearview mirror in a parking lot as he was backing up, he wasn’t quite sure which pedal he’d hit, the gas or the brake.  On leaving, I wandered past a crew ofWashington Post writers discussing -- yep! -- Donald Trump’s first meeting with his foreign policy advisers in Washington.  He was, I was fascinated to learn, “huddling” with them.

Friday, I arrived just as the CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin was revving up under the logo “America’s Choice 2016.”  “Wisconsin,” Baldwin was saying, “is the next big primary for both Democrats and Republicans, but on the GOP side frontrunner Donald Trump is also focusing his attention on the party’s convention in July and how the delegate process will play out.”  As I left, she was still yakking away, this time over a caption that read: “Backing off pledge could cost Trump delegates.”  On a split screen with her was a Republican National Committee member -- “an expert on GOP nominating processing,” she told us -- discussing the significance of Trump’s recent meeting with Republican Party head Reince Priebus.  (Not much, it turned out.)

And that was one week’s exercising news for me.  I can’t for a second claim it didn’t keep me in decent shape, but the rest of America?

Now, let me try to sum up that week in American “news” glimpsed in passing at the gym and then watched as it repeated itself at dinner time and other moments.  Here goes: Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Ted Cruz.  Donald Trump. Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Hillary Clinton.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  (Bernie Sanders.)  The previous week, it would, of course, have been Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, Donald Trump, Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, Donald Trump, etc., etc.

There.  Satisfied?  Now, turn off that TV, put down that screen in your hand, I’ve got something to tell you about the news.

The News Zone

It goes without saying that I’m not talking about the news as it once was.  Think of it now as a kind of obsessive onscreen activity, sometimes humdrum, remarkably repetitive, yet often riveting.  Think of it mainly as something most of us live with but have yet to come to grips with or really define.  With the ever-present screens in all our lives, no one can help but tune in these days in one way or another to various versions of what we still call “the news.”  In doing so, we largely leave the real world and any sense of balance or perspective behind.  Otherwise a startling percentage of Americans wouldn’t be that terrorism of the Islamic variety -- yes, terrorism! -- is America’s number one problem; this in a country in which you’re more likely to be killed or wounded by a toddler with a gun than an Islamic terrorist with the same.

In other words, from Brussels, Brussels, Brussels to Trump, Trump, Trump, this is not in any previously understood sense news at all.  It may actually be the opposite of news.  Believe it or not, there is still a world out there filled with problems that we know so much less about than we should because we’re all immersed in the same Trump soup.

Here’s what often dominates the news zone these days:

* The Donald, The Hillary, and the others crisscrossing the country, shouting at and insulting each other, and giving more or less the same speeches (or, in the case of Trump, narcissistic rambles).

* Blood-curdling accounts of the latest terror attacks in Europe or the U.S.

* Photogenically weepy or stoic Americans bemoaning the loss of houses, schools, and lives in what the news now regularly refers to as “extreme weather” (without a hint -- 99% of the time -- of why that weather might be increasingly extreme).

* And let’s not forget those remarkably ever-present American “lone wolf” killers who take out their fellow citizens with numbing regularity in workplaces, movie theaters, military bases, schools, etc.

All of this and more, of course, becomes the essential adrenalizing fodder of the 24/7 attention machine.  Sometimes, when the story’s just right, its drumbeat lasts nonstop for days, or even weeks (see: San Bernadino), with whole corps of “experts” mobilized by the network news and cable outfits to... well, you know... say whatever it is experts say.

As newspapers shrink and collapse, as local investigative reporting all but disappears, the above has become the repetitive norm for the paperless world most of us inhabit.  And keep in mind that, in an age of shrinking reportorial staffs, on TV as well as in print, it’s of obvious economic advantage to pool your resources and focus audience attention on just one (or a few) magnetic events/horrors/nightmares -- stories guaranteed to glue eyeballs.  Some of these stories have become so common in our onscreen lives that, as with a mass killing or “violence” at a Trump rally, a formulaic way of reporting them has fallen comfortably into place, making the all-hands-on-deck moment so much easier to organize and handle.  So, for instance, from the initial shock of a terror attack in Europe or the U.S. (but not, say, Iraq or Libya) to the funerals of the victims, from the early parade of counterterrorism “experts” to the last grief counselors, there is now a pattern of coverage that normalizes such events for the news zone.

The Comb-Over in the Mirror

So much of this, of course, is about money, ratings, and the coffers of those who own TV networks.  Gluing eyeballs to screens (and ads) is, of course, the real news about the news.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves couldn’t have been blunter on how the present system works.  At a Morgan Stanley investors’ conference last month, speaking of the Trump campaign, hesaid, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”  And then he added, “The money’s rolling in and this is fun.  I’ve never seen anything like this, and this [is] going to be a very good year for us.  Sorry.  It’s a terrible thing to say.  But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

We know, roughly speaking, what Moonves and his ilk make of the frenetic onscreen world their employees present us with -- a world of relative inconsequence that is often, at one and the same moment, horrifying, fascinating, stupefying, shocking, terrifying, enervating, saddening, and even, if you happen to like Donald or Ted or Hillary or Bernie, sometimes uplifting or hopeful.  The question is: What are we to make of it?

