Re-Stuffing the American Dream: Losing So That Others May Gain

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In a column published on Christmas Day 2010, Dick Cavett wrote: "It’s sad to think how cozy our Midwestern family Christmases were when we were young, and how odiously I now view the allegedly jolly season, with its trampling crowds and extorted gifts. But let that pass. Back then, in that far-off happier time, Christmas was magical when it finally arrived with excruciating slowness."

Extorted gifts!

That's it right there, isn't it? The reason that Christmas gradually but steadily transforms over the years from a magical "most wonderful time of the year" to a season of dread and disappointment?

When we were little, our families listened to us through the year as we babbled about desired toys like Ralphie babbles in A Christmas Story, daydreaming about his Red Ryder BB gun. They listened, and then they got to play Santa by fulfilling our wishes and making magic happen.

Way back in the day, before electronics and before credit cards, there weren't that many things to put on a wish list. A couple of well-picked presents under the tree, a get-together with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, some singing and eating and laughing, and that one day felt like the only time of year when a whole week could be squeezed into a 12-hour period.

Then came credit cards, and then came electronics, and a new chapter was added to the American Dream: buying so much stuff that it threatened to take over your whole house.

Some people found the stuff too precious to part with, and did allow it to control their lives; they now star on the A&E series, Hoarders. Others agreed that the stuff was too valuable to discard, but they still wanted a place to sleep, eat, watch TV, take a shower. They needed a both/and solution to the dilemma.

Enter the Storage Unit.

The American landscape was transformed almost overnight into a sea of cheap metal sheds where stuff could be kept for a monthly fee. Problem solved: all stuff could be kept indefinitely, as long as that fee was paid.

And then came the Great Recession. Millions of people lost their livelihoods and their homes, and storage units across the land fell into foreclosure just like the houses of their tenants. With no jobs, no incomes, and no homes, an army of people who'd once valued the attainment of stuff for its own sake quickly realized that the stuff was actually worthless when basic food and shelter became primary needs. In response, they simply walked away from the stuff.

Now, this is where the American Dream starts to get all fucked up. According to the official story line, you arrive with little, work hard and make good choices, get lots of money, buy lots of stuff, and live contentedly. There's no room in that storyline for Wall Street bankers actively plotting to assassinate the entire middle class by burning their savings and pensions, evicting them from their homes, and dissolving their jobs. If you start to follow that angle, you'd have to start seeing the American Dream as a crock of shit, and no one wants to do that.

So A&E steps forward to rescue the narrative with a series called Storage Wars. Here, the people who've put their stuff into the units have just somehow chosen to stop paying rent. "If you don't pay your bills, they'll take your stuff," says the ad copy right there on the show's main web page. There's no speculation about why someone would stop paying their bills, no admission of a wrecked economy, no mention that these units don't belong to the wealthiest 2% of Americans who recently got an extension of their $1 trillion tax cut from their Republican protection squad. The narrative is back on track: the people who've lost their stuff to the auctioneer have lost it because they're shiftless and lazy. They haven't worked hard enough to hang on to what they've got. They let their stuff get repossessed. They didn't fight to keep it. They deserve their fate, because they caused it.

But the clincher for restoring the American Dream narrative is that the vultures who circle around the auctions, waiting to swoop in and buy the stuff, could be buying it for pennies on the dollar — "as little as ten dollars for items valued in the millions," in the words of the ad copy. These are the true Americans, dedicating their time and efforts, their brawn and their brains, to finding the mother lode of stored stuff and striking it rich. Not just any putz can do this; it takes perseverance and know-how. Half the fun is watching the pros make token bids just to lure the amateurs into overbidding on units that clearly have nothing of value. The amateurs, like the poor schmucks who've had their stuff repossessed, deserve what they get.

One imagines, at Christmastime, the possibility of just one episode of Storage Wars that provides the back story behind the repossession. And then the buyers at auction, after learning that back story, telling the family who've lost everything that their stuff will remain in storage, and that the bill's been paid through 2013 with the money that was bid. That's what Dickens would do.

But instead, A&E spent Christmas day running ads for a Storage Wars marathon — a whole season of avarice and greed, in the name of a restored American Dream narrative, to enjoy in one day. The ads were interspersed with others for major retailers offering HUGE after-Christmas sales the next day: SAVINGS OF UP TO 70% on stuff that hadn't been bought during the other HUGE sales prior to the holiday. Sales at which even more stuff could be bought for eventual storage.

