cheese it, the cops!

i've been rethinking my hatred of alberto gonzales. true he is a repulsive person with that kind of weird mesmerized smile from which emerge lie after lie after inyourface lie. but the fact that we have an attorney general who regards the american constitution and the ideas of freedom and democracy with palpable continuous contempt certainly makes the job of being an anarchist easy, or even trivial: how could you not be? so anyway, thanks dude and don't resign.

watcha readin profcrispy?
some music books.
elijah wald, escaping the delta: robert johnson and the invention of the blues
this is a tremendously smart, knowledgeable, and good book. i could put the thesis like this: the idea of "authenticity" in the blues has led to massive misunderstandings. one is the idea that blues must have started on the mississippi delta, and that the people that emerged from the delta, especially in the sixties revival - son house and skip james, for example - are the most important artists. above all, robert johnson, who also emerged in the sixties revival, though as a hyper-authentic corpse. he's the most important artist in the history of the blues from the perspective of now, a minor artist from the perspective of then. the way white listeners sorted artists and valued them - really by their primitiveness - had almost nothing to do  with the way they emerged and were understood in their own context.  wald says he still loves these artists above all others, but is critical of his own assessments as a guide to telling blues history. indeed, there is no more reason to think that the blues emerged first in the delta than in georgia/florida, texas, or even, say missouri. the recording boom in blues of the late twenties and thirties was a commercial fad that drew artists who could play many styles to emphasize blues. blind willie mctell, ma rainey, tampa red, and barbecue bob, for example, were highly skilled and flexible stylists - professional touring musicians (and all originating in georgia). all of them, including the delta guys, learned off each others' records. (indeed, when i heard john hammond a couple of weeks ago he told a story about meeting howlin wolf, who was present as a young man at the golden era of delta blues (he was a year older than rj). wolf asked him: how do you know all these songs, white boy? and hammond said: i learned them off records. wolf's reply: me too.)  at any rate,, wald's ideas are not of course entirely original, but he pursues them with amazing knowledge and passion. did you know that muddy waters' repertoire when he was "discovered" in mississippi in 1940 included five gene autry songs? obviously, he could not perform these for his audiences in the  sixties and seventies, or at least they would not have wanted him to or understood why he was.

jeff chang, can't stop, won't stop: a history of the hip hop generation
i don't know how i missed this 2005 book up til now. it is surely the very best book on this subject, and i wish i could have seen it in time to order it for my current graffiti class. one move that chang makes beautifully, and which i thought was an almost-original insight with me: this stuff originates in jamaica. but the context that chang builds - urban "renewal" in the bronx etc - is incredibly rich, and the writing is amazingly sharp and lovely.

little crispy on tour:
today (wed mar 28) i'm speaking at 3:30 at the mississippi state architecture school (in starkville): "political aesthetics, an introduction"
and tomorrow at 3:30 at the university of alabama, tuscaloosa (where i taught in the early nineties): "against the legitimacy of the state."

paul krugman's column on the pew survey makes the following extremely puzzling assertion, which he keeps repeating:

For the conservatives who run today’s Republican Party are devoted, above all, to the proposition that government is always the problem, never the solution. For a while the American people seemed to agree; but lately they’ve concluded that sometimes government is the solution, after all, and they’d like to see more of it.

um. do you think dick cheney or albero gonzales or margaret spellings think government should be smalller? these peple are mercantilists who have presided over a huge increase in federal spending. they're police statists who have presided over a systematic and hugely expensive continuous attack on the rights of citizens. they're militarists who have vastly increased military spending. they're fans of bureaucracy who've nationalized education. now, probably if paul krugman was spending your money, he wouldn't spend it this way. but the idea that the "conservatives" who run the republican party hate government is just a laughable anachronism. no one in the whole country opposes large government; certainly no one who holds office. and indeed, it would be irrational for someone who holds office to favor smaller government, which kind of shows you why the gov only ever grows.

so below is blind willie mctell's amazing song "southern can is mine," fairly recently covered by white stripes. and you thought gangsta rap was nasty. a few observations. true, it's disturbing. then again, it's very funny, for a number of reasons. it's a "double entendre" of an interesting sort; "southern can" is certainly a substitute for a another phrase, probably the one usually performed in bars and brothels; i'd suggest "bama ass." mctell hurries through the thing so fast that it washes over you and you don't know what he's talking about: but almost every phrase is perfectly clear. the thing is a virtuoso performance, for speed and in other respects; blind willie mctell was incomparable. it is even affectionate at points, and you can see maybe "sweet ass" in a couple of the verses. and it is certainly hyperbolic; i think he's *threatening her grandmother.* i'll throw up a similarly extreme ma rainey lyric at some point.

