Bad Machine, Droopy Drawers, Speaking Jive To Power

Bad Machine

The Bad Machine tour will come to Luna in Lake Charles, La., on Saturday, Feb. 11. The tour features musicians Scott H. Biram and Lydia Loveless. The publicist for the two was kind enough to send me links for the latest CD of each musician. Let’s take a brief look.

Biram’s Bad Ingredients CD begins with very old school blues, played by acoustic instruments no less. But as things progress, one starts to hear the sort of blues ZZ Topp would have produced had it started as a garage band with its recordings produced by Iggy Pop. There are loads of fuzz and reverb. Along with the blues, the garage sound is the most prevalent sound here. Even when the songs veer to the sort of straightforward electric blues you might hear from, say, George Thorogood, Biram makes it sound quite a bit rougher and nastier.

One slow song with the sinister feel of a Johnny Cash ballad provides a bit of a change-up. On the other hand, “I Want My Mojo Back” adds fuel to the fire with a burlesque sax that actually sounds likes it's screaming at times. Biram's voice, while not really a scream, often becomes a sort of hoarse growl.

If you like wild records, Biram’s got one.

Lydia Loveless’ Indestructible Machine is an uptempo record. The fastest tempos range from thrash to those of The Clash and early Elvis Costello. The songs are driven by loud percussion.

"How Many Women?" is a country ballad and “Learn To Say No” is straightforward country pop. In some songs, Loveless bursts out with a real country twang. And “Crazy” features a fine country violin. Indestructible Machine may be considered a country record. Spin ranked it No. 4 on its Country/Americana charts. If it’s country music, it’s country that’s thoroughly mixed with certain kinds of punk music much of the time.

Certainly, the most interesting lyrics on the records are those for “Steve Earle.” Loveless is either outing Earle as a stalker or laying down some kind of inside joke. “Do Right,” with its ultra-fast bluegrass picking, has lyrics about the singer drinking gasoline. “I’ve been trying,” she sings, “but I just can’t find a good reason to do right.” Interesting stuff.

With both these records, the lyrical content is largely about hard living and the generally unpleasant consequences thereof.

If the recordings are any indication, the show promises to be intense and high-energy. The show starts at 9 pm; cover is $8.

Sonic Adventure

Luna will offer patrons another sonic adventure when New Orleans-based Crowbar plays on Saturday, Feb. 18.

Crowbar plays a kind of metal that’s called doom, or sometimes sludge. Tempo is unusually slow. There’s a lot of layering of guitar with plenty of fuzz and assorted noises. The sound is very percussive. If you’ve heard earth or SunnO))) or early Swans, you know the sound. Based on the cuts I’ve heard, Crowbar has it down. The European press has dubbed Crowbar’s sound “doom-core.”

The singing of Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein ranges from a wild screeching (close to screamo, but more comprehensible) to a somewhat less aggressive ‘90s “alternative rock” style.

Although it has nothing to do with the music, it’s worth noting that the members of Crowbar aren’t trying at all to look photogenic or hip. They look like a bunch of guys who just showed up at the small town wrestling match after an afternoon of PBR.

Finessing L.C.’s Droopy Drawers Law

Well, how about all this big talk about education reform in Louisiana? With stories getting that much play, there’s always the chance that the really important stories will get overlooked.

And that’s what almost happened with the recent story about Caddo Parish Commissioner Michael Williams’ move to make it illegal to wear pajamas outside the home.

Take some time to let that one sink in. As you do, ponder another huge story that almost got overlooked — the story of Lake Charles’ droopy drawers law. It was a revolutionary law. A paradigm shifter, a game changer, a tipping point. Yet how many in the media have reported on it five or six times, as I have?

Now, back to the proposed Caddo Parish pajama-wearin’ ban — just what, exactly, is the problem that is to be outlawed?

"The moral fiber in our community is dwindling," Williams explains. "If not now, when? Because it’s pajama pants today, next it will be underwear tomorrow. I observed a couple of young men in loose fitting PJs on, probably with their private parts about to come out and no underwear.”

Saints a’mighty! That does sound like a disaster waiting to happen, doesn’t it? And I believe Williams. Why? Well, for starters, he’s an original thinker. How do I know? His language is novel. Just look at the phrase, ‘If not now, when?’ Have you ever heard a politician say that? I sure haven’t. (The answer, by the way, is “sometime after you leave office.”)

I’m also swayed by the logic of the “because it’s … next it will be …” argument. Again, I ask you to consider it. Let’s apply the formula. Because it’s jaywalking today, next it will be armed robbery tomorrow. Makes sense!

Williams plans to write an anti-pajama-wearing ordinance and present it to the commission. I hope he writes as convincingly as he talks.

One good thing about these sorts of stories is that when they do get covered, they usually get covered by national media. This story, for instance, was released by NBC National News. NBC ran that nice long colorful quote from commissioner, moral authority and Louisiana public figure Williams right in the middle of its nationally distributed story. You know, you just can’t buy publicity like that. If you could, it’d be pretty cheap.

The Williams quotation was picked up by the Wall Street Journal, which used it in a Jan. 19 article titled “Why Not Wear Pajamas All Day?” WSJ prefaced Williams’ words with this statement: “As with a lot of teen behavior, some adults are annoyed.”

The article states that many fashion-conscious youths, and teenagers in particular, are using pajamas as part of a carefully designed loungewear look they wear everywhere. Such big companies as Abercrombie & Fitch and Aeropostale are running marketing campaigns designed around the look. And we all know the question that’s used to gauge every fashion marketing campaign everywhere: Sure, it plays in Manhattan; but will it play in Shreveport?

Speak Jive To Power

It would be rude to say that politicians sometimes say dumb things. Besides, is a thing really dumb if it’s brown-nosing?

See what you think. Right after the recent swearing-in, state Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Metairie, who had earlier sought the post of state Senate president, introduced new Senate President John Alario with these words: “He has a way of rubbing your face in the dirt and making you thank him for it.”

No. No, he doesn’t. Whatever he has, he doesn’t have that. All the times I’ve had my face rubbed in the dirt, I never once felt like I ought to be giving thanks to somebody.

Like a good politician, Martiny is telegraphing that he’s willing to get his face rubbed in the dirt if that’s what it takes to make Alario forgive and forget. I’m guessing the over-the-top flattery will be enough to get the job done.

Speak Power To ‘Imbeciles’

In an open letter to President Barack Obama, written on Nov. 28, 2011, Leon Cooperman, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, wrote, “[The 1 Percent] are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be" and are not "a monolithic, selfish and unfeeling lot." (BTW, Goldman Sachs was the No. 2 contributor to Obama's 2008 campaign, putting a click more than $1 million in the kitty.)

At a December, 2011, investors conference in New York City, Home-Depot co-founder and billionaire Bernard Marcus made it clear he was not unfeeling when he responded to an audience question about his reaction to the Occupy movement. "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” he said. “Are you kidding me?"

Note the feeling in those words. It’s the feeling of sympathy; of gentle concern. It’s the heartfelt expression of a humanitarian who’s eager to understand, to reach out, to bridge the differences and build the dialogue. The words pulse to the beat of a heart full of love for a struggling humanity. Unfeeling? Nay. It is feeling at its most exquisite. It is feeling of most delicate empathy given voice.

