I'm okay with Paula Deen's fate, but don't let it happen to you

I know the next few things that I want to write, but I keep getting hung up on the order. Maybe this is a good place to start. It involves racial issues and fairness, but no one is dead.

(Yesterday's post was kind of about George Zimmerman, but honestly, I think it will be a while before I will be able to blog about it directly.)

As you may have guessed from the title, I am not weeping for Paula Deen, but I know some people do feel it's unfair that a white person can be so badly punished for using the N-word when black people do it all the time with impunity. That is not what's going on though, and that's what I want to write about, and then provide tips so other people do not encounter the same problems.

Obviously Paula is having a hard time with this, and it does not seem she really understands how this came about, or why. It may be too late for her, but not for everyone else.

Here's the thing about getting television shows and celebrity endorsements; those sponsoring you are banking on your attraction to their audience. They may or may not like you personally, but this is business because that's capitalism. If at some point you seem like more of a liability than an asset, they are probably going to quit throwing cash your way.

And different people can get away with different things. Yes, there are people who use the N-word without it hurting their career. There are people of multiple races who do not like this, and probably people of multiple races who do not care. There is room for some fascinating discussion on subverting the language of the oppressor by adopting it, and I actually do plan to post on that at some point in the future, but that will be gender driven.

For now, we don't need that discussion, because that's not what this is about. Whether they are athletes or musicians in this case, they are appealing to a different audience, and conveying a different image that their audience appreciates. They are banking on appearing dangerous, rebellious, and anti-establishment, and generally speaking they are not selling hams and cookware. Even so, they still have boundaries, and if you suddenly become a suspect in multiple homicides, or connected to dog fighting rings, those types of endorsements can dry up too.

(Nike will stay with you longer than most, but even they have their limits.)

So Paula Deen had one type of image, and it was a lucrative one, but it also required her to be likable. For her to maintain that, she actually needed to be really careful. There were already people who did not like her for failing to acknowledge other aspects of Southern Cuisine beyond the fat-laden, for failing to acknowledge the history of the food, and for her specific recipes doing little more than adding a gob of mayonnaise. Still, she survived that.

Her image also took a bit of a beating when she announced that she had Type-2 diabetes, that it was related to the unhealthy eating that she was pushing, and that she had hid it for two years, only admitting it to take another endorsement for a medication.

That should have been a learning experience, because she took a lot of flack, and she did have to change her message. It should have taught her that she was not invulnerable, and to think about her responses. This does not appear to have happened.

If you are a celebrity chef, and you have restaurants, when there are things that go wrong with them, that has the potential to make news. This should not surprise anyone. That might be a good reason to make sure employees are treated well. It was not reason enough.

Even so, Paula probably could have come out of this pretty well by blaming everything on her brother. It might not be fair, but she could argue that being busy with the show and cookbooks and empire, she could not possibly affect the restaurants that much, and it would be easy for people to think bad things about someone named "Bubba".

And I don't think it's because she loves her brother too much to do that; I think she was too clueless to think of that. When you are being asked questions about a hostile work environment, and race is an issue, and someone asks you if you have ever said the N-word, "Of course" is the wrong answer! That when asked for further detail she went back to an old incident where she had been traumatized shows some realization that it's a problem, but not enough. Imagine if it had gone this way:

"Have you ever used the N word?"
"Yes. I was held at gunpoint by a black man once, and when I was telling my husband about it I was still so angry and upset that I did. It was stupid and ugly, but I was lashing out."

It's not really that different from what she said. It still leaves the impression she only said it one time, without actually stating that, but it's so much less glib, and so much more indicative of some understanding of why using that word matters.

Still, the issue with the plantation theme, saying that she can't know what would offend people (Really? You have no idea at all?), the inability to stumble through a five sentence apology without editing -- it all conveys that she does not get it.

And this leads us to the first step in not getting Paula Deen'd, and many celebrities could learn from this (including Orson Scott Card): a bad apology is worse than no apology!

No, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't apologize, but it does mean that you should do it right. "I'm sorry if you were offended," does not work. Adding a "but" in the apology does not work. You need to acknowledge where you were wrong, and that means understanding why you were wrong, even if you have to hire someone to explain it to you.

I really believe she could have survived this one if she had just handled it better, but that would have involved a greater understanding outside of the world of her own privilege. This is where we get the bonus round: try and understand what other people's lives are like. Look deeper. Don't just write off prejudices and stereotypes that don't affect you, so clearly it is all in their heads. It's very convenient to believe that everyone has the same opportunities and privileges as you; but basing your worldview on false beliefs is the kind of thing that can come back and haunt you later.

Getting there was largely luck, not virtue, and falling was largely stupidity, not persecution. And you know, if you don't lose your popularity until after you have made millions of dollars, that's a privilege right there that most people don't get.

Band Review: The Castellers

The Castellers are another band that followed me on Twitter, and this is a great time to review them, because they are currently in a battle of the bands across Manchester to win over £900 worth of recording sessions,  which would be an amazing opportunity.

