The Anger of Compassion

New Stuff

Okay, so, New Year, New Stuff. I'm my own Cultural Revolution! Anyway, my RSS feeds brought me Macworld's best of the best for 2006" and MacMerc.com's "Best Freeware of 2006,"so there are two lists of things to check out.

I'd already installed and begun using Flip4MacWMV, a nifty utility which allows you to watch Windows Media Viewer items in Mac OS X; Firefox 2.0; NeoOffice; and Camino 1.0.3 Oh, and I've installed the Firefox plug-in da.si.y, but I haven't used it yet. So I needed to keep looking.

Flock, version 0.7, a new browser, fit the bill for me. I only have four browsers on this Mac as I type this, so Flock was worth a look. I read their blog and downloaded and installed the browser. So far, I'm disappointed in one of its selling features: I followed their instructions on creating blog posts from a Flock page, and it didn't work. It wouldn't (and still won't) accept my authentication settings. Well, if that's what makes Flock unique...hmm, well, if I can't use it I have no use for it, no?

Okay, maybe I'll try YamiPod.

(UPDATE YamiPod is in the trash. The iPod database with my name on it doesn't exist, it tells me. When it deigns to load. Can't use it.)

2007: A Good Year for Making Money

So I took this test offered by the BBC:

So what is my millionaire potential?

Your score is: 23
You're in the top group - score 17 - 25
You've got top-dollar millionaire potential. You're careful with your money and have a healthy attitude to it. You're hard-working and determined to be successful.

Heh. See you in Gstaad.

Swingin' into the New Year

On Sunday, December 31, 1939, the Benny Goodman Sextet appeared on the NBC Radio Network's "Fitch Bandwagon," from the Empire Room of New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The Benny Goodman Sextet:

Benny Goodman clarinet
Lionel Hampton vibraphone
Artie Bernstein string bass
Johnny Guarnieri piano
Nick Fatool drums

and the Original Hero of the Electric Guitar, Charlie Christian.

The numbers were "Till Tom Special" and "Topsy."

(You should be aware that the finest Charlie Christian resource in El Paso is Leo Valdes's web site Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Web Site )

"Pick-A-Rib"

On Saturday, December 30, 1939, the Benny Goodman Sextet appeared once again on the NBC Radio Network's "Camel Caravan," from station WEAF in New York City.

The Benny Goodman Sextet:

Benny Goodman clarinet
Lionel Hampton vibraphone
Artie Bernstein string bass
Johnny Guarnieri piano
Nick Fatool drums

and the Godfather of the Electric Guitar, Charlie Christian.

The number was "Pick-A-Rib."

(Once again, some of the information in this post was gleaned from that fine El Paso resource, Leo Valdes's web site Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Web Site )

President Ford: The Healer?

I'm hearing and reading a lot since Tuesday about how President Ford "healed" the country after the nefarious Nixon and his henchmen damn near gave the place away to Pinochet, or ITT, or whomever. Funny, but I don't quite recall it that way, and I don't recall it being treated that way by the media. So I crafted a little list about healing.

Ten Random Things to Love (These Days) About Gerald Ford, the Healer

1. Inflation and recession.

2. Fired Colby as head of the CIA and gave us George H.W. Bush, because Colby was cooperating with the Church investigation in the Senate.

3. Heh, it wasn't just George Bush. He also gave us Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President.

4. He offered us Bob Dole.

5. He gave us Rumsfeld.

6. And Cheney.

7. You want Republicanomics? How about those "WIN" buttons? Remember them, guys? "Whip Inflation Now?" Boy, there's economic policy for you.

8. "No Soviet domination in Eastern Europe."

9. Pardoned Nixon, but not the draft resisters.

10. His legacy from all this? Jimmy Carter.

Yeah, that's a bunch of healing, all right.

Now, for those too young to remember the Ford administration, I'll try to be gentle: if you think the newspapers and television pundits of the day treated a Republican president as a healer, you are unspeakably naive.

Let it Be...Not

So last night I spent over an hour at beatles.com. Been there before, but hadn't been in a while (and I'm still trying to find, again, the Let it Be outtake in which they're discussing the possibility of touring again, and of performing in the Persian Gult on a boat, ending with George Harrison's "The idea of the boat is insane...").

What I found was a new subsite, Love. I'd heard a few tracks from the new CD ("Lady Madonna" surprised me: I knew no details about the project, and I was prepared for the guitar-horns break when in came guitars from "Hey Bulldog," not a Beatles tune one hears on the radio every day), but only a few. But there were plenty of interviews, including George Martin, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, so I settled in for a listen.

Well.

In one of the interview clips, Sir George explains that his "brief" was to take any sound he'd made with The Beatles since 1962 and work with it, come up with something for the Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas. Well, he did stick with that, so there is nothing from the Star Club tapes or the Tony Sheridan sessions, and no Decca audition or Kinfauns bootleg material (Sir George wasn't part of any of those), and as far as I could tell, nothing from "Free As A Bird" or "Real Love."

They provide a video to what they call a "Within You, Without You"/"Tomorrow Never Knows" medley. Trust me, it's no medley. What it is, is...well, it was apparently Giles Martin's idea (Sir George's son, and partner on the project), is what it is. Give it a listen. If you're not familiar with both tunes, you'll either like this new version or you won't. If you do know both tunes, I suspect you'll be very, very impressed.

Could it be worse? Could she be an encyclopedia salesman?

Maybe it 's not as bad as that...

But: Why would you force your daughter to stop signing her letters as "Emma?" Why might you force her to take a math class, or, god help her, minor in Spanish?

Find out here.

(Hat tip: Out of Lascaux)

"Very Good, Sir"

The Jeeves and Wooster episodes are hilarious. Worthy of Wodehouse. Watching doesn't replace reading, of course, but then it never does. But worthy? Absolutely. For the curious yet unconvinced, Stephen Fry is Jeeves and Hugh Laurie is Bertie Wooster.

They really are Jeeves and Wooster: Fry and Laurie are that good, as in "worthy of Wodehouse."

For the picky, here's a page detailing each episode's relation to the Wodehouse canon.

The scenes at the Drones are ridiculously funny.

A "Christian" Gentleman's Christmas

I read, decades ago now, that the designer Alexander Julian would begin each day by reading Wodehouse. I shall perhaps adopt a similar policy. Between Wodehouse and great shaves, I could in that way become a morning person.

That is by all manner of right thinking doubtful. I do, however, own some Wodehouse, and Santa must have judged my behavior over the past year as acceptable, because I now have more, and in different media: the BBC television series Jeeves and Wooster. Should go well with my Trumper's Skin Food, also acquired via the good graces of Messrs. Claus, Elves, & Co, Ltd. I'm thinking that, after having scrubbed my own kitchen floor yesterday, a la Stanley Ager, and acquired Trumper's and Jeeves today, I am my own Jeeves!

Of course, as expected, it was also a Charlie Christian Christmas, what with the acquisition of this CD and this book and this one. Great stuff. Makes me want to tie the old Windsor knot and jam with my sextet.

Not gonna happen. I do tie a fine Windsor, but I don't have a jazz band of my own. I do, however, have web site copy to write for West Texas Shaving Company, so off I go.

(And as for the aforementioned Mr. Julian: I like his stuff, too.)

A Charlie Christian Christmas Eve: 1939

On Sunday, 24 December 1939, Charlie Christian was one of the musicians performing at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the "From Spirituals to Swing" concert.