Southern Can is Mine
Blind Willie McTell

Now looka here mama let me tell you this
If you wants to get crooked I'm gonna give you my fist
You might read from Revelations back to Genesee
But if you get crooked, your southern can belongs to me
Ain't no need you bringin no jive to me
Cause your southern can is mine
Might go uptown have me arrested and have me put in jail
Some hotshot got money come and throw my bail
Soon as I get out, hit the ground
Your southern can is worth a thousand, half a pound (?)
Ain't no need of bringing no stuff to me
cause your southern can is mine
You might take it from the south you might carry it up north
but understand you can't rule or either be my boss
Take it from the east, hide it in the west
When I get it mama, your can won't see no rest.
Ain't no need of bringing no stuff to me
cause your southern can is mine
(in the morning)
your southern can belongs to me
(i'm not dreamin)
your southern can belongs to me.
Ah ashes to ashes mama, and sin to sin,
every time I hit you you'll think I've got a dozen hands.
Give you a punch through that barb-wire fence
Every time I hit you you'll say I've got no sense
Ain't no need of bringing no stuff to me
cause your southern can is mine
(every bit of it)
southern can belongs to me
Get me a brick out of my backyard
give you the devil if you get kinda hard
Ain't no need of bringing no jive here honey
cause your southern can is mine
(you hear me cryin)
southern can belongs to me
Spank it a little bit, boy [guitar run].
Ah, your southern can is mine.
Now if I catch ya mama down in the heart of town
take me a brand-new a brick and tear your can on down.
Ain't no need you bringin no stuff to me,
because your southern can belongs to me
(I'm talkin to ya)
your southern can belongs to me.
You may be deathbed sick and mama graveyard bound
I'll make your can moan like a hound
Ain't no need you bringin no stuff to me
because your southern can is mine
(you hear me talkin)
southern can belongs to me.
{Guitar run.} Oh spank it like that. That the way Ruthie Mae like it (?).
Cause your southern can is mine.
Sit there unsteady with your eyes all red
what I said get your grandma dead.
Ain't no need of bringing no jive to me
cause your southern can is mine
You got to stop your barkin and raising the deuce
I'll grab you mama and turn every way but loose
Ain't no need of bringing no jive here honey
cause your southern can belongs to me
(every bit of it)
southern can belongs to me.
[Guitar run.] Aww, whup it boy, that's the way the people like that thing.
Ain't no need of bringing no jive here honey
cause your southern can is mine
(you hear me talkin)
your southern can belongs to me.
Might swiddle (?) like a tadpole
let it jump like a frog
Every time I hit it you'll holler
lawd lawd lawd?
Ain't no need of bringing no jive here honey
cause your southern can is mine
(you hear me talkin)
southern can belongs to me.
Now play it a little bit, just whup it.
Aww shucks. Play that thing boy.
Southern can belongs to me.

this on the french elections:

the April ballot will include candidates from three Trotskyist parties (including mailman Olivier Besancenot of the Revolutionary Communist League)

three "trotskyist" parties? this indicates not only a vigorous "trotskyist" movement in france, but, of course, terrible schisms within the french "trotskyist" movement, which must be of concern to "trotskyists"  and french patriots everywhere. let me ask you  a question, though: have you read trotsky? christ. i seem to vaguely recall a brutal military crackdown on any sort of political variety early in the soviet disaster. no doubt the first thing the winning "trotskyist" party will accomplish is a thorough gulaging or simple line-em-up-and-shoot-em of the members of the rival "trotskyist" factions. that, in itself, would be  a blessing to any nation, of course. but who will purge the winners?

anyway you might read this:

At the end of the Tenth Party Congress, Trotsky had to rush to Petrograd to organize and direct the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion, the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule. Anarchist Emma Goldman has criticized Trotsky for his actions as Commissar for War and his role in the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion, and also arguing that he ordered unjustified incarcerations and executions of political opponents such as anarchists, which, in Goldman's view, makes Trotsky's allegiance to socialism and communism highly questionable. Trotsky, however, frequently argued for revolutionary defensism, which states that revolutionists have a right to protect a revolution from counterrevolutionary violence.

kronstadt: Although there are no reliable figures for the rebels' battle losses, historians estimate that thousands were executed in the days following the revolt, and a like number were jailed, many in the Solovki labor camp. 

sometimes one wonders why there is no armed resistance. the simplest explanations: first of all, we confront a state so gigantic that resistance is actually silly; second, we have no pride, no dedication to freedom: we are american pussies.

yeep! :

Mexican officials said they worked past midnight Thursday to count the seized bills, which were hidden inside locked metal shelves, suitcases and closets. It was five times the amount that was seized in all of 2006 by Mexican authorities in anti-narcotic and money-laundering operations.