In an interview with Bloomberg conducted at the time of the conference, billionaire Tom Golisano founder of Paychex, said, "If I hear a politician use the term 'paying your fair share' one more time, I'm going to vomit." Now, what did Cooperman say? He said the 1 Percent are accused of being selfish and unfeeling. Well, that certainly doesn’t apply to the words “I’m going to vomit.” A fellow who’d say that isn’t selfish; he’s just abdominally challenged.

And why are his intestines in such a turmoil? He’s stressing himself out by trying too hard to be productive! Don’t believe me? Well, just check out what John Allison, former CEO of BB&T Bank, said when he had lunch with a Bloomberg reporter during the conference: "Instead of an attack on the 1 Percent, let's call it an attack on the very productive."

Now, I may think I’m productive or I may not. But suppose I tell you to your face that I’m not just productive, but very productive. What sort of fellow do you think I am? Well, I’ll guess you’ll probably think I’m humble, unassuming and self-deprecating. You’ll probably think I’m a doer and not a talker, and that I’m the kind of guy you’d really like to hang out with and listen to. And because you’d know I was being really sincere, you’d believe I was very productive: so productive, in fact, that I was a great deal more productive than you and therefore worthy of a much higher salary than you.

So, why would some people think these fellows are unfeeling? I think I know. Let’s look at some unfeeling stuff a guy in the 1 Percent wrote in a Dec. 1 Bloomberg editorial. Nick Hanauer, known to be worth at least $6 billion, wrote, "Rich businessmen like me don't create jobs. Let's tax the rich like we once did and use that money to spur growth."

I think this is what Cooperman was getting at with the word “unfeeling.” When a guy says “tax the rich,” isn’t he being pretty unfeeling to rich people? I should say so. That’s what they call a no-brainer.

Another BTW — just what is the 1 Percent? If you're taking home $350,000 or more per year, you're part of the club.

Person In The News

At a recent press conference, Brad Goins announced that he had formed a new group called the Board Membership Advocacy Board. The group, said Goins, will promote membership in boards of directors.

“It’s not that people who sit on boards meet a pressing public need,” said Goins. “No. People who sit on boards have the opportunity to put on business suits after work and go hang out with other people who put on business suits after work and are the members of lots of boards. I’m a member of 13 boards myself. That’s how I’ve gotten where I am today.”

Goins is presently a member of the following boards: the International Board of Directors, the Directors’ Board, the Comprehensive Board, the Board of Directors of No Particular Sort, the Board of Boardship, the All-Purpose Board, the Board of Last Resort, the Board Member Search Board, the Board of Game Boards, the Board of Ambitious Young People, the Board of Disappointed Middle-Aged People, the Board of Red Ties and the Board of It’s Not The Heat It’s The Humidity.

He stated that his present public service objective was to become a member of more boards. “It’s my way of giving back to the community,” he said.

Zombieproofin', Drunken Lawn Moving, 0-0-100

Chronicling Southwest Louisiana and the Cajun World

Zombieproofin’

Those who think of Louisiana as bringing up the bottom of lists may or may not know the state is near the top of the list when it comes to zombie-proof architecture.

With NASA releasing a paper on what should be done if aliens invade, maybe it’s not such a bad idea for Louisiana architects to be thinking of ways to use architecture to circumvent the zombie threat. The architectural firm behind the recent Zombie Safe House Competition effort is Architects Southwest, which is based in Lafayette. Artists, architects and others were invited to submit designs for structures that could best withstand a fierce attack of zombies.

One entry was the Zombie Ranch, which is (hypothetically, of course) powered by a big turbine that’s turned by zombies as they chase around bait traps. Other designs feature houses that float on air or are built into cliffs or atop abandoned oil rigs. One design looks exactly like a birdhouse.

You can see the entries at zombiesafehouse.wordpress.com. Architects Southwest will have chosen a winner by the time this issue hits the stands.

Zombie movies have long considered the relation of architecture to the zombie menace. In George Romero’s first zombie movie, Night of the Living Dead, barricading oneself in a solidly constructed basement turned out to be the one viable defense against zombies. Subsequent Romero films explored the feasibility of keeping a shopping center, a military bunker and a high rise free of zombie infestation. The films have shown that architecture is only as good as the people who use it and that zombies are hard to stop.

You Mean That’s Illegal Too?

Please excuse me for delaying the Up Front look at the vital October elections while I make a brief police report. In the last Up Front, it was revealed that the Ville Platte gubment had outlawed the act of walking on Ville Platte streets. Now, it might be possible to convince a Louisianan he couldn’t walk on his own street at night. But what Louisianan worth his salt would ever submit to being forbidden to driving his riding mower while he was drunk?

Bobby Punch, a 22-year-old resident of Lafourche Parish, was recently obliged to endure the indignity of being arrested while he was on his own lawnmower. Punch probably hurt his case somewhat with his apparent inability to keep his riding mower in his own lawn. After cutting down some shrubs in a neighbor’s lawn, Punch took his mower on the road, forcing cars on Highway 1 to back up behind his mower.

Nothing puts a Louisianan in greater jeopardy than forcing other drivers to slow down. Police were all the more interested in that Punch was in the mood to drive on both sides of the center line.

After they arrested Punch, police found that he had a blood alcohol concentration of .312. They obliged him to take a sobriety test at the station. In an unintentionally humorous note, WVUE-TV reported that Punch “performed poorly.”

One of several crimes Punch was charged with was “Not Driving on the Right Side of the Road.”

Election Report No. 2,109

The races for lt. governor and secretary of state turned out to be real mud-slingin’ and character-assasinatin’ smackdowns. It was fascinating stuff, but not fascinating enough to get the public interested in the races.

Predictions were correct; barely a third of Louisiana voters made it to the polls for the elections of statewide offices, such as those of governor and lt. governor. It was the most anemic turnout since at least 1975.

It will go on that way for a while. In Louisiana, the Republican Party is in like flint and the Democratic Party is in a rout. The Democrats will eventually rebuild and become aggressive opponents. But I predict that process will take quite a while.

You’d think that transitional process might slow down the flow of political news in the state. Most likely it won’t. Any party that’s in power eventually grows accustomed to power, gets complacent and starts making mistakes. Things will stay interesting.

Of course, on the local front, there was election news that came as a great relief to all, regardless of political affiliation. The great anxiety about who the next tax assessor is now at an end. With the cessation of the long-term agonizing about the outcome of the tax assessor’s race, stress-related illnesses in the are will decrease, and workers will no longer call in sick, or will simply find themselves unable to get out of bed as they struggle with and succumb to the mental anguish of tax assessor uncertainty.

One thing’s for sure: no trial or tribulation we go through hasn’t been endured by others who came before us. I remember many and many a time hearing an elder at the old country breakfast table saying, “Lord, I just don’t think I’m goin’ to be able to relax and enjoy my biscuits and gravy until I know who the tax assessor is goin’ to be.” Well, now we can all rest easy and get back on our feed.

0-0-100

The Up Fronter keeps reading that the Republican presidential candidates want not only to roll back taxes on the rich but also to increase taxes on the middle class. Pooyee! Have the Republican candidates developed a taste for the wacky weed? If I’d spent a decade trying to think of a more effective way to come in second to Obama in spite of it all, I wouldn’t have been able to think of a more surefire election loser.

