Relax. Barack's Got This.

We interrupt this disgustingly useless news cycle about Fairytale Weddings, Child Molestation Enabling Saints and Presidential Campaigns by Bankrupted Reality Television Hosts to bring you some news that actually matters: Osama bin Laden is dead. And no, he wasn't found in Iraq.

I'm not one to get wrapped up in the flag or get all wet at the sound of Toby Keith. I've also never bought into any of America's  recent boogeymen, be it Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar or Trans Fats. All they do is serve to cheapen the dialogue and debate. Osama bin Laden's death does not restore all that is right in the world, and if you knew on September 12th that he'd live another 9.5 years later, you'd probably be pretty damn pissed.

What the operation has proved however - and this clearly isn't the first time - is that the grown ups are in charge now.

During the Presidential campaigns - both Primary and General - Barack Obama was resolute in stating that should unmistakable intelligence arise that Bin Laden was in Pakistan, he'd go right in and take him out. First he was killed by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards (remember him?) and Chris Dodd. Then he was killed by John McCain - who also said he'd walk through the gates of hell to get him.   

Not a peep of criticism for the action from any of them today.

We suffered through 8 years of George Bush's cowboy talk. We were going to get Osama "Dead or Alive". We were going to "smoke'em out of their holes". Allegedly we had him trapped in the mountains of Afghanistan, but then we decided "Fuck it, let's go get Saddam". 

We watched President Bush  mock the inability to find those WMD during a photo slideshow at the White House Correspondents dinner. We watched President Bush tell Mike Brown he was doing "A heckuva job" as New Orleans drowned. We watched him walk hand-in-hand with Saudi Royalty as gas prices rose. We watched Dick Cheney out CIA agents who disagreed with his assertions about the WMD, then watched President Bush pardon the man found guilty of the leak.

We watched a draft dodger paint a war hero as a coward. We watched rednecks burn Dixie Chick records. We saw the Senate have an emergency session to intervene in the case of a woman suffering through a 2 decade coma. Bush's press secretary said we need to "watch what we say". We had the "Terror Threat Level" raised right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention. We had to deal with Rudy Giuliani. Oh, and despite all of this, we saw the global economy crumble. 

I have many disagreements with President Obama. Primarily because he's not anything like the monster that his detractors claim. He's not socialist enough. He tries too hard to work with his opponents. He's too pro-business.

Sometimes I think liberals like myself try to make Obama into something he's not. He never campaigned on Single Payer health care. He promised to escalate the action in Afghanistan. He made a pledge to work together in a bipartisan factor. Is it his fault for not being Che Guevara? Or our fault for falsely expecting him to be?

Most refreshingly, Obama doesn't resort lowbrow tactics to get the job done. I heard more times than I can count that I was "hurting the troops" when I criticized the President, but you don't hear that emanating from the left these days. Nobody's telling the Teabaggers to "Love it Or Leave It". 

Dan Rather lost his job for reporting on the shadiness involving Bush's records from his days in the Texas Air National Guard - a unit reserved for the sons of Texas' richest to avoid service in Vietnam. Yet every news organization under the sun openly reports on Obama's fucking birth certificate.

The goal posts are continually moved back for this guy. Some of it is from the left. But most of it is from the main stream. If George Bush saved the American Auto Industry from extinction, prevented a Recession from a Depression, enacted  Bob Dole's healthcare reform and by the way, captured the most wanted man in history, we wouldn't be asking for his Birth Certificate. We'd be trying to repeal the 22nd Amendment to make him president for life.

I told a friend earlier today that I don't want to get into the dangerous territory of using Bush as a point of comparison. That's setting a bar too low to be effective. But for all the times I bitch about what Obama isn't politically, I need to take time to appreciate something else that he's not: A petty childish pissant.

George Bush was great at talking the talk. Barack Obama's more than content to simply walk the walk. Just ask Bin Laden.

