It's hard to know what to believe in the run-up to this years Presidential election. The Republicans and Democrats are now pretty much lying through their teeth every time they open their mouths. There's still more than two months to go. Of course you can refer to fact-check websites - but you can't even be sure those tell the truth.
As a public service of sorts, Mixed Meters is presenting some big lies to watch out for over the remainder of the campaign. I guarantee that I'm making these up. Well, that's not completely true. Some of the ideas come from online news stories which I didn't really believe to begin with.
If any of these stories actually do happen to come true there can only be one reason: truth is stranger than fiction.
Disclaimer ... I have no inside information.
Disclaimer ... I am not a psychic.
Disclaimer ... these are not ntended to be funny.
Hurricane Isaac gives the Republican convention a near miss. The name Isaac reminds many Republicans of Jews and several delegates take this as a sign of the End Times and impending Rapture and are severely injured by debris when they stand outside in a heavy storm. The convention resolves to abolish the National Weather Service in order to prevent future hurricanes.
Pat Robertson claims that the hurricane is God's punishment because the Republican party allows Blacks and gays to vote for their candidates. Many prominent Republicans ask him to leave the party but he refuses saying God has told him that gay and black Republicans do not really exist. While Blacks represent only 1% of the delegates, they are shown on screen 23% of the time.
It is revealed that Paul Ryan has had a long term sexual affair with a female Wall Street investment executive. The woman produces a RED dress which she claims is stained with his semen. When pictures of the two of them together surface, Ryan explains that he only wanted insider trading information that he could pass along to his blind trust. Asked about this, Mitt Romney compliments Ryan's business ethics.
It is reported that face recognition software at the Democratic convention identifies 30 Tea Party organizers, 10 convicted felons, two of Osama bin Laden's sons and Pope Benedict in the vast crowd. None of the identifications are proven correct but most news sources do not print the retraction.
At a fund raising dinner Ann Romney asks a black man in a tuxedo to hang up her coat and get her a glass of chardonnay because she assumes that he's a butler. It turns out to be Herman Cain. Herman, interviewed the next day on Good Morning America, says that he thinks Ann is a tremendously sexy woman.
The frequency of mass shooting using automatic weapons approaches one per week as election gets closer, including at least two at mosques and one at a political rally. Both candidates respond immediately to each event saying things like "oh, that's too bad", "I'm so sorry" and "I don't know what more we could do to stop this."
Secret Service agents subdue and arrest a man wearing what appears to be a suicide vest at an Obama speech. The "explosive canisters" are actually insulated beer can holders and the "wires" are tubes through which he can drink. The man has a tattoo which reads "God Guns and Beer" which quickly becomes the title of a new Ted Nugent song.
In the Vice-Presidential debate Paul Ryan describes the policy differences between the two parties as being "as simple as black and white". Although he denies that he is talking about race, "Simple As Black and White" buttons and bumper stickers are distributed by the Republican Party for the remainder of the campaign.
A Democratic SuperPac runs a "Harry and Louise" style ad campaign showing the now elderly couple worried about Medicare and Social Security under Romney/Ryan. The Republicans blast the ads as "un-American" not because of anything in the script but because the couple is no longer portrayed as white. Instead the new actors have indeterminate mixed racial characteristics.
Making an issue out of Attorney General Eric Holder, Republicans start showing the movie Fast and Furious at campaign events and simultaneously hold gun sales nearby. Showing the movie is declared a violation of copyright but selling guns at political events is deemed legal.
When asked about the Guantanamo prison at the Presidential debate, Romney actually compliments Obama saying "I wouldn't do anything differently than the President on that."
The Republican party asks the Koch brothers to stop making donations to Republican Super Pacs because those funds already have far more cash than they can spend. Offended, the Kochs offer to pay Paul Ryan's taxes while he is vice-president.
The man whose hair Mitt Romney forcibly cut as a school boy because he was thought to be gay comes forward and admits that he indeed is gay, lives in Massachusetts, is married to another man and the couple is raising two adopted boys, whose names, by a staggering coincidence, are Willard and Paul.
A Republican congressional candidate charges that Osama bin Laden is not dead and is really living in Chicago under the FBI witness protection program. To counter this a picture purporting to be the dead Osama is leaked but it is eventually identified as a still photo from CSI New York.
Mitt Romney, trying to bolster his credibility as someone who can create economic growth, refers to his time as governor as the "Massachusetts Miracle". Democrats laugh but don't remind him about what happened to Michael Dukakis.
Controversy erupts when Republicans use a picture of Michelle Obama working in the White House garden which shows her skin tone many shades darker than it really is. After suggesting that this is merely dirt on her face, Mitt Romney also quips "Latinos make better gardeners because their skin reflects more sunlight."
Television stations in toss-up states start preempting nightly news so they can sell more political ads. One station sets a record by broadcasting the same clip 14 times in a single hour. Sales of feminine hygiene products, McDonalds fruit smoothies and lite beer plummet because, without constant advertising, consumers forget they need those products.
News reports report that Osama bin Laden, who has been living in Syria under an assumed name, has asked the U.S. for asylum to escape the turmoil there. To counter this a picture purporting to be the dead Osama is leaked but it is eventually identified as the same still photo from CSI New York.
Calls for Mitt Romney to release his tax returns so overwhelm the political discussion that he actually releases his returns revealing that he would have lost money and paid no taxes in most years except for his investments in contraceptive pharmaceuticals, Nevada brothels, riverboat gambling, privatized prisons and Iraqi oil companies.
Obama, courting the remaining three hundred undecided gun-owning Democrats in North Carolina, visits a shooting range for target practice. He fires 20 rounds, hits the target once. The NRA responds by issuing press releases claiming that lives would be saved if more people including Obama would carry concealed weapons and offering the President a free Glock after he leaves office.
Mitt Romney alludes to Barack Obama's birth certificate so often that he asks Donald Trump to appear at his campaign stops, but when the two get into a shouting match each telling the other "No, you're fired" the relationship ends abruptly.
Protestant voters in Western states pledge to convert to Mormonism if Romney wins. When told that Mormons are expected to tithe, they modify their promise to convert only their ancestors. Taking a cue from Mormon baptisms, the Democrats symbolically re-register "liberal" Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon as Democrats. Republicans immediately charge them with ancestral voter fraud. Democrats respond by re-registering Ronald Reagan as a Democrat as well and also paying his back dues to the Screen Actors Guild, bringing his union membership up-to-date. Republicans try to re-register Joseph McCarthy as a Republican but are surprised to discover that he already was a Republican.
Many right-wing candidates sign a pledge agreeing with Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri that women who are "legitimately" raped will not get pregnant. Polls show that 43% of the electorate agree that this is a logical argument against abortion. It is also shown that over 85% of Republicans disbelieve the theory of evolution and 18% have doubts about the theory of gravity.
It is revealed that Ayn Rand, then in her sixties, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, then in his twenties, had a brief sexual affair at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
Members of the Occupy movement and supporters of Ron Paul, trying to prove they are not hopelessly marginalized in this election, throw rocks at one another. When they run out of rocks they throw mud. When the mud runs out they use their own excrement. This becomes the top news stories for 6 days running.
Obama is accused of racism when he tells an audience that members of the KKK in full regalia should not be allowed to attended Tea Party rallys, as happens in several small Southern cities.
Paul Ryan, trying to capture some Gen-X voters, jams on stage with Kid Rock, Pat Boone and Gene Simmons - all Romney supporters. Hank Williams Jr. makes a surprise appearance and tries to get Ryan to tell the crowd that President Obama is really an alien socialist Muslim. Video of the event quickly appears in television ads for Obama.
