lovelockean combat

Years before the Odinson mixed it up with Ego the Living Planet or the Autobots struggled against Unicron's Orsonwellesian might, the Big Red Cheese found himself going mano-a-planeto with a sentient planetary body which may be familiar to most of you...


"Captain Marvel Battles the World" (from Captain Marvel Adventures #148, September 1953; by Otto Binder & C.C. Beck) is narrated by Earth itself. (For some reason I imagine Earth sounding just like Sterling Holloway.) After a quick introduction guaranteed to outrage the creationist crowd...

Teach the controversy!
...the third planet from the sun outlines its grievances with the rapacious parasites that infest its crust:

YEAH!
In retaliation against those who have ravaged and plundered and ripped it and bit it, stuck it with knives, et cetera, et cetera, the Earth plays some meteorological hardball...

President McCain's environmental policy in action.
Forget carbon emissions and CFCs, the real "inconvenient truth" is that the Earth hates the human race...which is why it is our solemn duty to beat the planet into submission for the sake of corporate profits humanity.

Earth's global warming gambit is foiled by Captain Marvel, who evaporates an ice meteor in the upper atmosphere in order to restore Earth's cloud cover (while worsening the greenhouse effect, providing a catalyst for massive tropical storms, and causing massive coastal flooding. Eh, it happens).

Not the type of heavenly body to be put off by a minor setback, Earth attempts to shatter the cities and works of man by slamming a couple of glaciers together with tremedous force, sending destructive shockwaves across the face of the globe. This plan also fails due to Marvel's intervention, which takes the form of a giant felt suppository crammed up the Earth's south pole.

Captain Marvel: Glacial Proctologist
This indignity only serves to further fan the flames of Earth's anger, and in its rage unleash a cataclysm on a continental scale of improbability...

The elation upon finishing the Panama Canal was short-lived.
...which might have worked, except for the fact that wild implausibility is the coin of Marvel's realm and the basis for all transactions conducted therein. Unprecedented devastation unleashed by a rogue continent set adrift? Big deal. It's nothing that can't be fixed with some glue and a little elbow grease...

"It's a shame about the Falklands being obliterated, but no one but the Brits, Argentines, and some puffins gave a rat's ass about them, anyhow."
Realizing that half-measures will not do when faced with the World's Mightiest Mortal, Earth decides to pull out all the stops and simultaneously unleash the entire gamut of global catastrophe in order to put an end to its human infestation problem. Before the fireworks can commence, however, a renegade comet crashes the festivities and threatens to pulverize the poor Earth.

Fortunately for the hapless planet, Marvel isn't the type of guy to hold a grudge, and applies a little Atomic Age know-how (long on infatuation, short on realizing the consequences) to save the day...

Anti-nuke activists are just a bunch of killer comet-loving hippies.
The comet is destroyed (with only a 10,000% increase in global cancer rates following Earth's passage through the plutonium-laced debris cloud; Marvel is a strict utilitarian), and a chastened Earth is treated to a sanctimonious lecture by the Moon, who, it should be pointed out, lobbied hard for restricted community status after the Apollo 11 landing. "I do think humans are cute; I just think they should be cute somewhere else."

"Besides, what do they have -- another century or two left before the species offs itself? I can wait it out."
1919 - Earth Song (from a 1984 EP; collected on The Complete Collection, 2001) - Crunchy goth fare reminiscent of Killing Joke's punkier stuff. Comrade Highlander posted a rip of the entire EP a few months back, and while the hard copy of the collection is currently out of stock, the mp3 version can be downloaded from either Amazon or eMusic.

Blue Cheer - Ecological Blues (from Oh! Pleasant Hope, 1971) - Blue Cheer's heavy-duty blues-rock sound (and their cover of "Summertime Blues" on 1968's Vincebus Eruptum LP in particular) are frequently cited as one of the seminal influences on the heavy metal genre. While it's a valid observation, it does overstate things (as most proto-genre assertions tend to do) and overlooks the bizarro-psych side of the band as represented by this head-scratcher of a musical timepiece.

The Gun Club - Eskimo Blue Day (from Pastoral Hide and Seek, 1990) - ...and occupying the genre shadowlands between today's offerings from 1919 and Blue Cheer comes this swamp-punk-blues cover of one of Jefferson Airplane's better efforts (as opposed to the two tracks by the band that get heavily played on classic rock and oldies format radio).

the king is dead

(This is a slightly tweaked version, featuring different songs, of last year's tribute to The King. I'm not reposting it out of laziness, but because I found myself writing the same damn thoughts down on this year's anniversary of his death. I also have a dentist appointment today, and while being doped up on painkillers might give me insight into the man and the legend, it's not really conducive to well thought out writing.)

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of Elvis Aaron Presley’s death. On August 16, 1977, the King’s heart, weakened by years of drug abuse and too many deep-fried sandwiches, gave out as he squatted on the toilet in his palatial estate; an absurd yet mythic death for an absurd yet mythic figure.

It is Elvis’s role as a mythic figure that fascinates me. It is a tragic tale of celebrity and success, ruin and rebirth set against the backdrop of the American Century and the concurrent rise of mass consumer culture. A talented poor boy makes it big, only to fall prey to his own voracious appetites, the destructive counsel of self-interested handlers, and a hunger for wholeness that could not be sated by conspicuous consumption. Elvis’s story serves as the Platonic form embodying the distorted sense of perception which accompanies the loftiest peaks of celebrity status and amassed wealth.