Imagine

Don't you ever wonder,
Maybe if things had been slightly different
You could be somebody else
Don't you wonder, maybe...
If you took a left turn instead of taking a right, You could be somebody different
-Dave Matthews Band

 Because I can be quite the downer, I just spent the better part of the last hour going through some emails I have filed away from nine years ago. Well, nine years and a day. There was nothing surprising in the folder. The messages basically cover all the necessary stages, from "What the hell is going on?" to "Are you OK?" to "Payback's gonna be a bitch?" to "Are they really canceling football this weekend?" 

What did strike me though, was some of the remarks at the time about The President. You all remember who was President on 9/11. The guy reading "My Pet Goat" with pee dribbling down his leg. Anyway, the people with whom I was exchanging mass-emails with that day, roughly 50-60 different folks on 3 or 4 different chains, they didn't vote for Bush. Didn't like him. Thought he stole it. Thought he was an idiot. Didn't trust him. Like me. And tens of millions others. 

However, on that day, when Bush was mentioned, it was along the lines of "Well, we have to stand behind President Bush now" or "Bush needs to be strong" or "Pray for the President". Generic platitudes. But positive nonetheless. 

Beyond that, I remember the conversations and the official statements. I remember the attitudes. Bush had a 92% approval rating that week (I wear my badge as a Proud Eight Percenter with honor - but not because I automatically distrusted him. No, he lost me with "Dead or Alive"). I remember how the Patriot Act passed the Senate by a 99-1 margin.

Then I started thinking about two separate, but very similar hypothetical situations. What if the Supreme Court had ruled to allow the votes to be counted, and Al Gore was President that day? Or, what if the attack happened in September 2009 instead, under Barack Obama. (Granted, that's a stretch because the events of 9/11 directly led to Obama's rise). But the point is - if the President during the attacks was a Democrat, would The Heartland, The Deep South, and The Republican Party stand so firmly behind the President in a time of such crisis? 

Sadly I believe -nay, I know - it wouldn't be the case. After 2 FAILED terrorist attacks last winter, Obama was accused of being soft on terrorism. Even though the towers fell on their watch, and even though they grossly and criminally mishandled the response to the attack, for some reason, these chicken-hawks think that they own the copyright on national security. They think they own it on the economy too, and they're track record is equally as disastrous there. So delusions of grandeur seem to be a necessary character trait for aspiring conservative leaders. 

Keep this in mind the next time some asshole like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin talks about "Restoring" honor or dignity or patriotism - three qualities that they stand in direct opposition to. These people only care about their version of America. They stand behind the President only when it's the guy they voted for. They don't, have never, care about more than the bare minimum amount of Americans: however many it takes to get to 271 Electoral votes and/or House Districts.  

It's a well known, indisputable fact that Bush had a globe's worth of goodwill and unheard of levels of domestic support and he squandered it. But they don't care about that, because they don't care about you, or the globe, or the World Trade Center. Just their psychotic agenda, and nothing more. It's sad that 9 years later, on September 10th (or as it's known in the Giuliani household, "Christmas Eve") that this agenda, despite failing so obviously and in such a visible manner, is not only still breathing, but on the brink of a return. 

A mildly retarded man once said "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again" 

Not the case.

The 15 Worst Songs of the Decade

I’m generally more negative than positive - that’s your fault society – so it would only be fair to recognize the artists that raped my ears this decade. Most, if not all of these, were widely played everywhere: in stores, commercials and even on that archaic medium I only listen to on occasion: FM Radio. Some I had to google the actual name for, some I just guessed, and admittedly, some I kind of like. But liking something does not mean it’s not miserable (White Castle comes to mind). One more note: If I knew anything that Taylor Swift sang, it would be on this list. Away we go....

(Alright, it’s technically 16 but I didn’t feel like extending to 20)


#15 A. Toxicity - System of a Down. I believe this song hit it’s peak the same time that the Stacker 2 phenomena did. That’s not a coincidence.

#15 B. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley. I remember when, I remember when this song was everywheeeeeere. And I don’t miss it.

