Long Live A$AP by A$AP

I rarely listen to and even less often review rap music but today am making an exception. In the last couple of weeks I have heard quite a bit about this rapper. Rolling Stone seems especially to have been very excited about his talent.

I must confess that, to me, for the most part much of this music sounds the same and I am certainly not a fan of the bitches and ho's attitude of much of it. That said I do recognize that some of these fellows have a talent at it. I think Eminem is talented, I think Wiz Khalifa is good at what he does even if I do not like it. I also think it is important to listen to new things, I am constantly trying to tell my kids that they need to expose themselves to all kinds of music, even if it is just listening to the non radio cuts on an album they like. Of course rarely do kids even by the album these days, I keep having to tell myself the world is changing.

On his first album A$AP certainly does seem good at what he does. I cannot pretend to tell you any message or theme. I do not understand some of what they say, and the constant UHH is a bit much but the first single called nicely F@*kin Bitches is a winner. I cannot help but feel like I am writing that sarcastically but it actually is a neat song as far as beats and rhymes, and a reference to The Beatles never hurts. I listened to the clean version so I am sure that made it a bit more acceptable for me.

Wild for the Night on which some of his backup track is provided by the very hot Skrillex ( another fellow who is a bit beyond my taste) seems to me sure to be a winner. How can I tell, I try to see if I can picture this being played at ten in my middle son's room. On 1train the back track is even better with a slower beat, joined by Kendrick Lamar for a verse this song is also strong. If I'm not the hottest then hell must have froze over is a pretty good line, and on this song A$AP reminds me of Kanye West. Again not sure if that is a compliment or not but I think in this case it is.

My favorite song on the album is surely Phoenix. Starting with a slow beat, and references to God, Mary J Blige, Kurt Cobain, Jesus Christ, A$AP has something to say on this song. Talking about judgement and scrutinizing making us all less than we could be there actually is a message here even I can understand.

So tonight I get to ask my middle son if he has listened to this new rapper yet, if he has I guarantee you it is only to the single. It is good to be ahead of the curve, something my wife says I am very good at. Even if you have to listen to a fellow with a dollar sign in his name.

Check it out, I assure you your kids will be listening to it.

Legit

Last Thursday evening FX debuted their newest series, a half hour comedy series created and starring comedian Jim Jefferies called Legit. The title of the series comes from the main character Jim's desire to go legit. To be a good person. Jim's idea of being Legit is being a caring person who cares about other people.

The problem is that despite his desire to do so Jim is not a kind, caring person. Jim is Australian and is a comedian and his humor matches his personality, how many comedians have you heard about that are nice, genuine people.

I watched this show with my oldest son, a decision I questioned about ten minutes in. The show is unbelievably crude, occasionally disgusting, and at the same time succeeds in it's goal of being sweet and funny. It is a rare combination. Jefferies walks a fine line with his comedy. At the first commercial break, ten minutes in, my son says to me " this is stupid" and we almost pressed delete on the Tivo but we stuck with it to see if it improved.

In the series Jim's best friend is Steve. Steve has a quadriplegic younger brother named Billy. Billy, played by DJ Qualls, is a sarcastic, sometimes angry man. Steve convinces Jim to come visit his brother though Jim calling it depressing would rather not. Upon seeing Jim Billy asks to speak to him alone and tells him that he, as would be expected is a virgin, and wants to not be.

What is funny is that while Jim tells Billy he will take him to Vegas to get laid he tells Billy's parents, his friend Steve, anyone who will listen really. I do not want to give all the humor away but one line made me laugh out loud. As the fellows are driving to Vegas Steve consents to let Jim give Billy some alcohol and pot. As I said there is little good in this show in regards to influence on our young people. So picture this, the quadriplegic is in the back seat, having been smoking pot, and he says" I can't feel my legs" which if one considers he can never feel his legs is pretty darn funny. Like much of the humor however you have to get by the politically correct to realize that it is not picking on the disabled to admit that is a funny line.

I will not give away the rest of the trip but it would be safe to say that the road-trip gives Jeffries a chance to show us all of the shows attributes. Funny even if it is make your squirm funny, crude constantly, but yet at times very sweet and caring even if that is expressed in ways that are beyond the comfort level of most of us. I do not know if the show can ever carve a big audience, in fact I doubt it, but with so many of our shows being so typecast and similar this is one show that you will not find on the other channels every night of the week.

For that in itself I will watch a few more episodes to see Jim try to be a good person by befriending and caring about Billy. Billy may be in for the time of his life.

Beyonce Lip Syncs: Do We Care

One of the highlights of the inauguration this past Monday was the performance by Beyonce of The National Anthem. Yesterday word started to filter out that the well lauded performance might well have been a recording, that is a prerecorded track. With all of the problems of the country having been resolved this story seems to be what everyone is talking about today.

Clearly my tongue in cheek statement indicates how little I care about this subject. Did she or didn't she. My position has been that I do not care. Of course to defend the superstar her publicists floated that even Whitney Houston's famous Super Bowl performance of the anthem during Desert Storm was also lip synced.

Those of us who have children have often heard their children defend their actions by stating that someone else did the same thing. It does not prove as a valid selling point to us as parents and does not in this case either.