Ralphie in A Christmas Story had one Red Ryder BB gun (and one pink bunny suit). His father had one tacky plastic leg lamp. Not much need for storage there. But it's a long time passed since the era in which A Christmas Story is set, and now that Christmas means "trampling crowds and extorted gifts," it's not jolly or magical. It's just a Day of Stuff.

Buy stuff, give stuff, get stuff, store stuff, and have the stuff repossessed and auctioned away, so that others can sell the stuff at profit. For A&E, it's the perfect continuation of the American Dream cycle, and a perfectly logical sequel to Christmas Day.

Whoa!

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It seems that while we weren't looking during the past twelve months, about 9,000 people were looking at us! This is pretty remarkable for a blog that's allegedly closed... so we're thinking of reopening for 2011.

Thinking about it.

Considering it.

Pondering it.

Meanwhile we're just coming up with synonyms, because it's fun.

Stay tuned... and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Christmas, Merry Holidays, Good Night, and Good Luck.

And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain....

If you recognize that line and can attach it to the song and the person who made the song famous — and if you know the name of the buxom woman getting intimate with a happy snowman at left — then congrats, you really are a pop culture trivia hound like the staff of WB.

But now, the founding staff of 78rpm and Litchik have some very big fish to fry in another area, so Wildeboomerz needs to go into cold storage for a bit.

Toward the end here, you've surely noticed that the original emphasis on pop culture was fading away and being replaced by more pressing social and political issues. The Copenhagen climate summit, for instance, and while it's true that pop culture did both reflect and shape public consciousness with the movie The Day After Tomorrow, 78rpm, for one, has lost enthusiasm for pop culture even so. Copenhagen was a stunning failure, and half of Americans have no idea where Copenhagen even is let alone what never happened there this month. But by God, they all know who Jon and Kate are.

And while we are saddened by the death of Brittany Murphy, we're more upset about the demise of civility, intellect, accountability, ethics, integrity, honor, discretion, modesty, humility, and a few dozen other formerly bright flowers on the pathway of life.

And so, because of all of this along with a desperate lack of time, after 20,000 very welcome visits by faithful readers, Wildeboomerz is halting its production run for the time being.

For all of you who've visited this blog over the past year and a half, thanks, and have a wonderful and/or blessed holiday.


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The Motown Sound — of screaming wallets

WB has been electrically shocked to discover two things in a recent Forbes article about the most expensive American cities to live in. First was the mention of Detroit, where houses sell for $100 — surely that doesn't count as "expensive" cost of living? Second was the explanation:

"[The] Motor City grabs a spot on our list in large part because of the high cost of utilities. Residents pay, on average, $243.56 per month for electricity."

Um... what? Even in winter when days are short and nights are endless, WB's Motown-area total utility bill is about $150 — and that includes natural gas for heat! The electric charge hovers around $80 a month year-round. So, what the hell are those Detroiters doing to get slammed with bills four times larger?

Please understand, you can't run a pop-culture and general rant blog without having lots of computers, TVs, and radios running. And you can't write without drinking plenty of fluids from three refrigerators. And you can't see the controls on the remotes without having a lot of lights on. But —

— you can be smart about all of those. You can stuff the walls and attic and basement rafters full of insulation so that the electric motor on the furnace rarely kicks on. You can check the labels on fridges and computers to make sure they're Energy Star rated. You can replace every lightbulb in the joint with CFLs and LEDs. And then you can plug every cluster of appliances into a power strip with its own on/off switch. Appliances not in use = power strip off.

And... well, that's about it, really. WB headquarters has only done the few things that President Obama started mentioning before he was President: winterize houses and change watt-sucking habits. We did it because we didn't want to pay $243.56 electric bills each month (even though we never came anywhere close to that number before all the changes).

Yep, the CFLs sometimes start out really dim and gradually warm up. Pretty quickly, it stops being a frustrating inconvenience and becomes a harmless quirk. Yep, LEDs cost more — but they're also bright more. Way more. And yeah, all of that insulation can be an itchy mess to install. But a quick shower will take care of that. Sure, it takes time to train yourself to shut off the power strip before walking away from the TV, DVD, Cable Box, Audio Receiver, Playstation, and Wii cabinet, but once trained, it's second nature.

