I first saw Alex Chilton perform live at the Decade on Atwood St. near the University of Pittsburgh in late spring ‘86. Like most people who grew up in the late ’60’s I’d heard the BOX TOPS  on Top 40 radio ad infinitum (I mistakenly thought Chilton wrote the songs, although if that was true he’d never have had to play dive bars in Pittsburgh) but BIG STAR ’s records were all but unknown to me ’till 1983-84. In the mid-70’s I’d seen promo ads and read glowing reviews about this Fab Four-influenced Memphis quartet/trio but the records themselves were unavailable. Finally the frontman of a band I was in let me hear Radio City and Sister Lovers and I was hooked for life. But the ultra-casual, spiky-haired guy in bermuda shorts I saw onstage  bore little resemblance to the power-pop genius we all so revered. Neither did the music his trio (Chilton on guitar and vocals, Doug Garrison-drums, Rene Coman-bass) played that night Instead of Big Star classics like “You Can’t Have Me”, “Daisy Glaze”, or “Back Of A Car” Alex played obscure Memphis soul covers, some equally unknown blues tunes, “In The Street” to placate old devotees, and of all things, “Volare”, a song my dad used to sing in the shower when he’d been drinking. This was disappointing, but me and my aging (early 30’s) hipster clique pretended to take it in stride. For the encore some obnoxious a**hole from the local Stooges sound-alike ensemble made Alex sing “The Letter”, which he clearly despised. It took me a while to realize that Chilton’s refusal to play up to expectations was indeed what made him so unique.  Instead of regurgitating an oldies set,  Alex re-invented his musical persona in real time, wether you liked it or not. In later years he refined this approach to become a constantly evolving  pop musicologist, who’d play Bach chorales, Gary Stewart weepers, and T Rex’s “Baby Strange” back-to-back. Although Big Star eventually did reform,with Ken Stringfellow and John Auer from The Posies brought in as ringers, recordings (the abysmal In Space CD) and videos reveal Alex grudgingly going along with it because the money was too good to pass up. In fact Big Star was scheduled to play South By Southwest today, March 20th. I bet Alex would have sung his heart out on “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, anyway.

    On Salon.com’s Wednesday edition of “War Room”, writer Alex Koppleman, MSNBC Countdown host (and former DNC chairman) Lawrence O’Donnel, and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas proceeded to bludgeon Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich over his impending  “No” vote on President Obama’s healthcare reform bill.  Kucinich has repeatedly stated that unless health care reform includes a robust public option plus an ERISA waiver to enable individual states to enact their own single-payer systems  he would not support the bill. Moulitsas compared Kucinich with Ralph Nader, invoking the tired old fable that Nader’s candidacy cost Al Gore the 2000 election. Funny, I thought it had been established through post-election recounts sponsored by the New York Times and other media outlets that Gore had won Florida only to have the election stolen from him via the Supreme Court’s precedent-smashing Bush vs. Gore decision. The Daily Kos founder also indirectly accused Kucinich of something approching genocide, personally blaming him for the 40,000 people a year who perish due to lack of health insurance coverage. Considering that Obama’s reforms won’t be enacted until 2013, and possibly even longer if a Republican wins in 2012, this puts Kucinich’s “murderous” veto into Vlad The Impaler territory.  O’Donnel and Koppleman chipped in with snipes at Kucinich’s lack of realpolitik credentials, pointing out that his proposed legislation generally goes nowhere, while invoking the spectre of a well-funded centrist challenger who will finally jettison this utopian socialist star-gazer for good. Let me humbly point out that Kucinich has been serving his Cleveland congressional district for seven consecutive terms, so his constituents apparently must think he’s a very effective legislator. Or maybe they’re all utopian socialists too. Moulitsas’s liberal boilerplate b.s. must play well in the blogoshere, but in the real world it smacks of Karl Rove-style  hyperbole and slander. It’s beyond sad to watch liberals bloggers straining to appease Obama’s political apparatchiks in order to defend a health care bill that guarantees private insurers $350 billion over 10 years without universal coverage, caps on premiums and co-pays, no public option, and restrictive abortion language that may well obliterate a woman’s right to choose.