The Kansas City Six performed "Good Morning Blues," "Paging the Devil," and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans."

The Kansas City Six:

Charlie Christian electric guitar
Lester Young tenor sax
Buck Clayton trumpet
Freddie Green guitar
Walter Page bass
Jo Jones drums

Later, as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet, Christian played five more tunes: "Flying Home," "Memories of You," "I Got Rhythm," "Honeysuckle Rose," and "Stompin' at the Savoy."

The Benny Goodman Sextet:

Benny Goodman clarinet
Charlie Christian electric guitar
Lionel Hampton vibraphone
Fletcher Henderson piano
Artie Bernstein string bass
Nick Fatool drums

What seems to have been the climax of the event was the jam session, which featured quite a few of the notable musicians of the day:

The "From Spirituals to Swing" Pickup Band:

Count Basie, Peter Johnson, Joe Sullivan, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Fletcher Henderson piano
Charlie Christian guitar
Lester Young tenor sax
Harry Edison, Buck Clayton, Shad Collins,
Ed Lewis trumpets
Artie Bernstein, Walter Page string bass
Nick Fatool, Jo Jones drums
Jack Washington baritone sax
Earl Warren alto sax
Buddy Tate tenor sax
and Count Basie trombonists Dickie Wells, Dan Minor, and Benny Morton, on "Oh, Lady Be Good."

Must have been quite the night.

A Marine's Christmas Eve: The Chocolate Diet

Imagine the young Americans — soldiers and Marines, mostly, though not exclusively — spending this Christmas away from home, in Iraq or Afghanistan. I’ve never been to either place, but I think I know exactly how things are over there. You see, when I was their age I was a Marine, and I was doing the same thing myself.

For me, the 1983 Christmas season meant Beirut, Lebanon -- President Reagan having decided that the place was “vital” to America’s national interest. As Bill Cosby might say: Riiight. Anyway, I was there as a member of a counterintelligence team, which had, among other benefits, the privilege of mobility (we had to drive around in order to talk with sources).

We lived at the Beirut International Airport, but unlike the infantry guys, we weren’t stuck there all day, day after day. Ultimately, what that meant in terms of vital national interests was that we had more access to Pepsi and chocolate.

The airport operations weren’t impressive, what with only four flights a day, but the mail avalanche certainly was. We paid nothing for outgoing first class mail, and we took advantage of that privilege. I wrote to my parents, of course, and to college buddies, but I also corresponded with novelist John D. MacDonald, U. S. Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida, William F. Buckley, Jr., and others (MacDonald and Chiles wrote back, and Buckley sent me National Review for a year, gratis). I even wrote to the Tampa Bay Bucs, suggesting that they designate a redheaded cheerleader to write to me (puritanical bastards never responded to that one...).

I’ve spoken with clients of mine who tell me that when they were in Iraq in 2003, small DVD players were allowed to be shipped free as well. Of course, we didn’t have that technology in 1983, but I’m glad to hear they’re enjoying the same privileges I had.

Personal mail was delivered to us at the unit, but there was another source of mail: “Hey Joe” mail. Anything at all anonymous fell into the “Hey Joe” category, mail or otherwise, because the Lebanese street vendors called all of us “Joe,” and would try to get our attention by calling, “Hey, Joe!” Where that came from is anybody’s guess — I always assumed that it came from G.I. Joe.

Of course, Marines hate being addressed as “G.I.” to any degree, because we associate that with the army, but I digress...

Hey Joe mail was mail addressed to “Any Marine” or “Any Sailor.” The same thing is happening these days, but it surprised me at the time: radio and television stations, car dealerships, chambers of commerce, or whatever would organize campaigns designed to get people to write to us, since we were stuck in hideously dangerous Beirut instead of enjoying Christmas at home with friends and family. I was surprised, though, because, having grown up during the latter, divisive years of the Vietnam war, I didn’t realize just how supportive most of America can be when it comes to the welfare of its young military men.

And boy, did people respond: by the thousands, in my observation. Our mail was backed up all the way to New York, and mail delivery via helicopter from the U.S.S. Guam to the Marines on the ground at the airport took place twice a day, every day. Yes, every day: Sunday was a mail day. People sent letters, cards, and packages, and they sent a lot of each.

Anyway, the Hey Joe mail was delivered to the chaplain, and there was so much of it that the airport authorities gave him an extra office just to store, temporarily, that mail. We would take a Jeep and trailer, drive to the chaplain’s office, and fill both Jeep and trailer with mail.

If you’ve sent that kind of package — we called them CARE packages, after the relief organization — to Iraq or Afghanistan — or if you sent something to us in Lebanon back in 1983 — then trust me, it was appreciated, whether you ever received a thank-you letter or not. I wrote quite a few such thank-you notes, and so did every Marine I knew.

Those packages were something else. People sent us all manner of necessary items, such as razors, razor blades, soap, shaving cream, toothpaste, envelopes, pads of writing paper, pens — and chocolate. We appreciated all of it — our PX had been closed because of incoming mortar and sniper fire. But damn, we were excited by the chocolate. You name the brand, we got it in the mail: Hershey, Nestle’s, Cadbury. And home-made stuff, too: cookies and brownies and cakes and more. We loved it all.

We didn’t eat the fruitcake, although we got plenty of that, too. Store bought, home-made, we got both, and ate none of it. But we continued to devour the chocolate.

Quite a few of those letters and packages included photographs of young women. We were young Marines, remember, so…well, these photos were highly prized as well, as you can imagine. Especially those containing return addresses and phone numbers. There were no e-mail addresses in those days. I couldn’t believe some of the things women would write to anonymous strangers, but there it was. I imagine that the guys in southwest Asia are enjoying the same enlightenment. I hope so.

The chocolate consumption really got out of hand. I had never eaten so much chocolate in my life, and haven’t since. Chocolate with breakfast — or for breakfast. Chocolate with lunch — or instead of lunch. And throughout the day. Chocolate, without limit. If you have ever fantasized about being on a chocolate diet, I can assure you that it’s been done — the chocolate diet has been tested by active, virile, muscular young men: the men of the U.S. Marine Corps.

But the chocolate diet comes at a price, and that price, was, to me, an unexpected side effect: one evening, while tearing through a mountain of Hey Joe mail as tall as any of us stood, we all did the usual hoarding of soap, razors, shampoo, and so forth, and I heard someone laugh scornfully and say, “What is that, chocolate? Fuck that.”

“Ahh,” I thought, “so I’m not the only one.” I realized that I hadn’t eaten any chocolate for days, and felt absolutely no desire for any more.

Perhaps the guys in Iraq aren’t suffering from an over-indulgence of chocolate. I don’t know. I hope not. And hey, I hope the same for those in Afghanistan. My Christmas season this year certainly includes chocolate.

But I’m sure they appreciate the toiletry items.

I don’t recall what we did for that Christmas of 1983, but I remember my Christmas Eve dinner quite well: After standing duty in the rain, and challenging a general officer to produce his I.D. card, my holiday feast consisted of one bag of cold MRE beans and a few cups of coffee. I think at least one of them was warm.

There was no chocolate.

(A slightly different version of this column, commissioned and edited by Jennifer Iannolo, originally appeared on December 24, 2004 at The Atlasphere. It was snowing in Las Cruces, New Mexico as I wrote it, and I was enjoying coffee and chocolate -- but no beans. )

"I find your belief system fascinating"

Happy Festivus, everyone!

Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit and Todd Zywicki of The Volokh Conspiracy remind me that today is Festivus. And I don't even have a pole this year.

The Seinfeld episode which introduced Festivus to the world ends with Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller) crowing, "This is the best Festivus ever!" Well, The Best Festivus Ever was in Alexandria, Egypt in December 2000. It was Ramadan, so the dinner was in the evening. We had a pole, great food, wines, cigars, and babes -- including an American girl, and a beautiful Egyptian girl who had come straight from iftar. I think that should become a Festivus tradition itself!

Top Ten Muscleheads

Lou Schuler has an article at Testosterone Nation on The Ten Most Influential Muscleheads." He took his idea from that Atlantic Monthly piece I blogged about here. It's a pretty good list (maybe not as good as mine, but a lot more focused), and I love the subtitle: "An opinionated look at the men and women whose passion for the iron made the world safe for hypertrophy:"

I found myself growing frustrated as I read it. Once you get past the guys on Mt. Rushmore, it seems like a grab-bag, with an overwhelming 19th-century bias. Were Walt Whitman (#22) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (#33) really more influential than Bill Gates (#54)? Were people in the 1800's so literate that a gay poet and reclusive philosopher changed their lives the way the ubiquity of the personal computer has changed ours?

You'll want to quibble with the list: Charles Atlas isn't on it, for one thing. Nor is Charles Poliquin or Steve Reeves. No Lisa Lyon, no Rachel McLish, no Cory Everson. Vince Gironda and Peary Rader didn't make it, either. And not even that guy who wrote Yoga for Cats is here.

But Jack LaLanne is, and Bob Hoffman, and Arthur Jones, and Pudgy Stockton. Don't know who she is, do you? Check out the list, then. Come on, you already know who Numero Uno on the list is...go see the rest.

Great photo of Eugene Sandow, too. You know you want abs like his. Go read, and give the comments a scan, too -- there are lots of knowledgeable people writing for and participating in T-Nation. Great site. Then go grab some iron of your own...

"Punk Music Is a Joke -- It's Really Just Baroque."

Well, that's the message here, anyway.

See you in Hell, Pachelbel. Or on VH-1.

Fascinatin' Unity

From "Fascinatin Schism," Ken Emerson's Boston Globe review of George Gershwin: His Life and Works, by Howard Pollack:

Alone among his popular songwriting peers, Gershwin had the ability and ambition to cross the great divide and compose classical music. Yet among classical composers he was equally unique in embracing uncondescendingly what he characterized as the "nervous, hurried, syncopated, ever accelerando, and slightly vulgar" nature of American life. "Rhapsody in Blue," he wrote, was "full of vulgarisms. That's what gives it weight."

"George Gershwin" captures many glints of how Gershwin's chutzpah, the sheer brazenness of his aspirations, produced musical gold. It remains a mystery why so few other composers have even attempted such alchemy.

Yes.

Now I want to read Pollack's book.

"Honeysuckle Rose" and some History

On Thursday, December 19, 1939, the Benny Goodman Sextet appeared on a radio broadcast from New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, including "Honeysuckle Rose," with a guitar solo from Charlie Christian.

The Benny Goodman Sextet:

Benny Goodman clarinet
Lionel Hampton vibraphone
Artie Bernstein string bass
Johnny Guarnieri piano
Nick Fatool drums

and the Godfather of the Electric Guitar, Charlie Christian.

"Honeysuckle Rose" is an interesting example of the "swing to bop" phenomenon -- because in different versions, it's both swing and bop. To my knowledge, this radio broadcast hasn't been released on record or on CD, but the Goodman bands...well, Goodman was known as the King of Swing for a reason. Charlie Christian, while playing for the Goodman orchestra and sextet, definitely played swing jazz, but he also participated in after hours sessions with musicians who became known as the founders of bebop (Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke among them) -- and some of those sessions are available on CD.

So is "Honeysuckle Rose" the jumping-off point for "Up on Teddy's Hill," from the CD I linked to, above? Just askin'.

(Some of the information in this post was gleaned from Leo Valdes's web site Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Web Site -- a fine resource from right here in El Paso, Texas.)

Shivers

Definitely shivers in El Paso this morning, but that's not what I'm talking about.

On Wednesday, December 16, 1939, the Benny Goodman Sextet recorded a few sides in the Columbia Studios in New York City. There were a few takes of "Shivers," as well as "AC-DC Current" and "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)." All three songs are available on The Benny Goodman Sextet 1939-1941 featuring Charlie Christian, which is available at amazon.com and on iTunes (and is now on my iPod).

The Benny Goodman Sextet:

Benny Goodman clarinet
Johnny Guarnieri piano
Artie Bernstein string bass
Nick Fatool drums
Lionel Hampton vibraphone

and, of course, future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Charlie Christian on the electric guitar.

Produced as usual by John Hammond, who was responsible for getting Christian and Goodman together in the first place.

Just as a point of interest: if you have the Goodman Sextet CD I mentioned above, and a copy of The Beatles Anthology Volume I, you'll find that you have a jazz version and a rock version of "The Sheik of Araby."

Of course, if your library includes both The Beatles and The Benny Goodman Sextet, you have peerless taste in music.

Ten Things I Love About America

Pejman Yousefzadeh linked to Daniel Finkelstein's list of ten things he loves about America, and I thought I'd make a similar effort -- but I decided to put a bit of a twist on it, see if I could make the list uniquely me. So I thought I'd go with some items that I don't see mentioned every day, or are somewhat offbeat or otherwise uniquely appealing to me. So there's no New York City here, and no California beaches, no Bill of Rights or Corvettes, no mention of jazz or rock and roll.*

In no particular order:

1. iPods and other such devices Your playing device, media, and music library all in one portable device. That's just way cool. My French, Russian, Arabic, and Norwegian language lessons are all on my iPod Mini. So is Maria Callas, and so is Joshua Bell.

2. blogs No comment.

3. Gene Wolfe I'm rereading The Book of the New Sun, and enjoying it as much as I did the first time, in the early Reagan years. Imagine a world about a million years in the future, and things don't...er, work quite so well. Your protagonist is a young man named Severian, a journeyman of The Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence. In other words, he's a torturer. And he gets fired. Find out why.

4. hamburgers Best. Food. Ever.

5. Mel Bay Publications Do you play the guitar? Mel Bay doesn't produce the only learning materials for the instrument, nor the only good ones. But they're comprehensive as hell, and they produce quality materials.

6. Tony Llama boots and New Balance running shoes Gotta get around. May as well enjoy doing it, and look good, too.

7. Schick Injectors and Gillette Super Speeds I know what I said about Coke and Pepsi, above, but damn it...these little things are mid-century Americana. They sold for about a buck apiece, back in the day, and they're classics now. And they deserve their status as classics: single-blade shaving is the way to go, and vintage Injectors and Super Speeds are great places to start. You may decide you'll stick with them.

8. Men's Wearhouse suits and Allen Edmonds shoes Let me repeat what I wrote, above, about looking good. Forget your trial lawyers with their thousand-dollar suits: most American millionaires wear suits in the $300-$400 range. Quality stuff here.

9. John D. MacDonald and Raymond Chandler This is mid-century Americana, as much as the Schicks and the Gillettes. Chandler defined the noir story and remains probably the best writer of the hard-boiled school of mysteries. Try his 1950 essay, "The Simple Art of Murder," for a feel of what his detective, Philip Marlowe, is like. MacDonald practically invented the paperback original (most of his are now out of print, unfortunately) and, with his Travis McGee series, created his own knight errant to rival Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Start with The Big Sleep (Chandler) and The Deep Blue Good-by (MacDonald). You'll want more.

