I once had a professor who spent a lot of time hammering home the idea that nothing contemporary could exist without the lineage that came before it, that any innovation in science, math, pop culture, art, or dance was just a branch on a tree already thousands of years old. He was fond of the analogy that Duchamp's toilet could not exist if the Romans hadn't built the aqueducts. I was inclined to disagree, wanting to retain the notion that rogue genius could always break free of history, by its very definition refute context. I wanted this to be true for vague humanitarian reasons, but also because I secretly (not such a secret as it turns out) suspected a little rogue genius lay within me. That teenage conceit was choked down with a glass of bargain muscatel sometime around 1994, as I toiled for a construction company filled with bitter middle-aged carpenter/artists and filmmaker/plumbers who framed the realities of compromise and surrender around me. But I didn't know that yet, and so the professor and I continued to spar over the delusion of Uniqueness for the rest of the semester. I lost, repeatedly, for two main reasons: 1) Almost everything I knew about the world came from the books I'd read between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, and 2) The professor's rhetorical style alternated between Frighteningly Erratic and Charmingly Persuasive, to devastating effect. I didn't have the words, let alone ideas, to stand up to him. Which is just as well, since years later I came to realize he was 100% right. Take my favorite Marvin Gaye song, "Inner City Blues", which I am listening to as I type this. I've often wondered why there is no modern Marvin Gaye, or a contemporary pop song one ten-thousandth as good as "Inner City Blues". The answer is that there definitely are modern Marvin Gayes, what's missing is their access to the summer of 1971. "Inner City Blues" couldn't exist without the totality of the context that birthed it: Vietnam, Bull Conner, Detroit, Watts, George McGovern, Heinz catsup, Dirty Harry, Roberta Flack, Count Chocula, Rolling Stone, the Rolling Stones, Barnaby Jones. Which is why, after a lifetime of disparaging contemporary music, I've come to realize how self-defeating it is to disparage contemporary music. Dismissing Kanye or Migos or Taylor Swift is the equivalent of insisting "I Am Not Here Now." Which in a way is fine, since I would definitely have preferred to spend my youth in smoky clubs back in 1949, listening to Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker. But since that can never happen (at least without access to the Saudi Orb) the rejection of art that reflects current reality now seems like a form of anti-intellectualism. Which brings me (inevitably, unwantedly) to Donald Trump. The demented behavior of the last week is not random or even specific to political circumstance, it's happening because it has to happen. We tend to think everything Trump says and does is specific to his individual Trumpness, but in actuality he is a beast of pure and pathological context, an amalgam of every aspect of twenty-first century culture. And since the most important event of the 21st century was the election of a black president, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that Barack Obama's non-whiteness is the single greatest driver behind Trump and his advisors and his sycophants and his jeering, dimwitted mob. Everything they stand for: the wall, family separation, tax cuts that further insulate the ultra-wealthy, hate rallies, denying health care, Space Force, Charlottesville, "shithole countries" that certain people were invited to go back to, all the endless and indefensible cruelties and deregulations, come from the fear of having, for eight years, lost Control. I have a friend who, during the 2012 elections, tried to convince me that if it came to it, Mitt Romney might not be so bad. At the time I was prepared to remove that friend from my Christmas card list, but maybe he was right. It's possible if Obama hadn't been re-elected and the McConnell/Brietbart/fascist wing of the Republican party was allowed to reestablish a face-saving degree of equilibrium, instead of fear and loathing we might have had four years of relatively sane, warm-pudding-in-a-sock Romney. Sure, he would have enacted all sorts of regressive policies, but it's almost certain he also would have respected institutions and shunned corruption and presided over the other 99% in a way that was relatively benign. Most importantly though, the election of Romney would have precluded Trump from ever entering the political arena, forcing him to remain the oily slick of tired hair jokes and laundered Russian mob money and nights clubbing around Manhattan with Jeffrey Epstein that he always was. In the end, wouldn't that have been better? Hard to say. The professor was right: nothing happens without the totality of the context it inhabits. Like it or not, Donald Trump, in the full carnival of his grotesqueness, is an exact representation of America as it is currently comprised. The question is do we have the will to strive for Uniqueness (whether or not it actually exists) and change (impeach) the course of our narrative? Because the space we occupy this moment in history is beyond terrifying, and the people we are becoming, even just by proximity, are indefensible.

I didn't know this footage existed. A few years ago, my boy Kevin Emerson and I did a Bon Jovi cover on two ukuleles in front of an intimidatingly well-dressed and not so inclined to be amused crowd at a fundraiser for the Seattle Public Library. For instance, the mayor was there. And left early. Results be damned. Also, I have to admit, the plinky Sambora intro, which I did (somewhat transpose) and actually play, for some reason was cut off. Keep in mind we're supposed to be authors with no otherwise discernible talents. Turn it loud! Make it huge! Enjoy.