    Reading the Alternet headlines this morning I was intrigued to see that Rabbi Michael Lerner had written a response to Chris Hedges’ recent critique Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama, a scathing polemic which your humble guttersnipe felt was spot-on. First off let me state that I have immense respect for Rabbi Lerner; I still keep a copy of  Tikkun’s A Resolution For Middle East Peace taped to the door of my food pantry for that document is one of the most reasoned and compassionate propositons for settling the Israel-Palestine conflict that I’ve ever read. But Rabbi Lerner’s rambling and half-measured denunciation of Hedges’s article misses the point. You can go on at length, as Rabbi Lerner does, about Hedges’ disrespect of the common humanity and spiritual worth of Obama and his minions in respect to Israel and the “little people” in the Democratic Party, but respectful consideration of opposing points of view doesn’t transform reality. Even at his most “progressive” moments during the presidential campaign Obama made an art form out of hedging his bets; for every specific promise there were 5 indistinct and ephemeral allusions to “change” that lacked any substance. In countless conversations with fellow “progressives” I would warn people to stay grounded; Obama was a centrist Democrat from a state long known for an intrinsically corrupt political culture; he’d been in the national spotlight for a very short time and had no track record for progressive initiatives; and yes, on both emotional and intellectual fronts he seemed leagues beyond the befuddled McCain and his fascist sidekick, but would those virtues translate to enlightened public policy? I think after a year of disappointment and betrayal we have our answer. Obama’s administration will forever be known for abandoning the American middle class to the whims of a “too-big-to-fail” financial elite interested solely in never-ending gargantuan renumeration; this era will be remembered as the epoch when exporting capital and labor overseas to realize obscene profits trumped all “spiritual” and philosophical considerations. Even the most cynical and politically uninformed among us can see that for 99% of the population late-stage capitalism is a sucker’s bet that spares no one. And to think that the “Dennis Kucinich” wing of the Democratic Party stands a chance to roll back the tide is to openly court insanity. For the evils that befall the United States are far beyond the grasp of a tepid political charlatan like Barack Obama. America in 2010 is a debtor state poised on the brink of fiscal insolvency with a rapidly-expanding,  jobless proletariat increasingly left to devour itself while our throughly corrupt and debased political class will NEVER in its’ present incarnation pass ANY meaningful health care, employment, or climate change legislation. I completely agree with Mr. Hedges that our only hope is to mobilize outside of the obviously paralyzed 2-party system. And with all due respect to Rabbi Lerner: Sir, I’m sure you live in a nice house, possess a sizeable bank account and have excellent health care. My advice is to toss away the comforts of your world and come down to street-level to engage head-on with those you profess to champion, where you’ll find that “respect” and “spiritual compassion” might get you a small coffee at Mickey D’s, provided you possess $1.16.

   Sadly, as the Chilean people struggle to survive in the aftermath of one the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, an axis-tilting armaggeddon 500 times more powerful than the quake that reduced Haiti to unimaginable misery, the Chilean military’s response seems to mirror the United States’ “boots on the ground” lockdown in Port-au-Prince and other afflicted Haitian cities. NPR reported this morning that although some residents of Concepcion’ and other totally ravaged Chilean shore-line communities rejoiced at the military’s arrival, they brought only the promise of security without precious foodstuffs or any other type of assistance. There were the usual promises of swift action to arrest “looters” and criminal gangs taking deadly advantage of the absence of authority, but pray tell, what is the difference between a completely traumatized people suddenly bereft of the basic necessities of life breaking into grocery stores and other businesses in order to feed themselves and their families and base evildoers intent on profiting from anarchy and who makes the call?

       Initially Chilean President Michele Bachelet was hesitant to request aid from neighboring countries and first-tier nations, mistakenly asserting that Chile could cope with the monster quake’s widespread devastation, a stance she has since recanted. Perhaps her caution in requesting help reveals an all-too- knowing comprehension of the price to be paid. Chile is not that far removed from its’ woeful designation as a neoliberal labratory for “structural adjustment” which decimated its’ economy and caused untold suffering and death. Even now one might envision the IMF, World Bank, and a host of multinational corporations voraciously awaiting new opportunities for “re-investment”  in what will be a $25 billion recovery effort that could entail draconian realignment of Chileans’ economic lives. I’m sure both Milton Friedman and Naomi Klein could attest to the potential validity of this assessment. After all, it’s the way the world works.