NO SURPRISES

The Eraser by Thom Yorke, Reviewed by Federalist No. 2006

In the Thank You notes on Thom Yorke’s new “solo” album The Eraser, Yorke gives the biggest nod of all not to his wife or his young son, but to his bandmates, saying, “This record would not have happened without Radiohead, and their total faith in me.”

The acknowledgement seems less like a gracious love note full of camaraderie, and more like the thanks of a presiding God, who wants his subjects to know that their love has not gone unnoticed. I hear echoes of Colin Greenwood saying (and I papraphrase): “We are like the U.N., but Thom is definitely America.” I doubt, however, that Thom has gotten so excitable in the last few years. Most likely, the attempt at penitence is directed at the fans. Yorke is publicly aware of the concerns his “solo” album raises amongst the populi, and on a message board at W.A.S.T.E., he accompanied an apologetic announcement of his “solo” effort with an unequivocal assertion of the band’s survival:

this is just a note to say that something has been kicking around in the background that i have not told you about. its called The Eraser. nigel [Godrich] produced & arranged it. i wrote and played it. the elements have been kicking round now for a few years and needed to be finished & i have been itching to do something like this for ages. it was fun and quick to do. inevitably it is more beats & electronics. but its songs. stanley [Donwood] did the cover. yes its a record! no its not a radiohead record. as you know the band are now touring and writing new stuff and getting to a good space so i want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah . . . this was all done with their blessing. and i don’t wanna hear that word solo. doesnt sound right. ok then thats that.

The dedication still reads with a tinge of arrogance, but at least it is arrogance meant to comfort.

Upon listening, The Eraser affirms Yorke’s claims, and assuages all worry. He has not pulled a Beyonce, and none are forsaken or spited. The nine-track album reveals itself as less of a diversion or experimental work then as a purge of the drone/electro/pop urges that Yorke must have suppressed in the making of the more organically oriented Hail to the Thief. If so, The Eraser may prove vital to the Radiohead’s survival rather than its demise.

Yorke’s album is a tight collection of four and five minute tracks that fit nicely into the Radiohead tradition. As is, nothing here couldn’t be decent b-side, and most are better than “Paperbag Writer” from the “There There” EP. There are no challenging epics, none of the shapeless wandering instrumentals that might be expected, and if Yorke has done something novel here, it is by remaining within his comfortable territory.

Throughout, amorphous major chord soundscapes pivot into eerie minors, and a droney tension dominates. “Analyze” shifts so seamlessly that it is hard to realize that you are dancing to a dirge, and “Harrowdown Hill” makes a similar move from troubling-industrial to melodic love song. Tracks expand in electronic layers over flea-circus percussion that holds the beat on every track. Yorke croons in the background, while many of the frontal melodies are clean and articulate - a little shocking until you realize that this is the same guy who made The Bends and Pablo Honey, and is no stranger to straightforward singing. “Black Swan” ventures into a bit of funkiness and accounts for the EXPLICIT LYRICS warning on the cover, and “Atoms For Peace” may be the most innovative track of all, presenting a Thom Yorke inversion in which all the sounds are comforting and all the lyrics are un-ironic pick-me ups: "no more talking 'bout the old days/it's time for something great".

The opener and title track is the best track of the bunch, which may or may not have something to do with the presence of Johnny Greenwood, who plays the two Messiaen inspired chords that open the album. “The Eraser” is Yorke at his best: quietly aggressive, blippy, with occasional vocal explosions, and a familiar-enough beginning that evolves steadily into an electronic malaise, the exact metaphor that Yorke has been trying to hammer home since they decided on the name OK Computer.

Conclusions about The Eraser will depend on what allowances listeners are willing to grant Mr. Yorke. These songs are not wonderful, but they are not in any way bad, or self-indulgent, or lazy, or any of the other standard mistakes that newly solo band leaders tend to make. Yorke is doing what any artist is entitled to do, which is to make music that he loves without concern for much else. I personally enjoy seeing that happen, and like that Yorke enjoys his drone/electro/pop more than he enjoys the innovation and experimentation that have become his band’s hallmark. The Eraser merges nicely into the catalog and becomes a pleasant aspect of a larger body of work.