I did not care about this and still really don't. I do think that with all of us saying what a great singer Beyonce is and with the often denigration of, for example, Taylor Swift not being a great live singer it reduces Beyonce's stature. Let's be honest however this really does not matter, as long as Beyonce is the glamorous star she is no one cares.

I must admit however that when I saw the replay and saw the dramatic move where she pulled her earpiece monitor out of her ear that, perhaps, that act in itself was a little over the top. Lip Sync, ok whatever, but that move was a little bit brazen knowing that she was not actually singing.

A Tribute to Hank Cochran by Jamey Johnson

There are many new country music fans these days. I have to admit I cannot keep up with all the new pretty boys who appear on the charts each year, I think they are all made in the same factory for all of their similarities.

One successful country singer that will not be mistaken for his cohorts is Jamey Johnson. Johnson looks like a throwback to the rock and roll sixties but sounds like one of the traditional country singers of that same era.

After the huge success of his recent double album The Guitar Song Johnson decided the time was right for him to vere even further off the expected path and do a tribute album. I will admit I did not know who Hank Cochran was but after listening to the songs on this album it is a sure thing that we all know this man's songs.

Johnson his voice as always sounding like Scotch rolling over jagged rocks is simply amazing in this album. Never wanting too much of the spotlight, and realizing how much respect there is in country music for Mr. Cochran, on each song Johnson is joined by a well known artist. The combinations work extremely well. If I had heard this album last month it might well have ended up in my list of the year's best.

All the songs on this album are done well but a few stand out. The first song to be promoted on the album was a version of Make the World Go Away with the angel voiced Allison Krauss. If you think this is an odd pairing of voices you are correct but it works on every level.

Also of great note is a version of I Fall to Pieces where Johnson is joined by Merle Haggard. Somehow I do not see Merle doing a duet with any of the male models in cowboy hats that are on he charts these days, Haggard knows and respects authenticity and his joining Johnson here tells you all you need to know.

Willie Nelson, one of the last living of the original outlaws, is a great friend of Cochran's and lends his voice to two wonderful songs "Don't you ever get tired of hurting me?" as well as the Cochran standard "Livin for a song."

This is a wonderful album and a great tribute too, if one looks at the list of songs on the album they cannot help being surprised that all these great songs were written by one man that few in this generation have ever heard of. If changing that is the goal of this album, mission accomplished.

The Verdict

I watched The Verdict late last night. Everyone had gone to bed in our house but I was up late. Starring Paul Newman the movie from 1982 was well received and earned five Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor for Newman, and Best Director for Sidney Lumet.

The movie was riveting. Newman plays Frank Galvin, an alcoholic lawyer who is the proverbial washout. Hired out of law school by a top firm Galvin had run into some trouble with a jury tampering charge ( a backstory we hear more about in the film), was fired from his firm, lost his wife and now is barely getting by. He has had four cases in three years and lost them all.

An old friend Mickey Morrisey played by Jack Warden sends him a case that he cannot screw up. A medical malpractice case against two well regarded Doctors and the Catholic Hospital they work at. It is widely expected that there will be a settlement and for perhaps just one meeting Galvin will receive a large pot of money.

On his way to a meeting to negotiate the anticipated settlement Galvin stops in to see his " client." Actually his client is the patients sister who is struggling to pay for her care. The patient is in a permanent care facility, in a coma, that she is not expected to come out of.

Feeling compelled to use this opportunity, perhaps his last one, to do something good he refuses to settle the case angering the appointed Judge in the case, and surprising his opposing council.

We do not just see Galvin in court. We see him at his local bar, where he is a revered figure, we see him pick up an attractive younger woman and start a relationship with her.

Shortly after his refusal to settle however things go wrong. His star witness disappears, his last minute replacement flies into town and is barely qualified and to make matters worse is black. This movie is set in Boston in 1976, a black medical expert will not sell well to any jury.

As the case proceeds it becomes apparent that Galvin has made a mistake.

I found this movie to be very good, almost unsettling to watch. I suppose that is the sign of a compelling movie when you are almost nauseous because you are so close to the character, so that his mistreatment is felt by you. Newman is immense in this movie, after seeing him in this role, it becomes even more apparent that this man was one of our great actors, and certainly underrated.

There are some things in the movie that do not add up and puzzled me. The Judge in the case is almost a caricature of everything bad in jurisprudence. Milo O' Shea gives a brilliant performance, you are ready to strangle him by the end of the movie. Still, short of being called a bagman for the big boys in chambers, we never really get a glimpse of his motivation for the choices he makes in the courtroom. It would have been helpful to understand that.

Still Lumet knows more about movies than I do and his efforts in this one work resoundingly well. A very good movie.

Up on Cripple Creek by The Band

This song came up on Outlaw Country today and as per usual my day became a better one. I have heard these songs by The Band for years and years, decades even, still the fact is they are some of the few songs that I do not tire of hearing.

Great song. Great sing along song. God rest you Levon Helm. You had the music of a special angel long before you went to heaven.

