Mark Maynard | 2011 | May

The Stooges for Chrysler: “a blue collar attitude in a white collar world”

By Mark | May 23, 2011

I like that the Stooges are making some money, I guess, but I don’t know how I feel about their song No Fun being co-opted by the man to sell luxury cars.

Here’s how Chrysler positions the ad on YouTube:

John Varvatos’s blue-collar spirit pushes him late into the night, with Detroit-based rock music serving as his fuel. He is a man who hasn’t forgotten where he came from.

I had to look up John Varvatos. According to his site, he’s an “award winning menswear designer.” He was also apparently born in Detroit, which explains his presence in Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” campaign.

And, here’s the funny part. His up-scale boutique in New York stands in the space that, until a few years ago, was home to the seminal punk rock club CBGB… In his defense, it’s not like he personally drove CBGB out of business, but I still think it looks odd for a guy – especially one who claims to be influenced so heavily by bands like The Stooges – to start selling $165 t-shirts in what could be considered the most important rock and roll landmark this side of Sun Studios. At any rate, I thought that the irony was worth noting.

Here’s a clip from a 2008 article in the New York Times:

…A section of wall from CBGB covered in band fliers has been preserved under glass, and in keeping with Mr. Varvatos’s image as a rock ’n’ roll designer — his models include Iggy Pop and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden — the store is decorated with rock memorabilia and also sells vintage vinyl records and audio equipment.

“The whole purpose of coming here was to retain part of the history,” Mr. Varvatos said in an interview, as bands sound-checked before the show, “so that anybody can walk in off the street and experience part of what was here”…

Some CBGB regulars were there on Thursday in support of the store, like Dick Manitoba of the Dictators (who sang “Kick Out the Jams”) and Arturo Vega, the longtime creative director of the Ramones, who showed up in a crisp white Varvatos shirt. (He said he paid for it.)

But not everyone is happy about the new tenant. On the sidewalk outside a handful of protesters complained about the effects of gentrification on the city’s music scene. Rebecca Moore, a musician who is one of the founders of Take It to the Bridge, an activist group that organized the demonstration, sparred loudly with Mr. Vega. Saying that Lower Manhattan is becoming “a playground for rich people,” she shouted: “Forty-thousand-dollar-a-month rents, $1,600 jackets and $800 pants are closing music spaces in New York.”

Smiling, Mr. Vega responded: “When you are good at what you do, money comes, people. Work hard and you’ll be able to afford.”

A chorus of boos drowned him out…

That seemed to be the consensus among the musicians on Thursday. “I’d rather see this than a Dunkin’ Donuts or a Starbucks,” said Jesse Malin of D Generation.

Clem Burke of Blondie added: “It’s better than if it was a Starbucks or a bank. This keeps some of the spirit of the place alive.”

Ernie Fritz, who is making a documentary about CBGB, expressed the ambivalence and perplexity many old-timers feel about the arrival of a luxury retailer whose shoes probably cost more than the Ramones’ full wardrobe of ripped jeans.

“I wanted this to be a Duane Reade,” he said, “because that’s a clear enemy”…

I’m not sure what the point of this post is. I guess I’m happy that at least The Stooges are getting paid for their contribution. That’s more than can be said for all the kids in the 70’s who helped build the scene that could, all these years later, be appropriated and monetized by the likes of Varvatos. With that said, though, I guess it is slightly better that CBGB became a high-end boutique selling “men’s fragrances” than, say, a Starbucks.

Speaking of their men’s fragrances, I like how this one is described:

“An assertive and powerful fragrance with refreshing citrus essences of bergamot and Chinotto orange are spiked with the uniqueness of Ceylonese cinnamon, offering a new take on masculinity.”

Because nothing says masculinity like Ceylonese cinnamon.

And I’m probably the only one who would find this interesting – and maybe it only happened because I’d been searching for information about Varvatos previously – but I just noticed that a pop-up ad for the Varvatos store came up in YouTube a few minutes ago, when I was watching some 1977 footage of the Dead Boys at CBGB. I wonder if it’s possible that Varvatos paid to have his ads come up whenever anyone watches a video tagged with “CBGB.” It woudn’t surprise me.