So, part of this review is encouraging you to go to http://systemonetravel.wix.com/botb and vote for them. The voting form has been a little tricky, so I recommend you hit the dropdown arrow for band selection first, and then fill in your name and email address. You can certainly listen to the other bands as well - Manchester produces some great sounds - but I know whom I voted for. voting continues through July 26th.

They list their genre as British Rock on Facebook, and that was interesting to me because the first group that I thought of was The Byrds, who are American of course, but an American band at the time of the British Invasion, who were both influenced and were influenced by it. Other things that came to mind were The Animals on "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", Van Morrison on "Gloria", and bits of Dick Dale (the Surf King) and the Beatles as influenced by Ravi Shankar. So, we are looking at a fairly specific time, though perhaps multiple places.

What you might guess from that last paragraph, other than questions about my music knowledge and sanity, is prominent guitars, entrancing rhythms, and feels a bit cosmic at times.

This is essentially getting a feeling from three songs. We have the haunting "Jackson In The Barrel", a more rocking "To The Gallows", and a lilting "Five Days Time" falls somewhere in between for tempo. However, I bet they could produce several more songs with, say, £900 worth of recording sessions. It really makes you think.

https://www.facebook.com/TheCastellersMusic

https://twitter.com/thecastellers

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheCastellers

Band Review: Naked Fridays

Naked Fridays is another band where a member followed me, instead of the band. This is fine of course, but the funny thing in this case was that I did not realize for quite a while that Reuben was even in a band. So, I possibly could have reviewed them sooner. He isn't really using his profile for band promotion, but also, this is probably a good time to mention them. They are back in the studio, working on some things, so this is a good time to get excited.

One interesting thing about the band is that on the video for "The Weatherman"  they put that they didn't know what genre to call it and were looking for suggestions. On Facebook, for the band overall they use the term "electronic rock", which works, but they do in fact experiment a lot, which makes the categorization harder.

The grooves do keep going back to rock, but it gets a bit cerebral at times, and there are frequently these small but creative flourishes, throwing in the unexpected.

They are a young band, and at times it shows in a lack of polish, but they nonetheless play with power and meaning, carried by the sincerity of the performance.

Due to the innovation within the songs, it is hard to pick either a favorite or a most representative song. I keep suspecting that my personal favorite is "Electric Drive" , but then I think of the other songs and I am not sure. Liking all of the songs and finding them all interesting is not exactly a problem though.

At this point, the best listening source is Youtube, with twice the available songs of Facebook, as well as some studio and performance footage. Enjoy!

https://twitter.com/Naked_Fridays

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Naked-Fridays/102378276471884?fref=ts

http://www.youtube.com/user/NakedFridays?feature=watch

A daily hat

When I reviewed Mindless Self Indulgence back in May, I did mention how warm and wonderful Kitty and Lindsey were, but I did not go into details. Meeting Lindsey was especially transformative, though I did not realize it at the time.

(And I should just get it out of the way that I don't know if Lindsey, Lynz, or Lyn-Z is preferred.)

Let me say that in person she just radiates sweetness, but on stage she attacks that bass, and is amazing. So basically what I said when I talked to her was that I knew I would never be as fierce as her, but I was starting bass and I was going to try. She told me I should put it on my head.

My first thought was that was crazy. For one thing, my bass seems big for that. Honestly I would probably be better off with a smaller model, but this is the one from the dream, and I respect that. Regardless of guitar size, my initial response tends to be that I can't do cool things. It turns out that I did not understand what she was saying.

I had seen via Twitter that sometimes she posted pictures labeled "My daily hat", and I had looked at some, but not that carefully I guess. Some of them were from a distance, and it wasn't until she posted the next one after the concert that I realized, oh, she has her bass on her head. She apparently does this daily. She is not posting every time, and probably not taking a picture every time, but it is a daily hat.

That had me thinking about it more. I mean, this was not her just being silly at me. She was telling me to try something she does regularly. Obviously the next thing to do was to put my bass on my head.

The first realization was that if you have a daily commitment to getting the bass on top of your head, that will almost certainly translate into daily practice. Yes, you can just do the hat and be done, but once you have it out, might as well play a little. That made it valuable right there.

The first time I did it, I tweeted something, and it was subtle, but one of my other bass playing friends picked up on it. She said she was afraid of balancing it, which is why she didn't do it. Okay, I had held mine up with my hands, but that started me thinking that I had cheated; I should try actually balancing it. Well, that has its own added value, because then you are paying more attention to posture, and you are developing an extra level of familiarity with the instrument and its shape and center of gravity and heft.

Also, it makes me more adventurous. I'm already doing something a little different, and so maybe I am more likely to swing it around, or toss or flip it, or get down on my knees and play that way, hypothetically.

This valuable advice sort of opens up the world. When I was thinking about other bass players, and what I could learn from them, my initial thoughts were still always self-deprecating. John Taylor is the only person I would call a sexy beast unironically; I can't do anything he does. And yet, reading his biography, what drew him to bass, and what he writes about it, does make sense to me, and I got to his mentioning fretless bass just at the point that I was wondering about it.