#14. Umbrella – Rihanna. This song is a living hella, hella, hella, hella. I’m not letting Chris Brown off the hook at all, but jeez, if I had to listen to this over and over again I don’t know that I could be responsible for my actions.

#13. Thank You – Dido. Eminem sampled it in “Stan”, and that was the perfect use of it. A touch of the chorus. We don’t need to hear the rest of your whining. And your “L” is missing.

#12. Hot In Here – Nelly. I don’t know what aggravates me more: The worst pickup line in history, or the hooker that concurs.

#11. Hey Ya – Outkast. My wife LOVES this song. It’s catchy, I can admit that. Doesn’t mean it’s not god awful.

#10. Cry Me a River – Justin Timberlake. While I can totally respect how the video turned Brittney Spears from rising diva to WT Joke, there’s three things this decade had too much of: George Bush, Natural Disasters, and Justin Timberlake. Even if he was the best SNL host since Ever.

#9. Where Is The Love – Black Eyed Peas. I might be making this up but I think Timberlake was involved in this musical stool softener.

#8. Since You’ve Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson. If I had avoided the “Live Earth” concert back in 2007 I probably wouldn’t even know this song. But they strategically placed this talentless bum in between Kanye West (who my wife wanted to see) and Dave Matthews Band (why I was there). And I’ve heard the song a million times since. Kurt Cobain’s dead. This woman sings on. Life aint fair at all.

#7. Your Body is a Wonderland – John Mayer. Melt all the teenage girls you want to John, but this is the most pathetic tripe tossed a woman’s way since Oz said “Suck Me, Beautiful” to that college chick.

#6. Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood. To find out the name (and artist) of this song I googles “Lyrics + Key + Four Wheel Drive + Smash + Louisville Slugger”. Seriously folks, that aint cool at all. Imagine if some hillbilly like Tim McGraw wrote a song about his revenge on a cheating girlfriend that involved skinning her cat?

#5.Yellow – Coldplay. Take 2 parts cheese, 1 part whining, a dash of acoustic guitar and add piss-poor lyrics to taste, and you have Coldplay’s breakthrough single. I once read somebody compare these dudes to U2. That’s fine, if you don't mind me comparing my basketball abilities to LeBron James just because I'm from North America too.

#4. You’re Beautiful – James Blunt. Now take the worst parts of “Yellow”, line them up with “Your Body is a Wonderland, reduce it to its lowest common denominator and you have this abomination. Enough to make you hemorrhage from your ear drums. A good way to keep deer out of your yard though.

#3. Single Ladies – Beyonce. A moment of silence for Aretha Franklin. No longer is “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” the staple song at weddings and karaoke bars for the single, desperate and dejected. It was a hell of a run Aretha, but it’s time to pass the crown to Mrs. Z. The many bridesmaids over the years who brought their gay friend or coworker to weddings thank you for your years of service.

#2. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue – Toby Keith. “Time” just wrote a very long, 5 page cover story on everything that was wrong with this decade. They could have saved a tree and summed it up in two words: Toby Keith. Some people enlisted. Some gave blood. Some devoted their resources to finding renewable resources. Toby Keith was so outraged by what those Iraqis did on 9/11 that he wrote a song. I didn’t think the national discourse could be lowered after “Smoke’em outta their holes…dead or alive”. Well, that was before I heard “We’ll stick a boot in your ass, it’s the American Way”. FUTK.

#1. Hey There Delilah – The Plain White T’s. I follow congress pretty closely, but I admit, I missed that law they passed a few years ago that said if you were a girl between the ages of 15 and 25 that this had to be the profile song on your myspace page.
Easiest way to get me to hate your tune is to put it in a GAP commercial. But when that only accounts for 3% of the times I hear it, the blood starts to boil. Say this about James Blunt and Coldplay – they can squeal, but at least they know how to squeal. The screeching, scathing whines are brought to new heights by these song-molesters. And it’s now stuck in my head. Ooooooooooooooooooooh what you dooooooooooo to meeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Put me out of my misery.

My 30 Best Albums of the Decade: #4

If my dear friend and former bunkmate found it absurd that Eminem was ranked higher than Bruce, I fully expect a gasket to be blown this time...