Democrats, shaking Etch-a-Sketches to protest Romney flip-flops, discover one Etch-a-Sketch has accidentally produced a picture of Jesus looking suspiciously like Jim Caviezel in that Mel Gibson movie. The unit sells for a 7-figure amount on E-Bay. The buyers are revealed to be David and Charles Koch who suddenly become the largest contributors to the Democratic campaign as well as to the Republican. As soon as they take possession of the unit Charles shakes it and clears the screen.
In the last few days of the campaign a tired Vice President Biden accidentally refers to "President Osama".
Knowing that Americans cannot focus on foreign affairs during an election, Israel secretly bombs Iran to no effect. Iran claims that they were actually attacked by U.S. Predator drones. U.S. news media fails to cover the story at all and both candidates deny the reports from Iranian news sources. Years later it becomes known that both Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran simultaneously - a total coincidence.
The night before the election Mitt Romney makes a nationwide television broadcast in which he says that the election is not really about the economy or about jobs or the fact that Obama is a Black alien Muslim. "This election is about God, Guns and Beer" he screams. He then hoists a cold Miller as a choir starts to sing the new Ted Nugent song, now the official campaign theme song, "God, Guns and Beer". Romney pumps the air twice, then high fives and chest bumps Paul Ryan who has been standing nearby.
On Election Day fistfights between voters and Republican pollwatchers challenging their right to vote are too numerous to count. Repeated instances of concealed weapons being drawn to stop suspect voters are reported. In one Texas town, a "citizens committee" surrounds a polling station allowing only White people with Southern accents carrying weapons to vote.
In several toss-up states thousands of people line up at over-crowded polling stations but are not allowed to vote before the polls close. One state's vote count is deleted by a computer virus. Lawsuits are filed in eighteen states challenging state-wide election results. The winner of the Presidential race and the balance of power in the Senate is not decided until Pearl Harbor Day. Half the U.S. population spends the next 4 years refusing to believe that the sitting President holds his office legitimately.
If you found this depressing, I have news for you - the truth is bound to be much more of a downer. I had hoped that writing this post would somehow be cathartic. I was wrong.
If you found this one-sided, I have news for you - I'm a liberal progressive and proud of it If you're an easily-offended fascist Republican Tea-Party fundamentalist my best suggestion is that you go away and get your own blog.
Ayn Ryan Tags: predictions. . . elections. . . depressions
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The Peter Schmid Quartet Plays Waiting For The Trickle Down
Peter, Lori, Cornel and Luis manage to play every crazy thing I throw at them. I don't know how they do it.
In this track, Waiting for the Trickle Down, the guitar and bass are both electric and the drums are hand drums. Since, like Godot, the Trickle Down never comes, this is kind of a sad and mournful piece. Leslie says this is not my best work - and she makes a good point.
Click here to hear Waiting for the Trickle Down - by David Ocker © 2012 - 501 seconds
The quartet is:
Peter Schmid, piano
Lori Terhune, electric guitar
Cornel Reasoner, electric bass
Luis 'Pulpo' Jolla, hand drums
Recorded at Aphrodita Japonica Studios, Pasadena, California. You can hear all the tracks by the Peter Schmid Trio and Quartet on the Peter Schmid Quartet Page.
"The Trickle Down" of course refers to the widely believed but even more widely discredited economic theory first implemented during the term of "Saint" Ronald Reagan. It is currently being preached by Willard "Mitt" Rmoney and Paul "Ayn" Ryan.
Their idea was that giving more money to rich people would benefit everyone because the rich would use that money to hire the poor. Since it was the rich people who created this crazy plan, the only poor people who have been helped are the ones with jobs selling yachts and fancy sports cars.
Here's a chart showing income distribution in the United States since 1947. The income of the top 1% - indicated by the red triangle - has experienced cancerous growth since the start of the Trickle Down era, indicated by the arrow.
This chart came from the blog PrairePopulistsandProgressives.net
Trickle Down Tags: Peter Schmid. . . jazz quartet. . . trickle down theory
In this track, Waiting for the Trickle Down, the guitar and bass are both electric and the drums are hand drums. Since, like Godot, the Trickle Down never comes, this is kind of a sad and mournful piece. Leslie says this is not my best work - and she makes a good point.
Click here to hear Waiting for the Trickle Down - by David Ocker © 2012 - 501 seconds
The quartet is:
Peter Schmid, piano
Lori Terhune, electric guitar
Cornel Reasoner, electric bass
Luis 'Pulpo' Jolla, hand drums
Recorded at Aphrodita Japonica Studios, Pasadena, California. You can hear all the tracks by the Peter Schmid Trio and Quartet on the Peter Schmid Quartet Page.
"The Trickle Down" of course refers to the widely believed but even more widely discredited economic theory first implemented during the term of "Saint" Ronald Reagan. It is currently being preached by Willard "Mitt" Rmoney and Paul "Ayn" Ryan.
Their idea was that giving more money to rich people would benefit everyone because the rich would use that money to hire the poor. Since it was the rich people who created this crazy plan, the only poor people who have been helped are the ones with jobs selling yachts and fancy sports cars.
Here's a chart showing income distribution in the United States since 1947. The income of the top 1% - indicated by the red triangle - has experienced cancerous growth since the start of the Trickle Down era, indicated by the arrow.
This chart came from the blog PrairePopulistsandProgressives.net
Trickle Down Tags: Peter Schmid. . . jazz quartet. . . trickle down theory
Friday, August 17, 2012
Cool and Warm, Dylan and Waldo at SFMOMA
Early this month I spent an afternoon wandering on my own through downtown San Francisco. I started with Bánh mì in Little Saigon where I happened upon this stone monster.
Then I walked to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I was pleased to encounter a large Mark Rothko painting entitled No. 14, 1960. It was hung in a very appropriate cathedral-like setting. Rothko's work had been inspirational for me at one time, as had many painters and composers from 1950s New York.
When I resolved to take a picture of the Rothko, however, I encountered a problem: there were lots of people standing in front of the painting, looking at it and at the other works of art. I waited for a clear shot. I wanted to capture the work together with the vaulted ceiling. I never got that chance - but I took lots of snaps anyway. Here are all of them concatenated into an animated gif. Pick your favorite.
Next to the canvas was a small sign identifying the work and providing a paragraph of description written by an anonymous art expert. Quite rightly the author discussed how the considerable interaction of the color fields and varieties of surface texture combine to form a "doorway into another, transcendant reality". Yes, that seems about right.
The title of the painting, like, say, the title "Symphony No. 5", neither contributes nor detracts from the transference of meaning. It merely gives an ordinal position in a series of presumably similar works.
Another painting also caught my attention. It turned out to be less meaningful and, thanks to its title and its own paragraph of description, considerably funnier. Here's the picture I took of it.
Using the evaluative scales of "unity and variety" or "repetition and variation", this piece racks up nearly perfect scores of both unity and repetition. There's not much going on. People were not paying it much attention. Getting a clear picture was easy, focusing was hard.
The point-'n-shoot in my pocket couldn't focus because the painting is completely covered in (to my eye) perfectly even flat battleship gray. Well, there is a small strip at the bottom which is only partially painted in the same flat battleship gray. Here's a closeup of the small strip at the bottom.
An artist named Brice Marden, someone new to me, painted this work in 1966 or possibly 1986. He called it The Dylan Painting after Bob Dylan. A video of him discussing this painting is here. In the video he talks about the variations in the surface. Although I got very close to the canvas, I did not notice variations. He calls the strip at the bottom a "history" of the painting, apparently created with the drips from the top section. Ah, I hear the merest, faintest echo of an action painting.
