The Obligatory Paul McCartney Post

Paul McCartney turns 64 today. Just like in the song. Whoop-de-fuckin'-do.

Actually, I wish Macca (as they call him across the pond) the best as he celebrates his 64th birthday. He is, to quote the newsreel in "Citizen Kane," a potent figure of our century (or the last century, anyway). He's a great musician and composer and, from all accounts, a good man.

But what I'd like to write about in this post is one of the stories about McCartney's birthday written by a reporter from that right-wing rag, The Washington Times. The story makes the seemingly inevitable mention of the song "When I'm Sixty-Four" and portrays it as "a wry preview -- from the perspective of youth -- of the cozy domestic bliss of an imagined old age."

Actually, as no less an authority on The Beatles as George Martin has pointed out, the song is nothing of the kind, and is an example of how McCartney's writing could be just as dark and mordant as that of his writing partner, John Lennon.

The vilely written piece, attributed to Dan Campbell, is a farrago of cliches (some of which he repeats):

• "Meanwhile, the British tabloids -- which already were having a field day with the divorce -- "
• "Late-night comics and headline writers are sure to have a field day with the tragicomic irony in Paul's marital split [...] "

As well as amazing ignorance of American popular culture. "Paul remains, after all," Campbell opines, "the greatest songwriter of the past century -- along, that is, with his former partner in crime."

Actually, spunky, the title of "greatest songwriter of the past century" belongs to Irving Berlin, who wrote, among other songs:

• God Bless America
• Alexander's Ragtime Band
• A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody
• Blue Skies
• Cheek to Cheek
• Easter Parade
• I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
• Steppin' Out With My Baby
• Isn't This a Lovely Day (To Be Caught in the Rain)
• Shaking the Blues Away
• Always
• Let Yourself Go
• Change Partners
• You Can't Get a Man With a Gun
• There's No Business Like Show Business
• Top Hat, White Tie & Tails
• Puttin' on the Ritz
• What'll I Do
• You'd Be Surprised
• White Christmas

And wrote them without a co-writer.

Jeez, you'd think a writer for a right-wing rag would know that.

Oh, what the hell. You may not be the greatest songwriter of the past century, but happy birthday, Macca.

Tom Moran

GOP Tsunami Warning

Lately I've been reading Eric Boehlert's Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush, and discovered the following passage on page 90. He's discussing The Note, ABC News' e-mailed summary of the big news stories of the day:

"When it came to Iraq, The Note had adopted a modified don't ask, don't tell policy regarding bad news. For instance, on June 13, 2005, Knight Ridder newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and Miami Herald, published an unsettling piece of page-one analysis, reporting, "A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years." That day, The Note linked to more than forty-five must-reads, but the Knight Ridder story did not make the cut."

Of course, readers of this blog will know that, while The Note did not mention the Knight Ridder story, I wrote a long item on it the next day:

http://celticprogressive.blogspot.com/2005/06/mission-not-accomplished.html

Why do I bring this up now? Well, this is a long-winded introduction to another story that might not make The Note, but is going to be seen as important in the months to come.

Dick Morris is making a prediction about the upcoming midterm elections.

And what might that prediction be?

Well, here's the gist of what he has to say:

"Whether there will be a rout or not is anybody’s guess — mine is that there will be and that the Democrats will win both Houses of Congress. "

Morris continues:

"A bit less than half of all voters say that the country would be better off if the Democrats ran Congress, while a bit more than one-third say they would like the GOP to remain in charge. Bush’s ratings are regularly below 40 percent, and his profile on the issue that voters care about most, energy prices, is virtually nonexistent.

The main GOP issue is terrorism, but as we succeed in the war on terror its saliency is dropping every month. Corruption has become a one-party issue, and the blame is falling squarely on the Republican leadership in Congress.

That a Kennedy fell off the wagon and Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) flew off the handle are not enough to besmirch the Democrats. Rep. William Jefferson’s Louisiana larceny — keeping $90,000 in his freezer, a new definition of frozen assets — is also not enough to offset the spectacle of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) resigning and the House leadership running for cover.

So this year will probably be a wipeout for the GOP. Enough to lose control? Probably. But, the point of this column is that it’s too soon to tell."

I think the main Republican leaders already realize that an electoral tsunami is coming -- that's why we're seeing them pull out their Biggest Hits (Gay Marriage, Flag Burning) in a pathetic attempt to stave off the inevitable. Look for more of that sort of thing in the weeks and months to come. They're going to try their level best to scare the crap out of voters so that they'll feel like the only chance they have to stay alive is to vote Republican.

But I don't think it's going to work. And if the Democrats take control of Congress (as I believe they will, although it's by no means a sure thing), we may finally get some answers from the arrogant jerks who are currently running this Administration -- and ruining this country.

Tom Moran

Britney's Car Wreck

Wow -- I finally have a stupid blonde to write about who isn't Ann Coulter.

Did you catch Britney Spears and her interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Dateline"? If you didn't, you missed some amazing television (and I wouldn't be surprised if some enterprising young actress was working on turning it into an Off-Off Broadway show even as we speak).

It was a total car wreck. I don't know whose idea it was for her to do a TV interview, but if that's Britney's idea of damage control than somebody ought to call child protective services, because this chick is totally out of her mind and should be not be allowed anywhere near children.

Describing herself as "an emotional wreck" and heavily pregnant (her boobs looked like they were going to explode out of her blouse), Britney cried, joked, chewed gum, told Lauer that she liked money, made little quotation marks with her fingers, and basically gave the impression that she is not only a redneck, but a complete idiot as well.