#4. American Idiot - Green Day

Poignant. Telling. Reflective. Captivating. American.

I could probably describe American Idiot with paragraphs full of one word sentences (no, really I can’t, the above took me five minutes) because the album itself conjures up many different emotions. But what gets me the most about the album in its entirety is the picture it paints of early decade America. Post 9/11. Pre-Katrina.

I first heard the title track like many other people (or, I should say “men”) – as it was included on the soundtrack for the Madden 04 Playstation game. Really, this was a stroke of genius for bands to promote their work – the song would play as you were shuffling through the game options: franchise set-up, trading, stats, schedules, everything but the actual game itself. And because Madden was more addictive than crystal meth, you’d put in your good 5 hours a day and hence, become one with the songs without even realizing it.

After about 2 weeks of playing Madden, I was like “Hey, this is Green Day. Didn’t I used to listen to them back in 1994?” Which led to “Wait a minute? Is this song actually speaking out against the masses?”

And that it was. The long story is that Idiot in its entirety is a critique of all aspects of suburban society, from the plastic entertainment options available to the easy way out solutions of prescription drugs. And fine, I’ll take that for what it’s worth at face value. The album as a whole follows the protagonist, “Jesus of Suburbia” on a long journey of unfortunate discoveries about reality. But surprise, surprise, what really hooked me with the entire disc is how Suburban America got called out on the carpet.

I mentioned earlier how many Americans selectively forget what the nation was like in 02-03: many of those chanting “Yes We Can” last year were also referring to French Fries as “Freedom Fries”. And for crying out loud. Was there ever a more petty, nonsensical, bigger display of immaturity in history? Renaming side dishes? Really? Well open a newspaper pal: France 1 – You 0.

What killed me here was being backed into having to defend France though. France versus the Cavemen was the most difficult match to watch since the Lakers and Bulls squared off in the 1991 NBA Finals.

The high water mark of the album is probably the spoken verse in “Holiday”:

Sieg Heil to the President Gasman, Bombs away is your punishment

Pulverize the Eiffel Towers, Who criticize your government

Bang bang goes the broken glass and Kill all the f*gs that don't agree

Trials by fire setting fire, Is not a way that's meant for me

In four short sentences, they manage to summarize everything that was wrong at the time, and in some cases still is:

· The propaganda tactics that would have made Joseph Goebbels blush

· The childish demonizing of France

· The rampant homophobia that’s been a stain on our search for a More Perfect Union

· The absolute intolerance for anyone who thought “Um hey…this might not be the best idea”

The most precious American value is our natural right of Free Speech, and in a time dominated by the steamrolling of Dixie Chicks albums and the unfortunate pouring of French wine and vodka down the sewer (alcohol abuse!) it was comforting to see someone take advantage of this sacred responsibility.

Like many albums, there’s some tracks that just don’t pass the smell test. “Wake Me Up When September Ends” is one of the more annoying tunes of the decade and about as useless as tits on a bull to the flow of the rest of the album. It’s deficiency is more than compensated though, from the “Jesus of Suburbia” suite, to the deeper, anthemesque “Give Me Novacaine”, all the way through the dramatic conclusion of “Whatsername”.

The album as a whole is a masterpiece coming from a very, very unlikely source. Combined with beer, “The West Wing”, and my wife’s sanity/love,I don’t know how I’d have gotten through the 1st part of the decade without it.

My 30 Best Albums of the Decade: 20 - 16

Moving along, I wish I knew who the hell Taylor Swift was, so Kanye West could chime in and deprive her of a place on this chart.