The most obvious thing that can be said is that it leaves us painfully unprepared to face, or grasp, or begin to deal with the actual world as it actually is.  What’s left out?  Well, more or less everything that truly matters much of the time: any large, generally unphotogenic process, for instance, like the crumbling of America’s infrastructure (unless cameras can fortuitously zoom in on a bridge collapsing or a natural gas pipeline in the process of blowing up in a neighborhood -- all so much more likely in an age in which no imaginable situation lacks its amateur video); poverty (who the hell cares?); the growing inequality gap locally or globally (a no-interest barrier the WikiLeaks-style Panama Papers recently managed to break through); almost anything that happens in the places where most of the people on this planet actually live (Asia and Africa); the rise of the national security state and of militarism in an era of permanent war and permanent (in)security in the “homeland”; and don’t even get me started on climate change...

But why should I go on when you can do this perfectly well yourself?  After all, just about everything that matters much of the time means... well, just about everything that really makes a difference in your life, or national life, or planetary life.  What you can see on your screen right now is plenty of Donald Trump, but what you can’t see when it comes to the United States is, for example, the increasingly undemocratic, unrepresentative, semi-demobilized country with a new, informal constitution and new power centers that he -- or some other candidate -- will head in 2017.  It’s largely MIA.

The menu of the news, as presently defined, lowers your chance of understanding the world.  It is, however, likely to raise your blood pressure and your fears on a planet in which there is plenty of reason to be afraid, but seldom of what’s on screen.  In a sense, at its best, what the all-day obsession that’s still called “the news” really provides is the kind of rush that we might normally associate with a drug or an addiction rather than reportage or analysis.

The news -- no matter your screen of choice -- increasingly does several things:

* It creates its own heightened, insular world to replace the world we actually live in.

* At its most effective, it’s like a recurrent floodtide washing over you.

* It has an obsessional quality, with single stories engulfing everything else, inducing a deeply skewed view of the world, no matter what event or events are being followed.

Who can doubt that the Internet, social media, email, and the rest of the package are the signature addictive activities of our age?  Anyone who can put away that iPhone without resistance, or not check one last time to see if the email you weren’t expecting has arrived, should join the short line now forming at the exit.  For the rest of us, let’s face it, we’re trapped here.

The “news” is a key part of this addictive package.  In a sense, in an age of electronic obsession, onscreen news purveyors like Moonves may have little choice but to make it so.  It’s that or, assumedly, watch your cable network or key news programs die a grim financial death.

And of course Donald Trump, he of the trademark bouffant comb-over -- yes, I’m back to him -- is certainly sui generis and regularly admired for the deft way he plays the news and the media.  He’s less commonly thought of as the creature of the news and the media.  In a sense, though, he’s their ultimate creation of this moment, the top-of-the-line drug on offer so far.  If he’s also the ultimate narcissist without filters, then perhaps what we still call “the news” is itself a new form of narcissism.  When you look in the mirror it holds up, it’s not you or the world that’s reflected.  Just tell me, I’m curious: Whose hairdo do you see?Think of the 2016 presidential campaign as the political equivalent of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  It’s loud; there are plenty of abusive special effects; the critics hate it, but the crowds turn out; a media company or three rake in the dough; and foreigners can’t get enough of this new vision of the American way of life -- or is it of a Bizarro world?

If you prefer, you could think of Campaign 2016, the never-ending blockbuster, as an affirmation that, whatever the hell this country is, it’s still, like Hollywood, at the top of the heap.  When it comes to gluing eyeballs, it remains the “sole superpower” on Planet Earth.  Think of it, in fact, any way you like, but just notice that the only thing you can’t do is notthink about it.

This came to my mind recently on my daily trip to the gym.  A TV is always on in the anteroom you pass through to reach the men’s locker room.  A couple of weeks ago, I started to jot down what was onscreen.  So let me give you a rundown of one week’s worth of my comings and goings.

Monday: This proved the oddball news day of my exercise week.  As I arrived, CNN was reporting from a “locked down” Capitol -- shots of people running hither and yon -- and it was still doing so with remarkably similar shots an hour and 40 minutes later when I left.  It turned out that some madman -- and I mean that quite literally since, on an earlier occasion, the same fellow was arrested for shouting that he was “a prophet of God” from the gallery of the House of Representatives -- had pulled out a pellet gun in the Capitol’s visiting area and been shot by the police.  In the new American media world in which 24/7 obsession is the definition of news, that minor story played nonstop for the rest of the day and I caught it again leading NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (“Gunman at U.S. Capitol Shot by Police”).