Pete Wentz? I don't know; I think a lot of his moves must come from skateboarding, and I can't start that now, except that now saying "can't" seemss to make things inevitable. I am going to have broken bones because of Pete Wentz.

I don't know what I'm going to learn from Alex Levine and Scott Shriner and Bill Leen and Dan Andriano, but I know am listening differently now, and watching differently, and so there will be things. Matt Rubano gives Skype lessons, so maybe one day he will be my teacher, and not just the guy I couldn't save from vampires, committing me to learning some kind of hand to hand combat in the future.

It also opens up possibilities in the other direction, that I might be able to help someone. One of my friends has a son, Sam, who really reminded me of Ray Toro when I first saw him. It was just this flash, but I thought he is going to be a great guitarist some day. I wished I could have some part in that, but I didn't think I had anything to offer. Maybe I will. Or maybe I will just buy him a box of picks; I don't know how this is going to turn out.

The most valuable lesson in this is probably to quit automatically saying "no" about myself. It's nice that I come around eventually, but I might get even more out of these things if I heard them right the first time.

But also, this is really important. Everything you hear, when people talk about how beautiful and perfect Lindsey Way is, is true, but more than that, she is right. She is insightful.

Listen to Lindsey Way. She knows stuff.

I reference many things here that may sound odd, but they have been covered in other posts, so here is an easy reference.

MSI Review:http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/concert-review-mindless-self-indulgence.html

The dream guitar is a 3-part story, but the second part is not as much about the guitar:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-dream-guitar-story-in-three-parts
html http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/04/but-it-was-guitar-too.html

Losing Matt Rubano to vampires is mostly in the first link, but started in the second one:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/03/all-about-family-blood.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/03/kids-in-street-week.html

A weekly lesson

This is another thing that I decided to do in Italy. Actually, I have been thinking about doing it for a long time, since other trips to Italy, but this time I have actually gotten started.

There are things that are great about knowing multiple languages, and there are things that are helpful about studying similar languages, but it can also be confusing. Sometimes I am just remembering the wrong word, and because of the similarities, it is harder to get around it.

Once a week now I am making up a worksheet or two, with pictures and vocabulary. Obviously I would put Italian, French, and Spanish, but I was thinking about doing more. My Lao is rusty, and while I was never fluent in Norwegian, I would like to get better at it, but they are so different, their inclusions might not actually be helpful. This led to two decisions.

One is that after I draw the sheets with the pictures (and yes, this whole thing is largely an excuse to draw also) I photocopy them, and I write the actual words on the copy. If at some point I decide to do sheets with Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, or Norwegian, German, and Dutch, or Norwegian, Laotian, and Turkish (which would be weird, but we'll see what comes up), I can.

The other decision was to add Portuguese. I have never studied Portuguese, but in various jobs, and now on Twitter, I see a fair amount, and I can get the gist, but there are words I don't know, and it's not automatic. Anyway, I was thinking I could add the Portuguese, and give some reinforcement there.

The thing is, you see patterns with it. Sometimes one vowel in one language is almost always a different vowel in a different language, and you get an idea for the how it evolved, which improves your understanding of new words. For example, if I remember correctly, "e" in Norwegian tends to become "a" in Danish, like "deg" and "dag".

Some things are completely different, but there are lessons in that too, like some food words in Portuguese I suspect came from the native words during the colonization of Brazil. Sometimes there were two words with similar meanings, but one become dominant in one culture, and one in the other. So with "to work", you have travailler, trabajar, and trabalhar (which seems to come from a torture device), but in Italian it's lavorare, which comes from the word for "to wash". They have equivalents in the other languages for washing specifically, but that's what they use for work in Italy. So some of that is linguistics, and studying Latin would help, but some of it is perhaps history and anthropology too.

I do have some concern about the Portuguese in that I don't really have any background knowledge to draw from, but I am not expecting fluency from this. I expect my linguistic understanding to be more well-rounded, and I expect to be able to comprehend some tweets faster. Honestly, I already usually understand Portuguese tweets more quickly than French ones now, because the French ones are usually "Putain" with some proper nouns, so I know that the named thing has irritated the tweeter in some way, but have no context.

I do not doubt that if I also studied Catalan, Provençal, and Romansh (actually, there are a ton of them) that my linguistic understanding would expand even more, but it would be much harder to track things down, with very little chance to apply, and I need to be somewhat practical. I will say, though, that even with Romanian being an Eastern, not a Western Romance language, I understand "Dragostea din tei" (the Numa Numa song) when I am singing it. I mean, I had not previously known any non-English words for "linden tree", but once I knew that word was in there, it was pretty obvious which one it was.

As it turns out, I can't fit that many pictures and words on a page, so this is not a fast process, and I am keeping it pretty simple. I have mainly done nouns, and I will do some adjectives and prepositions, but verbs and conjugation are a long way off. However, it reminds me of things. As I start drawing, I remember words I learned, and other things come back. I feel like it will be helpful; if not, it's still kind of fun.