And the net result is, based on the Forbes article, a net savings of $164 each month. Maybe all of the Fox-heads who mocked the President's "green" ideas, and the teabaggers who want government to stay out of their private lives and stop legislating stuff like light bulbs, have that kind of extra money to burn. Around here, we'd rather save it up and use it for something more memorable. But hey, we're just a couple of bumpkins with a blog.

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Copenhagen Climate Update: a big "FU!" from North America

Here's a Google Map showing the number of votes that have come in from citizens demanding strong, binding agreements from the "leaders" currently butting heads in Copenhagen.

From Europe, which has experienced killer heat waves: nearly 60,000 people.

From Africa, in the process of being scorched to death: 125,000 people.

From Asia, where coastal nations are likely to become memories: over a million people.

From Australia, in perpetual drought and at risk of becoming a deserted continent: 25,000 people.

From South America, with its glaciers disappearing and many nations having no other water source: 13,000 people.

And from North America, where Fox News reigns in the United States, and where Canadians still see snow out their windows, and where Mexico just wants the drug murders to stop: 7,600 people.

That's roughly the population of New York City back when the United States was being founded.

And that's really all there is to say about this. Climate news is reduced to soundbites, because it's (a) scientific, (b) statistical, and (c) depressing. Therefore, North Americans, currently enjoying all the water they want (unless they live in Vegas, Phoenix, or California), tune out or rant about how Al Gore is behind all this so that he can become fabulously wealthy.

But OMG, have you heard about Tiger Woods? The number of women he's slept with on the side? The color of undies he liked his women to wear? The size of his penis? Hell, there's over a thousand comments about that last detail alone. Run the story for seven days, you've got the same number as the people in North America who give a damn about what's (not) happening in Copenhagen.

Pathetic.
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"...and decrease the surplus population"

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The Internet, by some arguments, is a wonderful thing — truly a forum for Vox populi, the voice of the people. With everything open to comment, and every comment open to ratings (or metacomments), the pulse of the population can be taken at any moment. Or at least, the pulse of the population that comments and rates.

The Internet is also a place where much more than mere commentary can be found. Whole books are just a search-term away, like Charles Dickens' holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, available here and here and here and here (for starters). It is in this book that we find the classic line where, when told that many thousands of destitute people will die without food and shelter, Ebenezer Scrooge replies: "Then perhaps they should do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Let those words sink in for a moment, before we go back to the Internet.

Okay. Now let's consider a place called Bangladesh, a nation whose poverty was so dire 40 years ago that George Harrison organized a Live Aid-type benefit concert to raise not just money, but also awareness of the people's plight. Harrison also wrote a song about the country:

My friend came to me/With sadness in his eyes/Told me that he wanted help/Before his country dies/Although I couldn't feel the pain/I knew I had to try/Now I'm asking all of you/To help us save some lives

"Relieve the people of Bangladesh," the chorus went. Five simple words that reveal the compassion and decency of their author.

The other day, MSNBC ran a story about Bangladesh sinking into the sea, about its drinking water turning to salt as ocean water seeps into wells, and about massive humanitarian crisis as crops fail, shelters collapse, diseases spread, and the nation of Bangladesh disappears from history as the first victim of climate disaster. And in response, the first vox populi commenter, Linda from Nebraska, wrote this:

Carbon emissions are not responsible. This man caused [sic] global warming is not founded in science, it is simply a money grab where the few take resouces [sic] from the many.

The second commenter, Douglas from Detroit, added this: "Global warming" is a scientific and academic scam being used by politicians to try to redistribute the wealth of nations. What is going on in Bangladesh is the well known process of economic developement [sic]. But what is going on at the UN is devious, dishonest, deceptive and destructive.

Wave after wave of kindness and compassion followed:

Utter and complete nonsense.... I am sure this country will demand monies form [sic] the wealthy countries, because of sourse [sic] its [sic] our fault....

These folks and their government want money form [sic] America and other leading countries, sad thing is they will get it, where's the supporting science. Unbelievable.

And this one:

These poor people are just contributing to the problem by breathing and using up all the worlds [sic] resources.