And let me just say, with all due respect to the advertising folks advising Chrysler, there’s nothing blue collar about $200 t-shirts and the scent of Ceylonese cinnamon.

I find all of this depressing.

Posted in Art and Culture, Media, Pop Culture, Rants, Uncategorized | Tagged 315 Bowery, advertising, Arturo Vega, Blondie, blue collar, CBGB, Ceylonese cinnamon, Chrysler, Clem Burke, corporate co-opting, Dead Boys, depressing stuff, Dick Manitoba, Duane Reade, Ernie Fritz, fashion, Iggy Pop, Imported from Detroit, injuries that Mark has suffered, Jesse Malin, John Varvatos, masculinity, No Fun, Ramones, selling out, synergy, The Stooges, white collar | 12 Comments

Snyder stops party from punishing public universities offering benefits to domestic partners

By Mark | May 22, 2011

As you’ve all no doubt heard by now, the State of Michigan ended up taking in quite a bit more in tax revenue this year than was previously estimated. As a result, the State is expected to carry a surplus of $429 million into the fiscal 2012 budget year. And, now it looks as though some of the most contentious cuts first proposed by Governor Rick Snyder may be revisited. The following clip comes from an article posted by a Business Week writer after Thursday evening’s meeting of Republican lawmakers in Lansing.

…Rick Snyder announced a budget deal Thursday that would partially offset some proposed cuts to public schools, bulk up the state’s savings account and reduce the amount of concessions sought from state employees…

Snyder’s original budget plan called for an additional cut of $300 per pupil for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The deal announced Thursday would offset up to two-thirds of that cut by giving districts back an average of roughly $100 per pupil to help pay employee retirement costs, plus another $100 per pupil if a district adopts what officials call “best financial practices”…

In other promising news, it’s being reported by the Gongwer News Service that Snyder’s legal counsel has informed the Senate and House leaders that proposed bills to financially penalize universities for pursuing embryonic stem cell research and offering benefits to the unmarried partners of employees are “unconstitutional and unenforceable.”

According to friends at Eastern Michigan University, it also looks like their reduction in State funding may be less than the 15% initially proposed. (According to what I’m hearing, it looks as though different universities could have their funding cut by different amounts.)

So, things may not be as bad as we’d feared….

Are they still bad? Yes, of course the are. K-12 education is still being slashed, as are the budgets of our universities. It just looks as though some of these unexpected tax revenues could be used to offset them to some extent.

Does this mean that we should thank Rick Snyder, and the Republicans in Lansing? No. They’ve still made a choice to favor tax breaks to industry over investment in education. While cuts to higher-ed may not ultimately be 22%, as we’d feared, and cuts to K-12 education may not reach 3.5%, it’s sill true that significant cuts are being made so that $1.7 billion can be given back to corporations, and even more can be spent on prisons.

Still, things could be worse. I’m not convinced, had we elected either Hoekstra or Cox to be our Governor, that they would have stepped in to stop the recent attacks against gay university employees and those pursing stem cell research. And, for what it’s worth, I doubt that either would have accepted money from the Obama administration for rail projects, as Snyder did a few weeks ago.

So, with all of that said, I’d like to come out and say that I think that the recall effort against Rick Snyder that started this weekend is probably a poor use of time and resources. I would much rather see the effort go toward something like a a ballot initiative for a graduated income tax, like the one being called for by State Representative Jeff Irwin. While Snyder isn’t by any means perfect, I do believe that he’s doing his best to hold the more radical elements in his party in check. At least that’s what his recent actions are demonstrating to me.

