Tynan's Anger

Arts & Culture Commentary from a Loving Digital Skeptic

The Also Rans of the 2011 Retrospectives – Part One

Posted on | December 26, 2011 | No Comments

It’s safe to say that 2011 was a more event-heavy year than most in my lifetime. For me personally, it was the probably worst year of my life (beating out 2009, with some competition from 1996-1998), but for a variety of personal, familial and professional reasons that had very little to do with the news. Nonetheless, I’ve been keeping tabs on the news as much as ever (it’s in my wiring at this point), and throughout all the domestic and global upheaval, deaths, disasters, revolutions, crises, celebrations and landmark decisions, there have been some that have caused my feathers to get particularly ruffled, events to which I don’t think think many year-end retrospectives will give proper attention, for the sake of space and time. To that end, I will cover them all here, presented in news-style sections that resemble what you would see in something like the New York Times or the Wii News Channel.

Top Stories:

When America Stopped Being America – Arresting Journalists, Assaulting the Peacefully Assembled

After the raids in Zuccotti Park earlier this year I emailed David Nord, a former professor of mine at Indiana University School of Journalism and a historian of the American press. While he was sure to be academically judicious, he had no recollection of there ever, in the history of the United States, being precedent for arresting journalists without cause. There’s precedent for restricting freedom of speech and limiting the rights of the press, of course, from the Sedition Acts to the lack of a proper Shield Laws today. But for mayors across the country to simply say “arrest first, ask questions later,” and for journalists with police-credentials to be arrested for showing them the credentials that they were issued, suddenly America began to resemble the dictatorships they were simultaneously praising the Arab world of overturning.

The lack of a clear agenda (supposedly, more on that later), the class disparities that made Occupy Wall Street less sympathetic for a large part of the country, and the bipartisan hatred of hippies that seemingly transcends anyone who was actually alive to experience the effects of ’60s,  made the cause unable to gain universal support even among those who agreed with its purpose. The media hesitated to beyond rational levels to see if the protests would go too far or not far enough. As it turns out, mayors across the country organized to arrest, pepper spray, assault, and intimidate anyone who demonstrated their right to peacefully assembly, all of whom cited sanitation issues that somehow magically appeared on the same night. This group included journalists from just about every level.

What makes this story so infuriating is that no one in the media, even the watchdogs, thought the arrest of journalists was a priority. Some on the left were upset by Jon Stewart and NBC News mixed-at-best coverage of the protest, but the fact that David Carr, Ezra Klein, or the staff at On The Media, who rather than focus on the fundamental blight to freedom of press the raids signified, decided instead to focus on partisan tactics for the sake of neutrality (and in OTM’s case, perhaps, the fact that they were scared shitless by firings at NPR of anyone remotely associated with the movement).

I’m still not sure if the war of attrition tactics of Occupy Wall Street were the best approach to a clearly problematic set of issues, even if they did get people talking. But whether or not you agreed with OWS, whether or not you saw the point , the arrests and treatment of journalists and non-violent protesters was something that should be unifying Americans against those who ordered the raids.

When The American Left Lost Its Mind – The Internet’s Response To Gabrielle Giffords

I first heard about the assassination attempt of Gabrielle Giffords from the Facebook update of a friend of mine, who decided to phrase it as “The Tea Party has claimed its first victim.” This was within minutes of the news first hitting the wire, and before 30 minutes, friends across my predominantly leftist Facebook News Feed were railing against the right wing, blaming them for inciting violence, showing tangential links to GOP campaigns that they thought indicted the right wing for Giffords death. Soon, we were to learn that Giffords’ death was, in fact, exaggerated, and that the gunman who committed the crime was not so much responding to calls from Republican leaders as he was the grammar Nazi voices in his head.

If the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords has fallen in the backburner in a year of remarkable stories, it’s for noble purposes—her incredible recovery, respect for her right to privacy, and, ultimately, the unwillingness to fit a senseless act of violence into an ideological framework. What scared me about this story was that the people who were going to turn random acts of crazy into a partisan narrative were young, college educated and liberal, the same kids who were outraged when their parents tried to blame South Park and Marilyn Manson for Columbine. If Occupy Wall Street shows how new media’s scattered landscape can diminish the important takeaways on the macro level, Giffords showed how the same landscape can lead one point of view to its most knee-jerk extreme on the micro level.