One of the Republican candidates, Herman Cain, has a tax plan he calls 9-9-9. Part of the plan is that a 9 percent sales tax will be imposed on the entire U.S. population. Imagine that. You wake up one morning and all your expenditures increase by 9 percent. Now that’ll put a spring in your step, eh?

It’s been a while since I mentioned my campaign for president in the Up Front column. But I am running for president and my campaign is almost as hot as Buddy Roemer’s. I’ve come up with my own tax plan. I call it 0-0-100.

Here’s how it works. I pay 0 percent tax, people who make more than $250,000 pay 0 percent tax and people who make less than $250,000 pay 100 percent tax. I think this bold plan will eliminate once and for all the tiresome discussion about whether rich people pay too much taxes and people who aren’t rich pay enough.

We Are in the Northern Hemisphere

Herman Cain may be getting some attention. But when it comes to making comments that trigger the raising of brows and dropping of jaws, Cain is still a neophyte in comparison to presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, who’s previously earned Up Front space with her unorthodox utterances. In an Oct. 19 Republican candidates debate, Bachmann said, “He [Obama] put us in Libya; he is now putting us in Africa.” This is like saying Obama put something in Monroe and is now putting it in Louisiana.

If Bachmann didn’t think Libya was in Africa, where did she think it was? Back in the 1970s, when President Gerald Ford said in a debate that Poland wasn’t communist, everyone figured (I guess) that Ford knew what continent Poland was in.

Not everyone could get worked up about it. The morning after the debate, the lead story on Google News was “Ohio Police Hunt Escaped Wild Animals.” As the guy in Anchorman says, “Ooo, that’s a hot lead.” The Republicans could get more coverage for these debates if they could knock the number down to five or six a day.

More on Avoiding Victory

The award for Funniest Political Tweet of the Issue goes to Time columnist James Poniewozek who wrote “Herman Cain leads NYT/CBS poll. Does he have enough time, staff to avoid winning the GOP nomination.”

The day the poll was released must have been a very bad day indeed for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was able to muster only 6 percent.

Don’t Be The Last To Be Steampunked

What's the hip new word everyone is using? Steampunk! No consumer product or experience wants to be the last consumer product or experience on the block to describe itself with this awesome, bodacious and extremely popular term.

Let’s see what’s new in your steampunk world. Of course, there’s Tim Burton's automated feature Steampunk Willie, in which Micky Mouse subdues Pete with coal gas delivered through a hookah. Justin Beiber's new CD, My Little Steampunk Girl, is set to drop any day. There’s the new talent show, Bristol Palin's Steampunk Explosion, and two new reality TV shows: Steampunk Brides, in which brides-to-be compete to incorporate the heaviest amount of cast iron into their bridal dresses, and Steampunk Staten Island, in which a group of young, photogenic boot models sit around a luxury loft drinking beer, cursing, whining and listening to Rasputina MP3s.

Finally, look for the two New York Times bestsellers The Huff and Puff Principle: Using The Green Steampunk Law Of Attraction To Grow Your Life by Victoria, Mistress of Charlton Grange, and the latest Sookie Steampunk vampire novel Dead As A Hydraulic Punch Press.

Still not sure exactly what steampunk is? Just watch that old Will Smith movie Wild, Wild West and you’ll know everything there is to know about it.

‘This Has Got To Be Weird’

Now, to shift the focus to something that really is hip, word is that Tim Burton is working on a film version of the hippest of old TV shows, Dark Shadows, and Johnny Depp will play the suave and sinister vampire Barnabas Collins. Burton is just the man to tell the story and Depp is ideal for the role of Collins.

An entertainment blogger for Yahoo incorrectly identified Dark Shadows as a 1970s show. While episodes aired briefly in the 1970s, the show became a controversial hit in the mid-1960s. The Up Fronter can remember being forbidden to watch the program when he was a young boy. Depp says, in a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, “I do remember, very vividly, practically sprinting home from school in the afternoon to see Jonathan Frid play Barnabas Collins. Even then, at that age, I knew — this has got to be weird.”

Dark Shadows was a cult phenomenon from the beginning, and the Yahoo story may be an early instance of the sort of thing that will take place as young writers struggle to pin down a pop culture phenomenon they’re unacquainted with.

Those who haven’t had the Dark Shadows experience are invited to watch the creepy adventures of Barnabas; his neurotic, vampiric assistant Willie; and the con man Jason, Willie’s silver-tongued partner in crime. DVDs of old Dark Shadows episodes are a little expensive if they’re bought at full price. But they’re available on Netflix for the regular prices.

News Counseling — $150 CHEAP!

The Up Fronter recently saw on the cover of some magazine — it might have been People — that Ashton Kuthcer and Demi Moore were going to marriage counseling. How, I wondered, is that going to work? I imagine it happening something like this:

Counselor: OK, so, uh, Ashton, you’re, like, uh … married … so, uh, you can’t uh, like, go to, uh, clubs by yourself and, like, spend the night with, uh, models.

Ashton: Wow! I never thought of that! That’s amazing advice. This marriage counseling stuff really works.

The whole thing gave me an idea for a new business — news counseling, which I’ll be happy to provide at a cost of $150 an hour. In the first session, I’ll explain that news about celebrities isn’t really news unless I write it.

Your Governor Wants To See You ... NOW!

News From the Bayouland (and in particular, Lake Charles, La.)

Your Governor Wants To See You … NOW!

This was the big news from WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge: “44 percent of Louisiana's public schools have received a failing grade in the newest school performance scores.

 … Bobby Jindal has been briefed on the scores, the source says, and is said to be very disappointed.”

Uh oh. Governor is very disappointed. I wonder what happened to the schools. Were they spanked, or grounded, or maybe something even worse? I’m not a school, but I’m going to try really, really hard to be good and not disappoint governor.

I Just Love Your New System

The mutual admiration society whose members are Govs. Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry produced an interesting statement a while back, when Perry said, "When Bobby Jindal comes up with a new way to deliver health care … we'll snitch that in a minute and implement it in our state."

Perry, who was being interviewed on CNN at the time, apparently really did say "snitch" rather than "snatch." But I’m not one of those self-appointed arbiters of politics who judge a politician's performance in terms of whether he got a particular letter wrong. I’m a different kind of self-appointed arbiter of politics.

The key issue isn't Perry's vocabulary, but the little matter of whether Jindal's health care delivery system works. Then there's the equally little matter of whether Perry will in fact implement the system in Texas. Many of us are in the habit of thinking that when a politician promises to do a particular thing it's a clear sign the thing in question is exactly what he's planning not to do.

Almost Like No Election At All

For those who are overwhelmed by the tension of not knowing who the next Lake Charles, La., tax assessor will be, the upcoming election will be a matter of tremendous urgency. Others will be pleased that their nighttime viewing of True Blood and Dexter won’t be interrupted by any election updates.

In Baton Rouge, at least one major figure in the political sign business is on record as saying that the lackluster campaign is putting a hurt on revenue. "Business doubles in political years and triples in active political years," says Stephen St. Cyr, owner of Vivid Ink in Baton Rouge. "This is almost like an off year … The big races will be in 2012." Well, we've heard that before, haven't we? (St. Cyr was quoted in the Sept. 6 edition of the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report.)