Basically I am doing little drawings and geeking out over words. This is my thing.

A monthly comic

While drawing in Italy, I realized that while being able to depict objects and make them look right is important, there is more than that required for comic books; you have to be able to tell a story. I knew this, but I hadn't thought about it.

Actually, it came from something that happened on the flight. I already wrote about it, but for a time I did not think I could put it into words, and yet, it was significant. I wondered if I could draw it.

That didn't seem very likely. Hands are really hard for me, and to show tears rising up around the eyeballs, but not making it past the eyelids, isn't going to convey the right sentiment. However, as I was doing my other sketching during the week, I decided that once a month, I should draw a comic with a story. I had already done the one for the MOOC in May (http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/badly-drawn-girl-my-first-comic.html), so I just needed to start thinking about June, and then keep it up.

After tossing various idea around, I decided to do a scene from the Family Blood screenplay, where the hikers die. It's short and visceral, and the fact that there are no band members in it takes some pressure off. I did some sketches and practiced drawing, and I kept hating everything.

Finally, on June 30th, I scrapped it and drew a few wordless panels on the life and death of a dandelion, inspired by an odd looking weed in our backyard that I could see from the dinner table. It is also pretty ugly, but I drew it, and I learned in the process.

I did remember to include margins this time. I am rather proud of myself for that. I am thinking that I want to create the panels on the computer, and then draw. If I am printing the sheets out before any drawing, I definitely have margins, so it would help for that. I could use a ruler to do the layout. Actually, I did a few music video storyboards in junior high, so I know I can do that, but it's a pain, and I should probably save the annoying parts for the drawing. Also, doing that on the computer is forcing me to picture the layout more clearly, which I think will be helpful.

A lot of it is just that I need more drawing skill, but building that up will take time. Intellectually I feel it will be valuable to hone my visual storytelling skill at the same time. Emotionally, it keeps me excited. I keep getting all these other ideas.

The June story doesn't look right because the last panel is too static, and dandelions don't really get that droopy, but I wanted to convey the move towards the end. Well, maybe I can do it with Cosmos instead, or leaves, or I could add color, or just try it one more time when I am better at this. Maybe I could do a music video again, or a commercial, but they function as a story. I am going to do the scene I wanted. There are so many possibilities.

And all of that is not even mentioning the one idea I have that is going to be so long and involved that I probably will not even be able to draw it until May for the 1 year anniversary of me drawing monthly comics, where a simple bass-off between friends ends up involving a soul sucking demon, inter and intra dimensional portals, zombies, construction equipment, and Fall Out Boy singer Patrick Stump.

(It's actually better if we have the real bass-off before I draw it and make the participants nervous about possible repercussions. Like we would even do it at a crossroads on the midnight of a lunar eclipse occurring on the winter solstice!)

I suppose the next obvious question is whether I will be posting these. I have actually been able to scan something successfully, but there is still the issue of the links on freepdfhosting only being good for 30 days. I am probably going to need to get set up with Dropbox, and just keep a comic archive there with a link, but we'll see. You're not missing anything awesome yet. Yet!

For now, I did have another drawing session based on a weird conversation, and that is what I successfully scanned. So here's a couple of pink zebracorns.

Band Review: Turrentine Jones

There are three reasons why today is the perfect day to review Turrentine Jones. First of all, I wanted to focus on British bands, since with 4th of July weekend might throw off the schedule for some of my US readers, and you can't really go wrong looking in Manchester. Also, they recently performed at the Glastonbury Music Festival, so should have some buzz going on. Finally, it's Blues Fest here at home, and this is the blues-iest of the bands on my review list.

Although the band members appear to be relatively young, there is an older feel, not just because it is blues, but even with the rather retro keyboards used. That feeling is enhanced but the black and white videos they have made, especially for Della May, with a video that is cleanly simple and effective.

I will say that while "blues" seems like the best classification, they do at times remind me of the Doors, whom I never thought of as a blues band. That's okay, music doesn't fit into tidy little boxes, and that is one of the best things about it.

You can find five songs easily via Amazon, iTunes, or Spotify, but do check out the video for Della May, via either the main web site or the Youtube channel regardless. Again, the video does work well, but also there is a really cute baby. And the song is a pretty good introduction to the band.

http://www.turrentinejones.co.uk/

https://www.youtube.com/user/turrentinejonestv

https://www.facebook.com/TurrentineJones?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/TurrentineJones

http://www.amazon.com/s?_encoding=UTF8&field-artist=Turrentine%20Jones&search-alias=music

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/turrentine-jones/id496859281?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Band review: Puppet Rebellion

Actually, Puppet Rebellion does not follow me, but two of its members do, so good enough. It got me listening, and I like them! Still, the connection did essentially happen through Twitter. (And thanks Chris and Jim.)

Puppet Rebellion is a five member indie band from Manchester. In describing them as "Indie", I take that off of their web page, but it is not the most useful of labels, as many indie bands are overly intellectual and precious without any heart. That is not the case here. Puppet Rebellion plays with passion and intensity about honesty and making it through life.

