What's in a cat name?

Turns out the jaquar that killed one of its keepers on Saturday was named Jorge in Bolivia, after George Dub. But wait, there's more.

A Bolivian-born jaguar that killed a Denver zookeeper was well-behaved as a young cat but his twin was so mean that his handlers named him Osama, a Bolivian zoo official said Monday.

* * *

Jorge — Spanish for George — had been named after President Bush, said Margot Ugarteche, a veterinarian at the Santa Cruz Municipal Zoo of South American Fauna in Bolivia, which sent Jorge to the Denver Zoo.

"Osama was always the more dominant of the two," Ugarteche said. "He was always rough with Jorge. That was the relationship we saw between them.

"Jorge wasn't bad, really," she said. "I don't know what could have happened. Perhaps because he was so well-behaved, the trainer (in Denver) thought she could trust him. But you never know with wild animals."

Clearly, we need a preemptive strike against a killer Bolivian jaguars. We must fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.

Briefly: Venezuela to seize foreign oil projects

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez ordered by decree on Monday the takeover of oil projects run by foreign oil companies in Venezuela's Orinoco River region.

Chavez had previously announced the government's intention to take a majority stake by May 1 in four heavy oil-upgrading projects run by British Petroleum PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Total SA and Statoil ASA.

He said Monday that has decreed a law to proceed with the nationalizations that will see state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, taking at least a 60 percent stake in the projects.

"The privatization of oil in Venezuela has come to an end," he said on his weekday radio show, "Hello, President." "This marks the true nationalization of oil in Venezuela."

By May 1, "we will occupy these fields" and have the national flag flying on them, he said.

Here's the rest.

You have to be very fucking careful when naming a cat.

I picked up a kitten over the weekend, and Lauren and I quickly set about the process of naming it (even though the bugger's not quite brave enough to come out from behind the bookcase yet). I conjured up the name Maceo in honor of the legendary sax player for James Brown, and Lauren concurred that it would be a terrific moniker.

Of course, four seconds of Googling has turned up the fact that Jane's Addiction of all people have a song called "My Cat's Name is Maceo." Sweet Jesus fuck. I never liked Jane's Addiction much and have thusly never heard or heard of this song before today, and the lyrics make it sound kinda sweet and goofy but also supremely crappy. It may be back to the 'ol drawing board.

Mini-Notes from the Oscars

Mini-Notes on the Oscar: with the caveat that I was mildly drunk as of the first commercial break.
That Chris Connelly dude from MTV: time flies, and it's tragic.

Ellen DeGeneres: Adequate.

Pan's Labyrinth: Robbed.

Jack Nicholson: Lex Luthorm research.

Al Gore: I was never a huge fan, but...wish we could all go back, no?

Ennio Morriconne: One of the greats. No wonder he looked sour, though; he knew Celine Dion was gonna spoil things.

Screen Shadows: Creeeeee-py.

Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst: Blatantly high.

Dreamgirls: Jennifer Hudson stole the movie, but let's face it, it's Beyonce's bootylicious I want on my screen.

Melissa Etheridge's girl is hot. Ellen's girl is hot (and ten years younger). It pays to be a lesbian.

The Mexicans winning: We gotta make the Border wall higher.

Little Miss Sunshine: Overrated! Overrated!

Montages: Most movies are cooler in 30-second doses.

Sven Nykvist died?: Shit, I'm devastated. That's it for Woody Allen.

Philipe Noiret, Peter Boyle, Robert Altman:?: This is so sad!!!

Jack Palance: Fucker had it coming!

Sexiest Man to Portray Truman Capote!: Nice dig at Phillip Seymour Hoffman's fatty plainness.

The Devil Wears Prada: Sucked ass. Forcefully.

Helen Mirren is hot. And 61. But hot. But 61.

"Someone dropped their rolling papers.": It's sooo sad that this the most transgressive Ellen will get.

Reese Witherspoon: Nothing's gonna cure that shin, baby.

Peter O'Toole: Looks just like my grandfather. The one I wish I had.

Forest Whitaker's cheesy New Agey speech: Made me tear up. It's the wine, I sooo swear.

Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas: Only one of these is actually still making good movies. Guess who?

Martin Scorsese: Yes, yes!!!! Finally!!!!

Dianne Keaton's neck: Just fine! Why the hell does she feed Nora Ephron's inhibitions?

The Departed: Good. Good. 'Cause there would be ranting if "Little Miss Sunshine" won.

That's that from Hollywood. Or my apartment. Hey, after the third bottle of wine, it looks plenty glamorous!

Where am I running to, exactly?