We can take consolation, though. This is Louisiana, and even if the elections are painfully bland, some shocking political event is bound to take place within days after the final results come in. Sooner rather than later, politics will once again get interesting in the Louisiana way.

Roemer’s Main Street Move

Some political junkies in Louisiana must have been surprised to read that longshot Republican presidential candidate Buddy Roemer supports the Wall Street protesters. But support them he does, and rather enthusiastically at that.

In a recent press release, Roemer wrote of “the young Americans currently taking part in the Occupy Wall Street movement.” The ex-governor went on to make these dramatic comments:

“Please know that I stand by you … It is Main Street that is being foreclosed on; and it is Main Street that is suffering while the greed of Wall Street continues to hurt our middle class … Both parties are guilty of taking the big check and are bought by Wall Street … 

Wall Street grew to be a source of capital for growing companies. It has become something else: A facilitator for greed and for the selling of American jobs. Enough already.”

It’s possible these statements were made to draw attention to the Roemer campaign, which remains conspicuously marginal. As late as Sept. 7, Roemer was excluded from a debate of Republican candidates because he had failed to earn 4 percent of support in a single major national poll. I’m not sure the Roemer bandwagon is picking up riders even in his own state. It took two days for the story I’ve reported here to show up on the state news service The Dead Pelican.

Apparently, even Lake Charles is doing a riff off the the Wall Street protests. The Occupy Lake Charles walk is set to take off from the corners of Ryan and Alamo Streets at noon on Oct. 15. I wouldn’t bet the family inheritance on the long-term success of this movement in Lake Charles. But I suppose it’s good that some people still have the spirit. If any readers want to learn more about this, go on to Facebook and search for “Occupy Lake Charles.”

Walk While You Can

Suppose there was was a rash of burglaries in the town you lived in. How would you like your elected officials to respond?

I suppose many folks would suggest that local police do whatever they need to do, within the law, of course, to target car thieves. That might be seen, by many, as a straightforward, sensible approach.

The mayor and city council of Ville Platte, La., have a better way. Their idea is to make it illegal for citizens to walk on the streets of Ville Platte.

That’s right. The powers that be decreed it was illegal to walk in Ville Platte after 10 pm. People who got caught breaking the law could be fined $200 and given a 30-day jail sentence. I guessing the rationale was that things would be pretty rough for car thieves who ply their trade on foot.

That busybody organization the ACLU filed suit against the Ville Platte law. As usual, the ACLU was advancing a wacky left-wing notion, in this case, the notion that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens the freedom to walk in their neighborhoods. Oh, one other thing — the ACLU also alleged the walking ban was “creating a monetary windfall for the City and thus, a tremendous incentive to continue the curfew.”

The area NAACP also got involved, apparently on the grounds that a lot of poor black people can’t afford to own cars and find themselves obliged to walk whether they want to or not. It sounds like a small version of what was going on after Katrina, when a bunch of white folks were saying, “Why didn’t those people leave New Orleans?” and a bunch of black folks in New Orleans were saying, “We don’t have cars!”

At any rate, the ACLU suit must have annoyed either the mayor or city council, as the law was suspended, at least temporarily.

That’s really too bad. This law would have freed Villa Platte law enforcement from the heavy burden of having to keep an eye out for pedestrian car burglars. It’s true that citizens would have been unable to take a walk at night. But in hard times, everyone has to  make a sacrifice. That’s what I’ve heard.

I’m going to give Ville Platte’s law a 7 on the Silly Scale, which will put it quite a bit higher than Lake Charles’ droopy drawers law, which only merits a six. It’s one thing for politicians to tell people how they have to wear their pants. But to tell people they can’t even walk down their own street — now that’s doing something.

Newshound Carries The Day

The Woofstock Festival took place at the Lake Charles Civic Center on Oct. 8, and it was a tremendous success — for my dog Barnabas! My wife, Nydia, dressed Barnabas up as the Lagniappe Newshound. He wore a fedora hat with a press pass and a stylish tie. He worked the crowd and aimed to please his many fans.

Barnabas managed to earn the 2^nd place award in the dog beauty contest. I’m not sure exactly what qualities a dog must possess to win a beauty contest. But whatever they are, Barnabas must have them in droves.

There was a good turnout for Woofstock, with booths stretching from Lakeshore Drive to Bord du Lac. Everyone was preaching the gospel of dog rescues. (Barnabas, a relaxed and happy mastiff, was a rescue.)

Johnny “New York” Latham was the emcee of the event. He introduced me to a few members of the Flat Out Roller Derby team. A couple more members came over to introduce themselves to the Up Fronter and Barnabas when we were taking a well-deserved rest on a park bench. Johnny “New York” will keep Up Front readers informed about the next Flat Out Roller Derby bout, which will take place Nov. 20 at 5 pm at Skate City on Nelson Road.

Another star of the show was the T&I Culinary Institute, which was selling very tasty apple turnovers for just 50 cents per. The crust in these savory treats was rich and buttery. High school students who want to learn to cook appetizing foods are invited to check the institute out.

The Up Fronter wishes future Woofstocks success in promoting the cause of animal rescue.

A More Informativer Headline

What was the outcome of LSU quarterback Jefferson Jordan’s recent arrest for participation in a 1:30 am bar fight? Intellectual growth. Consider the following comments, which  Jefferson made in a Oct. 3 news conference:

“I'm a lot more wiser and I'm a lot more smarter than what I was back in August.” That was one of two times he used the phrase “more wiser” in his remarks.

I know I always become a lot more articulater and a lot more lucider and a lot more intelligibler when I read statements by big-name athletes who’ve acquired great wisdom from their brawling experience.

A reporter asked Jefferson if he wanted to apologize for what he did to the team. No, said Jefferson, he figured he didn’t need to apologize to the team because the team was there when it happened. Makes sense!

Besides, it wasn’t as if Jefferson really did anything. Consider his words: “I was just being a college student. I wasn't trying to get myself into trouble. I was just enjoying myself with my teammates. And a certain situation happened to me off of my popularity.” He didn’t do anything in this situation. The situation happened to him. I get it. I wonder, does it always work that way? For instance, the next time Jefferson throws a touchdown pass, will he think he did that or will he think the situation just happened?

I don’t know. But there’s one thing I’m pretty sure of. Every football fan thanks his lucky stars that a basic grasp of English grammar isn’t a prerequisite for a starting position on a university team.

The 10/12 Exit

After only four years, the publication of the big, glossy 10/12 magazine is coming to an end. The last print edition of 10/12 will roll out in November. The online operations will wrap up at the end of the year.

The magazine had been printed for four years by publisher Rolfe McCollister and his Louisiana Business Inc. in an effort to report business developments in Louisiana along the 10/12 corridor.

McCollister didn’t skirt the issue of the magazine’s premature death; in fact, the story about it was the lead story in the magazine’s internet newsletter. McCollister cited “the need to focus resources on new technologies,” and in particular, “the development of new online and digital distribution opportunities,” as reasons for the departure of 10/12. New websites for Louisiana Business publications 225 and inRegister are among the projects planned.