10. West Texas Shaving Company Great shaves. I like our bay rum-scented soap, and writing the promotional copy, and talking to customers. I look forward to testing our lime soap, too, and offering it on the market. Web presence coming soon.

America is both Atlantic and Pacific (and Gulf of Mexico, and Sea of Cortez, and Great Lakes), Coke and Pepsi (and Seven-Up and Dr. Pepper and Fresca), Gibson and Fender (and Martin and Rickenbacker and Epiphone), and there's something that millions of people like about all of the above. Let's hear it for the pursuit of happiness.

I'll play tag with this one, too. I tag:

1. The Happy Curmudgeon
2. Alexandra
3. Charles Hill
4. Gus Van Horn
5. Diana Hsieh
6. Ian Hamet
7. Roger L. Simon
8. Eric Scheie

* By the way, I'm glad Americans invented jazz. Anyone else would have fucked it up.

Six Became Seven

On Thursday, December 19, 1940, Benny Goodman and His Sextet cut some sides in Columbia Studios, New York City, produced by John Hammond.

Recorded were multiple takes of "Breakfast Feud," "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," and "Gone With What Draft." Also recorded was "Gilly," named after one of Goodman's daughters. Versions of "Breakfast Feud," "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby," and "Gilly" are available on The Benny Goodman Sextet 1939-1941 featuring Charlie Christian, available at amazon.com and on iTunes. Highly recommended: see what all the excitement was about.

Benny Goodman clarinet
Cootie Williams trumpet
Georgie Auld tenor sax
Kenny Kersey piano
Artie Bernstein string bass
Harry Jaeger drums

and of course, the immortal Charlie Christian on the electric guitar.

Something Worth Chattering About

Frank Johnson, the guy who created the term "the chattering classes" has died of cancer.

Seems to have been quite a guy. He's been in congress with Maria Callas's right nipple, and he filed a story for the Telegraph on Roberto Alagna being booed from the stage at La Scala. Jeez, that was only last week.

"The chattering classes." I'm envious. Well, I'm envious of the Callas thing, too, but coming up with "the chattering classes," now that's just the edge of greatness.

(Hat tip: John Derbyshire at The Corner)

Mandatory Recycling Comes to El Paso

Heh. So there was a story in the El Paso Times, which I wrote about here on November 26 of this year, in which we were informed that recycling would be coming to El Paso in time for Earth Day 2007. Imagine my civic pride.

Now, according to that story (no longer available online from the El Paso Times), the program is "voluntary." By which is meant, according to Our Fair City's "Environmental Services Director," that it won't be "mandatory." Meaning that the damn blue containers will be delivered to my home, and I will have to call the city in order to effect their removal.

I quote my own words from November 26:

Hmm...wonder where they got the scratch to buy these bins, and to distribute them? How about funding for operating the program? Seems to me I'm already "participating," and it sure as hell wasn't my idea. So Ms Smyth and I have to agree to disagree, I guess, on the meaning of "mandatory."

Also, according to the story, the program is expected to bring in $ 2 million in revenue to the city. If that is the case, I suspect it won't be long before participation in the program is mandatory.

But there are problems with the (ahem) "voluntary" nature of the program, according to today's El Paso Inc. The story is by staff writer Ryan Poulos. The first quote we read is from city representative Eddie Holguin:

The problem I have is that we are forcing people to recycle. When the idea for the recycling program was originally presented to us last year, we were told that it wasn't going to cost people anything.

Now that is simply naive of Mr. Holguin and, not to be rude, he is old enough to know better. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and the bins, the collectors of the refuse, and the experts all have to be paid for, period.

We are then treated to the wisdom of Joyce Wilson, the City Manager of El Paso, who opines that,

"If we don't get enough participation, we'll have to adjust rates for the other customers to make up for the losses. To say the program is voluntary is a recipe for disaster. I feel like if we have put this all together and we have invested in it, we need everybody to participate."

Oh my god. You did read that, didn't you? Voluntary is a recipe for disaster. But Ms. Wilson is nothing if not generous as to how she'd prefer to treat her subjects employers: "If everybody participates in the program from the start, I feel like we may not ever have to fine anyone."

Well imagine my relief! If we all participate in a voluntary plan that we're already paying for, we may be able to avoid fines! Is that not generous of our unelected City Manager?

But it gets better.

The story goes on to quote Ellen Smyth -- described in the El Paso Times story as Our Fair City's "Environmental Services Director," and in this story as "director of Solid Waste Management" -- as saying that for "the first 30 days of the marketing campaign, there will be no mention of the penalties for not participating in the recycling program." Instead, there will be advertising "through every medium possible," according to Ms Smyth:

We're going to use billboards, television, radio, newsprint, pencils, pens and anything else we can come up with.

I'll tell you what I have "come up with:" Joyce Wilson and Ellen Smyth should be fired. Actually, they should both be tarred and feathered and ridden out of El Paso on a rail, but that won't happen. So I'll settle for termination of their employment with Our Fair City. Mr. Holguin, show some gumption and call for this -- these two terminations -- to happen. You yourself say that you are "afraid that this might become just another bad way for the City to make more money."

As all regular readers of The Anger of Compassion know, it is entirely in character for me to crow "I told you so." So: I told you so? Voluntary? Not mandatory? Bah.

I told you, on November 26. There is certainly enough solid waste being slung around. And this, I predict, is only the beginning.

Mr. Holguin, we await your courageous response.

A Charlie Christian Christmas

Tonight I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. Not for the first time: it's been around since 1965, and so have I. Well, a bit before that, actually: I do remember watching it every year in the 1960s.

Well, by what I've been listening to lately, along with what I expect to open on The Day, it promises to be A Charlie Christian Christmas for me. And it can be a Charlie Christian Christmas for you, too -- but why should you care?

Christian was one of the very first stars of the electric guitar (he joined the Benny Goodman Sextet in 1939, and, in jamming at Minton's and Monroe's in Harlem, served as a link from swing to bop. That last link, by the way, would also introduce you to some Dizzy Gillespie, a giant of bebop jazz. An outstanding pair would be The Benny Goodman Sextet featuring Charlie Christian and The Original Guitar Hero. Both are also available on iTunes, and individual tunes are as well.

Time for a plug for capitalism, too: as a guitarist, I've known the name "Charlie Christian" since the mid-70s, but I never saw a Benny Goodman Sextet album in a record store, ever, nor did I ever hear a Sextet tune on the radio, even though as a teen I lived in southern Florida, a place full of old folks and college students, a natural market, you'd think, for jazz. Let's be serious, though: jazz on the radio, in the US, is dominated by "cool" jazz, the West Coast school, bop and post-bop, and occasional Dixieland. That curious intersection of the 1930s and early 1940s, in which popular music and jazz commingled, seems to fall through the cracks. So I never heard a Charlie Christian guitar solo until I bought two Benny Goodman Sextet tunes on iTunes.

And due to capitalism, such a thing as the internet exists, and internet merchants such as amazon.com, who will sell you not only CDs on which Charlie Christian played, but books about his playing, such as this one, and this one, and this one.