Tuesday, as I walked in, CNN was focused on the arrest of Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, for an “assault” on Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields in Jupiter, Florida (the American version of outer space).  As I left, Governor John Kasich on MSNBC was just “weighing in” on -- you guessed it -- Lewandowski’s “alleged battery,” with a Washington Post reporter on deck, ready to offer crucial analysis on the same subject, while a Donald Trump tweet was also under discussion.

Wednesday as I arrived, MSNBC was reporting that a new Hillary Clinton ad had just blasted -- you guessed it again -- Donald Trump for “xenophobia” and that she was four percentage points behind Bernie Sanders in the latest Wisconsin poll.  On the crawler at the bottom of the screen, Trump’s campaign manager was said to have declared himself “absolutely innocent” of the battery charge.  On my way out, I found correspondent Katy Tur “awaiting” Trump’s arrival at a stop in Wisconsin.  And oh yes, women, I learned, disliked Trump for his “some form of punishment” abortion comment.

Thursday as I came in, MSNBC was showing a Jimmy Kimmel Live! clip in which Ted Cruz half-jokingly told the nighttime host that, were he to see -- yes, you guessed it yet again! -- The Donald through his rearview mirror in a parking lot as he was backing up, he wasn’t quite sure which pedal he’d hit, the gas or the brake.  On leaving, I wandered past a crew ofWashington Post writers discussing -- yep! -- Donald Trump’s first meeting with his foreign policy advisers in Washington.  He was, I was fascinated to learn, “huddling” with them.

Friday, I arrived just as the CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin was revving up under the logo “America’s Choice 2016.”  “Wisconsin,” Baldwin was saying, “is the next big primary for both Democrats and Republicans, but on the GOP side frontrunner Donald Trump is also focusing his attention on the party’s convention in July and how the delegate process will play out.”  As I left, she was still yakking away, this time over a caption that read: “Backing off pledge could cost Trump delegates.”  On a split screen with her was a Republican National Committee member -- “an expert on GOP nominating processing,” she told us -- discussing the significance of Trump’s recent meeting with Republican Party head Reince Priebus.  (Not much, it turned out.)

And that was one week’s exercising news for me.  I can’t for a second claim it didn’t keep me in decent shape, but the rest of America?

Now, let me try to sum up that week in American “news” glimpsed in passing at the gym and then watched as it repeated itself at dinner time and other moments.  Here goes: Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Ted Cruz.  Donald Trump. Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Hillary Clinton.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  Donald Trump.  (Bernie Sanders.)  The previous week, it would, of course, have been Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, Donald Trump, Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, Donald Trump, etc., etc.

There.  Satisfied?  Now, turn off that TV, put down that screen in your hand, I’ve got something to tell you about the news.

The News Zone

It goes without saying that I’m not talking about the news as it once was.  Think of it now as a kind of obsessive onscreen activity, sometimes humdrum, remarkably repetitive, yet often riveting.  Think of it mainly as something most of us live with but have yet to come to grips with or really define.  With the ever-present screens in all our lives, no one can help but tune in these days in one way or another to various versions of what we still call “the news.”  In doing so, we largely leave the real world and any sense of balance or perspective behind.  Otherwise a startling percentage of Americans wouldn’t be that terrorism of the Islamic variety -- yes, terrorism! -- is America’s number one problem; this in a country in which you’re more likely to be killed or wounded by a toddler with a gun than an Islamic terrorist with the same.

In other words, from Brussels, Brussels, Brussels to Trump, Trump, Trump, this is not in any previously understood sense news at all.  It may actually be the opposite of news.  Believe it or not, there is still a world out there filled with problems that we know so much less about than we should because we’re all immersed in the same Trump soup.

Here’s what often dominates the news zone these days:

* The Donald, The Hillary, and the others crisscrossing the country, shouting at and insulting each other, and giving more or less the same speeches (or, in the case of Trump, narcissistic rambles).

* Blood-curdling accounts of the latest terror attacks in Europe or the U.S.

* Photogenically weepy or stoic Americans bemoaning the loss of houses, schools, and lives in what the news now regularly refers to as “extreme weather” (without a hint -- 99% of the time -- of why that weather might be increasingly extreme).

* And let’s not forget those remarkably ever-present American “lone wolf” killers who take out their fellow citizens with numbing regularity in workplaces, movie theaters, military bases, schools, etc.

All of this and more, of course, becomes the essential adrenalizing fodder of the 24/7 attention machine.  Sometimes, when the story’s just right, its drumbeat lasts nonstop for days, or even weeks (see: San Bernadino), with whole corps of “experts” mobilized by the network news and cable outfits to... well, you know... say whatever it is experts say.

