even though we ain't got protoculture

Setting the mood, the Mekton II way...

...and if they don't, then they really need to.

Or if that's too unorthodox a concept to countenance, perhaps you could stretch the boundaries laterally, and gird your loins for dice-and-tables mecha combat with the stirring sounds of "Danny's Song" or the theme to Footloose. Michael McDonald's discography also makes excellent music to swing double photon sabers to.

Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Danny's Song (from Have a Ball, 1997) - Cutting the soft rock toxicity to non-fatal, yet still uncomfortable levels.

As for me, however, there is only one track worthy enough to accompany my desperate fight against the sinister forces of the Comet Empire...

Mongo Santamaria - Watermelon Man (from Watermelon Man, 1962) - Jazz standard cartridge -- LOADED! Conga capacitors -- CHARGED TO MAX! On my mark, prepare to unleash the power of the LATIN BOOGALOO CANNON!

no one more red white and blue

Given the scope and nature of the crimes committed by the Third Reich and those who aided and abetted that foul regime, it was only natural that the evocation of Nazism would become a commonly used rhetorical tactic (to the point of being given a semi-formal designation). It is brute force PSYOPS in its most elegant and simple form. The power of such analogies has diminished due to (frequently hyperbolic) overuse, leading to reflexive dismissal of those who play that particular trump card in an argument.

Context and proportion, as always, is key. Citing Nazi Germany as a historical precedent for a government using paranoia and scapegoating as a means of expanding executive power and curtailing civil rights is valid. Comparing a Wal-Mart worker to a Gestapo thug for asking to see one's receipt? Not so much.

The malfeasance of the Nazis is of such a singular magnitude in both scale and infamy -- Stalin's U.S.S.R. and the Cambodian Year Zero come nowhere close to it in terms of popular awareness -- its evocation makes issues of moral relativism a snap. Not only can petty personal grievances be linked to the actions of a genocidal totalitarian regime, but one's own dubious and reprehensible behavior can be whitewashed in comparison to the same:

We do detain people without regard for habeas corpus, but we don't send them to gas chambers! Waterboarding is a mild discomfort compared to medical experimentation!

In a sane world, this facsimile of logic where "falling short of ultimate evil" somehow equals "good" would be greeted with universal shock, horror, and/or rage, but in this world, it is seen as a valid argument by a large segment of the populace.

Because people are fucking stupid, and as Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #56 (July 1968; by Gary Friedrich, Dick Ayers, and John Severin) shows, it's a form of stupid that has been with us a while. "Gabriel, Blow Your Horn!" is not so much a story as it is a straw man formed from privileged white liberalism and patriotic platitudes and held together by Godwin's Law.

For those of you unfamiliar with Marvel's Howling Commandos, imagine the Rat Pack as a crack group of World War Two fighin' men, with Nick Fury as the Chairman of the Board, Dino Manelli as Dean Martin, Pinky Pinkerton as Peter Lawford, and "Dum Dum" Dugan as Shirley MacLaine. (The Joey Bishop role was held on a rotating basis by the other requisite polyglot archetypes that filled out the unit.)

The story begins with Gabriel "Gabe" Jones, the team's answer to Sammy Davis Jr. (only without the glass eye, Nehru jacket, and mustache) and nod toward the Great Society's sense of inclusiveness, making his escape from the German soldiers that captured him in the previous issue. He eventually hooks up with a contact in the French resistance movement, who asks for his assistance in rescuing Carla Swain, an American jazz singer held prisoner by the Nazis in occupied Paris.

Jones, a jazz trumpeter in civilian life (because diversity is fine and all, but breaking free from stock characterizations is hard), manages to land himself a gig at the club where Carla performs nightly to a packed house of German officers. (Interestingly enough, even though the officers are such hardcore Nazis that they find ways to drop lines from Mein Kampf into casual conversation, they don't seem to share the official party line regarding the "racial degeneracy" of jazz music. An insight into Nazi hypocrisy? Or the writer's ignorance of period history? You decide.)

After the performance, Jones punches and sneaks his way past the guards to gain access to Carla's room, only to find out that she has no desire to be rescued...