But you can begin your discovery of Charlie Christian without spending a single dime, by going to Charlie Christian: Legend of the Jazz Guitar, and to Solo Flight: The Charlie Christian Web Site.

And the Solo Flight site is hosted right here in El Paso, and maintained by El Pasoan Leo Valdes. How cool is that?

Have a very merry Charlie Christian Christmas, everyone!

Vintage Gillette Super Speed Commercial

Nice vintage TV commercial for the Gillette Super Speed, featuring Dodgers Pee Wee Reese and Roy Campenella. I'm not convinced it's from 1948 (due to the number of models mentioned in the commercial itself), but it's fun to watch nonetheless, and as I've mentioned before, I love my own 1948 Super Speed.

(Hat tip: goolimari at ShaveMyFace.com)

AR to CW

The Federal Communications Commission is dropping the Morse code requirement, or what's left of it, for certain amateur radio licenses. Hmmm...now, while the five-word-per-minute code requirement for certain privileges isn't that stringent (I learned the code as a Boy Scout in the early 1970s), it was a barrier, and a needless one: the hobby has been slowly dying since the 1960s, and erecting and maintaining barriers doesn't help.

I recognize that CW dates from the earliest days of radio, and that for some it's the most enjoyable part of the hobby. It will probably remain so for some time. But it's a technical hobby, for crying out loud, and Morse code is mule technology. Requiring it is akin to requiring that hams be able to recognize circuitry from a Zenith Trans-Oceanic.

Look, they were beautiful radios. But just because I like them is no reason to require you to like them.

Now we need to issue a QRT on the FCC itself...

(Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds)

"Dinah"

On December 16, 1939, the Benny Goodman Sextet appeared on the "Camel Caravan" program on the NBC Radio Network from station WEAF/Radio City Studios. The aircheck was "Dinah," featured solos from vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and guitarist Charlie Christian.

The Benny Goodman Sextet:

Benny Goodman clarinet
Charlie Christian electric guitar
Lionel Hampton vibraphone
Johnny Guarnieri piano
Artie Bernstein string bass
Nick Fatool drums

You can hear the solo here, and find the transcription, tablature, and more about Charlie Christian here.

Happy Bill of Rights Day

Today is Bill of Rights Day. We should take note of it, because one of the political assets available to Americans is the lip service paid to those ten amendments. I wrote, a few years back, a lament on our politicians taking the Bill of Rights seriously -- or not, as I argue the case to be.

I don't think things are really any better, and in fact in some ways the situation has gotten worse. Sarbanes-Oxley, for example, is a violation of the First Amendment, but it's the law of the land. Senator John McCain, co-sponsor of the odious McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" free speech atrocity, is the probable front-runner for the 2008 Republican nomination, so he's actually been rewarded for violating his oath of office.

The Second Amendment may be enjoying a bit of resurgence. At the very least, Democratic politicians running for office seem to accept that being reflexively pro-gun control can be a swift and sure ticket for defeat, so some of them are running away from that. And I liked the news of this victory in the Ohio Senate, where the legislators overrode a veto by Republican governor Bob Taft. Wow, Democrats better than a Republican on the right to self-defense. And a guy named Taft, to boot. Talk about rolling over in the grave...And then there's this. But I see the beginnings of promise here. I'm in league with those who say that gun rights are civil rights. You bet.

The Fourth Amendment, however, took a kick in the balls from the Supreme Court's decision on "no-knock" warrants and Associate Justice Scalia's assertion that police forces all over the country are becoming more "professional."

But the Fifth is in dire straits, too. Remember the Supremes and their li'l Kelo decision? One nice bit of fallout, though, is that state legislatures across the land are rewriting their own statutes to make eminent domain property grabs at least a little bit harder to accomplish. This may gain some traction, and it may even spur Americans to begin thinking, as I do, that eminent domain should go the way of the peculiar institution. If conscription is immoral and evil (it is), and the federal government is not entitled to take your life and use it as they see fit, then why should the government be able to take your house? As Ayn Rand wrote, there can be no unchosen obligations.

The Bush White House mandarins still like to argue that the President is never wrong (shades of Richard Nixon's "if the President does it, it's legal"), so I don't see any great respect coming up for the Sixth Amendment, either. Too much habeas corpus, too many "national security" considerations. And I wonder when the "law and order" Republicans, or "civil liberties" Democrats, intend to speak out against the Nifong scandal in North Carolina? Don't hold your breath.

Are we doing any better with regard to the Ninth? I've always thought that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were thoughtfully crafted, and were a good set of long-shot hopes for the restoration of American liberties:

Amendment IX. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

As I said, it'd be a long shot...but, via Glenn Reynolds, I see this abstract in which a law professor argues -- in the Texas Law Review -- that the Ninth was intended to be taken seriously: "In short, the Amendment is what it appears to be: a meaningful check on federal power and a significant guarantee of individual liberty." I like that: "meaningful." Oh my yes.
But at the end of the list, we come to another defeat:

Amendment X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I see no imminent progress on that one. I'd like to be wrong.

The recent flap in Objectivist circles over voting for Democrats vs. Republicans is a case in point. It seems to me that many Objectivists are essentially neo-conservatives these days, are willing to accept almost anything in the name of the "War on Terror," and are simply single-minded in terms of voting for Republican politicians. The problem is that the Republicans are as statist as the Democrats, the only difference coming in the form of better rhetoric. Not better policies, mind you, and not better legislation. Just better rhetoric. As John Lewis puts it:

You have heard—and will continue to hear—many explanations for the election results. You have been told, for instance, that Democratic obstruction stymied the president, and leftist defeatism undermined support for the war. These answers will not cut it. Republicans held a political majority in Washington for six years, and the President was given all the resources and authority he asked for—including a solid re-election two years ago.

You have been told that Democrats wanted to spend like crazy on domestic programs, and that they turned on Bush because he sought to allow Americans greater choice in how they spend their money. But the president has increased spending to a degree not seen since LBJ and FDR, and has not vetoed a single spending bill.

It has been said that the election was about values—meaning, religious values—and that you lost because you were not "Conservative" enough. But what does this mean? That you did not lobby strongly enough for government intervention in family affairs, education, and science? Religious conservatives—such as Senator Santorum—were also soundly defeated. The American people expressed no desire for more religious values in government.

It remains telling that the American people were solidly on the president's side when he promised a reduction in government coercion at home, and a victory in the war overseas (over 80% supported the invasion of Iraq)—and that they withdrew their support only after he failed to follow through on his promises.

I'll offer a different reason for your defeat. You lost because you ceased being Republicans, and became new, "Neo-," Conservatives. You were too Conservative, and not Republican enough. To earn my vote, it is Conservatism that you must reject, in favor of freedom, rights, and reason. You must once again become Republicans—the party of the American Constitutional Republic.

I think so.

Earlier this year, I linked to Jesse Walker's advice for Democrats, and we could use his model ("Be good on the issues where the left is supposed to be good...") to give some advice to the Republicans:

Be good where the right is supposed to be good...In general, stand up for fewer regulations and lower tax rates (and fewer taxes, for that matter) ...you know, the free market. Take federalism seriously and stay out of the states' affairs and mind your own business in other matters, too. And when you set out to fight a war...fight the damn war.

Posted by Craig Ceely at 03:59 PM | Comments (0)

Ahmet Ertegun, RIP

Just read that Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic Records and of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died.