Now, I know people who know both Britney and her husband, Kevin Federline (I wish I could tell you the gossip I've been told about the latter, but it's so amazingly scurrilous that I can't even post it on a blog), and I feel bad for Britney. She was controlled by those around her for a very long time and it's only natural that a young woman who is rich and famous would want a little freedom and the right to take control of her own destiny. The only problem with that is that, sometimes, the people who are controlling your destiny are a lot smarter than you, and when you take your life into your own hands, you completely screw it up -- which is what appears to have happened with Britney Spears.

I have this concept that I like to talk about called Radical Freedom. This is when you are so rich and so famous that you can pretty much do whatever the hell you feel like doing. Sounds great, right? You are outside of all social norms. No constraints on your conduct whatsoever. You can do anything because you can buy your way out of anything, and as long as the money holds out there will always be an army of hangers-on who will rationalize and enable your bad behavior.

Now, some people can have radical freedom and emerge unscathed. Oprah Winfrey is one of the rare examples of someone having radical freedom and making it work for her. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are two more (the lousy recent movies of the latter notwithstanding).

But radical freedom can also destroy your life. Michael Jackson is the most obvious example of that. Elvis Presley is another example. So is Whitney Houston. It's possible that Lindsay Lohan is going that route, although it's way too soon to tell. Sometimes having the kinds of social constraints that most of us have to endure is the only thing that keeps us from wrecking our lives.

I think Britney Spears is turning herself into a classic example of how having too much money and not enough brains (for example, there isn't a starlet in Hollywood who doesn't know that, if you're in show business, marriage is a career move) can turn your life into the kind of tacky soap opera that sells magazines. If she came to me for advice (and God knows she isn't), I would tell her to take K-Fed and the kids and move to Louisiana and stay there for the next couple of years, until she's ready to reinvent herself.

But in the meantime, like any car wreck, the only tasteful thing to do is not look at the garish and bloody scene, so I'll try to avoid reading or watching any coverage of Britney Spears in the future.

Tom Moran

Tom Moran's Summer Movie Picks

Gore Vidal used to say, "Don't vote -- it only encourages them" (although I doubt he said that when he was running for Congress in 1960).

Well, that's kind of how I feel about movies. Big Hollywood movies, anyway. Spending money on huge, bloated action/adventure movies taken from some stupid comic book only enables the bad behavior of the movie studios and their pandering to teenage boys and the lowest common denominator.

So what's my advice for moviegoers this Summer? You guessed it: don't go to the movies.

The studios need to be taught a lesson, and the only lessons they listen to are the ones that hit them in the wallet. So here are my rules for Summer moviegoing:

• Do not see any movie based on a comic book.
• Do not see any movie based on an old television show.
• Do not see any movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer or directed by Michael Bay.
• Do not see any movie produced by a major studio (with some exceptions).

So is there anything out there you should see? Well, yes.

I would encourage everyone to go see "A Prarie Home Companion," because Robert Altman is one of our greatest living filmmakers. I would encourage people to go to places like the Angelika in New York and see as many independent films as they can -- films that are made with passion, and not with the hope of being #1 at the box office on its opening weekend.

And go see "An Inconvenient Truth."

Tom Moran

The Department of Homo Security

Just when you think this administration can't get any more pathetic, they find a way to surprise you.

The Bush Administration is in free-fall. Their mendacious military adventure in Iraq has been a fiasco that has brought shame and dishonor to this country and its military. Marines have been accused of war crimes concerning a massacre in Haditha, brought on, if the stories are correct, because troops are being forced to do multiple tours in combat zones at a severe cost to their mental health. The government's response to Hurricane Katrina was pathetic, and proved to many people that this administration doesn't give a shit about people of color or the poor. Our border with Mexico is porous, and a significant percentage of the legal population of the country is up in arms over illegal immigration and wants something -- anything -- done about it.

Yet Bush knows that getting draconian over immigration might very well alienate Hispanic voters to the point where it could render the Republican party electorally impotent for a generation or more. And God knows that there's not much he can do about Iraq at this point, except hold on, try not to lose until 2009 and then pawn the whole disgraceful mess off on his successor.

So what's a president to do when his poll ratings are falling into the Nixon zone? How to salvage his popularity with his right-wing nut-bag base?

You guessed it, folks -- bring on the homos!

Peter Baker in The Washington Post is reporting that: "For the first time in his second term, President Bush will revisit the emotional debate over same-sex marriage. In two speeches, he will press the Senate to approve a constitutional amendment this week defining marriage as the union of a man and woman."

I guess you could call this a Hail Mary pass on the president's part, and it's a true sign of his and his administration's utter desperation. When in doubt, his motto appears to be, beat up on the fags.

And the really sick part of it is that I'm not so sure it won't work. There's little doubt that the anti-gay vote was a big factor, perhaps even a determining one, in Bush's reelection victory in 2004. The Bush administration is clearly hoping that history will repeat itself, and the cynical fag-bashing that served them so well two years ago will distract the voters from the real issues and help the Republicans stave off disaster in the midterm elections in November.

Peter Baker in the Post writes that "critics said the only reason that Bush and [Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist are reviving the issue is for election-year pandering to conservative voters, who, polls show, have grown disaffected with the president for various reasons."

Gee, ya think?

Like I said, could this administration get more pathetic if it tried?

Tom Moran