This is different from the Rothko in that the title apparently conveys some important aspect of the meaning. To be perfectly honest, I can't see what a monochromatic canvas has to do with Bob Dylan. Mixed Meters' three readers know that I don't much like Dylan's music, although I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as a poet.
Here's the little paragraph of description posted next to The Dylan Painting. (You can see my reflection in the plastic. Clicking on it might make it easier to read.)
-SFMOMA.jpg)
I burst out laughing when I read:
In other words, maybe the person writing the description was making a joke for us musicians to enjoy.
Later I visited a trendient coffee shop on the top floor of the museum. While waiting in line I casually snapped a picture of the San Francisco skyline out the window.
I was intrigued with the mass of air conditioning equipment on the opposite roof so I zoomed in for a couple shots just of that. Remember that the point and shoot in my pocket has a very small screen. Also I was getting mildly annoyed that the line was moving so slowly.
It wasn't until I got home and looked at these pictures on the large computer screen that I realized who I must have been seeing subconsciously in the picture ... Waldo, a famous reclusive character who is neither tough nor soulful. His face is shaded by a real hat. That's probably why I didn't recognize him.
These three pictures are uncropped just as I shot them. And I honestly had no idea at the time that I was taking a picture of anything besides an interesting jumble of pipes and ductwork - a found, functional sculpture by an anonymous artist.
This post describes just three encounters I had with visual images during my visit to the museum. My comments reveal certain things about my personal perceptions, preconceptions and expectations of art and art institutions. When visiting museums, I try to linger in front of the most promising pieces and occasionally break up my tour by finding a comfortable seat for people watching. Those people, of course, see different things, react in different ways.
I saw plenty of other artworks as well - probably too many. Some will stick around in my memory until I finally absorb whatever meaning they might have for me. Others struck me as just witless or stupid headscratchers.
I left with a certain mental confusion. I had seen and considered jumbles of images and junkyards of ideas, a visual cacophony. In each new gallery some voice screamed for my attention, shouting yet more ideas and concepts. These were then swallowed by another din of yet more artworks in the next room.
Outside, I felt relieved by the simplicity of a bustling city street with a stiff breeze and clear blue sky. I felt no desire to visit an art museum again any time soon.
Dylan Tags: SFMOMA. . . Mark Rothko. . . Brice Marden. . . Bob Dylan. . . Where's Waldo. . . meaning of art
Then I walked to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I was pleased to encounter a large Mark Rothko painting entitled No. 14, 1960. It was hung in a very appropriate cathedral-like setting. Rothko's work had been inspirational for me at one time, as had many painters and composers from 1950s New York.
When I resolved to take a picture of the Rothko, however, I encountered a problem: there were lots of people standing in front of the painting, looking at it and at the other works of art. I waited for a clear shot. I wanted to capture the work together with the vaulted ceiling. I never got that chance - but I took lots of snaps anyway. Here are all of them concatenated into an animated gif. Pick your favorite.
Next to the canvas was a small sign identifying the work and providing a paragraph of description written by an anonymous art expert. Quite rightly the author discussed how the considerable interaction of the color fields and varieties of surface texture combine to form a "doorway into another, transcendant reality". Yes, that seems about right.
The title of the painting, like, say, the title "Symphony No. 5", neither contributes nor detracts from the transference of meaning. It merely gives an ordinal position in a series of presumably similar works.
Another painting also caught my attention. It turned out to be less meaningful and, thanks to its title and its own paragraph of description, considerably funnier. Here's the picture I took of it.
Using the evaluative scales of "unity and variety" or "repetition and variation", this piece racks up nearly perfect scores of both unity and repetition. There's not much going on. People were not paying it much attention. Getting a clear picture was easy, focusing was hard.
The point-'n-shoot in my pocket couldn't focus because the painting is completely covered in (to my eye) perfectly even flat battleship gray. Well, there is a small strip at the bottom which is only partially painted in the same flat battleship gray. Here's a closeup of the small strip at the bottom.
An artist named Brice Marden, someone new to me, painted this work in 1966 or possibly 1986. He called it The Dylan Painting after Bob Dylan. A video of him discussing this painting is here. In the video he talks about the variations in the surface. Although I got very close to the canvas, I did not notice variations. He calls the strip at the bottom a "history" of the painting, apparently created with the drips from the top section. Ah, I hear the merest, faintest echo of an action painting.
This is different from the Rothko in that the title apparently conveys some important aspect of the meaning. To be perfectly honest, I can't see what a monochromatic canvas has to do with Bob Dylan. Mixed Meters' three readers know that I don't much like Dylan's music, although I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as a poet.
Here's the little paragraph of description posted next to The Dylan Painting. (You can see my reflection in the plastic. Clicking on it might make it easier to read.)
-SFMOMA.jpg)
I burst out laughing when I read:
Its mauve-gray surface is simultaneously cool and warm, paralleling Dylan's tough yet soulful music.In other words we are supposed to accept that this canvas, one with virtually no distinguishing variations whatsoever, is intended to encompass the polar opposite qualities of coolness and warmth at exactly the same time and also that we, following the suggestion of the title, are supposed to understand this as a reference to qualities in the music of a particular popular singer/songwriter (as identified not by the artist but by a commentator), which might be true enough descriptions of the music but because these qualities are subjective and imprecise they are in no way opposites of one another and hence, are not analogues of coolness and warmth in the painting.
In other words, maybe the person writing the description was making a joke for us musicians to enjoy.
Later I visited a trendient coffee shop on the top floor of the museum. While waiting in line I casually snapped a picture of the San Francisco skyline out the window.
I was intrigued with the mass of air conditioning equipment on the opposite roof so I zoomed in for a couple shots just of that. Remember that the point and shoot in my pocket has a very small screen. Also I was getting mildly annoyed that the line was moving so slowly.
It wasn't until I got home and looked at these pictures on the large computer screen that I realized who I must have been seeing subconsciously in the picture ... Waldo, a famous reclusive character who is neither tough nor soulful. His face is shaded by a real hat. That's probably why I didn't recognize him.
These three pictures are uncropped just as I shot them. And I honestly had no idea at the time that I was taking a picture of anything besides an interesting jumble of pipes and ductwork - a found, functional sculpture by an anonymous artist.
This post describes just three encounters I had with visual images during my visit to the museum. My comments reveal certain things about my personal perceptions, preconceptions and expectations of art and art institutions. When visiting museums, I try to linger in front of the most promising pieces and occasionally break up my tour by finding a comfortable seat for people watching. Those people, of course, see different things, react in different ways.
I saw plenty of other artworks as well - probably too many. Some will stick around in my memory until I finally absorb whatever meaning they might have for me. Others struck me as just witless or stupid headscratchers.
I left with a certain mental confusion. I had seen and considered jumbles of images and junkyards of ideas, a visual cacophony. In each new gallery some voice screamed for my attention, shouting yet more ideas and concepts. These were then swallowed by another din of yet more artworks in the next room.
Outside, I felt relieved by the simplicity of a bustling city street with a stiff breeze and clear blue sky. I felt no desire to visit an art museum again any time soon.
Dylan Tags: SFMOMA. . . Mark Rothko. . . Brice Marden. . . Bob Dylan. . . Where's Waldo. . . meaning of art
Saturday, August 04, 2012
David Raksin Centenary
(If you read this entire article you'll learn how I once broke into David Raksin's house and why I can never think of that event without also thinking of bad cheesecake. Now read on...)