In this case, it may be that the corporation is being up front. In the last three years, consumer migration to the internet, and particularly internet usage on such devices as smartphones, has gutted the magazine and newspaper industries. It may be that in spite of its sophisticated layout, graphics and color schemes, 10/12 just wasn’t able to stem the tide.

The Bounty of Reality TV

After the recent suicide of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Russell Armstrong, we shouldn’t really need any reminders of the bounteous gifts that have been bestowed on our culture by reality television. But it looks like we’re going to keep getting the reminders anyway.

The latest reality TV blessing comes courtesy of former 16 and Pregnant stars Josh Rendon and Ebony Jackson-Rendon, who were just arrested for endangering the welfare of their 2-year-old daughter Jocelyn. On  Sept. 27, Arkansas Children and Family Services removed the girl from her home in the Little Rock Air Force Base. According to the police report, "every room in the residence had human and dog feces on the floors, walls and clothing. The house was full of flies and, in some areas, maggots."

The daughter wasn’t the only one removed from the squalid domicile; animal control took away three dogs.

In addition to the endangerment rap, Rendon and wife were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, the maintaining of a drug premise and unauthorized use of another person's property to facilitate a crime.

We don’t want to let the sensational nature of this story distract us from the merit of other reality television blessings. For instance, the title 16 and Pregnant is a blessing in itself.

And if all of that isn’t blessing enough for you, there’s this, just in from ABC: pastor Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Evangelical Association, is set to appear on the spin-off series Celebrity Wife Swap with his wife Gayle. According to the story, Haggard, who, in 2006, more or less admitted to engaging in homosexual activity, will pair up with a wife rather than a husband in the swap.

You Compressor, You!

I’m sure we all realize that from time to time politicians provide explanations and arguments most people won’t find really compelling. Let’s take an example. Suppose you’re a Florida Republican who’s responsible for scheduling Florida’s Republican straw poll. Would you be swayed by the recent argument by South Carolina GOP chairmain Chad Connelly? Said Connelly:

“If you guys in Florida want to be the bad guys and compress this calendar and lose out for all the voters in America and have a calendar that’s chaotic and compressed even if it’s against your own state GOP, then go for it."

So bad guys are guys who compress calendars. This Connelly fellow seems to be arguing that he owns the moral high ground as a result of his opposition to the highly abstract concept of the compression of time — or more specifically, calendar dates. Even those Republicans who do know what a compressed calendar is may reason something like this: “OK, if the worse that can happen is that we wind up compressing the calendar, then we’ll risk it.” After all, they haven’t gotten into politics as a result of their overwhelming passion for the proper regulation of calendars.

Connelly’s comments will have a profound effect on such crucial themes of the philosophy of time as the relatively of simultaneity, the causation solution, endurantism and perdurantism, and, of course, the central issue of the nature of the compression of time. The comments will, however, have no effect whatsoever on the U.S. electoral schedule. Connelly’s remarks were reported by The Hill on Sept. 29.

Dreams, Piano and the Tyrant of Men

Lebensessenz is a pianist and songwriter who presently lives in Brazil, but would like to get gigs in the U.S. While his music is often lyrical and compelling, what's just as compelling is the intense personal story behind the compositions.

You can get hints of that story both in Lebensessenz's song titles and in his autobiographical essay "A Monologue About Lebensessenz," which can be found on his My Space page.

Lebensessenz says the motifs of the music are derived both from his "hard times" and "strong emotions." The hard times sometimes find musical expression in songs about dreams. (At least three songs have the word "dream" in the title.) The "strong emotions" aren't necessarily negative; for instance, Lebensessenz cites "happiness" (and perhaps in particular happiness over the recent birth of his daughter) as one of them.

But what's usually underlying his music is a keen sense of, and sadness about, loss or abandonment. Hard times related to loss have made Lebensessenz's music sensitive to matters related to love, intimacy and the denial of these. He's written a song cycle on The Sorrows of Young Werther — the best known literary work about unrequited love. And one gets an almost physical impact from the starkness of his 2008 CD title: "Tu deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor!" ("You, Love, Tyrant of Gods and Men." One of the record's songs is titled "Cruelty.")

As for the losses and abandonments that shook him hardest, in his essay he's explicit that these relate to his treatment at the hands of a distant father and to two important intimate relationships that ended badly. One reason we know the almost constant distance and apparent indifference of the father are important is that Lebensessenz writes a great deal about his feelings of rejection and sense of inattention on the part of his father and the effects of those feelings on Lebensessenz’s composing and compositions.

His father, who was, he says, a "fabulous musician," didn't live with him. The father, who was big on music theory, felt his son "needed to play with the correct methods" -- not something Lebensessenz was keen on at the time. As time passed, says Lebensessenz, "I wanted his help and his teaching, but, through a reason that I don't know," the father didn't want the same thing.

Even when the father was present, he seemed somehow absent. We are told he didn't comment on the early recordings of his son's music. “Why doesn't he say anything about what I do?" wonders the son. "It hurt me so much, but with time I just tried to forget it."

The result of all this was a son who was self-taught when it came to playing the piano. After the son’s composing began, the Father did, at one point, overhear the son playing the composition "Der Walzer von Lotte" ("Lotte's Waltz" – one of Lebensessenz’s most moving pieces and a surprisingly energetic work). The father told Lebensessenz 's mother that the songs were "sounding good." This Is the first time the father is seen as being aware and attentive to his son. It’s a moment Lebensessenz will mention more than once.

In a song cycle based on Schiller’s work The Robbers ("Die Rauber"), one song, “The Letter,” is about a character in the Schiller novel who writes a letter asking to be forgiven by his father. The son experiences "anxiety waiting for an answer."

Part of the result of Lebensessenz’s father’s distance and apparent indifference is the composer’s feeling of loss of the father. In the long process of creation behind the body of Lebensessenz’s work, there are times of fragmentation and total loss, at least as far as the work is concerned. He says that two early tapes of his music got lost in mysterious ways. In 2006, he says, he started to write a romance, but, in a statement that is itself mysterious, he says the romance now exists only in fragments.

Both in his writing and music titles, Lebensessenz makes frequent reference to states one easily associates with a sense of inattention at the hands of a valued object, or rejection by, distance from, loss of, such an object. The composer returns and returns to references to night, solitude, melancholy. "Most of my compositions,” he tells us, “emerged through nocturnal moments." The waltz Lebensessenz writes based on material in Werther is danced in the night. In 2005 he uses a computer to compose "Der Abend des Abschields" ("Farewell Night"). The title’s twin reference to night and separation is linked to music built on "longing, platonic passions" – the sort of passions one can develop for much sought-after objects who aren’t available. A 2006 composition is titled "Das Drama de Einsamkeit" (“The Drama of Solitude).”

When he became an adult, Lebensessenz asked his father "to help" him "with some exercises, but he was not so interested." He rationalizes his father’s lack of interest by considering that the father may think the son will lose interest. There is, perhaps, more rationalizing; in "refusing to help me,” writes Lebensessenz, the father wanted to give him “an answer to find my own way"

As years pass, Lebensessenz will engage in rationalization about his father that is more elaborately conceived and less convincing; he will state that he’s come to the realization that his father’s "silence of old times had its importance. He said few things, but it was sufficient ... “ And at about the time Lebensessenz realized this, he experienced a loss whose existence we don’t need to conjecture about: “In the same year, I lost him." In 2009, he is still rationalizing for the father; his album is titled Ihr Leben war fur mich ein Beispiel" ("Your Life Was An Example To Me"). But one song is titled "Days of Voluntary Exile." The solitude that has so often been the legacy he’s taken from his father is still with him.