What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer

About six weeks ago the good folks at Amazon ran a special in which this seminal political book was available for the Kindle at some ridiculously low price. Long having had it on my to read list I picked it up.

Much as been written about this book over the years. Following in the tradition of Teddy White's The Making of the President Series, only with much more detail and personal history, Cramer's book has for almost two decades been considered the gold standard of political campaign reporting.

In an odd and sad twist when I had made my way about halfway through the book the author, still a relatively young man at 62, passed away. As the tributes flowed in fast and furious if there was any doubt of the importance of what I was reading it soon disappeared.

The book is quite simply a stunning description of the 1988 political race for the Presidency. Following six candidates, four Democrats and the two Republican frontrunners Kramer tells the story of the race through each campaigns eyes as well as providing a significant biography and personal history of each man.

There is much to take away from the book, much indeed, but if anyone is to take away any one thing it is this. The process by which we choose a President, the amount of power the press has to determine the agenda and in many respects the outcome, is beyond measure and out of control. This my friends was in 1988. Imagine now, almost 25 years later how much worse it would be.

It is interesting to note that upon his death how many reporters and members of the media praised this man who, by my estimation, had a great deal of frustration with the role of the press in the campaign.

Reading this book I was struck by a few incidents and stories. To try to offer a view of the book in any detail is beyond a book review or blog post. The book is over one thousand pages, one suspects that is why the initial reviews upon it's release were not that good, the press is and has become, by and large, lazy. Much easier to criticize a book as long winded and filled with minutiae than read it. Over time however the book took hold, people realized how special it was.

It should become a lesson for would be reporters and would be political candidates, a how not to do it if you will. By looking at our press today one suspects however that while they respect the work the lessons are soon lost in the heat of the moment.

If you do not remember on the Republican side that year it was the sitting Vice President George Bush the first versus Kansas Senator Bob Dole. By the end of the book it is very apparent that Cramer had a strong affinity for both these men and their basic goodness. It is surprising in fact to look back, with the benefit of twenty five years of history to see how these two good men, good public servants, truly did not like each other.

Their back stories could not have been different. Poor in Kansas or rich on the East Coast, yet both their parents raised them right. Both served their country heroically. Bush was shot down as a young pilot, Dole suffered life threatening and life changing injuries. Both were party men through the rise and fall of Nixon, both lost to Reagan in 1980 and both considered 1988 their last chance at the Presidency.


On the Democratic side there were a multitude of candidates but it was a truly cannibalistic affair. It was here that the press was out of control. The frontrunner as the field was set was Gary Hart. Hart who had lost to Mondale in 1984 seemed filled with destiny. Resigning his Senate seat in 1986 so he could concentrate full time on the Presidency Hart ended up run out of the race because of as Cramer puts it " the Karacter issue." The scenes of the press as they set upon Hart are truly disturbing. The pack mentality is something that should make anyone, left or right, uncomfortable. The most disturbing thing in the whole story of Gary Hart is how incredibly talented he was. How he was ready to be President, how he had a plan beyond anything any of the other candidates even thought about. Yet, he lost it all. He made mistakes but the press ruined him. One has to wonder if some of the men that Cramer profiles on the press side ever forgave him for showing their unattractive sides.

Joe Biden, our Vice President was also in that race. Just as he was catching fire Biden blew up over the plagiarism charges. Even though he had credited the British politician Neil Kinnock when using the line in previous speeches Biden did not in one speech and the story took hold. There might never have been a man better suited to be President. As he rose in the polls the squeaky clean campaign of Mike Dukakis leaked tapes of Biden speaking and blew the whistle on the Kinnock story. Biden was at worst sloppy but it was a ridiculous story and if anything the laziness of the press in the destruction of Joe Biden was even worse.

Dukakis is portrayed as just what he was. A highly moral, holier than thou Greek American who had been a highly successful Governor who believed in the process. He was aghast when the Biden leak came back to his staff. One has no doubt believing he did not know, but yet he just cannot come across as likable. In retirement as I wrote he is still the same man, proper and good. Yet there is no doubt that his refusal to be a politician, his inability to relate cost him the Presidency.

I write last about Richard Gephardt because his story is probably the most moving in the book. This man who seemed destined for great things. This man who was the ideal Democrat, the liberal. He lost. And as I wrote recently in my political blog there is no example in modern politics of a man who has sold his soul more worse than Richard Gephardt. Read this book and look at all of Gephardt's issues and core concerns. Then look at who he lobbies for today and what sides he has worked for and against in his career since leaving Congress. It is the worst story you will hear this week, this month, this year, it is bad enough to be a bad politician, what Gephardt has done is akin to the Devil being kicked out of Heaven, He is a political Judas. Disgusting in the extreme.

Carve out some time before the next round of Presidential politics. This book should be read before 2016. Then you will have the knowledge of a race 28 years ago, and see how little has changed. In a sense 1988 was the beginning of the end, any leftover regard for the Presidency, much in decline after Watergate, was gone after Reagan left office, after Hart and Biden were run out of office. Four years later we had Bill Clinton who unlike Hart survived his mistakes but it has never been the same. In today's world there is always chum in the water. Richard Ben Cramer describes when any luster in running for the Presidency was lost for good.