Yes, someone actually wrote that. His name is Mike Williams; for some reason, he doesn't give a location. But Gary Roy of Lakeland, Florida, does, and adds this:

The land will not support us and our 36 children, who is coming to save us? The first thing these people need to learn is when you find yourselves in a hole, stop digging. They are reproducing like rodents in a place that is already wall to wall with poeple [sic].

This is what the Internet, and its giving everyone the ability to comment on everything, has created. Ebenezer Scrooge, heartless, greedy, and amoral, is now everywhere. When the story is about dying people, his comments focus on money. He compares the children to rats. And he says, These poor people are just contributing to the problem by breathing and using up all the world's resources —

— in other words: They should die, and decrease the surplus population.

Scrooge's heartlessness, his murderous apathy, seeps out of every crevice at YouTube as well. A video simply titled "Katrina Victims" receives this: The problem here is these people will never stop murdering and selling crack. So blame the taxpayer who is paying their way.

The money issue, again.

Another video from a 9/11 documentary, showing a businessman in the World Trade Center desperately clinging to a rope from his office window and then losing his grip and falling to his death, is followed by this:

lol that's what the fatass deserves for eating at mcdonalds everyday lol

There should be numerous "[sic]" notations there. But more importantly, the entire comment is sick.

If you want to see the Internet at its worst, search for the stories about the most terrible, heartbreaking events. Chances are, you'll find this statement at the end of the story: "Comments for this item have been disabled."

It's not because the huge outpouring of grief and sympathy has overwhelmed the system.

It's because the sheer evil of the comments has overwhelmed the moderators.

Yule Log - the Director's Cut

WB is busy with some lots of end-of-semester stuff, so enjoy this special feature-laden version of the cherished Yule Log holiday movie, with commentary from the film's director. Back soon!

Because they didn't make enough from those hit shows

Jason Alexander, aka George on Seinfeld, and Fran Drescher, aka The Nanny, got paid $3 million to host the wedding of someone they'd never met, a 66-year-old Australian doctor marrying a 26-year-old woman... oh, and there was that thing about him hiring a hit man to kill one of his patients, but hey, that was 20 years ago, so forgive and forget — which is what Alexander and Drescher were very happy to do for a price.

Dr. Phil was in on it, too.

This is the kind of thing that makes WB ask itself, more and more, and we like pop culture why?

Maybe because this ain't really pop culture; it's just crass whoring.

As we were saying the other day...

Extreme times call for extreme communications.

390 going once, going twice - sold!

Last week, Great Britain experienced the heaviest amount of rainfall in a single day ever recorded. By all accounts, the flooding and carnage was terrifying. In fact, the word "biblical" got thrown around, because people were convinced that only Noah would survive.

According to the Associated Press, carbon dioxide levels have now reached 385 parts per million (ppm) — the highest concentrations of the greenhouse gas that Earth has experienced in a million years. And according to CNN, world leaders from 191 nations, who are scheduled to meet in Copenhagen very shortly, have announced that there is "no hope of a major breakthrough over climate change by year's end."

They were supposed to meet and agree to replace the failed Kyoto Accords with a global policy that would bring CO2 levels down quickly and dramatically. Instead, now they say they're "endorsing a new two-step process that aims to use Copenhagen as a stepping stone for a bigger accord down the road."

Uh-huh. Just like they were all prepared for Copenhagen, twelve years after failing to get anything done at Kyoto. Twelve years after having had twelve years to get their acts together and act responsibly and intelligently.

The truth is, world leaders will never, ever, be able to agree on any global policy. Ever. CO2 concentrations are expected to be 450 ppm within 30 years — roughly two and a half Kyoto-to-Copenhagen time spans — but elected officials and dictators will do nothing to try to combat that increase. And as their lakes, rivers, and glaciers dry up, and their people run out of water and die of mass dehydration, they'll say hey, maybe we should've done something about this back in '09 when things were good and we were only at 390 ppm.

Meanwhile, here comes Black Friday as a global day of insane consumption. Happy shopping.
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Counting down to the big non-event!

Next Friday, the world has a chance to demonstrate to economics professors, banking executives, retail corporations, government leaders, and especially themselves that "Black Friday" is one big ideological bog of quicksand. Rather than a day of "incredible savings for our customers," as the big-box stores would have us believe, Black Friday is actually a tribute to that dear symbol of the holiday season: Ebenezer Scrooge.