There does not seem to be a way to purchase any music now, but you can listen to some good tunes on Soundcloud. They don't have their own Youtube channel, but fans have posted live footage from a few performances, and it's pretty fun to watch. That also gives you a chance at some extra song titles, like "Green-Eyed Monster".

And really, if I counted correctly, there are just five videos and three songs (four tracks, because there is a second version of "The Greatest Lie Ever Told"), so there is not a lot to work with perhaps, but at the same time, there is no reason not to take a few minutes and listen to the full Soundcloud offering

That being said, I do also recommend checking out the blog on their web site. They write thoughtfully and intelligently about music. Actually, Soundcloud is embedded in the web site, so puppetrebellion.com is the most logical starting place.

This is an endorsement. Check them out.

http://www.puppetrebellion.com/

https://soundcloud.com/puppetrebellion

https://www.facebook.com/PuppetRebellion?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/PuppetRebellion

Culture and Celebration

On our last night in Italy, my cousins and I were walking my brother and his wife to the train station. Between il Centro and the station is a park, and Betti was telling me that this is where they hold the annual fair. My mother had mentioned the fair many times, so that was kind of special to realize this was the spot.

I told Betti about how we have the Rose Festival in June. She told me that in June they have a Gay Pride celebration, and I told her ours is in June too. After I translated, Lance asked if they had the Naked Bike Ride too. Translating that was a little more difficult, and it led to some joking, but no, they do not have that.

That was just a fun little conversation over a short walk, but what caused me to think of it was a different conversation that has been on my mind as I write about Portland and how we are. My sisters were telling me about a friend who was bothered that all of the things we celebrate are from other cultures, and we don't really celebrate our own. I should specify that this conversation happened about halfway between St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo.

Where do I start? My first thought was that this is the complaint of someone watching Fox News, which I know runs in her house a lot. Also, those are not really good examples of another culture taking over. Cinco de Mayo is celebrated more in the United States than in Mexico. Some regions do celebrate it, especially Pueblo, their small regional holiday is largely an excuse to drink here. Sure, they will call the beer "cerveza", and break out the tequila, but that does not make it a triumph of Mexican culture.

Our celebrations of Saint Patrick's Day are similar. The beer is green, and it's Guinness instead of tequila, but still it's basically an alcohol thing. The sad part about this is that my understanding growing up was always that in Ireland the primary commemoration was going to Mass, but this year an Irish girl tweeted about her father being dressed up as a leprechaun and heading to the pub, and I'm afraid we did that to them. Our culture remains dominant (and possibly in need of a 12- step program). Of course, we add fun runs and big sales to everything too, but still, those seem like very American things.

What should a celebration of American culture even involve? A hot dog eating contest? We don't have one locally, but those happen. There will be fireworks all over the place Thursday night, and parades in some places. Some things have faded over time, but if the Latin Music Festival outdraws the Rodeo, that's not because of the immigrants; it's because of the natives not wanting to go to the rodeo.

My heritage is Italian, and that is important to me, but I pretty much never go to the Festa Italiana, and I try to never miss the Greek Festival. There's no self-hatred or family forgetfulness there, but there are things that I like at the Greek Fest that I only get there, and I get Italian culture in different ways.

Even if we do not need to go out of the way to get steeped in American culture or Oregon or Portland culture, we do have a lot of festivals here that do relate to our history and environment. There is the Rose Festival, and festivals for garlic and tulips, and corn mazes at Halloween, and lots of smaller agricultural celebrations. I don't think they still do Boones Ferry Days, but I'm pretty sure the Crawfish festival still happens.

Maybe we are less connected to our agrarian background, and there are downsides to that, but how about Wordstock, Ignite Portland, Stumptown Comics Fest and Rose City Comic Con, First Thursday, the Waterfront Blues Fest, and the Portland Bridge Pedal? Doesn't that celebrate the local culture?

One thing this person says frequently is that we value the wrong things, and that may be true, and that goes with what I was saying yesterday. We do need to choose what is important, consciously, and protect the things that are important. But if we get into this mood of being besieged, it's too easy to find fault with everything and it is taking attention away from the real threats. That once a year you can go to Pacific University and watch Tongans dance and eat traditional food does not threaten society the way underfunded schools or cuts in public transportation do.

I guess really what I am trying to say is Happy Independence Day, and for the love of all that is good and pure, please quit watching Fox News. I know CNN and MSNBC have been disappointing lately, but still, don't watch Fox.

Protecting Paradise

When we left off, a combination of natural resources, leadership, and some luck combined to make Portland highly livable and favorable towards creative types. Even the rain, while making things green, may also help keep the cost of living down by making the land less desirable to Californians.

There was this threat hanging overhead: what might cause the creative types to move away? And the not fully explained response would be if something changed that they couldn't live with.

As the lack of racial diversity had kept coming up, I initially thought it could be perhaps related to minority issues, like if that somehow became worse. The Portland Police Department does not have the best reputation with some groups (though the more I look at it, the more the common denominator appears to be mental illness). If we were to start persecuting homeless people more, or if panhandling increased, would that do it. Would you move if they put fluoride in the water? Or would you move if they didn't? While I do see many points of concern, I don't know that any of them would be better elsewhere.