David Raksin was born on August 4, 1912. That makes today his centenary. Although the year 2012 includes the 100th birth anniversary of composers more famous than David (e.g. John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow or Stan Kenton), here in Los Angeles, where he was a fixture in the music community, there are many who remember him with great fondness.
And our memories are based not just on his musical accomplishments - although writing at least one big hit tune and scoring a flotilla of movies is clearly enough to get him into the music history books. We remember that David was a jovial guy with a keen intelligence and a ready wit. He always had a story about someone famous that he had known (and he seemed to have known just about everyone). Or he told a joke (often of his own creation). Or he made a pun. Or two puns. Or a whole passel of puns. David loved word play.
To prove the point about knowing famous people, here's a photograph of David in his mid twenties. He's the guy on the right. On the left is Charlie Chaplin, with whom David worked on the music of the movie Modern Times. Working for Chaplin was David's big break. In the center are Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Schoenberg. David studied with Schoenberg. (David wasn't really all that tall. Those others were just short.)
David belongs to a very small number of musicians who easily bridged the gap between the classical music and film music communities in Los Angeles. He was a walking history of music in Southern California. When he died it was announced that he had written an autobiography. I remember him talking about it and showing me a decades-old kitchen calendar which he was using as a memory aid. That's a book I'd love to read.
David Raksin had long since become a fixture in the music community of Los Angeles when I arrived here in the seventies. He seemed to be at every concert I attended. I don't remember specifically when I was introduced to him but it most certainly was by composer William Kraft, who was an extremely close friend of David's from the 1950s until David's death in 2004.
David made fastidious musical manuscripts. Often in many colors. Each year David was in the habit of sending some clever hand-made birthday greeting to Bill. One such encomium took the form of short choral piece which David entitled A Posy From Woolworths For Bill On His Birthday. Bill framed this and hung it in his studio, but after many years it had faded well past easy readability.
So Bill asked me to decipher the page and reproduce it on a computer. I used the Sibelius hand-written music font. It doesn't look much like David's own writing (and it's monochrome to boot) but it gives the same feel. The layout of the page is identical to the original.
Here's the text:
David's nickname for Bill was "Krafty Bill". Notice that in the tenor part he changes the last line slightly in order to work the nickname in. I doubt the reference to Krafft-Ebing is accidental.
I once did some music preparation work for David. I made the parts for a chamber music work entitled Oedipus Memnitai, which had been commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation at the Library of Congress. That was a great honor for David. He never called me for another job. After his death I learned that it was the last piece he ever wrote. (The Speaking of Music interview - see below - concludes with a description and an excerpt of this piece.)
I also helped him prepare, at the last minute after he suffered a heart attack, for a concert of music by composer Alex North. David was to conduct it in Spain. When he arrived there some of the music - a piece I hadn't worked on - was missing. David called and asked me to look for it in his studio. David's ex-wife produced a key to his house but no one knew the code for the security system. After some discussion, we unlocked his door and set off the alarm. Fortunately the police were not alerted automatically. We just waited, enduring the sound of a fortissimo trill on a solo bell, an opus annoyicus. It continued until the alarm battery wore itself down. Those were long minutes. Once inside we could not find the missing music.
That night, on our way home from David's house, Leslie (who had been waiting in the car) and I stopped at the California Pizza Kitchen to sooth my alarm-wrenched nerves with dessert. We chose a piece of New York cheesecake. They served us the worst piece of cheesecake we had ever eaten or have eaten since: cardboard in a cardboard crust. Ever since then, I have never thought about David Raksin without also thinking about bad cheesecake. Or thought about CPK without thinking of David. Aside from that one awful pastry, however, which certainly wasn't his fault, David earned an absolutely stellar place in my memory. He deserves nothing less. It was a honor to have known him.
If you don't know about David's accomplishments or want some idea of what it was like to be around him, I recommend that you listen to this Speaking of Music event, in which David is interviewed by Charles Amhirkhanian. It's as close as you can get to experiencing David Raksin, the raconteur, wit and name dropper. You'll enjoy the story about David meeting Frank Lloyd Wright.
Here are some quotes I culled from this 90-minute interview:
The picture of David, Gertrud, Arnie and Charlie came from here. The two pictures of the older David Raksin were posted on Facebook by Marilee Bradford.
Raksin Tags: David Raksin. . . film composers. . . centenary
David Raksin was born on August 4, 1912. That makes today his centenary. Although the year 2012 includes the 100th birth anniversary of composers more famous than David (e.g. John Cage, Conlon Nancarrow or Stan Kenton), here in Los Angeles, where he was a fixture in the music community, there are many who remember him with great fondness.
And our memories are based not just on his musical accomplishments - although writing at least one big hit tune and scoring a flotilla of movies is clearly enough to get him into the music history books. We remember that David was a jovial guy with a keen intelligence and a ready wit. He always had a story about someone famous that he had known (and he seemed to have known just about everyone). Or he told a joke (often of his own creation). Or he made a pun. Or two puns. Or a whole passel of puns. David loved word play.
To prove the point about knowing famous people, here's a photograph of David in his mid twenties. He's the guy on the right. On the left is Charlie Chaplin, with whom David worked on the music of the movie Modern Times. Working for Chaplin was David's big break. In the center are Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Schoenberg. David studied with Schoenberg. (David wasn't really all that tall. Those others were just short.)
David belongs to a very small number of musicians who easily bridged the gap between the classical music and film music communities in Los Angeles. He was a walking history of music in Southern California. When he died it was announced that he had written an autobiography. I remember him talking about it and showing me a decades-old kitchen calendar which he was using as a memory aid. That's a book I'd love to read.
David Raksin had long since become a fixture in the music community of Los Angeles when I arrived here in the seventies. He seemed to be at every concert I attended. I don't remember specifically when I was introduced to him but it most certainly was by composer William Kraft, who was an extremely close friend of David's from the 1950s until David's death in 2004.
David made fastidious musical manuscripts. Often in many colors. Each year David was in the habit of sending some clever hand-made birthday greeting to Bill. One such encomium took the form of short choral piece which David entitled A Posy From Woolworths For Bill On His Birthday. Bill framed this and hung it in his studio, but after many years it had faded well past easy readability.
So Bill asked me to decipher the page and reproduce it on a computer. I used the Sibelius hand-written music font. It doesn't look much like David's own writing (and it's monochrome to boot) but it gives the same feel. The layout of the page is identical to the original.
Love and fortune wax and wane
We are entangled in their webbing,
More or lesser men may flow down the drain,
But Billy Kraft will never ebbing.
David's nickname for Bill was "Krafty Bill". Notice that in the tenor part he changes the last line slightly in order to work the nickname in. I doubt the reference to Krafft-Ebing is accidental.
I once did some music preparation work for David. I made the parts for a chamber music work entitled Oedipus Memnitai, which had been commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation at the Library of Congress. That was a great honor for David. He never called me for another job. After his death I learned that it was the last piece he ever wrote. (The Speaking of Music interview - see below - concludes with a description and an excerpt of this piece.)
I also helped him prepare, at the last minute after he suffered a heart attack, for a concert of music by composer Alex North. David was to conduct it in Spain. When he arrived there some of the music - a piece I hadn't worked on - was missing. David called and asked me to look for it in his studio. David's ex-wife produced a key to his house but no one knew the code for the security system. After some discussion, we unlocked his door and set off the alarm. Fortunately the police were not alerted automatically. We just waited, enduring the sound of a fortissimo trill on a solo bell, an opus annoyicus. It continued until the alarm battery wore itself down. Those were long minutes. Once inside we could not find the missing music.