After inattention, perceived loss, real loss of the father and a loss of two crucial intimate relationships lost as finally and as mysteriously (that is, with as little description) as the loss of the early cassettes, it is small wonder that Lebensessenz chooses to title a CD "Tu deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor!" ("You, Love, Tyrant of Gods and Men"). His music at this time is, he says, melancholic, introspective; his music continues to have "melancholy, sadness." Solitude remains, entrenched, and with its sometimes companion fragmentation: "Again I see myself alone.” Fragmentation of work still reflects fragmentation of life by the loss of key people; he says he remembers "the ruins of things that ended badly.”

But it is a distortion not to note the degree to which Lebensessenz says his music has been formed by feelings of happiness. The happiness is also expressed in the writings, and in particular in statements of such individuality that they are heartening and show the composer is driven by an energy that is, at least during much of his composing time, able to match the weight of the loss he carries. Here are some examples of the sort of aphoristic statements that Lebensessenz seems to be able to put to express with great facility:

The work, he says, is "a learning"
"There are no secrets in what I do"
"When I face good or bad situations, I play; when I'm quiet also, I play with all my heart."
"There are things that only me and my piano knows."

The music, which Lebensessenz calls neo-classical, always sounds like music of the 20th century and the first decade of this century. Quiet passages can sound like Satie or Poulenc. (There are also rare, extremely sparse passages that are reminiscent of Morton Feldman.) More complex, and slightly louder, post-Romantic stylings may sound a bit like, say Scriabin.

Then there are the pieces in which Lebensessenz performs in the neoclassicism so popular at the moment — a kind minimalist neoclassicism. While his pieces of this ilk can sometimes sound as calm and simply melodic as those of Harold Budd, more often they have the fast, driving quality of Robert Moran or Michael Nyman. In these driving pieces, which are liberally flavored by lyrical passages, the melodies are simple. The chord sequences are simple enough, and close enough to those used in rock, that even those who've never listened to classical music will be able to appreciate the music immediately.

A visit to Lebensessenz' My Space page will give you seven or eight MP3s of his songs to listen to, his blog, information about his CDs and books of essays, and ways to download or order.

On True Crime

Would you convict a man who had a pet ant to life without parole?

That's a serious question. I'll say more about it at the end of this essay.

First, let me tell you a story a friend once told me about his trip to a porno shop. It's an uneventful tale. What struck me was an observation, which I think I can express in words close to an exact quotation: "As soon as I went in the store, I smelled that smell that porno shops always have, and I got that feeling you get when you're doing something taboo."

What interested me was that he felt sure he was breaking a taboo even though he was doing nothing illegal.

Many of our taboos have nothing to do with legality. Suppose I give a speech to a group you belong to. And suppose I begin by picking my nose, burping, putting one of my feet up on the podium, pulling up my trouser leg and calling the audience's attention to my bright white athletic socks. In this story, I break at least three taboos in a few seconds. But I do nothing illegal.

The taboo against going to porno shops is of greater interest than the trivial taboos in my speech story be cause pornography has an effect on American culture that's far-reaching, profound and — because porn is taboo — off-limits to analysis. Before the Internet and DVD came along and vastly extended the range of porn, the sale of XXX videos was a $20 billion-a-year business. One of every five videos sold was rated XXX.

Obviously, many millions of Americans were privately engaging in an activity that in public they would assert was taboo.  Such a phenomenon must indicate something significant about American culture. But outside of the Village Voice and a few academic journals on popular culture, the phenomenon receives no critique whatsoever for the simple and obvious reason that the subject is taboo in this country.

All of that is a belabored way of getting me to the point where I tell you that I frequently read true crime books even though I know it is taboo to do so. Just as it's easy to find evidence of significant consumption of porn, it's easy to demonstrate that many people engage in the legal taboo of reading true crime by noting the significant presence of true crime books in any bookstore.

The taboo nature of true crime is lampooned to splendid effect in a book that is itself taboo — American Psycho. I refer to the scenes in which the killer protagonist disgusts his dining companions with details about serial killers he's gleaned from his reading.

While the scenes are humorous, I think the author, Brett Easton Ellis, was playing around with the reality (as he was during most of the book). The truth is most Americans do know at least the basic facts about such notorious killers as John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, and most who did not know would want to. Furthermore, Gacy's true-life story was less outré than that of the fictional sensation Hannibal Lechter.

In the situation depicted in American Psycho, the group aware ness of taboo arises when a speaker relates the dirty details of dirty deeds says something like, "Boy, I really get into reading about people who do stuff life this." Not until that comment was made would folks raise their eyebrows.

As an independent thinker, I read what I like without any concerns about whether the material is taboo in this or that place. I admit that if I'm in a bookstore whose counterperson has a sophisticated look, I won't buy a true crime book. There's still certainly that much of the bourgeois in me.

My motivations for reading true crime have changed over time. My first true crime reading spree began in the mid-1980s when I realized I was interested in what I called "marginal culture" — the culture of those who indulge in unusual acts or thoughts. At the time, I thought the gap between the marginal and the typical was much larger than I presently think it is.

These days I read true crime because reading it is the least demanding thing I can do without doing nothing at all. That's the case because I don't own a television.

At this point, I might as well mention that doing nothing is taboo. I say that not just to make a banal comment on the insanely frantic pace at which we choose to live, but also to point out that if a person genuinely does nothing — or comes as close as people can to doing nothing — he'll fear he's suffering from mental illness. In the psychiatric trends that obtain at present, "doing nothing" is a symptom of severe depression, and hence taboo. All of this may inspire even the most jaded person to think, perhaps at an unconscious level, that he "should" do something.

I fear that at times, such thinking is my motivation for picking up a true crime book. Reading true crime is a minimal way of doing something. It's an act that requires next to no intellectual activity. Like fictional works that fall in the category of subgenre, true crime is formulaic in the extreme. The reader never needs to struggle to impose order on the text.

Of course, it's the failure to use the formula in a thoughtful way that makes most true crime books the dreck they are. People read true crime books for one of two reasons: either they want to learn the gruesome details of crimes or they want to learn about the freaky personalities and idiosyncrasies of over-the-top criminals. The successful true crime writer will keep the focus on these motifs and never stray from them.

Most true crime books fall apart the moment the investigation of the crimes begins. In any major case, the sequence of events from the start of the investigation to the announcement of the verdict will involve dozens of individuals at various levels of the criminal justice system. Even a brilliant writer cannot develop so many characters. Yet most true crime writers try to do just that. The reader is inundated with banal detail about a multitude of players. Detective So and So, the reader is told, was tenacious, put in 14-hour-days, gobbled down Cheerios for breakfast at 5 am and paused once in a while for a Dunhill. Clotted with such tedious and pointless details, the book becomes a bore and is tossed in the trash.