Yes, Scrooge, who is taken to the open-air market by the ghost of Christmas present, sees sellers raking in money, and says with a greedy smile: "There's a lot of buying going on, isn't there?"

WB has been boycotting Black Friday for at least a decade now, and has found it to be one of the most peaceful, restful days of the year. We encourage others to discover how that can be the case for them, too. November 27 is Buy Nothing Day in the U.S., with the rest of the world celebrating on the 28th.

Let the non-shopping begin. The savings (to soul and sanity) will be incredible.

Music with the Masters

Note: this is a massive post that took a long time to write, so it'll be our only one this week because now we have to do all of the other work we ignored while writing this massive post.

Bob Dylan, Fox Theater, Detroit MI: Nov. 6, 2009

Metallica, Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids MI: Nov. 9, 2009

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Palace, Auburn Hills MI: Nov. 13, 2009

Last week, the WB ministry of culture had the incredibly good fortune to see three legendary rock performers in the space of nine days. And although each show was radically different from the other two, all three were overshadowed by a nagging sense that this might be the last time any of these acts would be on tour. Rock is a joyful noise, but because of the possibility of "never again," each of these shows was enveloped in an unspoken sadness.

First, Bob Dylan. The folk maestro from the 1960s and musical chameleon through every decade afterward portrayed himself as a member of the band and nothing more. Tucking himself far back at stage right, leaving his lead guitarist to play front center, Dylan slurred and mumbled his way through some terrific reworkings of his greatest hits including "Desolation Row," "All Along the Watchtower," and "Like a Rolling Stone." The new versions of these songs were so different from their originals that some had gone on for several minutes before audience members began turning to each other and asking, "Is this what I think it is?" (Since lyrics were mostly unintelligible, it was the faint hints of familiar chord structures that eventually triggered the a-ha moments.)

The band was tight and followed its cues flawlessly, and Dylan's harmonica playing was energetic, but he only picked up a guitar (electric) for one song, and for most of the night he hid behind a keyboard that stayed mixed too low throughout the show and was easily drowned out by the other instruments - three guitars (including slide, which like the keyboards could barely be heard), bass, and drums. There was no interaction with the audience, who felt like voyeurs watching a private rehearsal from outside a window, and combined with Dylan's well-known refusal to enunciate, the whole show felt cold. This was only reinforced when, precisely at the two-hour mark — almost to the second — the 68-year old murmured deggoomavenns (thank you, my friends) and walked offstage with his band. House lights came up, curtains opened, a swarm of stage hands appeared, and the trucks backed up to the suddenly visible loading dock.

"I guess it's over," one man said a few rows back, but actually, it was pretty clear that for Bob Dylan, the show had been over for several years already.

After taking a couple of days off to rest and prepare, we headed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, the wholesome headquarters of Amway and home of the Gerald R. Ford Presidental Museum, to catch the biggest band in the world — again. WB began 2009 with a Metallica show in Detroit and thought it only fitting to catch another one on the other side of the state, at year's end. Our review of the Detroit show captures most of what Grand Rapids offered as well, with some key differences:

First, while big scary Detroit allowed fans to enter the arena through any of dozens of doors, the Van Andel Arena in little safe Grand Rapids forced fans to line up for four city blocks in order to be patted down by security guards and then let in through one entrance door. Maybe this is what makes a little safe town stay safe, but it also forced 80% of the crowd to completely miss the opening act, the Danish band Volbeat. This was unfortunate since the overriding theme of sidewalk conversation during the four-block crawl tended toward "I'd like to see that band from Denmark, but I couldn't care less about seeing Lamb of God."

Lamb of God was the second warm-up act. Grrr-metal act Machine Head had served as the opening comedy routine for January's show, and the Lambsters brought a similar version of Grrr to the stage, except that their lead vocalist also poured beer on his head so that he could swing his wet hair at the audience while alternately growling, roaring, and screaming random noises that, as with Bob Dylan, sometimes were almost decipherable. Each song sounded just like the one before it, all three guitarists made the same hair-flipping moves they'd already made, and the hardcore metalheads throwing horns (and each other) in the pitifully thin mosh circle had a great time.