That night, on our way home from David's house, Leslie (who had been waiting in the car) and I stopped at the California Pizza Kitchen to sooth my alarm-wrenched nerves with dessert. We chose a piece of New York cheesecake. They served us the worst piece of cheesecake we had ever eaten or have eaten since: cardboard in a cardboard crust. Ever since then, I have never thought about David Raksin without also thinking about bad cheesecake. Or thought about CPK without thinking of David. Aside from that one awful pastry, however, which certainly wasn't his fault, David earned an absolutely stellar place in my memory. He deserves nothing less. It was a honor to have known him.
If you don't know about David's accomplishments or want some idea of what it was like to be around him, I recommend that you listen to this Speaking of Music event, in which David is interviewed by Charles Amhirkhanian. It's as close as you can get to experiencing David Raksin, the raconteur, wit and name dropper. You'll enjoy the story about David meeting Frank Lloyd Wright.
Here are some quotes I culled from this 90-minute interview:
"I can write thematic material faster than most people can make wrong chess moves."
"I would love to be able to say that I tried out for several porno films and didn't make it, but it wouldn't be true."
"You have no idea how music benefits from audibility."
"I could not see the Eastern university mafia permitting a guy who makes most of his living in films to get one." (i.e. the commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge foundation.)
The picture of David, Gertrud, Arnie and Charlie came from here. The two pictures of the older David Raksin were posted on Facebook by Marilee Bradford.
Raksin Tags: David Raksin. . . film composers. . . centenary
Sunday, July 29, 2012
A Terrific Soporific
A Terrific Soporific is a piano piece. I've added a critical review directly into the title. You must use your own judgement to decide if the review is accurate. Please try to stay awake.
One night, last week, I was really tired. I should have gone to bed. Instead I began this piece. When I finished the first section I added another contrasting section. Then, for reasons beyond my ken, I composed a four-voice fugue. The fugue ballooned to nearly half the piece. There's a coda too, if you care.
So, the form of this piece might be called "Prelude and Prelude and Fugue". In this day and age a fugue will put anyone to sleep.
I've written a couple fugues before, long ago, but never one with four voices. By and large, the rules were followed - at least the rules I could remember. I included lots of strettos. This is the most chromatic music I have ever written.
Most likely this fugue, just like any other fugue, will remind you of J.S. Bach. The first theme of the fugue is a rip-off of Bach. Later, there's another theme that is Bach.
Click here to hear A Terrific Soporific by David Ocker - © 2012 David Ocker 464 seconds
If you need help remembering what a fugue is or if some visuals would help you follow the different voices or if you relate more to young music students than to aging baby boomers like myself, maybe this video will be more interesting. It's also Bach.
Thanks to OboeInsight, the blog where I encountered this video.
I Couldn't Sleep is another recent piano piece of mine with a title that references somnolence.
More information than you care to know about fugues.
I found quotes about Bach. Here are a few I liked:
Sun Ra:
Stretto Tags: prelude and fugue. . . Bach. . . piano music. . . David Ocker
One night, last week, I was really tired. I should have gone to bed. Instead I began this piece. When I finished the first section I added another contrasting section. Then, for reasons beyond my ken, I composed a four-voice fugue. The fugue ballooned to nearly half the piece. There's a coda too, if you care.
So, the form of this piece might be called "Prelude and Prelude and Fugue". In this day and age a fugue will put anyone to sleep.
I've written a couple fugues before, long ago, but never one with four voices. By and large, the rules were followed - at least the rules I could remember. I included lots of strettos. This is the most chromatic music I have ever written.
Most likely this fugue, just like any other fugue, will remind you of J.S. Bach. The first theme of the fugue is a rip-off of Bach. Later, there's another theme that is Bach.
Click here to hear A Terrific Soporific by David Ocker - © 2012 David Ocker 464 seconds
If you need help remembering what a fugue is or if some visuals would help you follow the different voices or if you relate more to young music students than to aging baby boomers like myself, maybe this video will be more interesting. It's also Bach.
Thanks to OboeInsight, the blog where I encountered this video.
I Couldn't Sleep is another recent piano piece of mine with a title that references somnolence.
More information than you care to know about fugues.
I found quotes about Bach. Here are a few I liked:
Sun Ra:
Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.Charles Mingus:
Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.Xavier Cugat:
I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.Isaac Mizrahi:
If you try to have a fashion show with Bach fugues and John Coltrane, it doesn't really work.
Stretto Tags: prelude and fugue. . . Bach. . . piano music. . . David Ocker
Sunday, July 22, 2012
The Peter Schmid Quartet Plays Maximum Wage
Last year I posted two tracks of my music as performed by the pianist Peter Schmid and his buddies. They're as close to an all-psychic musical ensemble as you could hope for. The tunes were called Work for Food and Too Poor To Be A Whore.
We just finished another one. It's called Maximum Wage.
The title was inspired by this picture of a protester, possibly from the Occupy movement, holding a sign which reads "Why is there no maximum wage?". The concept of setting a limit on income for people who make too much money was discussed in this recent Mixed Meters post: Why Is There No Maximum Wage?
Click here to hear The Peter Schmid Quartet Plays Maximum Wage - by David Ocker © 2012 - 301 seconds
Recorded at Aphrodita Japonica Studios, Pasadena, California
The quartet is:
Peter Schmid, piano
Lori Terhune, guitar
Cornel Reasoner, bass
Luis 'Pulpo' Jolla, drums
Quartet Tags: Peter Schmid. . . jazz quartet. . . maximum wage
We just finished another one. It's called Maximum Wage.
The title was inspired by this picture of a protester, possibly from the Occupy movement, holding a sign which reads "Why is there no maximum wage?". The concept of setting a limit on income for people who make too much money was discussed in this recent Mixed Meters post: Why Is There No Maximum Wage?
Click here to hear The Peter Schmid Quartet Plays Maximum Wage - by David Ocker © 2012 - 301 seconds
Recorded at Aphrodita Japonica Studios, Pasadena, California
The quartet is:
Peter Schmid, piano
Lori Terhune, guitar
Cornel Reasoner, bass
Luis 'Pulpo' Jolla, drums
Quartet Tags: Peter Schmid. . . jazz quartet. . . maximum wage
Monday, July 16, 2012
Freud Was Wrong About The Cigar
Leslie has a lot of strange plants in her garden. She keeps working on raising orchids and has gotten good with african violets. Her best category lately has been various carnivorous plants - like pitcher plants or Venus flytraps. They eat insects and we love them for it.
She came home with a new Venus fly trap the other day plus something she called a "sensitive" plant. The web tells me that it's also called mimosa pudica. I don't know what this species has in common with a mixture of champagne and orange juice. Probably nothing.
She demonstrated the wonderous properties of mimosa by raising the thing a couple inches and dropping it on a table. The leaves reacted by curling up. Self-defense, I guess. The poor thing is probably afraid of its own shadow.
I whipped out the aging point-'n'shoot from my pocket and made a video of this vegetarian flight response. Later I edited the video a bit, adding titles and repeating a section in slow motion (that worked better in my imagination than in reality). The whole video barely breaks a minute.
Here it is if you want to watch. You can see part of Chowderhead on the ground behind the table. The finger aggravating the poor sensitive plant belongs to Leslie herself.
When I'd finished video editing I decided to it would be better with some music. I dropped a few tracks onto the video and I found one that seemed to work well enough. It's called Freud Was Wrong About The Cigar. I don't know why I called it that.
Since only the first minute of the piece was needed for the video I figured I'd link to the complete online version on the off chance that someone who reads Mixed Meters is obsessed with cigars. That's when I discovered that I had never uploaded FWWATC. I composed it in May of 2011. It's on my iPod where I listen to it periodically.