To provide a sense of the scale of the money involved, Mexican media compared the amount seized to various items in the 2007 federal budget.

The $205.6 million was more than the funding allocated to pensions for the handicapped by Mexico's social security agency. It exceeded the amount of public funds provided to Mexico's political parties for campaign spending and also surpassed the budget of the Mexican Senate.

it gets harder and harder to blog, because i just can't pay any attention to the bush administration anymore.  ok. wake me when george, dick, alberto etc are actually dangling from a tree. right now, i am recharging, getting ready to kill the edwards administration. if it's hillary, i'll use her like a rag doll for four years.

so in the last three nights, at semi-legal speakeasies here in southern york county, pa, i've seen john hammond and paul rishell and annnie raines. do you know, the treasures of our era, the repositories of our traditions, our mississippi john hurts and muddy waterses are middle aged white folkd. these shows were awe-inspiring both as creative acts and as archives of american song. hammond played with incredible intensity and great chops simultaneously on guitar and harp. he told stories throughout about howlin wolf, sonny boy williamson, lowell fulsom, hoyt axton, etc. made you wonder how he could never mention his father; something must be weird there. paul and annie: he is a singer of extreme power who only dawns on you slowly; she is a treasure, both a stunning technical harp player blowing chromatic jazz on a diatonic harp and as strong as any straight blues  player i've ever heard, and i've heard, let me see: kim wilson, james cotton, carey bell, to start with. she threw down a solo that was at once an original performance and an anthology of historical harp solos, including cotton's creeper and little walter's rollercoaster. seeing these people in little barns in the middle of nowhere is also an extremely good idea.

paul and annie: blues for tampa red:

 

 

what's most crushing, irritating, humorous, and hopeful about totalitarianism is that it is conducted by all-too-human idiots like you and me: its most salient feature is that it is the largest human expression of incompetence. the fact that this will eventuate in the annihilation of our planet and species is merely part of its uproarious hilarity.

chuck hagel is going to announce, and you know it wouldn't shock me if he got the nomination, because as far as i can see he's the only actual war critic running as an r. this is going to look very good in six months.

what you have to understand about the rise of totalitarian/proto-fascist russia - potentially a world disaster - is that it has all been driven by chechnya. in a way, this could have been a remote, obscure independence movement. but yeltsin tried to put his foot down: it was the almost-arbitrary point at which he decided to stop his empire disintegrating. the russian army, the russian nation, and the russian president were humiliated there in the way a tiny, fierce, cohesive people can humiliate a decaying empire. that humiliation led to the election of putin, and to the route he has taken to creating and preserving power: a crypto-fascist nationalism. his fundamental early strtategy was to do absolutely whatever was necessary to crush chechnya, a task he accomplished with a brutality which, even at this late date, was notable: russia literally leveled and depopulated groszny with thermobaric weapone, set up a string of blacksite torture/internment facilities and associated mass graves, emptied the area of much of its population, displacing the women and children (they killed most of the men) into neighboring provinces, then displacing them from there. meanwhile, putin used the terrorist response, both the real paroxysms of violence of a dying people and the agent provocateur simulations, to create a police state in russia's cities, seize control of the media, economy etc. each new killing in the worldwide campaign of murder will, one finds, trac e back to criticism of the chechen genocide, or to revelations of the reality. the extremely unfortunate thing is that this coincides with a boom in the russian economy, which floats putin essentially above any international criticism. by the time we really take stock, we will have a world fascist superpower to contend with.
    an odd fact is that the nationalist crypto-fascist mood has been mirrored in washington through this decade, and if anyone can understand putin, it's bush: the oil, the money, the flag, the militaristic assertion of national pride and vengeance, the secret prisons. it's a little like the little nascent signs of fascism in thirties america: huey long and father coughlin, lindbergh, the bund, etc, though these people never got control. but these things do sweep the earth as a mood. at any rate, i vibe the us turning away, though the consolidations of executive power will hardly be reversed. on the other hand, one possible response to the iraq debacle would be: we are now going to level your cities with thermobarics. but in russia you have a truly grave situation for wthe world and for one thing, every murder that putin commits with impunity will make him grin and commission five more. we're goling to wake up one morning and suddenly see that the russian army is a lot, lot better than it was in 1992. 

just in case you thought the putin administration had lost its taste for killing.

oh and then there's this.

and this.

swiss accidentally invade liechtenstein