As newspapers shrink and collapse, as local investigative reporting all but disappears, the above has become the repetitive norm for the paperless world most of us inhabit.  And keep in mind that, in an age of shrinking reportorial staffs, on TV as well as in print, it’s of obvious economic advantage to pool your resources and focus audience attention on just one (or a few) magnetic events/horrors/nightmares -- stories guaranteed to glue eyeballs.  Some of these stories have become so common in our onscreen lives that, as with a mass killing or “violence” at a Trump rally, a formulaic way of reporting them has fallen comfortably into place, making the all-hands-on-deck moment so much easier to organize and handle.  So, for instance, from the initial shock of a terror attack in Europe or the U.S. (but not, say, Iraq or Libya) to the funerals of the victims, from the early parade of counterterrorism “experts” to the last grief counselors, there is now a pattern of coverage that normalizes such events for the news zone.

The Comb-Over in the Mirror

So much of this, of course, is about money, ratings, and the coffers of those who own TV networks.  Gluing eyeballs to screens (and ads) is, of course, the real news about the news.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves couldn’t have been blunter on how the present system works.  At a Morgan Stanley investors’ conference last month, speaking of the Trump campaign, hesaid, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”  And then he added, “The money’s rolling in and this is fun.  I’ve never seen anything like this, and this [is] going to be a very good year for us.  Sorry.  It’s a terrible thing to say.  But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

We know, roughly speaking, what Moonves and his ilk make of the frenetic onscreen world their employees present us with -- a world of relative inconsequence that is often, at one and the same moment, horrifying, fascinating, stupefying, shocking, terrifying, enervating, saddening, and even, if you happen to like Donald or Ted or Hillary or Bernie, sometimes uplifting or hopeful.  The question is: What are we to make of it?

The most obvious thing that can be said is that it leaves us painfully unprepared to face, or grasp, or begin to deal with the actual world as it actually is.  What’s left out?  Well, more or less everything that truly matters much of the time: any large, generally unphotogenic process, for instance, like the crumbling of America’s infrastructure (unless cameras can fortuitously zoom in on a bridge collapsing or a natural gas pipeline in the process of blowing up in a neighborhood -- all so much more likely in an age in which no imaginable situation lacks its amateur video); poverty (who the hell cares?); the growing inequality gap locally or globally (a no-interest barrier the WikiLeaks-style Panama Papers recently managed to break through); almost anything that happens in the places where most of the people on this planet actually live (Asia and Africa); the rise of the national security state and of militarism in an era of permanent war and permanent (in)security in the “homeland”; and don’t even get me started on climate change...

But why should I go on when you can do this perfectly well yourself?  After all, just about everything that matters much of the time means... well, just about everything that really makes a difference in your life, or national life, or planetary life.  What you can see on your screen right now is plenty of Donald Trump, but what you can’t see when it comes to the United States is, for example, the increasingly undemocratic, unrepresentative, semi-demobilized country with a new, informal constitution and new power centers that he -- or some other candidate -- will head in 2017.  It’s largely MIA.

The menu of the news, as presently defined, lowers your chance of understanding the world.  It is, however, likely to raise your blood pressure and your fears on a planet in which there is plenty of reason to be afraid, but seldom of what’s on screen.  In a sense, at its best, what the all-day obsession that’s still called “the news” really provides is the kind of rush that we might normally associate with a drug or an addiction rather than reportage or analysis.

The news -- no matter your screen of choice -- increasingly does several things:

* It creates its own heightened, insular world to replace the world we actually live in.

* At its most effective, it’s like a recurrent floodtide washing over you.

* It has an obsessional quality, with single stories engulfing everything else, inducing a deeply skewed view of the world, no matter what event or events are being followed.

Who can doubt that the Internet, social media, email, and the rest of the package are the signature addictive activities of our age?  Anyone who can put away that iPhone without resistance, or not check one last time to see if the email you weren’t expecting has arrived, should join the short line now forming at the exit.  For the rest of us, let’s face it, we’re trapped here.

The “news” is a key part of this addictive package.  In a sense, in an age of electronic obsession, onscreen news purveyors like Moonves may have little choice but to make it so.  It’s that or, assumedly, watch your cable network or key news programs die a grim financial death.

And of course Donald Trump, he of the trademark bouffant comb-over -- yes, I’m back to him -- is certainly sui generis and regularly admired for the deft way he plays the news and the media.  He’s less commonly thought of as the creature of the news and the media.  In a sense, though, he’s their ultimate creation of this moment, the top-of-the-line drug on offer so far.  If he’s also the ultimate narcissist without filters, then perhaps what we still call “the news” is itself a new form of narcissism.  When you look in the mirror it holds up, it’s not you or the world that’s reflected.  Just tell me, I’m curious: Whose hairdo do you see?

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