Since you're being insistent, I'll tell you why I got beef with Ludacris' ubiquituous "Runaway Love" (ft. Mary J. Blige, doncha know). In case the rock you live under doesn't get radio reception, it's a ditty about little Lisa, Nicole, Stacey and Erika who are all prepubescent and being similarly abused. The chorus exhorts them to "runaway, love" convincingly, until the end, when it inconsistently tells them "don't you keep runnin' away." Oh, ok. Two lines later: "I'll run away with you." Well, what's it gonna be?!?



But it's not the sloppy lyrics that annoy me. And it's not the sob stories. Pop has an illustrious history of mining generic misery: TLC's "Waterfalls," Everlast's "What It's Like," Ben Folds' "Brick" and Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" all come to mind. I'm down with sentimentality.

It's not how half-baked the stories are. One little girl is abused by alcoholic adult, the other by drug-addicted adult, (see how he switched that there?) I know Luda can tell very specific stories about shit that went down at the club on Saturday night, so why can't he be bothered to make these girls come to life in any way? It's like he knows of the existence of little girls by way of the accountant who told him to fling them a single. Even the girl's names feel fake: Little STACEY got caught in a drive-by? Are you positive it wasn't little Shaniqua?

No, what gets to me is the song's "solution" to the little girls' problems. It strikes me as downright evil. Read it below, and imagine Ludacris' voice wavering between concern and pick-up:

"Yeah, I can only imagine what you're going through, ladies/Sometimes I feel like running away myself/ So do me a favor right now and close your eyes/And picture us running away together and/When we come back everything is gonna be OK."

In other words: "Buy my record, little girl. You'll be abused AND hurtin' $15.95."

Not to sound like a coot, but these "ladies" are 9 years old: should they be picturing themselves running with Ludacris anywhere? I'm all for the curative powers of pop, but shouldn't they be listening to something more salubrious? Learning how to bringsexyback to the playground?

Come on, Luda, at least give them a hotline or something.

Was it rage or regret...or the two?

A couple of days I posted about the experience of hearing "Smalltown Boy" at the supermarket. Hearing Danny Wilson's "Mary's Prayer" (in a shoe store) over the Christmas holidays inspired this essay on sophisti-pop, in which I ruminate on the sons and godsons of Bryan Ferry. This handy guide (co-penned with Thomas) tells you what you need to own, although frankly you won't need it: "Shattered Dreams" is playing at a CVS Pharmacy near you.

Sad.

With every album released since the breakthrough Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams' talent shrivels noticeably. Hal Willner's the ideal producer; too bad he doesn't have enough to do.

Yes, their actions were their own...

Reflections inspired by Fangirl's post: I bought Entertainment in 1998, a few weeks after Second Edition and Pink Flag. Beautiful prose on their behalf (collected in the regrettably out of print SPIN Alternative Record Guide helped. When I was struggling to rid myself of the most powerful infatuation of my life that winter, those albums did their best to make things worse.

The last few years have seen a revival of interest in all things post-punk, and while the bands retain their vigor most of the criticism doesn't. The failed compromise interests me than the confirmed masterpiece. And this is where Go4's Hard enters the picture. Thanks to VH-1's constant rotation, "Is It Love" unshackles itself, massages its wrist and ankles, and rises unsteadily. I wish I'd heard it when I was writhing like a crab on its back. You can understand why Nile Rodgers was first approached as producer: it's got the straightforward dance groove Go4 had seemed incapable of recording. But Go4 were a band incapable of bad faith; even this bonafide dance hit (#8 on the Billboard Dance Chart!) shudders with the fear of impending doom first heard on "What We All Want" and "Natural's On It." On Hard it's one more corpse the listener bumps against; on Brief History of the Twentieth Century, it's out-on-bail before the life sentence of "We Life As We Dream, Alone." (Although there's a solid re-appraisal of Hard here.) So what if guitarist Andy Gill makes like a sullen Phil Oakey (is that even possible?)? Resigned, disgust tasting like stale vomit, he injects a burst of pre-millienium tension before yielding to the conventions of love -- and love songs. "Is It Love?" wonders if there's a difference:

No one lives in the future
No one lives in the past
The men who own the city
Make more sense to me too
Their actions are clear
Their lives are their own

Chilling pronouncements -- or confessions, given by a man who's endured unimaginable torture (watch the video: Gill and his gang wander through a third-rate discotheque with less animation than the corpses in "Thriller"). Listen to the slow burn of the synth strings beneath "Their actions are clear"; they're the saddest notes I've ever heard in a Go4 song, immediately calling to mind Songs of the Free's "I Will Be A Good Boy." You can accept Gill's realization that the capitalists are humans too, or you can believe the mumbled baritone hiding behind syncopated rhythm guitar, as if ashamed. The indentured black singers shout, "It's alright!" but he's not listening to these reassurances; it's too painful. Some California band calling themselves the Red Hot Chili Peppers want him on the phone.