Posted in Michigan, Observations, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged 2012 Michigan budget, budget cuts, domestic partner benefits, gay demonization, graduated income tax, higher education, homophobic, Jeff Irwin, Mike Cox, Pete Hoekstra, Rick Snyder, Sean Morrison, stem cell research, those anti-science Republicans | 81 Comments

“we’re better than you areeeeeeeee……”

By Mark | May 21, 2011

As I want to spend what’s left of my time here on earth with my family, I decided not to write a new post on today’s rapture. Instead, here’s something I first posted back in October 2004.

I’m confused, do we get to keep our clothes when the rapture comes, or not? What about false teeth and hairpieces? I think you should be able to keep all that stuff, and your money too… What good is it being in the presence of God if, without your glasses, you can’t see him?

Clearly the young lady up front got to keep her breast implants and the Collagen in her lips though. That’s encouraging.

HERE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE COMMENTS:

Mark: I just had a thought… what if the rapture is just a giant cosmic vacuum cleaner sent to suck up all the debris on earth?

Mark: And it seems to be implied, by this image, that only hot, young women and men with clothing from the 1970’s will be spared god’s wrath.

Mark: If I’d known it was this cool, I’d have become born again year’s ago. Seriously, if they’d just come out and told me that it was only going to be attractive white people, and that we’d get tennis shoes with rocket boosters, I’d have signed up without a second thought… No wonder these people want to apocalypse so badly.

Keith: Call me a snob, but I’m for a segregated heaven – free souls to the right, souls still stuck in bodies to the left. If you think about all of the people that have already died, then the “bodied” people are going to be a very small minority – the handicapped of heaven.

Dave Morris: I think Pat Robertson and his 700 Club junkies deserve a lot of credit for popularizing the end times bullshit. I remember watching that crap on TV back in the late 70’s / early 80’s with him interpreting the book of revelations. My mom was a big fan. I liked the idea of the Beast. I liked dinosaurs when I was a kid and the thought of a big reptile coming to earth and wreaking havoc interested me a lot. It also smacked of the good versus evil on the grand scale – like Ultraman versus Godzilla.

( As an aside, I would pay good money to see a well made (read: poorly made) monster film of GIant Jesus versus the Beast.)

Another component of the early evangelical absurdity was the Non Denominational Prayer Groups. She used to drag my brother and I along to her Friday evening NDPG meetings in the basement library of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth where these pasty and saccharine people would stand in a group, ask questions, open the bible and find some meaning in a random passage. The most baffling part was watching these grown ups, mother included, “speaking in tongues.” Still sends a low voltage shock up my spinal just recalling the scene.

My brother and I, needless to say, grew tired of all their nonsense. We would take books out into the hall and throw them at each other ( we were fond of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews ), smash chairs together, tear up the flowers outside, etc. Eventually my mom left us at home with good ol pops, the self proclaimed Hedonist, and the boob tube. So much for our salvation.

I remember my mom buying those little comic books for me at the local christian bookstore- on Ford road just east of Canton Center across from Meijers. Eden Books maybe? I remember one being on the rapture. Don’t remember the specifics. Do remember the floating people though.

One interpretation of the rapture I remember was that the dead would be brought up first. I had a lot of questions about this one. Sounded pretty cool to me. Pops only shook his head at me when I asked these questions. ” Go ask your mother.”

I use to try and reason out what exactly the Rature and all the other end of the world prophecies mean, but any attempt at it requires leaving reason behind so it is useless. My feeling is that most of the outspoken Evangelicals / Pentecostals out there have had some tramatic event in their life that has put everything on the level of the emotional. Reason is no longer worth a damn because reason cannot explain their experience or the world around them . Their suffering is a mirror of Christs suffering and through this corollary, their life has purpose. Look at how well “the Passion” did. Every kick, thorn, puncture wound, etc. was a corollary to some perceived personal injustice that could not be reasoned out. I’m not kidding.

And then I start thinking about how evil travels and what the manifestations of it are…

Ken: Dave, you didn’t even touch upon the three days of darkness and how we shouldn’t answer the door while it is in progress. That was the thing that hit it home for me!

Also, I see that Archie, Jughead, Betty, et al. are left behind. And rightly so, the fucking sinners!