I recently read the aptly titled book Rough Trade by talented true crime writer Steve Jackson. I kept noticing that Jackson rarely used even a sentence to describe one of the many individuals in the criminal justice cast. Often his only description was a short parenthetical phrase ("Police Sgt. Bill Smith, an old-school street cop, arrived ...").

Writers such as Jackson, or the more talented Jack Olsen, Ann Rule and Aphrodite Jones, keep their works engrossing by focusing squarely on the criminal at all times.

But why would one want to read such works, even when they're skillfully crafted? If one wants to
learn about freaky people in a fast, easy manner, or if one simply wants to make time pass, reading true crime is a viable activity. For those with no such desires, there's no reason to read it.

To say that true crime is taboo, has a limited audience and is usually poorly written is not to say it's worthless. Most true crime books provide a good view of the human condition, provided one is willing to read between the lines, and work backwards from the adult's expression of violence — the key subject matter — to the influence of the childhood role models for whom the criminal learned violence was an acceptable form of behavior.

Without exception, children who eventually grow up to be the subjects of true crime books are victims of repeated severe psychological, sexual and violent abuse by at least one caregiver, and usually by more than one. People who think criminals commit crimes because they read a particular book are people who haven't read true crime books.

The abusers who transform a child into a violent criminal are usually, though not always, relatives of the child. And it is inaccurate to assume the abusive caregivers are always adults. In the most dysfunctional families, children may be abused by caregivers who are 12 or 14 years old and have long since learned methods of abuse from adult role models.

But what does this have to do with the human condition? Aren't such extreme cases aberrations? They are. But the aberrations are skewed reactions to experiences that are universal. Early on, babies fear abandonment when they can tell a parent is leaving a room or house. And all children, when they are very young, fear they will be abandoned or rejected when they sense parents are displeased with their behavior. Parents with certain dispositions express disapproval of children's behavior by withdrawing affection from the child or becoming resentful or angry. Most parents, of course, will not do these things to the point of being abusive.

Children's fears of abandonment or rejection will be more or less pronounced depending on the parents' gifts at parenting. But even relatively minor childhood fears don't magically disappear when the child reaches the legal age of adulthood. Societies could not exist if people did not to some degree fear rejection or abandonment. Most adults deal with these fears by just coping with them in a catch as catch can manner or by channeling the fear into manageable neurotic symptoms.

The adult who's the subject of a true crime book learned from damaged caregivers that violence was an acceptable way of dealing with fear. At first, such adults don't seem to have much in common with us. But their behavior, extreme as it is, is a response to fundamental insecurities all people have: insecurities the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan described with the term "lack." Throughout their lives, said Lacan, people lack a sense of completeness; of being fully understood and accepted by another.

In the rare moments when the brutal criminal sneaks through the filter of violence and expresses the feelings that motivate the violence, what he expresses is the same sense of lack, of incompleteness, of ultimate alienation, we all carry deep inside. This explains why a talented writer who carefully interviews and quotes a vio lent criminal can create passages that move a reader to intense empathy — empathy, not sympathy — with the criminal.

This brings us to the case of Riggans, the man whose brutal crimes Steve Jackson wrote about. When Riggans was interviewed in the Colorado State Penitentiary, he didn't cry about the wives who'd divorced him or the women he'd killed or abused. But he cried profusely when asked about a pet dog he'd had as a child. In a home where the people dispensed no affection, Riggans found it in a pet. That led a prosecutor to wonder whether Riggans had a pet in his jail cell. He did. A pet ant.

The three judges who determined Riggans' fate felt it was painful to pass judgment on a man so severely alienated he sought affection from an ant. But they also understood that if Riggans were released, he would certainly murder again. Their solution: life in jail without possibility of parole.

The book is taboo; the story is worth telling.

Fat Millie's Lament and the Metal Machine

This entry is the result of an effort to generate interest in this blog by creating a piece that will contain a host of potential search terms. In this case, the terms will relate solely to music.

In particular, it's hoped the entry will attract the interest of those with special tastes for dark ambient music, doom metal, black metal, experimental classical music, triphop and drum and bass. To maximize the number of potential search terms, I'll simply list performers (and in many cases, composers or songwriters) who make the kinds of music I've listed.

The list for black metal includes bad-news-making Scandinavian bands, such as Emperor and Belphegor, and their American counterparts, the not-bad-news-making Xasthur and Azrael. A stunning Greek version is Rotting Christ, whose short songs, usually built with traditional pop structures (but not pop delivery) are replete with soaring and substantial melodies.

Xasthur makes the least structured music of the bunch, with a sound that mixes overlayered grinding guitars and the simple melodic chord progressions associated with all sorts of minimalism.

For doom, the earth2 recording has yet to be surpassed for its calming effect; for agitated or frustrated individuals, early Swans is ideal doom.

The reach of dark ambient is vast, embracing Lustmord, Metaconqueror, Lull, Robert Rich and the dozens of recordings of Steve Roach.

Performers melding all the sounds mentioned thus far, and power electronics as well, are Navicone Torture Technologies (the project of a fellow who calls himself Leech) and Abyssic Hate — two acts whose recordings can always be counted on for rapturous beauty.

Less rigorous in its demands on the listener, but sometimes as lyrical, is the work of such triphop DJs as DJ Spooky, Coldcut, DJ Shadow and others. Comparable melodies (thought to be vaguely in the tradition of jazz) are found in the breakneck drum and bass beats of Kenny Kenn, DJ SS and the David Bowie album Earthling. To venture further into experimental electronic music, and formulate lists of the talented crowd that gets classified with such tags and terms as experimental techno and shoegaze music, would be to introduce a number of potential search terms too big for this writer to manage.

As for experimental classical composers (whose work often overlaps with dark ambient or power electronics), the very long list includes such names as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio (hear, for example, his Laborintus 2), Sal Martirano (for example, L's GA), Kenneth Gaburo (for example, Fat Millie's Lament), Maurizio Kagel, Luigi Nono. Such composers paved the way for the great, early nonacademic noise works, such as Lou Reeds' Metal Machine Music, the compositions and anguished and angry performances of Diamanda Galas and Joanna Went, and what I feel is the greatest recording of noise music to date, Yoko Ono's Fly. (For what it's worth, I'm guessing that New York No Wave owes a greater debt to experimental jazz than to experimental classical. While I'm not an unusually honest person, I'll admit I'm not familiar enough with experimental jazz to write about it with any kind of real authority.)

Additions to this very short list are heartily welcomed

Ding-A-Ling Prose And The Slippery Word

I sometimes have a little fun with self-help programs, which fall somewhere on my long list of targets. As a concession to potential opponents, I'll state that I think there are most likely a few good self-help programs floating around out there. I sympathize with those who try to use them.

What I want to do now is distinguish between solid self-help advice and fluffy feel-good prose. I never look at books with titles like Chicken Soup for the Soul or Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. First, I consider such titles an insult to my intelligence. Second, I have no wish to read vague, flowery prose whose sole purpose is to shut down readers' brains and give them a fleeting sense of animal satisfaction.

Some local publication recently published a piece of feel-good slop called "Ten Rules for Being Human." I'd like to amuse myself for a time by unpacking some of this ding-a-ling prose.

The so-called 10 rules are vague and nonreferential and imply a constantly positive valence. In short, they're designed specifically to make the reader feel good about himself regardless of the reader's condition or environment.