On the other hand, one might argue that Yorke is being lazy, that he took a collection of tracks with great potential and gave them a half-ass treatment in a self-serving vanity project. The album will come as a disappointment to listeners who expect Yorke (and co.) to re-invent with each new outing. It is not hard to spot the missing elements, and we can only dream of what mutations would have taken place had these moved from Thom’s laptop to a proper recording session.

I am not sure I could – or should – convince you one way or the other. In the end, the answer will have to depend on your own faith in Thom Yorke.

OOPS I DID IT AGAIN

I got a letter in the NYTimes. More than anything, it is exciting to have my name and writing on the exact opposite page of Frank Rich. That guy is my dreamdate.

If you don't feel like logging in:

To the Editor:

Re “Spinning a Bad Report Card,” by John Tierney (column, July 18):

Our public schools directly serve the founding credo of our nation, that all citizens are equal, and entitled to the same fundamental opportunities. They provide access and opportunity to all Americans, not merely those with the financial means or the winners of a random lottery.

Any voucher program, successful or not, is a stopgap political solution that will never match the greater service of our public system.

There is no arguing against the value of a quality education in the advancement of individuals and communities. The question we face is which individuals and which communities will benefit from that value. Our schools should be a public good, not a private purchase.

Michael Moats
Cambridge, Mass., July 18,

SWIMMING POOLS AND MOVIE STARS

AGAIN: The following is not a reflection of the feelings of this blog or its administrator(s). Andy is my friend, and I care to help him out.

Check it:

Andy Gets Famous

and when you're done with that:

Andy Gets Rich

IS THAT LATIN?

What the H.A.L.? – Researchers have made new developments in the world of cognitive computing, or A.I. The field has seen a lull in recent years, either due to scares inspired by The Matrix, or boredom induced sleep inspired by the movie A.I.
In addition to things like voice-recognition software and cars that drive themselves are developments like swimming pools in France that interpret swimming patterns and alert your friends if you are drowning. This is good because the French are drunks. Lives have been saved, apparently. Also, video games use cognitive computing to make fake video game characters seem more real, which is a great boon for real people who wish they were fake video game characters.

There have also been some remarkable advances in replacing human CEOs with computers.

Bound to be critical in the coming Presidential elections.

Makes Me Wanna Holler – The Brookings Institution issued a report on what is called a “Ghetto Tax,” referring to the added expense of living and shopping in low-income areas.

In addition to increased rates for things like auto and health insurance premiums, low-income families tend to pay more for things like rent-to-own appliances, groceries, and auto loans. A large part of the problem is that low-income families – defined here as under $30,000 per annum and not the archaic numbers the government uses – are unable to comparison shop online, due to lack of access and credit. And because “underdeveloped” tends to mean no banks, residents are paying between $5 and $50 fees to cash paychecks.

The Times writes:

Measures that reduced the price of essential goods and services for low-income Americans by just 1 percent would put an additional $6.5 billion a year in their hands, said the report, titled “From Poverty, Opportunity.”

Several officials in different place around the nation are working to reduce this burden, though, as the story says, things like raising the minimum wage, building better schools, and providing access to healthcare will help much more.

Deval Patrick Offers Some Solutions for the Big Dig – Candidate for governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick today published an editorial in the Boston Globe outlining his position on the Big Dig restoration and oversight. You should read it.

This is, of course, tricky, given the fact that one does not want to making political hay out of a woman’s death. However, this is a political issue that will only be resolved in political circles, so his commentary is fitting.

One response here.

Don’t Call It A Comeback – Celebrating his 20th year as a US citizen, Yakov Smirnoff, the man made famous for allowing us to snicker at the tragedy of Cold War Soviet life, will be teaching a class at Missouri State University. The subject: “Living happily Ever Laughter.” Ever laughter…lord that guy is funny. No wonder he is TWO TIME comedian of the year. TWICE!