Then it was time for the big boys. Metallica's lighting crew have been busy over the past year making the tools of their trade do new stuff, more stuff, and awesome stuff, and the alignment between effects and song notes was matched to the millisecond. James Hetfield's stage patter continues to be profanity-free (it's a shock now to hear the band's 1990s live stuff with James swearing a blue streak between each song) and filled with warm fuzzies about mutual love between band and its "family" of fans. The between-song repertoire is polished to the point where you won't hear an extra word added from one show to the next (trust us, we've got the Metallica iPhone app), although James is careful to call out the city's name whenever he can.

As had happened during a Quebec show just days before (thanks, iPhone app), Kirk Hammet's guitar melted down during "One," but whereas the Canadians had been treated to an all-James, all-rhythm version of the song featuring harmony notes instead of lead, Grand Rapids got one of the sloppiest renditions of the song imaginable. With Kirk hunched over at the far end of the stage so that his guitar tech could fiddle with the transmitter box at his hip, James missed several drum cues and had to play catch-up as Kirk's lead finally returned, most of the time, to the mix. And the thing is, no one in attendance cared about the glitches.

That's because you don't really go to see Metallica for the music. You go for the experience, to be one of tens of thousands experiencing an Event that defies easy explanation. You don't see the house lights suddenly plunge the arena into darkness at start time; you feel it. You don't hear the opening notes of Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold" — you feel them. You don't applaud the sudden appearance of the Four Horsemen; you savor it. Because that's what big huge monster bands like this one do; they transcend sound and vision to become internalized by millions around the world.

They do it through many ways, but here's one: Whereas Dylan couldn't care less if his fans saw all of the show mechanisms immediately after he vanished from the stage, Metallica stays on stage after the show, while the house lights are at full brightness and roadies are beginning the teardown. All four members engage with the crowd, dispensing guitar picks and drumsticks, gathering up home-made banners that fans have brought, displaying the banners over the drums and flashpots. And then, one by one, they stand at one of the remaining microphones to say goodbye to the people still in the arena. These guys are all millionaires, and they know they're musical giants just as Bob Dylan is, and they don't have to do any of the after-show interaction — but they do it anyway. It makes a difference.

Coming off of the high of the Metallica show, we had three days to rest up and get ready for a night with yet another Rock Hall of Fame act. The Palace of Auburn Hills is a fitting venue for rock royalty like Bruce Springsteen and the E. Street Band, but after standing for the entire two-plus hour Metallica show (one does not sit at a Metallica concert), we were exhausted just thinking about standing through Bruce’s standard three-hour set. But Springsteen’s infectious energy and charismatic performance style makes it pretty near impossible to resist jumping to your feet and dancing, which half of us did.

Greeting his audience with a big “Hello, Ohio!” Springsteen launched directly into his new song “Wrecking Ball,” written to commemorate the demolition of Meadowlands in New Jersey. Perhaps the crowd thought the Boss was just fooling around with that Ohio crack, but as the new song unfolded with lyrics custom-fitted for, well, an Ohio crowd, it became clear that the "front man’s worst nightmare," as the Boss himself called it, had come true. Little Stevie Van Zandt finally got Springsteen’s attention by whacking him on the side of the head, and a red-faced Bruce ably turned his gaffe into a running Where am I? DETROIT! call and response joke with the audience for the rest of the evening. (To his credit, all arenas do pretty much look alike, the band had just played Ohio the night before, and to cap it all off it was Friday the 13th.)

The centerpiece of the show was a performance of the complete Born to Run album, in the order that the songs appear there. From the opening bars of “Thunder Road” to the closing notes of “Jungleland,” the band delivered a rock masterpiece, and not just because there isn’t a bad song on that album. It’s been nearly 35 years since Bruce wrote the lines “Darling you know just what I'm here for/So you're scared and you're thinking/That maybe we ain't that young anymore/Show a little faith there's magic in the night" — and hearing him sing these words at age 60 created a mass swoon for the audience, most of whom were not that young anymore, either. Each song in the album set moved seamlessly into the next, creating a symphonic effect further enhanced with lush arrangements and instrumentation. As brilliant as the original album is, it’s better live, now. And if only the crowd hadn’t insisted on singing along, they’d have heard that.