I first encountered his name when I read the Phil Spector part of a paperback bearing the title The Rolling Stone Rock and Roll Interviews, in the early Seventies. I was a kid and had no idea who Ertegun was. Hell, I had no idea who Phil Spector was, either. I was all Beatles and Stones and Clapton and Hendrix and Who. But Ertegun -- whatever his nationality or citizenship -- was a great American. They don't make too many like him.

(Hat tip: Dustbury)

If I May Inject : Technique Is All

This morning I shaved with what is probably my favorite Injector, an Eversharp-Injector from about 1950-1953, and I was very, very pleased: it was damn near perfect. Almost all surfaces glass-smooth, no irritation at all, anywhere, and it was quick.

I do plan to employ a more meditative and attentive approach when I put that H. G. Long Special Cross Daggers straight razor to my neck for the first time, but for weekdays and safety razors, "quick" is good.

Anyway, back to the Injectorshave: for a number of reasons I shaved again this evening, and I was quite pleased to find that, for the second time today, the result was still no neck irritation. The acid test? Application of Old Spice.

Technique is all. I wish I'd known how to use a safety razor when I was in the Marine Corps...

I used my styptic pencil the other day, for the first time in months. Those Feather blades don't mind letting you know when they need to be changed.

And I'm pleased to announce that the third variety of shaving soap from West Texas Shaving Company -- a lime -- is curing as I write this, and the scent is heavenly. I can't wait to test it, and to offer it.

James Baker, Jimmy Carter, and Viagra

A response to the findings of the Iraq Study Group, by Julia Gorin at FrontPageMag.com:

For the United States to be admitting feeling helpless in Iraq by going to the culprits for help, offering a blood trade and to some extent making them our masters may be an unprecedented American low.

A reminder for those who need it: Jihad doesn't mean Jewhad. It means you too. What Baker, along with these other altercockers, doesn’t understand is that to his Arabs, he is a Jew.

Baker, Carter, Hamilton and Bush Sr.: Get out of foreign policy and get on the Viagra. That’s what it’s there for. It’s for when old men no longer know what to do with themselves and start reinserting themselves into foreign policy.

"Jewhad" is one of those blogospheric neologisms -- like "blogosphere -- that is simply perfect for what it is, and deserves a life of its own.

Writers at Work Online

I mentioned here that The Paris Review intended to put all of their "Writers at Work" interviews online. I can update you on this: a lot of them are there. You can't read all of them, but there are a lot.

Some you can get to:

James Thurber
S.J. Perelman
Kingsley Amis
P.G. Wodehouse

When the Calvin Trillin and Fran Lebowitz interviews are up, let me know.

The Midas Touch (The Basics)

Two essays I've always liked, by Richard Russell of Dow Theory Letters,

"Rich Man, Poor Man (The Power of Compounding"

and

"The Perfect Business"

along with a classic, the Reverend Russell Conwell's "Acres of Diamonds," just as a year-end bonus to go with your Anger of Compassion Premium Subscription. Good reading, to go along with Gary North's "Recessions Are Great Opportunities."

(The Russell page also contains a brief history of Dow Theory itself, if you're interested. You probably should be -- plenty of other investors are, and it's an interesting bit of history. Dow Theory, market averages, technical analysis, and The Wall Street Journal all go together, historically. Have fun with the point and figure charts and imagine being the next Jesse Livermore.)

Not that many episiotomy jokes

Hitch on humor, and on how men and women differ thereby:

Slower to get it, more pleased when they do, and swift to locate the unfunny—for this we need the Stanford University School of Medicine? And remember, this is women when confronted with humor. Is it any wonder that they are backward in generating it?

But Hitchens does check in with Fran Lebowitz as well as with the Stanford University School of Medicine, so agree with him or not, he did at least one thing right. I agree with him about Dorothy Parker, too.

(Hat tip: Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner)

Taking a Pag Out of Another Book

My son has moved from the guitar to the violin, and has discovered Nicolo Paganini, who was also a guitarist. So: here's a nice performance of a Paganini caprice on the guitar, and the same piece performed on the trumpet.

(Hat tip for both: Charles G. Hill)

The Leaning...er, Fallen Tower

This Washington Post story is yet another offer of how heartless capitalism is; in this case, the tale of woe is that Tower Records is shutting down. It's breaking my heart.

All of it is going, of course -- not just Tower, but the record store culture that Tower embodied. Anything that can be squeezed down to ones and zeros and moved around at the speed of electrons doesn't have to be stacked in plastic cases, shoved into bins and splayed over aisles under fluorescent lights anymore. All of it's going online.

And isn't that better? Doesn't the digital universe give anyone with a computer and a credit card wider and speedier access to more music than any Tower could ever stock? Isn't it better when you never have to find a parking space or deal with one of those haughty, green-haired clerks who always gave your Beach Boys and show-tune selections a look that said, "Wow, you are such a geezer"?

No, it isn't. Not exactly.

There will never be the same sense of wonder on iTunes, the same joy of discovery and intoxicating power of musical abundance that hit you every time you walked into even the dinkiest Tower or any comparable record store. There it lay before you -- unheard! unseen! unfondled! -- potential treasures beckoning from row upon row of wooden bins.

Clicking a mouse cannot replace the singular ritual act of pawing through those big bins to find . . . well, you never knew what. And that was the point. Skilled veterans could flip through dozens of records -- "records"? Ha-ha, Grandpa! -- with knowing hands and studious concentration while the rest of us dawdled over a particularly alluring piece of cover art. Working your way down the alphabet (Abba, the Beatles, the Cure, etc.) could take the better part of an afternoon.

Somebody kill me before I have to read stuff like this again. "Sense of wonder?" "Finding?" How about someone actually hearing the Benny Goodman Sextet for the first time? That means Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Goodman himself, and Charlie Christian -- the first master of the electric guitar -- actually being heard. You can do that for ninety-nine cents at your iTunes account. The sense of wonder belongs with the music, not with the bin or whatever other source brought the music to you. As Paul Farhi writes, "It's reasonable to ask whether Tower could have adapted. As a friend put it, Tower had the brand-name cred to be what iTunes is, if only Tower hadn't clung to bricks and mortar and $17.99 CDs."

Exactly.

Tower didn't adapt, and, partly because it didn't, you couldn't choose to hear Charlie Christian without plunking down damn near twenty bucks for the privilege. At Tower (and Peaches, and any other record store) you had to buy an entire album, tape, or CD in order to hear it. First genius of the electric guitar? Charlie Christian certainly was that, but what if you didn't like the music? Tough. You're out twenty bucks. But you can check out "Air Mail Special" on iTunes and decide whether or not you'll want more.

The internet's not perfect and neither is iTunes. But who needs $17.99 CDs? I don't. I don't need some teenaged clerk ignoring me while she's on her cell phone, then, when she deigns to move to the cash register, asking me for my phone number or zip code, or telling me to fill out a card for three "free" magazines. I don't need to show my driver's license or pay a tax to a particular state for the privilege of buying something.

I never hated Tower, or Peaches, or Sam Goody, or Hot Wax. I don't particularly hate YFE. I take no real satisfaction in seeing such businesses disappear. But the market is speaking about that business model, and has been speaking, and Tower hasn't been listening. Comments about the "magic" of The Way It Used to Be are misdirected. There was magic in seeing all those album covers on the walls, yes. And in finding stuff and getting it. But the point of those aisles and bins and walls was the music, and the music is provided quite well online, thank you.