Yakov homebases in Branson MO, so he is a sure fit at Missouri State where he will teach the Psych class on the value of laughter in forming and sustaining relationships. Yakov of course, has experience in the diplomatic value of laughter, as seen by his early popularity and his subsequent not being deported. We can only pray that the experience allows him to form more clever observations about life in state institutions.

ME VS. THE ESTATE TAX PT. II: TAX SMACKS BACK!

Part Two of a series on the Estate Tax, continued from a previous post…

When last we met, the House had just approved a repeal of the Estate tax, along with a handy tax break for the Timber industry. The House plan exempted 99.5% of American estates from any sort of duty on inherited wealth, and cut rates on highest .5%. If you can swin in coins Scrooge McDuck style, you are subject to a nominal fee.

The cost, in the first decade, was estimated to be about $760 billion dollars ($600 billion that will need to be borrowed or stolen or whatever, and $160 billion in interest). The Timber cuts (knyuck knyuck) added up to about $900 million.

Republicans laughed heartily; liberals were gnashing their teeth and spitting. I was wondering if I really think the Estate Tax is such a great thing.

Obviously the tax is unpopular: the opposition is bolstered by the underlying resistance to A) taxes, B) taxes on dead people, and C) taxes on the families of dead people. The perception is that of a veiled, weeping widow giving over her nest egg to some hand-wringing, mustache-twisting, pencil-neck bureaucrat, who will speed off into the sunset in a Cadillac with a welfare queen. I’m not being hyperbolic here. This is what Americans think about their government.

The popularity issue forms one aspect of my questions about the Estate Tax. Any opportunity to remove the Death Tax chains from the Democratic neck is a welcome one. It prompts me to wonder how necessary is such an unpopular measure. On a side note, the term "Death Tax" originated in a memo written by Republican pollster and heartthrob Frank Luntz, who you may remember as the key architect (in another memo) of his party’s and the current administrations language on global warming (“The scientific debate remains open...”).

Luntz has since changed his tune on global warming, by the way.

But popularity is only scratching the surface. As I said before, my hesitation on the Estate tax arises from the legal side of the issue - not that I am familiar with these or any legalities, but the justification for the existence of the tax seems to be that it affects only people who can afford it, and thus it is reasonable. That designation is too hazy, I think. Kind of like banning flag burning and gay marriage because “the American People” don’t approve. In general, I tend to worry about granting any branch of any government any amount of discretionary power.

So what of the legalities? Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution reads:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It seems like a hazy justification is not really an obstacle at all, at least according to the foundational tenant of Tax Law. In fact, it appears that hazy justifications are the only ones we really have. To “pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare” is just a fancy way of saying “because we need it.” And if I've said it once, I've said it a million times: it’s good enough for Madison, it’s good enough for me.

Ultimately, taxation, and the Estate Tax is a cultural matter. Congress determines where they are going to levy taxes, and we vote them in or out based on their decision. It is the prudence of the public, or the culture at large that determines the fitness of a tax, of most any law.

In this case, the cultural arguments cut both ways:

the Estate Tax - a minor impound on a tiny percentage of Americans, people like Richie Rich, Monty Burns, and the Monopoly Guy - encourages growth, spending and investment.

the Death Tax - a pound of flesh cut from the legs and arms of grieving children, taken from hard-working Americans who earned every penny, the sort of people that you might be someday - discourages growth, spending and investment.

Zero sum there. Whatever you believed before is what you believe after.

However, it is worth mentioning that we will be losing hundreds of billions of dollars in essential state revenue to ensure that we don’t encroach upon the massive wealth of a small percentage of the population. Whatever my cultural reservations about taxing dead people’s money, they don’t match my cultural reservations about frivolous wealth in the face of crippling poverty. There is also that fact that many people are so steamed about the government taking their money, that they decide to pass it on to charities instead.