Dave Morris Yeah. The three days of darkness was the one that got me up in a nut. Before the grand finale of corpses flying through the air and the pit of hell opening up so that King Size Christ can toss all us useless pieces of shits in, there is something about the three days of darkness and how there will be no light – save for the blessed candles that my mother and many others have stocked away in their basement. No shit. There is something else about a red light that cirlces around the earth. I can’t remember what it is supposed to do. I have blocked a lot of this out. I had already forgotten about not answering the door. There was a comic book about that one too. Not the kind of stuff you give to a 10 year old. Fucking bizzare.

I remember trying to reason that one out. Magnetic pulse from nuclear war knocks out all power for 3 days, the darkness is from all the dust kicked up from the bombs, etc. Story of my life – trying to stuff a square peg through a round hole. I know the pieces fit.

Shouldn’t you be in bed getting your rest Ken? It is late out there in AtlGA. Sleep tight. Make sure you ask the Lord to take your soul if you happen to die before you awake. I suppose that if you are truely good, he’d just take it irregardless of whether you ask politely or not.

Posted in Observations, Religious Extremism, Uncategorized | Tagged breast implants, collagen, false teeth, fundamentalist religion, hairpieces, Jesus, nudity, rapture, religious comics, the end of the earth, the rapture | 11 Comments

Enjoying a Bernie break

By Mark | May 19, 2011

It dawned on me today that it’s been too damned long since we’ve had any Bernie Sanders video on the site. Here, to remedy that, is a little something that I just found on the web.

I don’t have time to transcribe the whole thing, but here are a few quotes.

…Big money owns and controls much of what takes place in the United States Congress. We had a bad situation before, and, since (the) Citizens United (decision), it’s much, much worse. In a variety of ways, we’re going to have to take apart Citizens United. We’re going to have to pass legislation to minimize what it is doing. And, at the end of the day, we’re probably going to have to pass a constitutional amendment which makes the radical opinion that a corporation is not a person, and that a handful of billionaires cannot pollute and take over the political system by spending unlimited sums of money in secret in order to elect candidates who support their agenda…

The way you fight back is through grassroots organizing. These guys may have billions of dollars, and they may have the Supreme Court, and they may be able to attract the money from the Koch brothers and other billionaires, but, if we can build a strong grassroots movement of politically conscience people who understand that the function of government is to represent working people and the middle class, and not billionaires, we can beat them… We need to make it very, very clear how corrupt the system is… to what degree the billionaires and large corporations are manipulating the campaign finance system in order to give tax breaks to the rich, in order to continue unregulated free trade, in order to deregulate Wall Street and the oil companies.. (and remove) environmental protection laws. So, I think their arrogance may be something that we can effectively use against them…

I think that this particular point many Republicans are doing what they are doing not for any great philosophical reasons, but because what they do can attract huge sums of money. You can get huge amounts of money from Wall Street when you talk about deregulating Wall Street, and not bringing back (the) Glass-Steagall (Act), for instance. You get money from the oil companies when you talk about continuing to give them tax breaks despite the fact that they make billions in profits. You get money from the military industrial complex if you continue to support large military budgets and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…

Oh, and guess what else? Sanders proposed legislation today that, if passed, would make health care possible for everyone in the United States. Here’s a clip:

This week, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, introduced the American Health Security Act of 2011(S. 915 in the Senate and HR 1200 in the House), a bill that would create a state-based system similar to Medicare but open to Americans of all ages.

“The United States is the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care as a right to its people,” Sanders said at a press conference announcing the measure on Capitol Hill. “It is time that we bring about a fundamental transformation of the American health care system. It is time for us to end private, for-profit participation in delivering basic coverage.”

“The best way to reduce costs and guarantee coverage for all is through a single-payer system like Medicare,” said McDermott. “This bill does just that — it builds on the new health care law by giving states the flexibility they need to go to a single-payer system of their own. It will also reduce costs, and Americans will be healthier”…

It pisses me off that I can’t be as proud of my Senators. How about you?