From the Just Heard On the Muzak Station file...

Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy," quietly thumping at a Publix supermarket. I must say: it's the most adventurous re-contexualization I've heard in weeks. Think about it: is there any place less likely to inspire loneliness than a suburban supermarket? The meat counter, wine aisle, and the dairy lane with my beloved Manchego cheese remind me of why the accumulation of peripheral consumer goods is great fun if you can afford it; and that Karl Marx is a lot more fun to read than his crabby post-graduate acolytes (it also reminds me of how Edmund Wilson's portrait of Marx in To The Finland Station is the masterpiece of portraiture that his own fiction didn't approximate). The ghosts of Poly Styrene and Jonathan Richman would understand.

Half-hearted

The infuriating Half Nelson has the additional misfortune of being the third addict-in-crisis film I've screened in four months. While its Sundancing isn't as self-congratulatory as Sherrybaby's, no way does it touch Oliver Assayas' Clean, whose mercilessly straightforward narrative and demotic manner has still convinced a lot of critics that it's ho-hum. Like most films by new American directors, Half Nelson can't approach its subject without sensationalizing it, whether by slathering a obtrusively ambient soundtrack or employing the tackiest cross-cutting in a sex scene since Monster's Ball. Politics are a carapace behind which the filmmakers retreat from engagement and irony; at any rate the references to Gandhi, the Duelfer report, and clips of the Attica riots remind us of a real world in which these people and events had not-so-subtle efects, and it's beyond the filmmakers' grasp to remind us of how young dummy Ryan Gosling may have once articulated his not-dumb views (when Gosling's Dan emphasizes the importance of dialectics in history to his blank junior high students, I wondered whether the filmmakers meant dianetics). I had no idea how the audience was supposed to react to the complacency of Dan's liberal family, getting drunk on red wine after a cheerful dinner like the gruesome ex-hippies in Running on Empty, mourning the collapse of their ideals (we actually get such a scene between Dan and his mother in which she muses aloud, like a Joan Didion character, and Dan rightfully looks like he's about to blow snot on her).

According to Half Nelson, if you're a crack addict you don't read, call your girlfriend, or affect sincerity when your co-workers make conversation. I've known several habitual coke users, none of whom possessed a gram of Dan's privilege, with more winning personalities. Only a student understands him, but no wisdom pours out of the mouth of this babe, only a gaze that could freeze an Eskimo. Gosling's rapport with Shareeka Epps is Half Nelson's biggest strength: the scene in which she uncovers his secret, with Gosling's fake non-chalance crashing against her fake outrage, should be shown on Oscar night. Gosling himself has a loose, mocking/self-mocking defiance that deserves a better outlet. Scenes with Epps suggest that the filmmakers dampened his considerable sexual charisma for fear of – what? Half Nelson's racial politics are screwy enough.

Jukebox Unabridged

Alfred beat me to the punch as far as referencing the steamrolling excellence of the Stylus Singles Jukebox. All Saints' kinetic new corker is up for analysis, and here's the full extent of what I had to say:

I admit I haven't really kept up with these girls since they taught my Anglo-ignorant ass that for British people the alphabet runs right from "A" to "Zed," but this song's an absolute blast, doing all the kinetic, dynamic things we adore Girls Aloud for doing, possibly doing them better. By far the most interesting line is the offhand admission "acting like I'm a teen," a striking reminder that All Saints may age but their audience largely doesn't. Doubtlessly most of their fans know of no other way to act.
[9]

As far as I know, I think only one of my blurbs just flat-out didn't make the cut, so here's a quick pisstake on The View's "Same Jeans" fwiw:

Sounds like the Libertines if you replaced Pete Doherty with one of the Proclaimers. Admirably peppy but thoroughly tame. Hope they’re not aiming to conquer the States either, ‘cause I can tell ‘em right now it ain’t happening without a name change. Nope, nothing says “teenage hijinks” like sharing a band name with a menopausal morning TV program. They may as well have dubbed themselves The Regis and Kelly Band.
[5]

I thought about posting all the comments I sent to P&J that didn't get posted. I may still do it, but spending my time trying furiously to keep up with the Stylus Jukebox makes all that stuff feel so last year.

Briefly...