So Tower Records has fallen, and I'm not a bit sad about it. But I'm not rejoicing over it, either. I may save that for when Blockbuster chokes and dies.

No Need To Simply Scrape By

Charles Hill writes that he went looking to replenish his stock of Schick Super Twins, and ended up looking at the ladies' version of the same product. He doesn't make clear which one he ended up taking home to Surlywood (although he does, tantalizingly, aver that he's "not too proud to shave with something pink.")

I'd only shaved with one Schick product, prior to discovering and entering the world of wetshaving -- the Schick Quattro cartridge razor. I still have it -- and the same cartridge which was in it the night I tried shaving with a single-blade safety razor is still in it. That's right, I never looked back.

As I opined in the comments at Dustbury.com, single-blade shaving is the way to go.

Strictly on an economic basis, there's no arguing with using a safety razor: blades come in packs of five or ten, each one lasts about a week (your mileage will vary here, of course), and you'll definitely come out ahead of the guy using the Schick Quattro or Gillette Fusion cartridges, each package of which costs about as much as an iPod Shuffle. As for disposables, a lot of guys find them too light to handle or perform well (I am one of them). I do use the Bic Sensitive, at times, for touch and cut at the end of a shave, but I'm more likely to reach for one of my antique Schick Injectors.

And that brings us to quality and comfort: for me, shaving was always something to be hated and, if possible, avoided. I've said it before and it's time to say it again: I have a barbed wire beard, underneath which is sensitive skin, and I have to shave my entire neck. I can't use electrics. Well, I can, but I can't get a decent shave with them (I've owned Remington, Norelco, and Braun). Disposables meet their Waterloo with my beard. I never knew how to shave with a safety razor and I never knew anyone as I was growing up, to my knowledge, who used a straight razor. Certainly no one in my family, immediate or otherwise. That left cartridges and, with the introduction of Gillette's Trac II in 1971 -- about the time I began to shave -- that's the path down which I trod.

It's easy to avoid catastrophic cutting with a cartridge razor. It's also easy to burn the hell out of your neck with one, while still leaving lots of whisker behind. But I was a Marine for twelve years, and they look askance at beards, so it was a scary scrape every day. I showered after shaving, because of the blood, and weekends were a vacation because I didn't need to shave.

Now? Now I own and use about ten safety razors (almost all of them Gillette Super Speeds and Schick Injectors made before the mid-1950s). I load 'em up with the sharpest blades known to man and I wield them without fear. I look forward to each shave, and I look forward to using my straight razor for the first time. Do I get a perfect shave every time? Nope. Do I come close? You bet. No cartridge can compare to the close shaves I get with a single blade, and you can forget about electrics. Irritation? I use alcohol-based aftershaves for the first time in decades, because I am no longer irritating the skin of my neck. Blood? I haven't used my styptic pencil in months.

And I like it all so much, I started a company! We enjoyed a few more sales today, among them a cake of our Bay Rum to an admitted straight razor user. I was pretty proud of that. Yep, I'm the Victor Kiam of wetshaving.

A Practical Proposal for Improving Government

This Washington Post headline caught my eye, and the first sentence did, too:

Study Group Supports Ordering Agency Workers to Iraq

Federal agencies supporting the Iraq war and reconstruction should order their civilian employees to fill key jobs in the combat zone if not enough volunteers step forward, a high-level commission said in a report presented to the president and Congress yesterday.

The recommendation by the Iraq Study Group, chaired by James A. Baker III, a former secretary of state, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former House member, grew out of a sense that civilian agencies are not contributing enough personnel to Iraq, adding to the burdens on the U.S. military.

Oh my, but don't I just agree. Let's include Afghanistan, too. In fact, why don't we send the entire Internal Revenue Service over there, and the Transportation Security Administration as well? As they say about a thousand lawyers at the bottom of a lake, it's a damn good start.

They Made America

So The Atlantic Monthly has published a list by Ross Douthat:The Top 100: The Most Influential Figures in American History.

No disagreement, really, with most of the names on the list. It's heavily tilted toward state-statist figures, but then it's put together by historians, so we should none of us be surprised. I don't like the idea that Woodrow Wilson, Ralph Nader, Rachel Carson, and Lyndon Johnson have been so influential, but it's undeniable that they have been.

Still, I could add a few names of my own. Okay, my list is tilted to the positive side. I'll cop to that. But before I get to that, here's an offer for the negative side: Beardsley Ruml and Milton Friedman, for giving us income tax withholding. Ruml was chairman of Macy's and thus something of a capitalist, and Friedman is best known as an advocate of free markets. Still, they did what they did, and like the old Marine Corps saying goes, "One 'aww shit!' wipes out ten attaboys."

So my suggestions for names of people who have influenced America and the world to its ultimate benefit:

For example, Richard Sears, Alvah Roebuck, and Julius Rosenwald -- I have no quarrel with Sam Walton's appearance on the original list, but damn, if it weren't for Sears, Roebuck & Company...

King Camp Gillette - If you're not wearing a beard, you can thank King Gillette. If you shave your legs regularly, you can thank him as well. He didn't invent the safety razor, but he and his partner, William Nickerson, made the safety razor practical by providing sharp, disposable blades.

Leo Melamed - Influential former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, he is widely regarded as the father of the financial futures market.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates - Are you using a PC? Maybe a Mac? No comment necessary then, is there?.

Michael Milken -- If you have cable television, if you use any phone service other than AT&T, you can thank Michael Milken.

Pete Ellis -- Never heard of him, have you? But if you think the right side won the Pacific War in 1945, you can thank Lt. Col Ellis, USMC (deceased).

Allen B. Du Mont -- First practical cathode-ray tube. First television station. First television network.

Jack St. Clair Kilby and Robert Noyce - Co-inventors (independently) of the monolithic integrated circuit.

You want influence? I give you Sears and Gillette, the microchip, computers and software, TV networks and cable TV and non-monopoly phone companies, the S&P 500 as a tradable instrument, and American victory against the Japanese in World War II.

Now that's influence. Historians, take note.

If you make it past the German shepherd-Rottweiler...*

What, me indecisive? My answers led me to a four-way tie between Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, and Revolver. I did like the "bloody spaghetti" language offered by Shotgun. Highly desirable.

But hey, "always cool." Yep, that's my signature!

You scored as Revolver. Simple, old-fashioned a bit, but always cool. This is revolver. Don't listen to that hi-tech freaks - use drum-fed sidearm and be happy! Shotgun 69% Sniper Rifle 69% Revolver 69% Assault Rifle 69% Machinegun 50% SMG 31% Pistol 19% What Firearm Fits You Best? created with QuizFarm.com

* And her two associates.

(Hat tip: Nicholas Provenzo at The Rule of Reason)

Satori

Tonight, for the first time, I shaved with the famously sharp Feather safety razor blades.

I deliberately put the blade into the gentlest, most forgiving razor I have: my 1948 Gillette Super Speed. I'm not in search of pain, so putting such a blade into an aggressive razor when trying it for the first time would be crazy. Crazy like joining-the-Marines crazy. Now I probably couldn't have gone far wrong, because the only other DE razors I have are two other Super Speeds and a Feather portable, all reputable devices. Still, I figured that it's my neck and face, so with something possessing as fearsome a rep as the Feather, I'd allow myself some insurance.

Plus, that particular Super Speed is my favorite razor anyway.

Gentlemen: Wow.