Thomas Jefferson wrote: “…the land belongs in usufruct to the living…” Admittedly Jefferson was a little loopy on inheritance in general, suggesting generational expiration dates on personal wealth, business contracts, and governments, but the spirit here is good. No one could argue that the land isn’t ours in usufruct.

Or more recently, on July 2nd, Warren Buffet, the most famous old guy approaching death and hoping to secure a spot in Heaven, was quoted in the New York Times, speaking in favor of the Estate Tax:

Almost alone among rich Americans, Mr. Buffett has argued that estate taxes should be increased, not eliminated. Mr. Buffett says the estate tax helps build a vibrant economy of innovators and strivers -- a true meritocracy -- and that repealing it would risk a stunted economy controlled by aristocratic inheritors. Repealing the estate tax, he has said, would be the economic equivalent of ''choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics.''

Or Kennedy in his 1961 Inaugural: "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannnot save the few who are rich."

Since most Americans don’t vote, it is the abstract "culture" that determines ultimately the fate of this tax and so many other of the boundaries of American life. Quotes from founding fathers, rich old men, and former presidents are all we have. The decisions on the Estate Tax are being made in dial-tests and focus groups in malls across the country. This is how we get our laws. We can only hope that Congress will exercise a certain prudence.

FINAL
Estate Tax 1 (W)
Me 0

No one call your Congressman.

RIGHT WRONG, LEFT RIGHT ON VOTING RIGHTS

Just a quick bit of good news about the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, which every decent human is happy about and in support of.

Of course there was some resistance to the idea that certain precincts would still require extra supervision, which makes sense to those who regularly write on postcard paper or have three hours to hang around in line on election days, but for the rest of us, it is nice to see a touch of oversight.

And in an ironic turn of When Voting Rights Attack, it seems that Nebraska has affirmed their anti-gay marriage amendment, making things even more unpleasant for the eleven openly gay Nebraskan citizens, and easing the minds of the thousands of homosexual Nebraskans who were afraid of being tempted out of their fake straight marriages.

Estate Tax slap-around coming soon. It's been a busy week

DOLL COMES WITH KUNG-FU GRIP AND REAL REGRET ACTION!

Apparently the new White House budget includes a $100,000 salary position with the title Director of Lessons Learned. In an effort to avoid being just another blogger offering a witty list of what those lessons might be, I will only say:

Lesson Learned No. 1: Director of Lessons Learned is a stupid name.

Though I guess this is technically to be left for the next DoLL.

LOOK OUT HONEY CAUSE I'M USING [THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF] TECHNOLOGY

This Wednesday night (7-12), I will be at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the Massachusetts Gubernatorial Canadidates Forum on Environmental Issues, and I think you should be too. This is a free forum open to the public. It is at the unmissable building pictured below.

Details from the MIT Events Page:

Speaker: Candidates for Massachusetts Governor
Moderator: Steve Curwood, Executive Producer and Host of Living on Earth
Time: 7:00p–9:00p
Location: Kresge Auditorium

Massachusetts Gubernatorial Forum

Global warming, gas prices, deteriorating parks, Cape Wind . . . The next governor will make all the difference for Massachusetts' environment. Come learn more about the candidates and their environmental positions.

Sponsored by: Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters, Environmental League of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Sierra Club, and Appalachian Mountain Club.

Web site: here

Open to the general public

Cost: Free

For more information, contact:
Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters
info@mlev.org

After-Party at my house for anyone who loves or wants to love Woody Guthrie.

IS THAT LATIN?

The Roundup. GO!

Tax Revenues Get High - America was pleasantly surprised this week by unexpectedly high tax revenues for FY05-06 - pulling off the governmental equivalent of finding $20 in a pair of jeans you washed last week. The good news is that we can put some of this cash towards paying down the budget defecit, and maybe PFC Smith will get that body armor Santa forgot to bring him last year. Also, indicators that the economy is doing well usually make the economy do well.