Springsteen continued to seek absolution for his blunder during his mid-set "stump-the-band/take requests" component that became a mainstay of his live shows in 2009, paying tribute to local rock legends with Bob Seger’s “Ramblin’ Gamblin Man” and a Mitch Ryder “Detroit Medley” ("Devil With a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly/Jenny Take a Ride/CC Rider") that the E Streeters once featured regularly in concert encores. Incredibly, the Boss even crowd-surfed for several long (and scary) minutes.

After making it safely back to the stage, he continued to ramp up the show until he and the audience were utterly spent. Springsteen and the E. Street Band have long been known for putting on peerless live shows, and they are still in top form. Even not-really-fans can’t help but be blown away by the sheer energy and extraordinary musicianship this band brings every time.

Dylan, okay, we saw him and now we can say that we did. But Metallica and Springsteen, well, we'd really like to see them come back around just once (or twice, or three times) more before they hang up their guitars for good. Meanwhile, we've got a ton of CDs — and an iPhone app.
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Opting out of doubletalk

The statement for last month's credit card bill was almost filed away in the WB records drawer when we noticed something different on the page. In the middle of the reverse side, nestled among the minuscule 4-point legalese, was a box. And in the box, a bunch of slightly larger words in screaming caps.

Clearly, it was important (how had it been overlooked the first time?), and so we read:

IMPORTANT NOTICE OF CHANGES IN ACCOUNT TERMS: WE ARE CHANGING ACCOUNT TERMS, INCLUDING INCREASING THE PURCHASE AND CASH ADVANCE FEE, AND HOW WE CHANGE THE TERMS OF YOUR AGREEMENT WITH US. PLEASE READ THIS CHANGE IN TERMS.

Got that so far? Change in terms: we are changing our terms including how we change our terms... so read the information you are reading about our changing terms.

Damn! This wins some kind of Corporate Bullshit of the Year award for executing a linguistic three-point double flip reverse loop.

Whatever that would be. Now, let's go on:

YOU CAN OPT OUT OF SOME OF THE CHANGES LISTED ABOVE, INCLUDING THE ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE AND FEE INCREASES BY CALLING US TO OPT OUT. HOWEVER, YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO USE YOUR ACCOUNT FOR PURCHASES OR CASH ADVANCES, BECAUSE YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED WHEN YOU OPT OUT.

Translation: You can opt out by opting out, but if you opt out, we'll cancel your card.

Translation of translation: You fucking peasants, we've got you by the balls.

Of course, no annual percentage rates have been mentioned "above" — because they've been buried in the 4-point font part of the statement, not in this screaming-caps box.

And what is that new rate going to be?

31% monthly.

It's worth mentioning here that Mafia "loan sharks" typically charge 10% to 20% of the weekly balance (40% to 80% per month), meaning that U.S. banks, with the full blessing of the United States Congress, are now only nine percentage points away from qualifying as hoodlums on the FBI's organized crime watch list.

But we digress.

Cross them off

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Not long ago, someone on a radio talk show suggested that the current gaggle of Republicans in Washington who vote NO on every proposal, yet have nothing to show as an alternative bill, should get out of their elephant suits and call themselves what they really are: The Christian Party.

The logic appears to hold up at first: if the rabid anti-abortionists, school prayer zealots, and homophobes who now make up the Republican Party were to break off and start their own club, there'd be maybe five or six politicians left behind to rebuild a party with a conservative platform based on low taxes, limited government, and a thriving business base. Nothing else, no bullshit — all of the other smokescreens could be taken up by the defectors. To go along with the current elephant and the donkey political party symbols, the new party could add a crucifix.

But there's a problem with that. While "Christian" became synonymous with lunatic thanks to two terms of Bush and eight years of tyranny in the Name of Our Lord, that definition is neither fair nor reasonable. As we've mentioned before, it's just lazy thinking, an easy sweep-'em-all-into-the-same-dustbin lack of mental effort.

Here's why:

Blessed are the poor, the meek, the broken-hearted, the hungry, the homeless. And blessed are the merciful, the pure at heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for any of these blessings. Feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the poor, comfort the sick, and befriend the imprisoned.