Alabama Gets Hit Hard

Since most media outlets are based in NYC, Hurricane Irene got a lot of coverage for a little damage. The fact that there had been a few days before also amplified the media’s coverage. The net damage to my apartment, which was in the evacuation zone, was a cereal box that fell on its side during the earthquake (or which I called, national “Oh poor you day” in Japan.) But if you want to cite a textbook case of New York/east coast bias in the news, don’t look at anything political, look at the virtual ignorance that came after about a week or so of the most devastating tornado outbreak in American history. 322 deaths, 229 of which were in Alabama, over thousands of injuries, casuing over billions of dollars in damages to one of the poorest states in the Union (if the tornado of this magnitude hat hit NYC, there wouldn’t be an economy to complain about).

Given the circles I run in, the people who are most pro-secession are northern liberals with a de facto disgust towards the deep South (about as ignorant and hateful as the hateful ignorance they claim is the source of their disgust). The Alabama tornados, the worst natural disater in America since Katrina, has set Alabama back decades in development, something neither Nancy Pelosi nor Richard Shelby seems committed to addressing.

What Occupy Wall Street actually stood for.

Overturning Citizens United? Ending private perks for public employees? Universal healthcare? Student Loan relief? These reasonable, best case plans were all on the agenda that any journalist could find for Occupy Wall Street. Lacking any method of implementing those policies, pending, as one of my friend suggested, going Road Warrior on Congress and K Street, the motivations of Occupy Wall St remained, but the press, just as powerless to fix the problems as the protesters (and in some cases in the pockets of those who would actually be hurt by doing the right thing), did nothing to even report the demands, by the by perpetuating the myth of an unclear agenda. For the record, here it is: http://www.the99declaration.org/read-the-99-declaration/

Occupy Wall Street’s Agenda is big, impractical, and nearly impossible to implement. But it does exist.

occupy-wall-street-demands-cartoon

Part Two Tomorrow.

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Shifting The Narrative on Generational Malaise

Posted on | March 13, 2011 | No Comments



It used to be interesting knock the Baby Boomers. As late as the 1990s, when those in their 40s and 50s still controlled most media channels, an entire media culture was built around harping on ’60s and sugarcoating the hypocrisies of a generation that thought they were enacting major change, but spent more time on drugs and self-mythologizing. The point of view that knocked the Baby Boomers seemingly longed for the attitudes of the 30s and 40s, when Americans rose out of poverty to come together and fight Hitler, a clear danger to the world, and were greeted at home with a decade’s worth of economic prosperity.

Not coincidentally, this point of view favored the grandparents and lashed out against the parents. Times have changed, and the 1990s increasingly seem like 2 decades ago. Bands are starting to sound a lot more like Nirvana, Pavement, and Neutral Milk Hotel than they were a decade ago, when they were sounding like New Order, Duran Duran, and Queen. Bill Clinton is looked back on as fondly (and misguidedly) by the Left as Reagan was on the Right in the last decade. People still seem to care who Newt Gingrich is. Furthermore, the previously powerless children of the 1990s are now in their 30s and their 40s, and thus are increasingly dominant forces in the mainstream media (and there are more media channels than in the 90s, when 56k modems were considered the pinnacles of technological progress.) You could argue that in the context of history, the current American narrative (especially among those in the Left) is the following:

Greatest Generation (white Americans born ~1918-1945): A generation raised under the auspices of the Depression and the sense that the freedoms we now take for granted had to be earned and protected with one’s life. Fighting Hitler was a cause that most World War II veterans didn’t even think twice about before knowing it was the right thing to do. Upon coming home, they experienced one of the greatest economic eras of prosperity in American history. If they failed at anything, it was due to their inability to cope with a world where there wasn’t danger, but one forged out of their earlier successes in defeating an obvious danger.

Baby Boomers (increasingly guilty white Americans born from ~1945-1964): A generation raised under the auspices of the memory of the Holocaust, and more pressingly, the threat of a Nuclear Holocaust. They used early victories in Civil Rights to make up for every later injustice and hypocrisy they saw fit. The first generation raised on TV, and therefore, self-obsessed to an unprecedented level, favoring their friends & family above all rational levels, thus making them just as inclined to nepotism and intolerance as their parents, but in ways they couldn’t imagine.