I don't know why I didn't share it. Better late than never.
Click here to hear Freud Was Wrong About The Cigar - © 2012 David Ocker - 108 seconds
This is Freud's first appearance on Mixed Meters.
You can see a cigar in this post about a Fourth of July barbecue.
Cigarettes have come up previously in conjunction with my Mother and Ronald Reagan.
Cigar Tags: Freud. . . cigar. . . plants. . . 30 Second Spots
She came home with a new Venus fly trap the other day plus something she called a "sensitive" plant. The web tells me that it's also called mimosa pudica. I don't know what this species has in common with a mixture of champagne and orange juice. Probably nothing.
She demonstrated the wonderous properties of mimosa by raising the thing a couple inches and dropping it on a table. The leaves reacted by curling up. Self-defense, I guess. The poor thing is probably afraid of its own shadow.
I whipped out the aging point-'n'shoot from my pocket and made a video of this vegetarian flight response. Later I edited the video a bit, adding titles and repeating a section in slow motion (that worked better in my imagination than in reality). The whole video barely breaks a minute.
Here it is if you want to watch. You can see part of Chowderhead on the ground behind the table. The finger aggravating the poor sensitive plant belongs to Leslie herself.
When I'd finished video editing I decided to it would be better with some music. I dropped a few tracks onto the video and I found one that seemed to work well enough. It's called Freud Was Wrong About The Cigar. I don't know why I called it that.
Since only the first minute of the piece was needed for the video I figured I'd link to the complete online version on the off chance that someone who reads Mixed Meters is obsessed with cigars. That's when I discovered that I had never uploaded FWWATC. I composed it in May of 2011. It's on my iPod where I listen to it periodically.
I don't know why I didn't share it. Better late than never.
Click here to hear Freud Was Wrong About The Cigar - © 2012 David Ocker - 108 seconds
This is Freud's first appearance on Mixed Meters.
You can see a cigar in this post about a Fourth of July barbecue.
Cigarettes have come up previously in conjunction with my Mother and Ronald Reagan.
Cigar Tags: Freud. . . cigar. . . plants. . . 30 Second Spots
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Name of This Piece Is
I picked the title of a new 30 Second Spot so that I could write the following sentence.
As a title for a piece of music I think The Name Of This Piece Is works well on all those levels. Don't you agree?
Musically, The Name Of This Piece Is is short and jazzy with a healthy dose of perplexingly wrong notes woven into the fine-grained tapestry of spicy non-verbal contextuality. Or something.
Click here to hear The Name Of This Piece Is - © 2012 by David Ocker 53 seconds
The Name of These Tags Is: musical titles. . . 30 Second Spots. . . David Ocker
The name of this piece is The Name Of This Piece Is.It's a simple title, easy to remember. Titles are supposed to help you understand what a piece of music is about. Alternatively they can give you a visual or poetic image to associate with the music. Or a title could give you some expectation of the structure of the music or of a certain historical artistic tradition which might give it context.
As a title for a piece of music I think The Name Of This Piece Is works well on all those levels. Don't you agree?
Musically, The Name Of This Piece Is is short and jazzy with a healthy dose of perplexingly wrong notes woven into the fine-grained tapestry of spicy non-verbal contextuality. Or something.
Click here to hear The Name Of This Piece Is - © 2012 by David Ocker 53 seconds
The Name of These Tags Is: musical titles. . . 30 Second Spots. . . David Ocker
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Deep Underground, Workers Make The Ring
Deep Underground, Workers Make The Ring is a 30 Second Spot, a short opera featuring the sound of a ratchet, one of the most lyrical and melodic instruments of the orchestra. I wrote this piece to test a new software sampler which I just installed. An electric bass and a glockenspiel have supporting musical roles.
Once I finished Deep Underground, Workers Make The Ring, it seemed to suggest images of factory machines. Here's the story behind this piece.
Click here to hear Deep Underground, Workers Make The Ring © 2012 by David Ocker - 81 seconds
Ratchet Tags: 30 second spot. . . ratchet. . . silly opera librettos
Once I finished Deep Underground, Workers Make The Ring, it seemed to suggest images of factory machines. Here's the story behind this piece.
Illegal foreign workers, short and sickly from years of malnourishment, have been tricked by Bain, the God of Capital, into producing cheap knockoffs of the Ring of Power which are then sold by the American Nibelung Party. Wearers of a ring are impervious to logic or knowledge.
The workers cannot escape from the secret, smelly, fetid factory deep in the earth. They are forced to run old unsafe machines which will not be replaced because Bain has been foiled in his attempt to create Tax Credits. If production falls behind, the workers are whipped by guards, men called Job Creators who wear steel-toed wingtips and power suits with flag pins on their lapels. In precise unison they sing about the evils of Socialist Liberalism.
The assembly line machines were designed to be relentlessly, oppressively noisy; this to demoralize the workers. You can hear smelters, lathes and grinders hammering on their spirits. Each time a ring is finished a bell sounds. To survive their ordeal the workers have invented a religion which commands them to sing 50's pop tunes over the din. They believe every bell means that another angel has died in heaven.
Click here to hear Deep Underground, Workers Make The Ring © 2012 by David Ocker - 81 seconds
Ratchet Tags: 30 second spot. . . ratchet. . . silly opera librettos
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Why Is There No Maximum Wage?
A few days ago I ran across the following photo on Facebook. I immediately reposted it to my own account there with this comment:
This prompted a long, wide-ranging and occasionally coherent discussion of what a Maximum Wage would mean. The comments proved that people bring a load of pre-formed opinion to this idea. If you're nearly infinitely patient you can read that discussion yourself.
Before you read on however I suggest you take a moment to reflect on your own reactions to this picture and to my comment. Possibly the notion of limiting the amount of money one person can accumulate is anathema to you and you'll have some sort of heart attack thinking about it.
Is there a pain in your chest? Is your breathing labored? If so, please realize that my opinions about this subject are not important enough for you to jeopardize your short-term survival. Please get medical help quickly. I hope you can afford insurance.
So, anyway.
In the course of that Facebook discussion I wrote a long comment exploring my notions about why people who are not rich, and never will be, identify with, protect and even vote for extremely wealthy people. In a Presidential election season such as this one, where fully 50% of the viable candidates made massive fortunes as predatory capitalists, this seems very relevant.
I wrote more about people's beliefs and faith than about economics. Therefore, it should not be surprising that many of my arguments below are about religion.
Since I spent a lot of time on that essay, I figured I should share it where it might be read by three more people, the entire Mixed Meters' readership. Enjoy.
Reading back over this discussion I find myself mystified by the notion which some people hold that they will inevitably be able to manipulate the economic system to become as rich as Midas, or, as it is said, "rich beyond the dreams of avarice." This faith in their own exceptionalism seems to me to be obviously and patently without basis in the real word. All it really takes to convince me of its unreality is a little bit of observation (that most people are struggling just to stay even) and the merest hint of statistics (that there are very very few super rich people - most of whom were born to at least some wealth in the first place).
Of course, I am equally mystified by some people's belief in religion. And the notion that one is destined to become super rich seems (to me) very much like a religious belief. In one, if I work hard and follow the rules, I will be richly rewarded. In the other, if I pray hard and follow the rules, I will be richly rewarded after death in heaven. Some sects have even combined the two forms of reward overtly. Oh well - it's a free country and we have freedom of religion. And indeed a few lucky driven individuals do actually become rich beyond the dreams of avarice I guess. So maybe that means there really is a heaven ... but I doubt it.