The most powerful person in the world once again weighs in on a vital subject with nuance, perspective, and a formidable intellect: 1. LameStream is not a word, and certainly is not improved with dual capitalization as if it were a mattress brand. 2. "Media" requires no capitalization, particularly when impugning it for being ineffective. Further, the galling inanity of the phrase "lame stream media" can be emphasized by remembering that it entered the public consciousness via Sarah Palin. 3. There has not been a shred of evidence involving Adam Schiff in any sort of corruption, specified or otherwise. 4. Capitalizing "corruption" does not lend dimwitted accusations additional weight. 5. "Discribing" is actually spelled "Describing." 6. Unless, of course, you're referring to the famous Roman east coast/west coast beef of A.D. 336, when various stentors, friars, and scribes dissed each other over a series of increasingly insulting papyrus scrolls, resulting in The Bloodletting by The Rubicon as related in the seminal work of Gaius Seutonious, "I'm Gonna Cut Your Back With My Quill." 7. CNN did not remove your hyphen, mainly because you did not use a hyphen. 8. What you used is called an apostrophe. 9. Adding an apostrophe at the end of a misspelled word, even if intentional, does not magically render that word correctly spelled. 10. An apostrophe indicates the omission of a letter or letters at the end of a word. 11. So, it turns out you absolutely did spell "little" wrong. 12. You also capitalized and infantilized it. 13. What you really wanted were these nifty devices known as quotation marks. They go at the front and back of a given word. For instance, "imbecile". 14. CNN's ratings, wherever they fall on the spectrum of lazy punditry, are not caused by a disingenuous re-framing of punctuation. 15. Using exclamation points to complete otherwise lackluster sentences at the end of incoherent paragraphs is a well known sign of impotence!
​

Thanks to the ever intrepid Maria Behan for reminding me I haven't mentioned the shirts in a while. Once again, every penny made from the sale of the undeniably stylish IGNORANCE IS COLLABORATION design (notice oblivious Donald in one eye socket and devious Putin in the other) will be donated to the campaign of whoever ends up running against Trump in the general. Unless, of course, he's in jail by then, in which case I will deposit the entire amount in his prison canteen, with the caveat that he can only spend it on books. And further, only on historical non-fiction. 

It hurts when you recognize more of yourself than the meme probably even intended...

Yesterday I was just sitting in a cafe working, headphones on, listening to Kenny Dorham and lost in thought when there was an explosion. The entire building shook. The cafe is down the hill from a gas station and my first thought was that someone's propane tank blew up. The woman sitting closest to the wall jumped out of her seat and slid across the floor. Me and a couple other guys and the barista ran outside. There was a brand new tricked-out Dodge Challenger on the sidewalk. The owner had left it at a gas pump in neutral and gone in to buy something and it rolled backwards at high speed, probably forty yards, crossed the street between traffic, and slammed into the cafe. I didn't realize at first the car was empty because it was still moving, sort of rolling back and forth with the momentum and I thought someone truly hammered or having a stroke was trying to park. When we got closer it was clear it was moving on its own, so I jumped in (not easy, the owner was clearly very short and the seat was all the way up and also, it was moving) and waited until it rolled back to the curb and put it in gear. Worth mentioning (beyond my distinct "first man on the barricades" persona) that the reason I jumped in was because I was by far the oldest one there and the car was a standard and all the younger dudes were like "Does anyone know how to drive a stick?" I'm not kidding. Fodder for a different post entirely, this generational mystification with the clutch. In any case, a Mexican kid, maybe 20, came running down, totally distraught. He didn't speak much English, but between the "Que Pendejos!" (calling himself a fucking idiot) I gathered it was his brother's car and he didn't have insurance and basically his brother was going to murder him. He leaned against the hood and started sobbing. I tried, brokenly, to tell him it was just a mistake and we all do stupid shit and the damage to the building wasn't that bad (somewhat true) and same with the car (total lie). He drove off and after a while the cops came and everyone chatted giddily like they do when something unusual happens on an otherwise bagel-and-laptop afternoon. Here's the really weird thing, though: that whole side of the cafe has back-in parking, not parallel. There's probably a dozen spaces facing out. The Challenger somehow rolled all that distance backward and right into the only spot available. I realize that sounds absurd, but it's 100% true. It's why I thought someone was trying to park. The car had maybe ten inches of room on either side and still slid perfectly in between. It's a genuine miracle (I don't believe in miracles, so instead let's call it a refutation of mathematical probability verging on the preposterous) that the car didn't kill a pedestrian, get hit by another car while crossing the street, or crush a parked Tesla instead of just crumpling a few feet of wall. Afterward I sat there and tried to work for another hour, but couldn't stop looking out the window and marveling at the stupid, naked beauty of the world.

Gwen "hired a person book curator"......It is truly the end of empire...