You can see this dynamic explored on cable news, blogs, and increasingly, mainstream newspapers regularly. A part of this antagonism was forged by the bleak job market for college graduates in the recession of the early 1990s, (something that objectively pales in comparison to the same job market I faced upon graduating in 2008). However, we’re getting to the point where Generation X, now as old as their mid-to-late 40s, have children who are college graduates. As a 24 year old with grandparents solidly in the early Greatest Generation period and parents in the mid-to-late Baby Boomer period (thanks, Jewish breeding patterns), I think this narrative is just as flawed as the previous one, but also one just as easily to manipulate. Through discussions with my friends in their early-to-mid 20s, who like the narrative-definers of all generations, were generally well-educated, raised in middle/upper-middle class households just outside ruling power territory, I’d argue the narrative is shifting as such:

Baby Boomers (still predominantly white people born ~1945-1963): Raised with a frustration with the status quo that they saw in a supposedly serene world, they had the courage to look at blatant injustices that serenity masked, and say “this is not right.” Led the most historically successful improvement in racial relations in over 100 years, in ways that are still taken for granted to this day. Applied the same courage in their convictions to oppose a war they found unjust and senseless, even if it meant sacrificing every level of comfort with which they were raised. If they failed at anything, it was their inability to deal with later failures in the campaign of tolerance, but one forged by their early successes (and perhaps burnout from drug use).

Generation X (slightly fewer white people born ~1963-1980) Nihilist to the point of a complete lack of compassion and sense of responsibiliy. Fears of committing the same mistakes as their parents led them to eschew any sense of personal responsibility ever. They used their changing attitudes of nearly universal (at least in theory) tolerance and early progress in Gay Rights to justify their lack of a commitment to social justice that allowed the same people they went to school with to take power and produce unprecedentedly accepted ethical corruption and occasional pure evil to diminish the very causes they wanted to defend. This  made them just as hypocritical as their parents, but in ways they couldn’t even begin to imagine.

To a large extent, all the narratives I have posited, both positive and negative, are true. While I know some people will have several objections here, these descriptions shouldn’t be upsetting to any member of groups I have just described, or in reality, anyone. Every generation and group defined, however arbitrarily, by when, where, and with whom they were raised share certain strengths and weaknesses, and those strengths and weakness can be juxtaposed favorably or negatively against any other similarly-defined group. I fully plan that the children of people my age will resent us politically and admire our parents politically, and I plan that the grandchildren of people my age will respond in kind. I fully expect there to be flaws in my generation that I can’t begin to imagine. I also think some questions I have now will become clearer: How will a generation that has more college degrees than they ever had previously deal with a job market that is flooded with college graduates unlike ever before? Can Gay Rights take hold in rural America in ways that it has with increasingly success in urban areas outside the coasts? Will America be willing to deal with an increase in taxes ever again? Will Libertarians become the new Neo-Cons or the New Tea Party?

I am not a cynical person; as someone who has spent the better part of his  adult life surrounded by graduate students and comedians; this is rarer than you’d think. I may, however, have gone beyond a healthy dose of skepticism to the point where I’m a skepticism addict. If I was Catholic I would have given up skepticism for Lent this year. But what separates even an overdose of skepticism from cynicism is that I don’t think there’s no hope, that nothing will get better and things will only get worse, and that while Mayan science/Left Behind may or may not be horseshit, the world ending in 2012 sounds like a good idea (and Gen X ignorance towards 2012 apocalypse theory mirrors their parents’ ignorance towards Y2K apocalypse theory). I haven’t defined my generation because it’s too early in the course of history to see what its narrative will be. I do know, however, that like every generation before it, my generation will lack a clear narrative until every member of it is dead. And even then some will dispute it.

 

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My Top 10 Music Videos of 2010

Posted on | February 7, 2011 | No Comments

The Grammys are this weekend, a fact that interests no one who cares about music except for those with all the money and power in the industry. Because that is still significant, I will be submitting my list of favorite ephemera from the year in music, as my favorite albums and songs have already been documented.