The bad news is that this tiny, flukish little blip is not enough to put away our concerns over the fiscal mismanagement that has gone down in the last 6 years. As the Times reports:

One reason the run-up in taxes looks good is because the past five years looked so bad. Revenues are up, but they have lagged well behind economic growth.

and:

"The long-term outlook is such a deep well of sorrow that I can't get much happiness out of this year," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a former White House economist under President Bush.

Rove should have told this guy that "deep well of sorrow" doesn't really have the ring of Compassionate Conservatism or Axis of Evil.

Still, the mismanagers will make their case. The most irritating line for the coming election cycle is bound to be something along the lines that the Bush Tax Cuts are proving effective, which is funny, since everyone is so pumped up about more tax revenue. Then they will claim that tax-and-spend Democrats will only ruin the situation and push us into the kind of hole that Clinton pulled us out of after Bush I and that we were thrown back into within the first 100 days of Bush II.

p.s.- The first round of Baby Boomers are eligible for Social Security in 2 years. Somebody hold me a spot in the bread lines.

Pills, Pills, Pills - In a bit of unqualified good news, scientists have developed an AIDS treatment regimen that involves taking one pill, once a day. This is a huge boon to treatment in under-developed areas with high rates of illiteracy, where complicated medication cycles have led to imcomplete treatment, and thus the development of resistant strains of the disease.

One pill once a day beats the hell out of the 36 daily pills people were taking a little over a decade ago. Trouble is, one of the side effects of the treatment is bills, bills, bills, up to $1200 a month.

Massachusetts Democrats: If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say, etc, &c - As part of the Victory '06 Campaign, the state Democratic committee has formed a four-person panel to monitor and curtail negative attack ads in the primary battle between candidates Chris Gabrieli, Deval Patrick, and Tom Reilly. The panel is being staffed by such notorious bulldogs and Michael Dukakis and Cam Kerry (a smaller, curlier version of his brother Jon).

The impetus is to address the problems inherent in staging a late primary election (SEPTEMBER 19TH - DON'T FORGET), not the least of which is sending a battered candidate to slug it out with whatever fresh and clean Republican has been beefing up all summer. Think of it as the training montage from whatever Rocky has the Russian guy, and while Rocky [the Democrat] is dragging logs through the snow, the [Republican] Russian is using LED screens and deadly nordic blondes in his clearly superior workouts. The point is, a vote for Republicans is a vote for rich, evil, 80s era Russian boxers who killed Rocky's best friend.

The spirit is good here. We shouldn't be busting ourselves up in tackle when we can just play two-hand touch. Not to mention that nasty politics depresses turnout, which is the other party's strategy. Plus, Deval Patrick is my guy, and being, oddly, the best candidate and the front-runner, he is the most likely target for something below the belt. Which may explain the following:

Corey Welford, a [Tom] Reilly spokesman, called the creation of the panel a "silliness that you would expect from some good government group than from your own party." He also said it was a "distraction" from the party's responsibilities to raise money to defeat Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the GOP candidate for governor.

Well played: posit your guy as the anti-Good Government Candidate. And since Reilly is not as rich as Chris Gabrielli, and isn't able to raise funds like Deval Patrick, make sure you point out how necessary money will be in November. Gee...it sounds almost like...an attack ad.

AMERICA I'M PUTTING MY QUEER SHOULDER TO THE WHEEL

I just wanted to quickly express my unhappiness with yesterday's court decisions in New York and Georgia barring the rights of homosexual couples to marry. The New York case is particularly troubling. Not only is this an unexpected and disappointing decision, coming from where it comes from and using some of the retrograde rationale and language that it does, but it complicates things for the coming election cycle(s).

One would have hoped, based optimistically on the recent stall of anti-equality legislation, that this issue had finally been recognized as the red herring it is, and that America would do what it always does and kick and scream into socially inclusive progress. Unfortunately, it looks like good politicians who might prefer to talk about education, health care and the like will have to waste precious airtime defending equal rights from the mouth-breathing and slack-jawed. More divisive navel-gazing...