We do not have the most racially diverse society here, and I suspect there is more latent racism than we like to admit, but at the same time, no one has been trying to rig elections or eliminate expanded voting hours so working people can't make it to the polls. There are a lot of states that look worse on that issue.

While I have decided that I am against the death penalty and would rather see it eliminated, I have to admit that we are much more judicious and careful with it than most states. And really, that's more of a reason to be alarmed about other states, but okay, at least we try.

Perhaps the worst potential threat is the underfunded education system, because while the ramifications may be more of a concern for parents, the quality of local education affects everyone. It affects the possibilities for jobs and businesses by how it feeds into the workforce, and it affects the civility of the society. It will affect crime rates, because it affects how people engage with society.

Funding goes back to money, and that social mobility and ability to buy houses goes back to money, and there are other ways money has an impact too.

For example, a big part of keeping our nature preserved is keeping environmental regulations followed. The Department of Environmental Quality often finds itself not very effective, whether because of underfunding, or caving to pressure from the powerful, it can be hard to say.

Most of what I know about DEQ issues comes from Steve Duin, a columnist for the Oregonian, our local paper. They just sold off part to a media company, laid off 90 people, and are radically changing their practices. They have done some really powerful reporting in the past. I feel like that's ending.

Nike's main campus sits just outside of the Beaverton city boundaries, though in an odd, island kind of way. They do provide jobs, but it is silly that they are for all intents and purposes inside the city, except for paying city taxes. Beaverton did try to fix that, and Nike used all their considerable power to successfully squash that. Now, I don't deny that Beaverton was clumsy about it, and that the mayor involved was being a tool, but that doesn't make Nike's attitude right.

(A lot of foolishness has come via Portland mayors too. Too much to get into.)

Usually, when I am worrying about something going on politically or socially, a large part of the problem is corporate influence. That's not it every single time, but money influences a lot, and for bad reasons.

I absolutely do not think that Portland is worse than any other area for this. We're probably better than most. Even with some of those cities that were mentioned in the entrepreneur article yesterday, okay, if you're in Austin, you're still in Texas. If you're in Madison, your governor is still Scott Walker. Sorry.

These problems are bigger than Portland, and I am not quite ready to go off on politics and economics yet. My personal reading right now is all civil rights and mental illness, and I probably need to get quite a bit more read before I can even go there.

What I will say is that we need to make conscious choices about what we value. A lot of the choices that get made now work primarily to consolidate money and power more and more in the hands of those who already have it, and it is disastrous. How to make things better is something I think about a lot, and I don't really have any good answers yet, so tomorrow I'm just going to talk about Rose Festival. Sort of.

The Promised Land

I remember Mr. Pitzer, my AP History teacher, telling us about speculative history, where people would hypothesize on how things could have gone differently. One suggestion was that if American settlement had started on the Pacific side, there would not have been an eastward push similar to the push westward, because the soil and growing seasons were so much more favorable here. As it was, they did start in the East, so the dense populations are there, with bigger lots available for less money here.

Many Portland-based comic book artists mentioned being able to afford a house here. Low housing prices are a big part of livability, but they are only part of it. We are also lucky to have power locally, via dams, wind farms, and natural gas deposits. The utilities in Italy are really high because everything is imported from other countries. I had never thought about it before until talking with my cousins. We take it for granted.

We are also lucky from a food point of view. I'm not really big on beef, but when I want to find some grass fed, instead of factory lot corn fed, it's easy. There are local grown fruits and vegetables of every kind. If it's not tropical, it grows here. That reduces transportation costs, thus reducing the overall cost. If you get back East sometimes, take a look in the produce section of a grocery store, and see how lucky we are.

This is not just a benefit in that someone who is willing to prioritize creativity or social consciousness over money can still have some quality of life here. In addition, there are more options available. If someone wants to experiment with organic farming or beekeeping, there is the space for it. All of those factors work together to make Portland a place where the earnest and creative can thrive.

I think there is also something to be said for the landscape itself. I know that you don't have to go that far to find ocean, mountains, or desert, but I spend most of my time in the tree-covered hills, and they probably play a role too. I feel like it is easy to connect with nature here, and maybe that helps us connect to other people better, or to have a better sense of our roots in the earth.

I can see how getting out in the woods or mountains could make you feel small, but that might be good. I lean more towards the ecstatic. Breathing fresh air and hearing bird calls cheers me. I like the energy of downtown Portland, which has its fair share of trees anyway, but getting a little bit away from buildings and cars is important for me to thrive.

I have never thought about rainy days making it easy to work. It probably does help some people. However, it may be more to the point that the rain is often light, or only sporadic, and rarely so severe that you can't go out in it. We don't tend to have the bitter cold or the oppressive heat that keeps people indoors. It does not matter when I go outside for a walk; there will be other people out.