#10: Devo – The Making of Something For Everybody


#9: Cancer Bats – “Sabotage”

#8: Mexicans With Guns – “Dame Lo”

#7 Gorillaz – “Stylo”

#6 LCD Soundsystem – “Drunk Girls”

#5 Of Montreal – “Coquet Coquette”

#4 Sleigh Bells – “Infinity Guitars”

#3 Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé – “Telephone”

#2 The White Stripes – “White Moon”

#1 OK Go – This Too Shall Pass

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A Brief History of Arizona State Bashing in Comedy

Posted on | December 6, 2010 | No Comments

As far as history can tell, it started with The Simpsons in 1999:

A decade later, when Arizona State denied giving President Obama an honorary degree, SNL and The Daily Show took particular brutal blows:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona State Snubs Obama
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

Then last week, the joke made 30 Rock, to the exclamation pointed-enthusiasm of someone on YouTube:

The (sad?) truth is, these wisecracks probably help Arizona State’s reputation. If people want to go somewhere where they can get a bachelor’s for showing up to a campus and partying for four years, Arizona State has national name recognition (though there are probably a bunch of other schools just as disparate in the education/BAC% ratio). There were at least 2 people I went to high school with who went there for this exact reason. I’m pretty sure they had to be massive Simpsons fans.

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Albums of Note Second Half 2010: The Uggh

Posted on | November 10, 2010 | No Comments

Arcade Fire
Cover of Arcade Fire

This is Part 3 of my three part review of albums of the past half year, an extension of Tynan’s Record Report, which was retired out of solidarity with it’s inspiration and better, Christgau’s Consumer guide. Monday was the best stuff. Yesterday was the good to okay stuff. Today is the disappointing to not so great stuff. I won’t read your flames.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
I’m willing to acknowledge that the first Arcade Fire album to go #1 is the band’s weakest yet, and I will acknowledge that that’s purely coincidence (especially since Neon Bible went #2 with nearly identical sales figures). I’m also willing to acknowledge that my Manhattan roots makes me weary of any suburban/community ethical code, even one that tries to reconcile its niceness with the 21st century. What’s more troubling is that The Suburbs‘ lyrical message obscures that this is the flattest musical Arcade Fire album yet, and the least grand in scale. It’s anti-hipster manifesto is noble, but it’s lyrical motif turns Brooklyn into the mythological ‘50s suburb / Mad Men dreamland it aims to avoid. It’s pretty like a Shins album, and it’s lyrically relevant like a Pavement album. But The Suburbs is musically distant in a way I never wanted to hear from Arcade Fire (the simultaneous use of the words “icy” and “intimate” in reviews is a critical red flag.). Lyrically, The Suburbs is a deeply significant embodiment of the Pitchfork royal “we” that has a narrower-than-you think definition, and it’s the kind of thing that has led Who fans in the 60s to become Neo-Cons today and “Gold Soundz” to top a “Songs Of The 90s” poll. Which is not to say Arcade Fire shouldn’t play the Super Bowl.
B-

Here We Go Magic – Pidgin
Here we see the flip side of the problem with Brooklyn’s dominance of newness in America’s white people music: not only do the best bands from anywhere else in the country get ignored by the biggest blogs, but the house party bands still years away from doing anything interesting do get big blog attention, with magazines, newspapers, and TV following. A vaguely pop-rock band with synths would be better off opening anonymously for a national touring act than receiving first billed reviews on Pitchfork; which means that an otherwise solid album with three good songs is elevated above the bar band with keyboards status. And people wonder where backlash comes from.
B-

POS:

Ratatat – LP4

They want to make music on a Casio circa 1989, which is different from LP3’s 1988 Jams. At least SNES game MIDI soundtracks were emotionally affecting.

Best Coast -Crazy for You

When Katy Perry reaches the mainstream with generic pop songs, it’s disgusting. When an indie band limps into the top 40 with the same kind of music, it’s a victory. One of us! We accept her!

Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles II

People like to blame 24 for making something as barbaric as torture as acceptable to mainstream TV audiences. But these kind of soulless synths may be a better link, as the distance and coldness with a handful of melodies sacrifices all the strengths of music for the superficial. Sociopaths can’t relate to human emotion, but they can at least make it to CNN.

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