"It's coming through a hole in the air; from those nights in Tiananmen Square It's coming from the feel that this ain't exactly real Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there. From the wars against disorder, from the sirens night and day, From the fires of the homeless, From the ashes of the gay: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A."
TV commercials are notorious for licensing songs that sound like they mean one thing, but really mean the opposite. Often, they sample an ironic line or chorus from the song and flip its meaning on its head. A classic is how Chevrolet used CCR/John Fogarty's "Fortunate Son" to patriotically taut its American-made, macho trucks, leaving out the signature line, "It ain't me." Heh.
But I never expected PBS's "Frontline" to co-opt, for a promo of its election coverage, Leonard Cohen's "Democracy."
The promo starts with the song's signature light melody, marching drum beat, and salutory harmonica (harmonica, right?). As I heard the familiar music play, sans lyrics, with stars-and-stripes imagery on the screen, I thought, "No ... no ... they didn't ... is this a satire?" as I fumbled to check what channel I was tuned to.
And sure enough, the lyrics only kicked in with Cohen growling the idealist but ironic chorus, "Democracy is coming / To the U.S.A."
I'd say Cohen's song isn't exactly an indictment of American democracy, but it's certainly an indictment of the way it functions now. It's a hopeful call for what we could be (do I hear Obama-style aspirations?) with frank acknowledgment of all our failings. Implicit in the message is that, despite our self-patting, proper democracy isn't really here yet.
Which, to me anyway, is not cause for flag-waving. (But maybe flag-waving includes an embrace of our flaws? Hmmm ... but flag-wavers don't usually strike me as thoroughly introspective about our country like that; they come off more as purely rah-for-the-home-team types: as if our flaws will magically fix themselves thanks to our innate greatness; or, when our flaws are a consideration, they always take a back seat to good ol' pride.)
Unless Frontline WAS being ironic, too, as it profiles the forces that influence our esteemed candidates. Or as a nod to fault-embracing "but it's the best we've got" patriotism.
If that's the case, if election night results show business as usual, I kindly request they sample Radiohead's "2+2=5" and serenade the polls with its blunt chorus: "Because ... You have not been / Paying attention / Paying attention / Paying attention..."
Radiohead is live Webcasting their last U.S. show on this tour tonight, from Santa Barbara (thanks, Talltim). I've got a friend at that show, so I might have to catch this. That, and maybe twist m'lady's arm into sampling what she missed.
Meanwhile, for anyone fascinated by the shows on this tour (that seems to include everyone who attended one) their tour production blog is pretty enlightening. The production handlers talk about all sorts of things like travel, working with LiveNation and lightening their carbon load with the best technology available. A great post explains the LED lights they're using, which actually draw less -- yet more stable -- power consumption.
"Karma police, arrest this man He talks in math, he buzzes like a fridge He's like a detuned radio"
--Radiohead, "Karma Police"
A nice thing about having an obscure personal site with no particular reliable focus on this big, bad, wild Internet, is that you can generally steer clear of nefarious troll commenters who need constant content and specific subject matter to feed their appetite for disharmony.
I honestly don't know what it is about the human psyche (or its lowest capacities) that drives people to stalk popular sites and fill them with usually anonymous antagonism, or what moves people to get into comment spats, or to provoke people, or to just plain tell people off, or to be contradictory for the sake of conflict, under the umbrella of "Discuss this article"
I almost don't want to know. But whatever that part is within humans, it is unleashed tenfold by the anonymity, informality, and lack of consequences of that "bunch of pipes and tubes." Sometimes I tell myself, "it's just children," but it's not. Maybe not. A lot of adults, too. The NY Times recently profiled a few regular "trolls" a few weeks ago -- I don't even want to link to the article -- and the more they delved into each personality, the more I was struck that, at heart, they're simply unhappy people with a lot of disposable time. Too bad.
A great case in point, though, is the inevitable bashing and fighting that happens in the comment threads of any YouTube video. To that end, someone developed a hilarious Firefox add-on that cleans the YouTube comments for you.
Ha! "YouTube Comment Snob" allows you to filter out "undesirable" comments in YouTube threads that have:
More than X number of spelling mistakes: The number of mistakes is customizable, and the extension uses Firefox's built-in spell checker.
All capital letters
No capital letters
Doesn't start with a capital letter
Excessive punctuation (!!!! ????)
Excessive capitalization
Profanity
Brilliant! The same criteria you use to evaluate a commenter's (or coworker's) sanity and age can be used to make their drivel completely disappear! It wouldn't take away the pure contrarian, but it's a start.
Truthfully, I never look at the YouTube comments anyway, unless I'm hoping they clarify the age or source of a song. But it would be ideal to have this function on sites where the discourse can actually, perhaps, teach me something. The places where comments actually add something to this wide world but are, inevitably, corrupted by weasels anyway. Maybe someday.
Of course, I'm somewhat hesitant to wish for that. In any walk of life, I like getting all the raw information (crap and all) to formulate an informed perception. So comment effluvia does help remind me, inform me, keep me from getting too naive, about just how ridiculous people can be.
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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February, 2008