So, I think these are some of the factors that have made it possible for Portland to foster a strong creative community, but the raw materials are not enough. Remember, Dark Horse brought artists out here, getting it started. Leadership is important.

Therefore, laws keeping beaches open to the public were important. Turning the waterfront into a park was important. The Bottle Bill was important. We can protect what we are given, and build on it, or crush it. I saw this article recently:

http://www.freelancersunion.org/dispatches/2013/06/26/building-freelance-cities/

Freelancers, entrepreneurs, visionaries and creative types - you can build an environment that will suit them better. This is frequently better for the general population, because a lot of it is grounded in quality of life. Typically, it does not happen by accident. Someone needs to have good ideas, and implement them.

It also stands to reason that these things could be lost. Tomorrow will be more about that.

Fall Out Boy: This isn't just a concert review, it's everything

It's also a perhaps ill-advised homage to their song titles, but it felt like the right way to go, and it's not really everything, because there are some things that I am just going to mention to say that I am not writing about them now, just so you know.

My first thought getting out of the concert was that there is nothing like a good concert to cement your love for a band. I had sort of been coming to that realization anyway, having been so blessed with good concerts over the past few months, and it just crystallized there. It was a really good concert.

Where I get to my disclaimer, though, is here, where I need to explain exactly how new my love is. For a long time, I would hear "Fall Out Boy" and picture Gorillaz, because I guess it looked like maybe they were supposed to have some radiation poisoning going on. I didn't get the Simpson's reference until I read it on Wikipedia. Obviously, this is embarrassing.

Several months after I fell for My Chemical Romance (March 2012), there would be links for Fall Out Boy videos, that I eventually clicked on, starting with "Dance, Dance", which I liked, and "Sugar We're Going Down", which haunted me. By mentioning those songs, I am clearly identifying myself as one of those fake fans who only likes mainstream stuff, but I just kept clicking on more, and at some point I realized I was growing to love them. 

(MCR has been a real gateway band for me. I'm not sure when my love for Fall Out Boy kicked in, but it was definitely no later than February 2013: http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-year-of-magical-concert-going.html)

The logical thing to do at this point was to follow the individual members on Twitter, and this led to finding out that they were on hiatus, but it also led to knowing when the hiatus was over. This was exciting, and getting concert tickets was exciting, but here is where the big disclaimers come. I did not like the videos, or the first song I heard off of Save Rock and Roll, though I still liked the album.

So the disclaimer is two-fold. One, I am a really new fan. There may be obvious things that I am missing here, and I may say things that everyone else has already said, and I won't know. Sorry. Two, this will not really be everything, because I am not going to go into some things now.

I probably do have things to say about clubby radio mixes, and the current state of music videos. I have things to say about the irrational stupidity of deciding that a band being successful, growing as musicians, or possibly both (the audacity!) makes them sell-outs. And I probably have some things to say about whether Rock and Roll needs saving, and if so, how to do it. Fall Out Boy can be a reasonable part of any of those discussions, but dragging those topics into a discussion of Fall Out Boy will, I feel, take away from the band, which I don't want to do because I love them, even if I am just a neophyte.

So, in my rambling and disorganized way, I will now try and get into just the band and their music, based on the albums and the concert, and things I love about them.

I love that they brought David Boyd (New Politics) up on stage. It is really easy to abuse opening acts, but good people don't do that. Benign neglect is also an option, but this was really supportive, and that may be admiring them more as people than as musicians, but I'm okay with that. They also brought a roadie (I think) up to sing for a bit. It's also easy to abuse road crew, but again, good bands don't.

I love the ridiculously long song titles, but also that they don't always do that. For example, with "Thriller", that is an unusually short title, and you think it's going to be like Michael Jackson's "Thriller", or at least reference it, and it is totally it's own thing.

I love that little laugh in "Young Volcanoes". I believe it signifies that the thing they have just promised to teach us is in fact not something that they can teach us.

I love the Vines they have shared with us via Twitter. Someone should put together a collection of those to "Thnks fr th Mmrs" as a thank you to both Fall Out Boy and Vine, which is probably going to fall by the wayside now that Instagram is doing video. However, that needs to be someone with some technical skill, not me.

I loved the slide show during the performance of "Save Rock and Roll". A lot of the lights and video during concerts doesn't add much, but this did. And I can't really say that it was that flashy a show anyway, so that's not the point that I'm making, but this in particular, was good. It showed respect to tradition, and emotionally it got me too, mainly because of Kurt Cobain and Joey Ramone. It tapped into something.

Let me say about the concert that there was a lot of heart in it, and consideration for the fans. They passed out water twice, which, I'm not sure if it worked as intended, but they were thinking of us, also shown when they asked everyone to take a step back, and when they would stop playing for a while, and talk, they said good things and I believed that they meant what they said.

I should also add something about that first track that I hadn't liked so much, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark". I didn't like the radio version, and I had only listened to the album a few times before the concert, focusing more on the rest, but during the concert when they did it, it was a revelation. That is a great song, and probably the one that stuck with me the most from the concert. I hadn't been expecting that.