#20: Encore - Eminem: Simple: If an album samples Martika, and also contains the lyric "Fuck Bush", I'm in all likelihood going to enjoy said album. Not my favorite Eminem disc, probably because it's a little muted in comparison to his earlier recordings. He's obviously an enigma and few musicians can spark as much love/hate opinions as him (really, do you know anyone who thinks "Eminem is OK"?), like everything else these days - likely fashioned by the media. But I'll get into that a little later cause methinks he'll be appearing on the countdown again. This album rocks because of the track "Mosh". It should have been released around Labor Day (not 10 days before the election), because it caught the essence of the 2004 election: We're not coming out to vote for John Kerry - We're coming out to vote because Bush/Cheney is the most dangerous threat to our democracy since the day before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. John Kerry was a hard guy to get behind, but the vitriol for Bush that Mr. Shady put forth here summed up the motivating factors behind George Bush receiving the most "votes against" ever by a President running for re-election.

#19: In Between Now and Then - O.A.R: The first of three bands I really got into this decade makes it's debut. Now, O.A.R studio is a far cry from O.A.R live - which is much more enjoyable music. Still, of all their studio work, this one seems to rise above the rest in terms of quality of the tracks. Their lyrics are a tad sophomoric and I think they try a little too hard to be like other tour-bands, but at the end of the day, they're a fun band to throw on the machine. Hey Girl and Dareh Meyod highlight the album and also translate very well on their live discs. Never been to one of their shows, as scheduling conflicts seem to arise every summer as our time gets burglarized by commitments we'd really rather not honor, but one of these days, I'll hit them up. Guess I should start collecting party beads now.

#18: Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs: Jack White was to good 00's music as Ryan Seacrest was to annoying, poppy, fluffy, tabloid supermarket crap this decade - He was everywhere. I chose Ryan Seacrest for the analogy because he was pretty much the anti-Jack White. While White was involved in near-iconic albums throughout the entire decade, Seacrest was fluffing up his overexposed resume with such tripe like A Celebration of Heroes with George W. Bush and of course, the decade's septic tank: American Idol. He even took over for the indestructible Dick Clark on New Year's Eve, although Clark still made his appearances and I was supposed to not crack up laughing at them after 20 beers. Riiiight. Anyway, Broken Boy Soldiers is pretty much everything rock'n roll should be, rock at its roots. Intelligent lyrics that capture the essence of just being a human, along with solid intros and exceptional music. Really can't say a bad thing about it. And America didn't have to vote via text-message to approve of it.

17: Float - Flogging Molly: Of all the things I'm grateful for this decade - you know, stuff like getting married and Eli Manning - few things have impacted me the way that the music acquisition practices have changed. I've always felt that the Irish do 3 things better than any other culture: Drink, Make Breakfast, and Play Music. For most of my life, Irish Music was limited to the traditional folk songs and some rebel rock like the Wolftones. Because that's what I had access too. And then came the internet music explosion. And then came Flogging Molly. Formed in LA with a frontman from Dublin, they pretty much encompass everything I've always loved about music. And their subject matter touches all bases: relationships, war, peace, politics, rebellion, family, and of course, the unique Irish perspective on alcohol. Float is their most critically acclaimed album, probably because it's their most mature. A worthy investment, the album's perfect for a big party, a solitary commute and everything in between.

16: Modern Times - Bob Dylan: Something tells me that if I were to rank the top 30 albums of previous decades in my collection, this would make it the 5th consecutive decade that the Legendary Bob Dylan would rank in the top 20, as The Freewheeling Bob Dylan was probably the greatest album of the 1960s, Blood on the Tracks would hold the exact same honor for the 1970s, Infidels would have some stiff competition but would rank among the 80's best, and Time Out of Mind would do the same for the 1990s. What else is there to say about a man who continues to impress and amaze as he pushes towards his 6th decade in the spotlight? Modern Times basically takes a little bit of the definitive "Dylan Sound" that we're all accustomed to - from classic folk, to rock, to blues, sometimes all blended together - and adds the wisdom of a lifetime of experience by the greatest lyricist in American History. It's also the 23rd consecutive album to disprove the common misconception that "All Dylan sounds the same" yet the fallacy lives on.

One of the true enigmas of the last 50 years, I can't even begin to explain what my life would be like without Bob Dylan so I'm not going to bother. It's no wonder Dylan's favorite ballplayer is Derek Jeter.