Despite her anachronistic Motown re-deco, it seems that Carla was intended to be an analogue to Josephine Baker, the expatriate jazz performer who relocated to France during the 1920's in part to escape the endemic racism she encountered in America. A massive sensation among both the French and the American ex-pats of the "Lost Generation," her pointed but spot-on comments about racial inequality and injustice in her native land got her labeled as a communist.

During the war, her popularity shielded her from Nazi persecution, and she assisted the French resistance as well as entertained Free French troops in North Africa, and she later participated in the American civil rights movement of the 1960's.

That was all a bit too nuanced for a shitty war comic, apparently, which instead recast the scenario as "Angry Negro^TM duped by the Nazis and her own prejudices." Sure, there's lynchings and race riots and legalized discrimination in America...but we're still better than Nazis! (See how well that works? Try using it on your significant other some time: "Hon, I may have blown our life savings on magic beans, but at least I'm not a Nazi!")

"Howler Ramrod"? Oh, my.

Porn name jokes aside, let's see what we've got going on here:

1. Projecting blame and fault back onto the oppressed party
2. A white writer using a black character as a mouthpiece to add credibility to his argument
3. The disingenuous and untrue dismissal of America's racial issues as the work of a "handful of white people." In any case numbers mean less than the institutionalized and (officially and unofficially) sanctioned nature of racism in both 1942 and 1968.
4. The evocation of post-racial patriotic platitudes that fail to address the existing problem

Jones rushes in to save his REAL AMERICAN teammates from the goosesteppers. In the process, Carla manages to be taken hostage by Colonel Prussian Von Grimace, but is saved when "Reb" Ralston, the token ass-backward cracker member of the Howlers, kicks Von Grimace in the head. Carla thus comes around to the white right way of thinking...

Sometimes it takes a man who chooses to identify via nickname with a failed regime of slave-owners to teach us who the real bigots are.

If there one thing I've learned my life, it's that the only thing more aggravating than a white liberal who gets hyper-defensive over black rage (or even discontentment) is a white liberal who co-opts the same. I say "liberal" because conservatives don't fucking care. They just shrug it off and dream of new tax loopholes.

Now, Carla, just because you've chosen to think of yourself as a non-hyphenated American does not mean that the rest of your countrymen and women are obligated to do the same, but as long as you don't make waves there won't be a problem. And who knows? Maybe sometime in the early 21st Century, the country will nominate a black candidate for president after a long and rancorous nomination process where another supposedly "liberal" candidate will engage in race baiting! And maybe a slight majority of Americans will find both this and this to be reprehensible in the extreme!

If all else fails, though, just seek comfort in the knowledge that you're not living in the Third Reich.

Yet.

Josephine Baker - Vous Faites Partie de Moi (I've Got You Under My Skin) (from Bonsoir My Love, 1998) - That sound you're hearing is the haunting echoes of modernity.

Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon - Love Me, I'm a Liberal (from Prairie Home Invasion, 1994) - Updating Phil Ochs for the Information Age. Necessary? Perhaps not, but I'm thrilled with the results.

Friday Night Fights: Agent of Fortune

Brace yourself for some two-fisted pulp-inspired action, as this week's contribution to Bahlactus's battle royale turns the spotlight on Dominic Fortune, Adventurer for Hire:

(from Marvel Super Action #1, January 1976; by Howard Chaykin)
A repurposing of the Scorpion character Howard Chaykin created for the failed Atlas/Seaboard line of comics, Dominic Fortune was a 1930's pulp hero variant of the "square-jawed honorable rogue" archetype that Chaykin has shown a pronounced predliction for. (See also: Ironwolf, American Flagg!, Chaykin's Blackhawk stories, and American Century.) A mercenary who fights on the side of the angels, Fortune wasn't above throwing the occasional low blow while fighting the good fight...

(from Marvel Preview #2, 1975; by Len Wein & Howard Chaykin)
When he wasn't tangling with thugs or tossing unconscious Axis ninjas to their deaths, Fortune spent his time gambling his earnings away on the Mississippi Queen, a casino ship anchored off the coast of Los Angeles, and flirting with the ship's owner, the savvy (and sexy) Sabbath Raven (because the name "Drusilla L'Gothique" was already taken, I assume).