Other standouts from the concert, for me, were "Hum Hallelujah" and "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race." Oh, and probably "The Phoenix." The thing is, there are songs that you love, and you expect them to do a good job, and they do, and that's great, but then there are songs that you don't expect, or you begin to see the song differently during the performance, and it's different, and it sticks with you more, even though the other things were great too.

Historically, I admit that their debut, Take This To Your Grave, is my least favorite, but that's not saying that it's a bad album. For me, and individual mileage will vary, I feel like there is a sort of coming together with Under The Cork Tree, where there is a stronger sense of identity, and performing at a higher level, but what I love is that they didn't stop there. They build on their experience, and continue to develop. They should.

It does feel like there is some growing disillusionment through Infinity On High and Folie à Deux, but it would be strange if there wasn't. Therefore, I am glad that they took the hiatus, and based on the quality of Save Rock and Roll, I feel like it gave them what they needed.

I will now throw out a few observations that are probably pointless, touching on each band member.

Drummer Andy Hurley has been working out. I know this from Twitter. It was interesting to me how powerful he seems playing the drums now. And it never seemed weak or sounded weak before, but now I just watch and sense power. I seriously don't know what I am saying here; maybe someone else can figure it out.

Guitarist Joe Trohman has probably been working the hardest during the hiatus, doing two other bands, With Knives and The Damned Things. (I prefer The Damned Things for sheer adrenaline value.) I am glad that they are making more use of him in the writing now. I feel like those additional experiences and the person who he is makes them a better band. If that sounds like it is putting any other member down, it is not.

Singer Patrick Stump has such an amazing voice. Has that been said before? Almost certainly. I think it is a combination of skill and work, but also with just some natural gift. One video he posted doing some warm ups actually had me wanting him to record an album of standards; how lame is that? I mean, a lot of rockers do it, but usually after they hit fifty. He would sound great, though. He has a great instinct for music, and it just feels like there is a lot of gentle peace and kindness radiating from him.

Bassist Pete Wentz has such a clever mind. He's not as showy as he could get away with, which is great, but he's really smart, and will take you to unexpected places, and he's a trooper.

So maybe what I am really trying to say here is that with the different skills and personalities that they bring, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is a well functioning team, and I am glad they are back.

Maybe this was really a love letter.

Concert Review: New Politics

Opening for a popular band can be a mixed blessing. You get exposure to people you would not normally get, but they are not there for you, and may be ready to ignore you, abuse you, or just come late. It's still an opportunity, and New Politics capitalized on that opportunity better than anyone else I have seen.

Part of that was just fearlessly jumping in and putting on a good show. That "fearlessly jumping" part is more literal than you might think. Singer David Boyd started by crowd surfing during the first song, doing the robot in the second song, and moving on into full break dancing (you can get kind of an idea from the videos). And the crowd ate it up. They were there for Fall Out Boy, but they made room in their hearts for New Politics.

Their work did not end after their set. Later I saw Boyd working the crowd, approaching people and asking if they had liked the show, and giving out stickers. I am sad to say that the conversation I heard involved people who had not seen the show, but I know a lot of people did. I felt the energy and heard the cheers.

I also don't want to make it seem like it was all Boyd. Drummer Louis Vecchio and guitarist Søren Hansen were more tied down by their instruments, but played with great energy, and Hansen sent his guitar up in the air a few times, and swung it around.

That actually leads to something else. There were only three people on stage, and two instruments, but there was more sound than that coming out. There is some double duty going on, with Vecchio doing other percussion, Hansen doing keyboards and programming, and both of them doing additional vocals. Obviously there is some prerecording, and maybe that even provides some freedom, because if I toss my guitar into the air now, the recorded keyboards means it's not total silence. However, picking it back up in the right spot takes some skill. They are all really good at what they do.

I had been listening to their music in the time leading up to the concert, so I did recognize songs, but I think they would have won me over anyway. The music is really accessible. It's probably counts as pop, being very danceable, but it feels like there are hip hop roots, both in the beats and in the nods towards call and response, and maybe a little bit of Buzzcocks-style punk, but I am probably crazy there.

The 2010 release, New Politics, has a bit of a harder, heavier sound, with the possible exception of "Give Me Hope", which shows up again on the new release, A Bad Girl in Harlem.

The songs are fun, but there's depth too. "Stuck On You" and "Overcome" have different tempos and sounds, creating different emotions, but even on some of the bouncier tracks, there is still a feeling of yearning and something more. "Goodbye Copenhagen" is a good example of this.

I've been listening to A Bad Girl in Harlem a lot, and I'm not getting tired of it. Based on their talent, skills, and energy, I think New Politics is going places, and I'll be glad to see that.

Music is available via iTunes and Amazon, and I got A Bad Girl in Harlem at the show, so that's also an option. If you get a chance to check them out, do it.

http://newpoliticsrock.com/

https://twitter.com/NewPolitics

https://www.facebook.com/newpolitics?fref=ts

http://www.youtube.com/newpoliticsrock

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/new-politics/id367539979

http://www.amazon.com/New-Politics/e/B005HXX6HE/