Posted in Economics, Health, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged Bernie Sanders, campaign finance reform, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, corporate personhood, deregulation, Glass-Steagall Act, health care reform, Jim McDermott, Koch brothers, public option, single-payer system, Super PAC, Vermont | 12 Comments

Might NY’s Schneiderman probe lead to prosecutions on Wall Street?

By Mark | May 19, 2011

I don’t know that I put much stock in it, but Matt Taibbi seems to think that we may actually see real prosecutions on Wall Street. Here’s a clip from his new piece for Rolling Stone on the newly launched investigation of Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman:

…This investigation has the potential to be a Mother of All Nightmares situation for the banks for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the decision to go after the securitization process is a total prosecutorial bullseye. This is the ugly heart of the wide-scale fraud scheme of the bubble era. Again, the business model during this time was a giant bait-and-switch scam. Sleazy lenders like Countrywide and New Century first created huge masses of bad loans, committing every conceivable kind of fraud to get people into loans (from doctoring income statements with white-out to phonying FICO scores to engineering fake appraisals). They then moved the bad loans quickly to the big banks, which pooled them and chopped them up (this is the “securitization” process), sprinkled hocus-pocus math on them, and them sold them to suckers around the world as AAA-rated securities.

The questions Schneiderman will seek to answer are these: did the banks securitize loans they knew were fraudulent, throwing the rotten mortgages into the stew before serving them to customers? Did they also commit insurance fraud by duping the bond insurers (known as “monoline” insurers) into thinking the mortgages were not as risky as they really were? And did they participate in the fraud scheme on a more basic level by lending huge amounts of money to the Countrywides of the world, knowing that they in turn would immediately use that money to create the bad loans? In other words, did the banks finance the fraud in addition to brokering it?

The reason this is such a potentially deadly investigation for the banks is that they seemed to be so close to getting away scot free. There is another investigation into the banks’ mortgage abuses by the states’ Attorneys General, led by Iowa AG Tom Miller, that was rumored to be headed toward a settlement, despite the fact that nothing like a complete investigation has been done. The expectation for some time has been that the banks would eventually have to pay a significant, but eminently survivable, settlement for abuses during the bubble era. Although the Miller probe was focused on practices like robo-signing and other such documentation abuses, it could theoretically have covered securitization as well.

But if the AGs were to sign off on a friendly global settlement for mortgage abuses prematurely, it would be like a DA offering a millionaire murderer a 2-year plea bargain before the cops even had a chance to interview all the eyewitnesses. It would be a blatantly political arrangement. Such a desire to get some kind of deal done and sweep the mortgage mess under the rug once and for all seems almost universal among high-ranking politicians, and particularly in the Obama administration, which has acted throughout like it wants more than anything to simply get all of this over with and put in the past.

Schneiderman’s investigation throws a monkey wrench into all of this. The banks cannot enter into a settlement with 49 states. They need all 50 at the table. But if Schneiderman breaks ranks and goes off on an end-run investigation that plunges right into the rotten core of the fraud era, then the whole pipe dream of an easy settlement vanishes in an instant. This is particularly true since Schneiderman is the most important AG, being from the state of New York, where most of the crime was probably committed…

Politiker NY had the following to say:

…Schneiderman’s investigation is being heralded on the left as meaningful intervention by a regulator who is going after an industry that brought the country to the brink of disaster and got, in return, a taxpayer bailout. Politically, it’s a continuation of the tradition of making the New York attorney general a key watchdog of Wall Street — something first started by Eliot Spitzer…

Speaking of Spitzer, he’s quoted today as saying, “I bet there will be bombshells awaiting us.” I hope he’s right. I hope Schneiderman does what Attorney General Eric Holder has proven unwilling to do, and blows the roof off the whole damned thing.

Personally, I find it hard to imagine that these guys will get anything but a slap on the wrist and a fine, but it gives me hope that Taibbi, Spitzer and company at least see the possibility of something more.