Anyway, enough of that. What I really wanted to comment on is this particular passage:

Specifically, Mr. Stewart praised Judge Robert S. Smith for refusing to use the racist legacy of miscegenation laws as a justification for extending marriage rights to same-sex couples. Too often, Mr. Stewart said, trial court judges and politicians are cowed by the premise that barring their unions would be the same as barring people of different races to marry.

This is a new trend in the anti-equality camps, to claim that miscegenation laws are somehow distinct from anti-marriage laws. I guess this is an effort to head-off those who would point out that the two sets of laws actually are the same. This has been neatly demonstrated here in Massachusetts, where an anti-miscegenation law written in 1913 was used to challenge the legitimacy of same-sex marriages.

I am sorry that this idea would have any traction at all.

ME VS. THE ESTATE TAX PT. I: DECLARE THE PENNIES ON YOUR EYES

For someone with my political and financial affiliations – liberal progressive and middle-middle class, respectively – it would seem a no-brainer as to where I would stand on the Estate Tax. I vote Yes because the ET provides a substantial amount of revenue that comes from only the very richest people in the US, this revenue can be used to fund pinko social programs like, say, schools, so that more people can get rich and give us their money when they die, and finally, it does not apply to me, nor is it ever likely to.

But I must confess to certain qualms. I believe in (graduated, progressive) taxes, and I believe in Government, but I am not sure that a posthumous transfer of assets qualifies as a reasonably taxable transaction. I balk at the idea that dying somehow changes the status of your assets, and that passing them on to another party entitles the government to a cut. The ET is taking another chunk out of money and property that has already been taxed – ideally – as income, as purchases, as holdings and/or dividends, and this worries me. This is the thrust of my question about the ET. So let’s debate:

The main argument against the Estate Tax, what Conservatives label the Death Tax, is that it discourages the accumulation of wealth, which means no capital, which means no investment, which means no jobs. It makes sense according to the framework of trickle-down economics (TDE), as per my understanding, and is the economic theory to which most Americans, i.e. the “American People,” tend to subscribe.

In some kind of civilization built of charts and graphs and statistical margins, where the language is binary and the food is Energon Cubes, trickle-down appears to work…for the greater population I mean. I think TDE does work, in a classical sense, because the people that formulated it said to themselves, “How can I convince people to give me my money and their money and defend my right to keep it all?” Mission Accomplished.

To counter, one may easily argue that the ET encourages the spending that is so vital to our econo-society or socioconomy. You-can’t-take-it-with-you and all that. This, in fact, fosters profits and dividends and capital and investment and jobs, so the song and dance goes. Thus, a strong economy. I recall a similar logic from the enemies of the ET, when years ago they urged working families with debt, housing and medical expenses to buy a DVD player with their $300 “Tax Relief” checks to “grow the economy.”

Stir in the consideration that it would take various probes, clips, and strong electrical current to actually discourage the accumulation of wealth, and you have a pretty weak argument against the Estate Tax.

to be continued…

AMERICA THIS IS SERIOUS

America! Happy 230th! You still look pretty good these days, staying healthy, staying strong. Sure you've lost some of your luster, you're a little overweight, and you've got some debt, but you're working on it. Hey, Rome was just getting to its feet at your age. The British Empire was still in short-pants at 230. You're doing just fine.

I must admit, though, I do worry about you. As you get older, America, I notice you becoming more and more like your father: refusing to assent to laws; affecting to render Military power independent of and superior to Civil power; depriving us of trial by jury; transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretend offences. You've even taken to hanging around with a plain spoken, homely, simple George, who many suspect of being mentally ill.

But it's a phase. The 230s are a tough age. Your body is changing in ways you don't understand; you're having feelings you've never had before; there's hair where there wasn't hair before - plus you just had that millenial transition, a couple of wars, all these energy problems, the rest of the world just keeps messing with you, and, well, you know - you'll grow out of it. I'm confident of that.

As for now, happy sort-of-birthday America, and here's to another 230. I still love you, and pledge to you - mutually, I hope - my Life, my Fortune, and my Sacred Honor.