One of the wearying aspects about American culture is that one is always obliged to be positive no matter how dire the situation is. Even when people get a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, schizophrenia or incurable cancer, they feel they must come up with some sort of positive statement about the prognosis. In much less extreme cases than the three I just listed, I've sometimes found myself wanting to say to a person, "Well, I really don't see anything positive in your situation." But I just stay silent, because I know that it's pretty much forbidden to say things like that.

Having said that, let me go back to my description of this list as one of so-called rules. I want to be clear: nothing in this list is a rule. The items in this list are assertions about what it is to be human. For example, it is asserted that people will learn lessons, will repeat lessons and never stop learning lessons. A rule would have to take a linguistic form such as "You must learn lessons." There is nothing like that in this list. There are no rules here. There is nothing the reader is obliged to do or refrain from doing.

Let's start looking at the text itself. No. 3 on the list asserts "there are no mistakes, only lessons." Item four asserts "lessons are repeated until they are learned."

If there are no mistakes, how exactly does one "learn" a lesson? The assertion that one can learn the lesson assumes that there is a correct way to respond to the lesson — in which case it has been "learned." If one does not respond correctly, one has made a mistaken judgment about the lesson, in which case one has yet to learn it.

Now we are told "When you have learned [a lesson], you can go on to the next lesson." This is an assertion that human life presents lessons in a linear, sequential form. For example, one may first learn the lesson of what must be done to secure a job. Then one may learn the lesson of what must be done to secure an apartment.

The assertion leaves no room for the notion that lessons might overlap; might come in clusters; might come in an infinite variety of orders or in no order at all. There is no room for the notion that a lesson — say, for exam ple, the lesson of ways to enter new groups — would be accessible at some times and inaccessible at others.

No. 6 reads as follows: "'There' is no better place than 'here.' When your 'there' has become a 'here,' you will simply obtain another 'there' that will again look better than 'here.'"

Can we conclude from this item that people who live on the "here" of Riverside Drive do not feel that they live in a "better" place than the "there" of Ward 9 in New Orleans? Is it reasonable to conclude that a black male living in the "here" of Compton should think that a person living on Long Beach does not live in a "better" place? In New York, is the "here" of Harlem qualitatively indistinguishable from the "there" of Long Island?

I know from experience that while it may not always make sense to talk about places being "better" than other places, it certainly makes sense to talk about the cultures of some places being different from those of other places. In Southwest Louisiana, where I reside, difference is strongly discouraged and independent thought is blasphemous. People in this area are expected to be team players, refrain from the questioning of all authority figures and just basically get with the program. In Portland, Ore., where I lived at one point in the past, difference and the degree of one's independence of thought don't have any effect on social relations. Portland is the most libertarian city in a very libertarian state. The approach in Portland is live and let live. People there base their self-concept on what they have in their heads and what they do and accomplish. They don't feel the need to coerce others to accept their points of view about anything. It's taken for granted that a multiplicity of points of view is to be expected; is not a problem; and is never a hindrance to social discourse. It seems to me most unlikely that a sensitive or shy or introverted or creative person who has dedicated herself to the high arts or to complex thought or literature would feel as good in the "here" of Lake Charles as she would in the "there" of Austin, Taos, Ann Arbor, Santa Cruz or any number of places.

Now, back to the list. Time and again claims are presented in this list without one shred of evidence being offered in support of the claim. Let's look at No. 7, which reads "Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself."

OK. Let's apply this claim. If I hate my spouse for striking me with a closed fist, this means what I really hate is the psychotic aggression in my subconscious mind?

Did I get that right? If I hate to be beaten, that reflects my own hatred of my wishes to beat others — and that's the case even if I've never beaten anyone else or felt the conscious desire to beat anyone else. If I hate to be yelled at, that reflects my hatred of my own wish to yell at others, even if I'm utterly unaware of any such wish.

If I understand No. 7 correctly, I cannot hate what a sadistic, sociopathic thug or control freak does to me without at the same time concluding that I must subconsciously wish to engage in the behaviors of the thug that I find so repulsive and must therefore hate myself on that count.

I cannot get my head around No. 7. If a complete stranger is rude or treats me with lack of consideration, must I hate something in myself to hate what the stranger does to me? Just what in myself would I hate? Would I hate my preference that people treat other people with common decency?

On to No. 8. It's designed both to make the reader feel good and to lure him into the current pop psych fad of "empowerment."

"What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours."

Now, can I conclude from this that I can make my life what I want it to be if I have Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, severe mental retardation, leukemia or a painful terminal cancer? If I am paralyzed from the neck down at, say, age 18, can I just use all those tools and resources up in my head to make up my mind I'm going to feel chipper while I spend the next 60 years lying in bed staring at the ceiling?
What about the single mother of two children who's working a minimum wage job; has no savings and only a high school education; whose friends are as poor as she is; and who's just lost her last relative, who left her nothing, having nothing to leave her? What little miracle is this person supposed to whip up with her poor, skimpy network and the "resources" in her head?

What about the fact that more than 25 percent of this country's citizens don't have health insurance? Is it the case that a quarter of the population is just too lazy to make the choices and take the actions necessary to get health insurance? I don't think so. The insurance is overpriced and the people are underpaid. People can't change that basic state of affairs by thinking a certain way about it. It's not just a lie but a vile lie that gross economic inequalities can be erased with acts of individual will. On occasion, some single-minded, hard-working individual will rise out of destitution to a position of economic se curity. But for every one who does there are a thousand — or 10,000 — who are as single-minded and work just as hard and die on the treadmill of the working poor (and now, the middle class poor as well).

OK. No. 9: "Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust."

Like all the items, this one suffers from sloppy language usage. Due to the nature of American culture, almost all Americans who hear or read the phrase "your answers" will assume that the answers are both definitive and positive. In the rush for a positive outcome, it may be forgotten that the choice we are given is often the choice of the least bad alternative.

There is no simple, positive an swer — whether within you or with out you — to the state of dying a slow, painful death in the twisted wreckage of a car. You will search in vain for "answers" to intense physical pain that lasts for a long period of time. Where is the answer for the myriad individuals undergoing torture, genocide, famine; for those who are being beaten or raped or murdered while I write this column? The author provides no evidence that there are any types of "answers" about anything whatsoever. She does not even provide an example of an answer. And I suspect I'm not the only one whose sense of logic is troubled by the assertion that while "there are no mistakes" there are "answers."

"All you need to do" to get the answers, we are told, is "look, listen and trust" what is "within you." First, that's bad grammar. One could look at, listen to and trust what is within one. Second, it's ridiculous for me to "trust" what is within me if I know I'm schizoid, bipolar, severely depressed or have a tendency to extreme guilt, shame or anger. If I am in such a position, I should, far from trusting what is within me, carefully scrutinize what is within me at each shift of mood to be sure I'm not creating my own problems with my neurotic or psychotic thought patterns.

Sloppy, vague, insubstantial, feel-good language doesn't give us psychic security or even psychic direction. Pain, adversities and unexpected reversals are going to come. We are not going to find "answers" to all of them. Sometimes, no matter what we do or how hard we try, we're simply going to feel bad. In most of the world, there's no law against feeling bad.