And I am mystified by the attitude of certain people toward our democratic government - namely that the government is the problem and is keeping them from their dreams. While I would never suggest that our government or society is perfect, the democratic system seems to have done a remarkably good job of allowing people of different beliefs, cultures, ethnicities and economic status to live together peacefully, pursue their dreams, adhere to their personal beliefs and resolve their disputes. And we've done this by following the basic principals laid down in the Constitution: the most important of which is that by a certain vote we can change the rules and adjust the "eternal" principals in order to adapt our democracy to changing times and conditions. If only religions could be this enlightened and adapt to the modern world just a smidgen more quickly.
And, if all my mystification weren't enough, I'm thoroughly mystified by the notion that the positive things which our government does (those things which are disparaged by some under the name "entitlements") are the deeper source of our problems. Instead I would suggest that these are actually among the highest manifestations of our morality, the positive application of all those abstract religious rules and commandments which get repeated by rote in church and then ignored in the rat race to get rich during the workweek. These "entitlements" are actually the very things that make our society good - or, at least, better - and I believe that our government should do everything it can to preserve, refine and amplify them for the benefit of everyone.
And if our government can come together and agree on positive goals - like health care or a clean environment or the equality of every human - then it can also ask those very few very rich people, those exceptional, lucky, driven, acquisitive, materialistic, rapacious people, to forego a larger part of their accumulated wealth for the benefit of the very society in which they themselves live and which helped them get rich in the first place.
But the reality seems to be that the rich people are busy trying to get even richer - maybe they're greedy for power or in competition to be richer than other rich people or maybe they just don't know when to stop. So it seems perfectly reasonable to me for the government to lay down a marker, a point at which people become rich enough. Get hundreds of millions in the bank and it's time for you to step aside and let someone else accumulate wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.
In my opinion if you become a billionaire it's time to retire. If you still need to work after that, then you should be doing it for the benefit of everybody, not just yourself. I know this will not be a popular opinion with people who believe in their own exceptionalism. I am not mystified by their negative reaction to this idea.
So the whole concept seems to distill nicely down to the single phrase which started this discussion: "maximum wage". I like that notion of a maximum wage a lot - because at some point an individual can simply have too much money for the good of everyone. And if money is a religion in America these days, then this idea makes a great article of faith.
Now for some reference material showing how the U.S. taxation system has gotten seriously out of whack over the years. Plus more of my comments.
The following chart comes from Wikipedia. It shows the change in Marginal Tax rates over history. Take a look at the column marked TOP BRACKET which shows the tax RATE (in purple) which the highest income earners paid on their income above a certain level (INCOME).
What's really interesting is the column called ADJ.2011 (the tan colored column). That shows what income the top rate would kick in it at in 2011 dollars if that law applied now. Last year's dollars are close enough to this years for anyone to relate. As an example, if 1981 laws applied today, people would pay 70% in Federal tax on any income over $532,000.
I think it seems entirely reasonable that someone who earns over $2,500,000 in today's dollars should pay 94% of their income above that level to the government - just as the chart says they did in 1944. There was a war going on then also.
I'd even think it appropriate if current extreme earners paid 79% of their income over 80.7 million dollars - like they they were asked to do in 1936, at the height of the depression.
These days the politicos are talking about simply repealing the Bush tax cuts - and raising that top rate by less than 5% - not even to 40%. A paltry request.
Here's more background info - an article entitled The Great Capitalist Heist: How Paris Hilton's Dogs Ended Up Better Off Than You by an economics professor named Gerald Friedman. The article begins with Paris Hilton's new $350,000 two-story house just for her dogs.
More importantly the article covers the history of how top 1% in the United States convinced the rest of us to let them become even more wealthy. Here's a quote:
Here's another quote about how the federal regulators during the George W. Bush administration let the financial industry nearly destroy our entire economy:
Even if it was a billion dollars a year, there ought to be a limit to how much wealth and power one person can accumulate.
This prompted a long, wide-ranging and occasionally coherent discussion of what a Maximum Wage would mean. The comments proved that people bring a load of pre-formed opinion to this idea. If you're nearly infinitely patient you can read that discussion yourself.
Before you read on however I suggest you take a moment to reflect on your own reactions to this picture and to my comment. Possibly the notion of limiting the amount of money one person can accumulate is anathema to you and you'll have some sort of heart attack thinking about it.
Is there a pain in your chest? Is your breathing labored? If so, please realize that my opinions about this subject are not important enough for you to jeopardize your short-term survival. Please get medical help quickly. I hope you can afford insurance.
So, anyway.
In the course of that Facebook discussion I wrote a long comment exploring my notions about why people who are not rich, and never will be, identify with, protect and even vote for extremely wealthy people. In a Presidential election season such as this one, where fully 50% of the viable candidates made massive fortunes as predatory capitalists, this seems very relevant.
I wrote more about people's beliefs and faith than about economics. Therefore, it should not be surprising that many of my arguments below are about religion.
Since I spent a lot of time on that essay, I figured I should share it where it might be read by three more people, the entire Mixed Meters' readership. Enjoy.
Reading back over this discussion I find myself mystified by the notion which some people hold that they will inevitably be able to manipulate the economic system to become as rich as Midas, or, as it is said, "rich beyond the dreams of avarice." This faith in their own exceptionalism seems to me to be obviously and patently without basis in the real word. All it really takes to convince me of its unreality is a little bit of observation (that most people are struggling just to stay even) and the merest hint of statistics (that there are very very few super rich people - most of whom were born to at least some wealth in the first place).
Of course, I am equally mystified by some people's belief in religion. And the notion that one is destined to become super rich seems (to me) very much like a religious belief. In one, if I work hard and follow the rules, I will be richly rewarded. In the other, if I pray hard and follow the rules, I will be richly rewarded after death in heaven. Some sects have even combined the two forms of reward overtly. Oh well - it's a free country and we have freedom of religion. And indeed a few lucky driven individuals do actually become rich beyond the dreams of avarice I guess. So maybe that means there really is a heaven ... but I doubt it.
And I am mystified by the attitude of certain people toward our democratic government - namely that the government is the problem and is keeping them from their dreams. While I would never suggest that our government or society is perfect, the democratic system seems to have done a remarkably good job of allowing people of different beliefs, cultures, ethnicities and economic status to live together peacefully, pursue their dreams, adhere to their personal beliefs and resolve their disputes. And we've done this by following the basic principals laid down in the Constitution: the most important of which is that by a certain vote we can change the rules and adjust the "eternal" principals in order to adapt our democracy to changing times and conditions. If only religions could be this enlightened and adapt to the modern world just a smidgen more quickly.
And, if all my mystification weren't enough, I'm thoroughly mystified by the notion that the positive things which our government does (those things which are disparaged by some under the name "entitlements") are the deeper source of our problems. Instead I would suggest that these are actually among the highest manifestations of our morality, the positive application of all those abstract religious rules and commandments which get repeated by rote in church and then ignored in the rat race to get rich during the workweek. These "entitlements" are actually the very things that make our society good - or, at least, better - and I believe that our government should do everything it can to preserve, refine and amplify them for the benefit of everyone.
And if our government can come together and agree on positive goals - like health care or a clean environment or the equality of every human - then it can also ask those very few very rich people, those exceptional, lucky, driven, acquisitive, materialistic, rapacious people, to forego a larger part of their accumulated wealth for the benefit of the very society in which they themselves live and which helped them get rich in the first place.
