8 July

Reflections on a particularly rough week for race relations in America in 2016

Note: I initially posted this on Facebook. But things on Facebook have a tendency to get lost in the noise. Better to also preserve it here in the musty silence of my blog.

Seeing some pretty extreme responses on social media from some white people in the wake of the past few days’ events. If I could say anything to white people who are scared and/or angry and/or, God forbid, arming themselves for a race war, it would be this:

Social justice is not a zero sum game. You don’t have to do worse for others to do better. To quote the late, great Paul Wellstone, “We all do better when we all do better.”

You may have a vision of what “America” is, or what an “American” is, and that vision may be a particular color. But Americans who aren’t white are still Americans, just as much as you are.

Black Americans who are reacting to their friends and relatives being gunned down by police at routine — far too routine for many of them — traffic stops have a right to be scared, and angry. But Black Lives Matter is not about revenge. It’s not about starting a war. It’s about JUSTICE. About bringing more PEACE to our streets, our cities, our country. It’s about the “American” in “African American.”

At least, that’s how I see it. And living in the city, I’m probably in much closer proximity to BLM than most white Americans who are themselves scared or angry right now. So please, don’t be. Stop. Listen. Think. Feel. Understand.

Our fellow Americans who weren’t born with the inherited privileges conferred by white skin are living under the burden our ancestors placed on them — a burden that we perpetuate every day that we don’t actively acknowledge and work to counteract it. Hear their voices. Amplify them. Don’t silence them.

And when something happens like the shootings in Dallas, wait for the facts. BLM is a peaceful movement. Dallas PD has a good relationship with BLM. Officers were there to PROTECT the BLM marchers. The shooters do not represent Black Lives Matter or its goals.

I could go on, but I’ve already spoken too long. But don’t stop listening. Seek out those voices that are demanding peace and justice and hear what they are saying. And I will continue trying to do the same.

1980: Nadir of rock star style

Often I have pondered, when watching bands like Styx, Boston or Queen, just when rock musicians were at their ugliest. Certainly there was a moment when hair (both atop the head and facial) and clothes hit their simultaneous nadir, and rock stars looked as bad as they ever possibly could.

Chances were always good, I felt, that that point had occurred in the 1970s. MTV hadn’t launched yet, and use of hair products was limited to, at best, an occasional shampoo.

Well I’ve always felt that the 1980s really didn’t start until about 1982, or at least not until that fateful moment on August 1, 1981, when MTV launched with the Buggles’ (who were none too telegenic themselves) “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Therefore, according to my logic (plus the logic of math, if you happen to be one of those who celebrated the millennium a year later than everyone else), 1980 was, technically, still a part of the era known as “the ’70s.”

And now, with the recent release of some 1980 concert footage in a special CD/DVD repackaging of the Genesis classic, Duke, I have photographic proof that the fateful year that signified the dawn of a new and perhaps even more frightening decade (what with the election of one Ronald Wilson Reagan) was also the year at which rock star fashion truly reached its lowest imaginable point. Continue if you dare…

Phil Collins suddenly realizes he's been wandering in the woods for a monthExhibit A is one Phil Collins. As you can tell by his demeanor, he realizes how bad he looks. He’s not actually singing here; he’s desperately pleading with the audience for someone to, for the love of God, call a barber.

Daryl Stuermer is not actually related to Violet BeauregardeHere we have Exhibit B, the band’s touring guitarist, Daryl Stuermer. Judging by his ‘stache-n-‘fro combo, blinding yellow shirt, pleated white pants and the obligatory suspenders, he would fit in equally well as a sub with Kansas, Boston, Chicago, Asia, or any other band named after a place.

No, it's not a hat; it's a sad, tortured tambourineExhibit C actually has nothing to do with my case for 1980 as the worst year in rock fashion, although I guess now that I stop to look at it, Phil’s Hawaiian shirt is rather loud. Mainly I just wanted to post this photo because I was in utter disbelief when I saw the mutilated head of his tambourine. How do you do that?!

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Wow. For all my many years of waxing and waning Rush fandom, including having played several of their songs on the bass myself in a band a few years back, I never knew this about one of their oddest songs, the instrumental track “YYZ.”

Yes, of course I know YYZ is the code for the Toronto airport. But what I never realized, even as I was playing that rhythm, is that the opening of the song spells “YYZ” in Morse Code!

(I must admit I have some misgivings about saying I never realized it. I vaguely recall that as my bandmates and I were working the song out — from memory, not a recording — I was convinced that the last part of long beats was 5 and not 4, but the other guys might have used the Morse Code argument to prove me wrong. In fact, even tonight as I read about this and played the song in my head, I was still thinking it was 5, and, in my usual cocksure way, thinking “these websites have it wrong!” or “the band messed up the ‘Z’!” But then I actually listened to the song and realized it’s 4. Then I assumed the band I was in must have played it wrong, since I was so sure it was 5. So I listened to our recording of it and sure enough it was 4 there too! I guess the only thing that proves is that once again, it’s a bad idea for me to stay up too late on a Saturday night surfing the web.)

Here’s some more on the matter…

While I’m on the subject of Rush, I quickly googled (yes, it’s officially lowercase now, much to Google‘s chagrin) and was surprised to discover that, apparently, my high school friends and I are the only ones in the entire wired world who ever thought the band’s self-titled debut album cover looks more like it says RLISH than RUSH.