I wonder how things would have turned out for the King he hadn’t spent over a decade tied up (thanks to his predatory manager, Tom Parker) making progressively awful films with even worse musical numbers. Set free from the stifling confines of his marketing-dictated persona and given access to some the first-rate songwriters and innovative musicians of the sixties, who knows what direction his career could have taken?

While he had no particular love for the Beatles (and bitched about their “anti-American” attitudes to Richard Nixon), Elvis saw Welsh crooner Tom Jones and Brill Building alumnus Neil Diamond as his rivals in the mid-to-late 60’s, suggesting grand pop inclinations consistent with his marvelous post-Hollywood output (“Suspicious Minds”, “Burning Love”). Despite being the seminal figure in the creation of rock’n’roll, Elvis never inextricably locked himself into the genre that way other early rock’n’roll and rockabilly artists did, preferring to see himself part of the broader tradition of pop vocalists.

Today's featured musical selections feature The King at his trancendent best and embarrassingly worst.

Elvis Presley - Trying to Get to You (from The Sun Sessions CD, 1990) - The Sun Sessions is the Elvis album, as far as I'm concerned. It's a series of historical moments (and outstanding songs) captured on acetate, refreshingly free of the foul dust that floated in the wake of his dreams.

Elvis Presley - Dominic the Impotent Bull (from the Stay Away, Joe OST, 1994) - "Milkcow Blues Boogie," it ain't. Hold it, fellas. That don't move me. Let's get real, real goofy for a change.

There's some question as to the actual title of the song. The soundtrack to 1968's Stay Away, Joe remained unreleased until 1994, when the film's songs were tossed onto the collected rerelease of the music from Kissin' Cousins and Clambake, where "the Impotent Bull" (really, the best thing about the song) was shed in favor just plain "Dominic."

it’s not about my politics

How desperate for ad revenue does the self-proclaimed “flagship of the left” have to be in order to run this ad on the back cover of the May 17, 2007 issue? I’ve been reading The Nation on a regular basis for over a decade now, and I thought I had gotten used to the eccentricities of their usual gang of advertisers: the classified ads for progressive dating services or pamphlets definitively disproving the existence of a higher power, full-page spreads hawking the latest Bose’s latest compact sound system or “the accumulated sum of Western knowledge/philosophy/literature” on tape, even the non-compromising rants from FLAME (which the editors later apologized for running). The magazine even ran a couple of ads for the Fox News Channel on their back cover a few years back, which could been taken as a case of taking the money and running or a breach of principles born of financial urgency, depending on one’s mood.

Magazine publishing is a tricky business these days, especially when the purpose of the publication is to take to task the same entities (big oil, big pharma, defense contractors, the automotive industry) who help prop up more mainstream magazines via advertising revenue. So I’m usually willing to cut The Nation some slack when it comes to their ad clients.

The ad in the above link, though? That’s just inexcusable. For the record, the spokesperson for the Coalition for the Future American Worker is part of a network of questionably “grass roots” immigration reduction organizations with some rather unsettling ideologies in play, according to this report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Cute, eh?

It’s no surprise. The anti-immigration movement is predicated on a sanctioned racist subtext in much the same fashion as the “Defense of Marriage” movement draws support from not-so-thinly-veiled homophobic sentiments. The issues surrounding illegal immigration are many and varied, and interwoven within larger economic, social, and political questions, but an opportunity to scapegoat “the other” will trump nuanced debate every time. Border fences, “English only” laws, and other manifestation of the persecutorial impulse are viscerally “sexy.” Drug War-styled forfeiture of asset laws, with no wiggle room for plausible deniability (i.e. subcontracting through straw bosses), targeted at American firms who profit from the influx of illegals? Not so much. (Not that I endorse such a plan. I’m merely positing a more holistic policy than the typical “let’s crack some skulls” approach.)

It’s all just pandering, anyhow, part of the Grand Distraction policy of the moneyed interests, playing up to social conservative bugaboos to keep a grip on reins of power, secure in the knowledge that no one will notice their ongoing smash-and-grab-athon. Does anyone think for a minute that should the flow of immigrants to the country stop, these people would start offering living wages or reinvesting in impoverished communities? The old rules of wages based on available labor versus demand don’t apply in the freewheeling realm of modern global capitalism. For the jobs that can’t be outsourced, there’s always the zero sum rule of pay rates versus warm bodies to keep the profit margins nice and healthy. It’s easier to ignore disgruntled customers than jittery stockholders, after all.

But hey, there’s an election coming up next year, and with the Democrats undergoing a tentative resurgence, buoyed by high levels of support from African-American and Latino voters, a wrench tossed into the party’s traditionally fractious coalition could work wonders. It infuriates me that The Nation, for whatever reason, made the decision to aid and abet this disgusting little sideshow. I know, based on the FLAME response that The Nation sees it as a free speech issue, but it's hardly "free" when money changes hands. I wouldn't be as bothered by a letter to the editor or opinion piece uttering similar statements (though I would grit my teeth and shake my head, as I did with Alexander Cockburn's recent pooh-poohing of the human causes of global warming), but I'm less charitable where commercial considerations are involved.

Hüsker Dü – Divide and Conquer (from Flip Your Wig, 1985) – I know I posted a Dü track not that long ago, but it was just too perfect for today’s topic to pass up.

Depeche Mode – People Are People (from Some Great Reward, 1984) – I can’t listen to this song without remembering my wife getting misty-eyed while watching the video for it right after 9/11.

Brian Ferry – Let’s Stick Together (from Let’s Stick Together, 1976) – At least until we can wrest the Oval Office from the Republican assholes, ok? Then what passes for the left wing in America can get back to the customary infighting and pointless bickering with my blessing.