But the reality seems to be that the rich people are busy trying to get even richer - maybe they're greedy for power or in competition to be richer than other rich people or maybe they just don't know when to stop. So it seems perfectly reasonable to me for the government to lay down a marker, a point at which people become rich enough. Get hundreds of millions in the bank and it's time for you to step aside and let someone else accumulate wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.
In my opinion if you become a billionaire it's time to retire. If you still need to work after that, then you should be doing it for the benefit of everybody, not just yourself. I know this will not be a popular opinion with people who believe in their own exceptionalism. I am not mystified by their negative reaction to this idea.
So the whole concept seems to distill nicely down to the single phrase which started this discussion: "maximum wage". I like that notion of a maximum wage a lot - because at some point an individual can simply have too much money for the good of everyone. And if money is a religion in America these days, then this idea makes a great article of faith.
Now for some reference material showing how the U.S. taxation system has gotten seriously out of whack over the years. Plus more of my comments.
The following chart comes from Wikipedia. It shows the change in Marginal Tax rates over history. Take a look at the column marked TOP BRACKET which shows the tax RATE (in purple) which the highest income earners paid on their income above a certain level (INCOME).
What's really interesting is the column called ADJ.2011 (the tan colored column). That shows what income the top rate would kick in it at in 2011 dollars if that law applied now. Last year's dollars are close enough to this years for anyone to relate. As an example, if 1981 laws applied today, people would pay 70% in Federal tax on any income over $532,000.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I think it seems entirely reasonable that someone who earns over $2,500,000 in today's dollars should pay 94% of their income above that level to the government - just as the chart says they did in 1944. There was a war going on then also.
I'd even think it appropriate if current extreme earners paid 79% of their income over 80.7 million dollars - like they they were asked to do in 1936, at the height of the depression.
These days the politicos are talking about simply repealing the Bush tax cuts - and raising that top rate by less than 5% - not even to 40%. A paltry request.
Here's more background info - an article entitled The Great Capitalist Heist: How Paris Hilton's Dogs Ended Up Better Off Than You by an economics professor named Gerald Friedman. The article begins with Paris Hilton's new $350,000 two-story house just for her dogs.
More importantly the article covers the history of how top 1% in the United States convinced the rest of us to let them become even more wealthy. Here's a quote:
By the time it was finished, [Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors]'s house had swelled to 32,000 square feet, the size of the Taj Mahal. Even at Taj prices, cost mattered little to a man whose net worth is estimated by the Wall Street Journal at $8 billion -- with an income in 2010 of over $1 billion. Cohen’s payday is impressive, but by no means unique. In 2005, the 25 hedge-fund managers averaged $363 million. In cash. Paul Krugman observes that these 25 were paid three times as much as New York City’s 80,000 public school teachers combined. And because their pay is taxed as capital gains rather than salary, the teachers paid a higher tax rate!Just in case you're skimming, yes, one man "earned" over $1,000,000,000 during a single year. Compare this to my original comment with the "Maximum Wage" picture, that there ought to be a limit to how much wealth one person can acquire. Most likely Stephen Cohen paid less percentage of his billion as tax than you do on your income. Why shouldn't he have paid at least 80% or 90% of everything above, say, $100,000,000?
Here's another quote about how the federal regulators during the George W. Bush administration let the financial industry nearly destroy our entire economy:
Acting with the virtual consent of Congress and the president, in 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission established a system of voluntary regulation that in essence allowed investment banks to set their own capital and leverage standards. By then our financial regulatory system had largely returned to the pre-New Deal situation in which we trusted financial institutions to self-police. Advocates of deregulation, like Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan, were unconcerned because they expected banks and other financial firms to limit their risk for fear of failure. Either they misunderstood the incentives facing company managers, or they did not care.Remember that in 2004 we had a Republican president, a Republican-controlled Senate and a Republican controlled House. The country (by a narrow vote) had put wealthy Republicans in charge of our government, and they declared open season on fiscal prudence. The damage that was ultimately done to the economy has yet to be repaired.
In reality I have no expectation that the damage done to this country by inequality of income can be undone. But it feels good to rant about it. If you've actually read this whole article you deserve a tax break.
And in conclusion ... here's my final comment in that long Facebook debate...
As for entitlements, I believe that anything the government can do to promote health, education and environment for all the people is money well spent. It's even worth going into debt for. But it would be better for the entitlements to be paid for by taxes paid by a large healthy educated employed citizenry. And it would be better for those who earn more than enough to pay a higher rate of tax. Such progressive taxation existed during some of America's most prosperous times. And, unsurprisingly, as the top tax rate has dropped, since Ronald Reagans first cuts, the inequality in our country has only increased. How could it be otherwise? Only fools would believe it when greedy rich people spin yarns about how we will flourish while living on the trickle-down crumbs.
The original "Maximum Wage" photo was posted on Facebook by The Other 98%.
Wikipedia has a discussion of Maximum Wage.
Maximum Wage Tags: Maximum Wage. . . income tax. . . progressive taxation
And in conclusion ... here's my final comment in that long Facebook debate...
As for entitlements, I believe that anything the government can do to promote health, education and environment for all the people is money well spent. It's even worth going into debt for. But it would be better for the entitlements to be paid for by taxes paid by a large healthy educated employed citizenry. And it would be better for those who earn more than enough to pay a higher rate of tax. Such progressive taxation existed during some of America's most prosperous times. And, unsurprisingly, as the top tax rate has dropped, since Ronald Reagans first cuts, the inequality in our country has only increased. How could it be otherwise? Only fools would believe it when greedy rich people spin yarns about how we will flourish while living on the trickle-down crumbs.
The original "Maximum Wage" photo was posted on Facebook by The Other 98%.
Wikipedia has a discussion of Maximum Wage.
Maximum Wage Tags: Maximum Wage. . . income tax. . . progressive taxation
Saturday, July 07, 2012
The Parrot Duet
It began with Birds Who Don't Know the Words.
Then Squawk! followed by Flap.
There was Water With Ducks.
And just recently The Mister and Mockingbirds.
Today I add The Parrot Duet to this list.
For some reason I keep making music videos which feature birds of one sort or another. Most of them feature the bird sounds as well.
The Parrot Duet features two love-bird parrots sitting on a wire. We see them in silhouette against the sky. In reality these birds are green with red head feathers, descendants of long-since escaped pet parrots. I often see flocks of similar parrots here in the San Gabriel Valley. I hear them even more often.
The ones in the video look like those in this picture. Notice how they're paired off into couples.
I adapted and expanded some music I was already working on to fit the video. The music uses trumpet and piano sounds. I tried not to obscure the bursts of parrot love vocals, as if anything could cover such raucous singing.
The Parrot Duet © 2012 by David Ocker 146 Seconds
Parrot Duet Tags: wild parrots. . . love duet
Then Squawk! followed by Flap.
There was Water With Ducks.
And just recently The Mister and Mockingbirds.
Today I add The Parrot Duet to this list.
For some reason I keep making music videos which feature birds of one sort or another. Most of them feature the bird sounds as well.
The Parrot Duet features two love-bird parrots sitting on a wire. We see them in silhouette against the sky. In reality these birds are green with red head feathers, descendants of long-since escaped pet parrots. I often see flocks of similar parrots here in the San Gabriel Valley. I hear them even more often.
The ones in the video look like those in this picture. Notice how they're paired off into couples.
I adapted and expanded some music I was already working on to fit the video. The music uses trumpet and piano sounds. I tried not to obscure the bursts of parrot love vocals, as if anything could cover such raucous singing.
The Parrot Duet © 2012 by David Ocker 146 Seconds
Parrot Duet Tags: wild parrots. . . love duet
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