Those are directions straight out of the New Testament, the field manual for Christianity, words spoken by the Christ who the belief system is named for. And they sure as hell don't sound anything like traumatize the pregnant, persecute the gay, pontificate and proselytize in the name of God until you make unbelievers of those who currently believe. And while you're at it, make a fat, deaf, drug-addicted failed sportscaster, a squinting egomaniacal liar, and an anorexic stick-legged Hitler wannabe your holy trinity — not Father Son and Holy Ghost, but Rush and Sean and Ann.*
* Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter.

No, those aren't in the Christian playbook. If anything, they're orders of the anti-Christ:

Exploit the poor, ridicule the meek, mock the broken-hearted, banish the hungry and the homeless — but care for the wealthy. And blessed are the merciless, the corrupt at heart, the warmongers, and those who are rewarded for being morally bankrupt. Ignore the hungry, evict the homeless, tax the poor, kill the sick, and increase the imprisoned.

So okay, no; not the Christian Party. The vermin who recite this creed are as far removed from Christianity as Anton LaVay and his Church of Satan. Call them the Anti-Abortion Party, sure. Or the No Gays Party. Or the School Prayer Party. Any of these will do — hell, split 'em up into separate camps, and help the millions of single-cause voters in Amurca line up with the one topic that lets them ignore the other one hundred problems going on during any election.

It might even allow the five or six Republicans left behind to propose some ways to enhance the... you know, the Republic... without ever mentioning religious beliefs at all. There could be actual, spirited, intelligent debate about real issues! Instead of just voting NO, and instead of feeding their followers bullshit like "the people don't want health care" as their rationale for doing their corporate masters' bidding while offering no viable alternative, the newly liberated elephant people would be free to propose genuine plans and join the process of leading and shaping a nation, rather than just keep collecting corporate donations and building stone walls in the middle of every road to the nation's progress.

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Mixed results from a small budget

Editor's note: WB contributor Nighthand returns from the land of finals, commencement, and job applications!

By now most people have heard of the new movie, Paranormal Activity. If not, here’s the low-down: a girl has been haunted, off and on, by something undefined since she was eight. Her boyfriend, with whom she now lives, knows about this, and a few recent incidents of noises in the night have prompted him to purchase an expensive video camera, microphone, and other detection gear to watch all the time so he can find the root of the problem. Girl is less than enthused with the situation and doesn’t want him to antagonize the spirit. Guy is full of bravado and skepticism, antagonizing the spirit.

But now: what’s up with their house? They have a television larger than the screens of some theaters showing the movie, more rooms than they know what to do with, and an apparently endless supply of free time.

Now, see, this isn’t your typical gore-porn horror film. It’s an honest-to-deity psychological scare. It starts out tame. A door moving slightly in the night. A thud and a moving chandelier. It grows more intense as Guy tries to call "it" out. Antics with an Ouija board ensue. Escalation. Climax. Without spoiling the ending, we’ll just say this: you probably know already.

So what’s the point? Haven’t we all seen this movie before? Not exactly, because Paranormal Activity does a few things interestingly. For one thing, it’s small, by which we mean definitely not large in its resources, filming, production, or cast. There are only four characters: Guy, Girl, Girl’s Friend, Psychic, and the latter appears just twice in the film. The entire story takes place in an opulent house, with the exception of the opening scene in the driveway. Yet, there’s still much to explore. The house is large enough that you never see everything, and two whole spare rooms are left virtually unseen through the majority of the film.

The presentation is impressive. There's no opening, no pre-film credits displaying actor names and production houses. A simple black screen with white text is shown to the audience prior to the actual start. Same with the ending; only an ominous few lines of text and a black screen, no credits. (This was the wrong project for any film crew members who live for seeing their names on the screen.)

But beyond that, Paranormal Activity is pretty much a home-movie styled portrayal of creepy stuff happening, all culminating with a classic horror-style vibe. The various events and their build-up are all basically par for the horror-film course. Every one of them is telegraphed by a thrumming bass noise, almost like an old furnace blowing through the vents, something all of us have at home to remind us of the scary bits.

Ultimately, we think of PA like Cloverfield or Blair Witch meets… well, Blair Witch. Oh look; there are time-codes in the corner counting down to morning, while a gray-blue evening camera lens is accompanied by the thuds of footsteps on the stairs!

Really guys, you should have kept the bedroom door closed. The unknown "it" even closed it for you.