Not a bad life, all in all, and a darn fine series that pretty much exemplifies my definition of "fun comics" -- great art, solid storytelling, and an interesting yet straightforward concept. Chaykin's Dominic Fortune stories were scattered across several Marvel titles, including a beautifully illustrated, and frustratingly unfinished, run in the Hulk magazine. While I'd love to see the entire run collected and reprinted into a handy trade paperback edition, I'm enough of a realist not to hold my breath in anticipation. I can dream, though.

Marvel did introduce (without Chaykin's involvement) an older incarnation of the character into its collective universe during the early 1980's, but the less said about that....


...the better.

In the days before variant covers and limited print runs, Marvel used the promise of hot senior citizen sex to boost sales...
I find myself faced with a musical quandry today. Django Reinhardt or Peggy Lee? The King of Gypsy Jazz or Miss Wonderful?

I guess I'll just have to go with both:

Django Reinhardt - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (from Crazy Rhythm, 2001)

Peggy Lee - Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea (from ...Sings For You, 1954)

hateful freeform jazz

I had to attend a work-related training session today, which is five hours of my life I will never get back. It was instructive in the sense where I occasionally get these impulses to apply myself more fully to the career I’ve inadvertently fallen into, and sitting in an uncomfortable chair listening to not-quite-jokes, not-quite-anecdotes about SQL and filtered data analysis for what seems like an eternity cures me of those pesky twitches of proactivity right quick.

I like my job, but it’s just not marriage material.

The training was held in the computer labs in the lower level of the library I used to work at in the mid-nineties. It’s been ages since I’ve set foot in the place, and I was shocked to find that the inter-library loan kiosk had been torn out and replaced with something called “The Jazzman Café.” Oh my fucking head.

I’m aware of libraries’ attempts to reposition themselves vis-à-vis the public in this brave new Information Age world. My librarian sister-in-law has mentioned the current trendy push toward a Borders-style coffee house/lounge model, which I personally think is absurd though I can see the appeal. For a university library, it seems rather undignified. The college library was the place I’d go to cloister myself away from the rest of campus life, and frantically bash away at an overdue script or term paper in glorious silence, free of the sickly-sweet stink of vanilla mochachino hazelnut blend that permeated every other nook and cranny of the college. Hey, why not clear out the reference room and install a skate park if we’re talking this level of focus group pandering?

Actually, the café itself didn’t irk me a much as the name, which opens a Pandora’s box of all sorts of unpleasant associations. I’m not anti-jazz; I am quite fond of Django Reinhardt, big band and swing, Dixieland, and even the übercheese of Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass material. It is entirely possible to like jazz and not be a total dick, and yet jazz-holes abound, spraying noxious clouds of condescending pretentiousness from the glands hidden beneath the elbow patches of their wool blazers.

They’re almost universally white, middle-aged intelligentsia, ostensibly liberal in outlook but with a streak of Harold Bloomian cultural conservatism running just under the surface, but directed at the “dumbing down” of society than at issues of class or identity. (They tend to be very sympathetic to these from the bastions of their tony urban condos and upscale suburban mini-manses.) Jazz-holes make it a point to mention how they don’t watch TV, even when the conversation has nothing to do with television, and are quick to reference NPR. (They are easy to confuse with world music aficionados, though fans of that genre tend to be more Unitarian in outlook and jazz-holes more Pentecostal in theirs, if you catch my meaning.) They have more in common with the classical music enthusiast-type snob, though with an affected aura of hipness.

In truth, they are simply a more refined and mature iteration of those teenage white gangsta wannabees, only they prefer to haunt coffeehouses and poetry bookstores instead of the parking lot of the local Store 24 or the food court at the mall. “Yo dawg! Anglocrest Greens Eastside! This shit is dope!” or “Bop’s sense of chordal improvisation and willful abandonment of melody is nothing less than James Joyce embodied in music.” Similar beast, same shit. One could also draw parallels between jazz-holes’ puritanical attitudes towards music with those of the metalhead set, although metalheads generally don’t co-opt the “entertainment and refreshments” aspects of academic receptions, then spend the entire time hitting on cute 21 year old graduate students.

Seriously? I’d rather attend a bonfire kegger with Slicer and the Murphman. I swiped a fresh set of D-cells for the boom box and J.C. dubbed me a copy of South of Heaven. It’s on until dawn, dudes and dudettes!

Billie Holiday – Gloomy Sunday (from Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday, 2001)

Anthrax – A.I.R. (from Spreading the Disease, 1985)