Two passes gave me almost The Perfect Shave. My face and neck were glass smooth almost everywhere, and no irritation at all. A few bits left, but that was deliberate: these blades do have a reputation, and I didn't want to get stupidly ambitious on my test flight. So I paid close attention to blade angle, made sure I used a very, very light touch, and...damn, I'm glad I tried the Feather. And I'm glad I have more of them.

Acid test: after rinsing my face, I did what I always do and applied some witch hazel (14% alcohol) and, nice, no burning sensation. So then I applied an old-style, alcohol-based aftershave (Old Spice). Again, no burning on face or neck. None at all. Sharp is good.

Was my face simply grateful that I gave it a break from the antique Injectors I've been using? Maybe. They do have rather an aggressive blade exposure and thus are known to bite the unwary. Did skipping yesterday's shave help? Probably. Always does. Did I avoid pain by using this Feather blade in a razor known for its minimal blade exposure? Sure. Hell, that's the reason that Super Speed is my favorite razor. I think all of it factored, and I've recently improved both my lathering and angle techniques, too.

But let me tell you this: the sensation of hearing the beard being cut, yet not feeling it, not feeling it at all, is a luxury all men deserve. And I have never had such a painless application of an alcohol-based aftershave as I experienced after this shave, not since 1971.

I've been pretty lucky when it comes to blades: I get good shaves from Merkurs, from Gillettes manufactured in Sweden for the Euromarket, and from Personna blades you can get in any drugstore or Wal-Mart for $2.99 a ten-pack. I get scary-close shaves from my Injectors.

Even so...most of the time, my barbed-wire beard requires three passes and some touch & cut, whether it's with a DE or an Injector -- and that's tough on my neck. I think I'm probably going to keep the Swedish Gillettes in the rotation, and probably the Merkurs, too...they're excellent blades, in my experience. But I now realize that I have to test all of them again, in all of my DEs, and compare on a daily-use basis.

Atari!

The Feather blades are, simply, exceptional.

My Brush with Business Success

Well, West Texas Shaving Company made its debut today -- and its first sales! I'm literally bubbling over, to employ a cliche, with excitement over that. Well, I should say "lathering over," shouldn't I? I'd meant to write more about all of it, but oddly, I find that I'd rather not. Not even sure why that is, except that I started to write about it and got all philosophical and theoretical -- without being original, so it was boring.

Just last night I was reading Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe classic The High Window, and one sentence leaped out at me: "Seen at close quarters his face seemed young and pink and plump and the blond beard on his chin was very carelessly shaved." I see a lot of carelessly shaved men myself, some of them this morning.

I spent the morning behind a vendor's table at a Christmas bazaar and found -- though I'm the salesman, not the artisan -- that I enjoyed the "artisan-y" side of it far more than I expected to: chatting with other vendors, looking at their stuff, and urging potential customers to sniff my samples (a bay rum and a lavender mint, both crafted by Alexandra, and lathered and tested by yours truly). No forced humor about putting my neck on the line, either. I'm way too cool for that.

And I was a complete boob at writing up the receipts, getting the sales tax right, and all that end of it. Every time. Except for counting and returning change to customers, 'cause I did okay at that. But my displays looked good, and I loved answering questions about shaving soaps (and our shaving soaps!), safety razors, mugs and brushes...it was great. We don't have the inventory to do a huge Christmas business, but we're looking forward to the Valentine's Day gift market.

We didn't have our lime or sandalwood soaps on offer today. Our creams, unfortunately, aren't ready for prime time. And we have no internet presence (although we do have an email address and a domain name). But people paid money for our stuff. I can't tell you how much pride I feel over that.

(I would tell you, but I can't find the right words. I don't even know how to find the right words.)

Credential R Us

I dunno...

You paid attention during 97% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

Doesn't quite sound like me...oh, "autodidact" I can accept. But paying attention 97% of the time?

(Hat tip: Alexandra at Out of Lascaux)

On That Damn Disappearing Fourth Amendment

Now, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia can tell us about the increasing "professionalism" of police forces across this great land, but that doesn't make it so. Radley Balko has written a lot about the many "no-knock" raids gone wrong in city after township after shire in this country; he's documented that it's happening far, far more often than most of us believe; and he's made it clear that damn little, if anything, is being done to correct the problem. In fact, he's documented that time after time, a double standard comes into play, in which civilian subjects citizens are held to higher standards of behavior than are the allegedly professional and well-trained police.

Tim Lynch (who mentions Balko in this piece):

If policymakers are not ready to end the drug war, they should at least scale back the SWAT raids and no-knock warrants, videotape the raids that do occur, and abolish the double standards that are in place when the police themselves are being investigated for illegal conduct.

Or we can accept that "increasing professionalism" so admired by Scalia. After all, if you're not guilty, you have nothing to hide, right? Why should you lawyer up, ya perp?

"Kick Freedom in the Family Jewels"

I have to agree with Jeff Jarvis: this is just brilliant. Watch it, share it, spread the word.

The First Amendment thanks you.

Heard on the street...or on the internet. Wherever.

You've probably caught yourself wondering, "What celebrities match Craig's taste in music?" Well, let's see if we can find out...

Your Musical Tastes Match: The Fab Five

See their whole playlist here (iTunes required)

What Celebrity Matches Your Taste in Music?

Really? Hmmm....it'd be fun to meet those guys, I think. What I've been listening to, lately -- since I'm sure the Fab Five just gotta know:

Wes Montgomery
The Benny Goodman Trio, Quartet, and Sextet
John Coltrane
Thelonious Monk
Julian Bream, John Williams, and Manuel Barrueco

Okay, so the classical stuff is all guitar, and even the jazz stuff is weighted toward guitar. I've never been known much for "balance."

And my latest "discovery" is Johnny Hartman, a singer with a fabulous baritone voice. Simply gorgeous. My late mother-in-law was a big jazz fan (we both liked Coltrane, but did not share appreciations for Monk or for Billie Holliday), but I don't think I've ever heard mention of his name. Purely by chance I caught an episode of NPR's Jazz Profile, in which they covered Hartman. Since the last time I caught the program they were talking about Wes Montgomery, I'm going to start looking for it.

Hartman apparently disliked being thought of as a jazz singer, but he recorded a duet album with Coltrane in 1963. Wow.

Anyway, since the Fab Five and I have so much, musically, in common (are internet quizzes ever wrong?), I suppose I should ask their grooming guy, Kyan Douglas, to shill for the bay rum and lavender mint shaving soaps offered by the West Texas Shaving Company. Based on this photo, though, I don't think he'd be interested.

Bring on the wine and cheese

So according to the latest internet quizzes I've taken, I should visit Mexico, where I'll communicate with others in General American English with a Northeastern US accent. I guess.

But what do I know about my inner European?

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Well, I do have exquisite taste in French maids... Now if only I could find those Concertiste guitar strings I once played...

The King's English, c'est moi...

First of all, what kind of American English do I speak?

Your Linguistic Profile:

45% General American English

35% Yankee

15% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Now, as to my accent (not that I have one):

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

(Hat tip to Jane Galt for the accent quiz. Not that I have one. Oh, I have a quiz, sure. But no accent.)

Which Latin American Country Should I Visit?

Heh. Living in Mexas, I pretty much do this every day, anyway:

You Should Visit Mexico

You can be as comfortable as you want, eating fast food and partying with English speakers in resort town. But if you're feeling brave, venture out to Mexico City - or explore the tropical Yucatan.

What Latin American Country Should You Visit?