I won't rant about the Grammys. Regarding The Police's performance of "Roxanne," however, let me say this: how much cooler would it have been for the guys to perform their sinister 1986 remake of "Don't Stand So Close To Me," as a statement of purpose (look where we left you and when you last cared about us) and as a giant fuck-you to nostalgia?

Busy...

Posting will be light in the next few days as I finish a long sophisti-pop essay and introductions. There's also the matter of a book proposal.

In the meantime read this for reviews of current singles. Here's a sample:

Take That
"Shine"

Over a piano hook and harmonies yanked from a Spoon record, Take That make like what’s-his-name from Maroon 5, complete with vocal grit for authenticity’s sake. Now that Robbie Williams has proven to be a failure at selling superficiality, his former mates have a chance to settle the score by selling authenticity. The results prove that winsome and arch are adjectives best suited for a Pet Shop Boys record (hey, didn’t Robbie hire them too?). [2]

M.I.A.
"Bird Flu"

This isn’t so much a song as it is a racket, but not a charmless one. Outkast’s “Morris Brown” killed marching-band drums so decisively last year that M.I.A. making like Gwen Stefani is going to have work doubly hard to convince fans that the follow-up to Arular deserves a 1000-plus thread on ILM. [6]

Bloc Party
"I Still Remember"

I must admit: this acquired poignancy upon reading Kele’s it’s-so-hard-being-a-homo interview in The Guardian, but his heavy breathing has never been put to lovelier use. When Kele sighs, “You could have asked me for it” while a guitar chimes and curls like it’s 1991 and The Ocean Blue’s puritanical primal urges represented the golden mean of adolescent longing, I wish I could lend him my copy of The Line of Beauty. Despite the necktie and his friend’s name carved on the park bench the lack of details on a track almost as hortatory as Silent Alarm’s vague manifestos indicate a band ready for arenas in the expected manner: getting anthemic without anthems. In short, either this is either a band ready for the big time or a band sufficiently confused about it to avoid humor as strenuously as the lyrics avoid specifics. [7]

LOOKOUT IT'S PAZZ & JOP

The results are out, so lacking in je ne sais quois that I only knew about them after seeing an ILM update. What's surprisingly unsurprising: the lack of enthusiasm for Dylan and Joanna Newsome, although somehow they wound up topping the poll and making the final ten, respectively; how shitty the layout is, not including the number of ads; Stephen Thomas Erlewine putting Donald Fagen's Morph the Cat in his Top Five; Anthony Miccio's shout-out to the intricacies of Hinder making the final round of comments; the Larry Levan comp limiting its appearances to Thomas' ballot and mine.

Briefly

The New York Times has an excellent story about Cuba's renascent Jewish Community. Like everyone else in Cuba, the community, without a rabbi and largely dependent on foreign aid, is in a constant struggle to keep its traditions alive.

As Maritza Corrales, a Cuban historian who lives in Havana and the author of “The Chosen Island: Jews in Cuba,” remarked, “To be Cuban and Jewish is to be twice survivors.”

I Am Afraid of Yo La Tengo Cuz They Will Beat My Ass

I'm getting too old to withstand the impact of feedback squalls, especially when four of them buffet you over the course of 125 minutes. Besides that, Yo La Tengo's performance at Studio A last night overcame inaudible vocals (Georgia Hubley's "Little Eyes" was unintelligible) and poor acoustics to demonstrate how a noise trio can, in effect, test the limits of their imagination. It's been noted often how YLT's songs chronicle a happy marriage (a marriage that's essentially a triad, as James McNew is essential), a happiness forged no doubt from tension and conflict (you try touring with your spouse); but their musical chemistry renders songs like I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass' "Sometimes I Don't Get You" into full-bodied but unconvincing plaints*. Even this irony feels warmly reassuring: they're in the on the joke, and they know the audience knows (here's where Kaplan's rockcrit training helps).

Like I said, I wished they'd have canned the feedback, despite the ample pleasures of watching Kaplan yield to his guitar like he's just heard "I Heard Her Call My Name" at the soundcheck a few hours ago. I realize that it's impossible to concentrate when you're thinking about the eight o'clock class you must teach in a few hours. But YLT rewarded our patience with a superb encore, during which the band duly played audience requests (a lovely, squeaky "Autumn Sweater," its Farfisa tones warm and reassuring; and "Decora") and joked with a crowd which had never seen YLT play in Miami before. YLT are such nice people that they invited their painfully unfunny comedic opening act to drum on a superb T-Rex cover dedicated to Miami's "Jewish people."

*McNew actually looked younger than when I last saw them in 2003. Feedback – the elixir of youth!