Mark Maynard | 2016 | July

This is about more than just racist cops

By Mark | July 8, 2016

I’d been working on something about the killings of Alton Sterling and Philander Castile. My premise was pretty simple… While it’s certainly appropriate to focus our anger at the police, I was going to suggest, we can’t lose site of the fact that there are larger forces at play. We can’t just blame the police for what is happening in America, and ignore the fact that much of what we’re seeing is the result not just of racist cops but the decisions our elected representatives have made over the last several decades. By segregating our communities, disinvesting in poor and non-white areas, systematically dismantling public education, pushing jobs out of the country, and giving those in poverty little hope of bettering their situations, they’ve created a situation where certain communities have essentially become de facto prison yards, policed by officers whose job it is not to protect and serve but to enforce order at all costs… Thankfully, though, as I was working on this post of mine, President Obama came along and essentially said the same thing, only much more eloquently. Here, in case you missed it, is what he posted last night from Warsaw.

TRANSCRIPT:

Good evening, everybody. I know we’ve been on a long flight, but given the extraordinary interest in the shootings that took place in Louisiana and Minnesota, I thought it would be important for me to address all of you directly.

And I want to begin by expressing my condolences for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

As I said in the statement that I posted on Facebook, we have seen tragedies like this too many times. The Justice Department, I know, has opened a civil rights investigation in Baton Rouge. The governor of Minnesota, I understand, is calling for an investigation there, as well. As is my practice, given my institutional role, I can’t comment on the specific facts of these cases, and I have full confidence in the Justice Department’s ability to conduct a thorough and fair inquiry.

But what I can say is that all of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings, because these are not isolated incidents. They’re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. And I just want to give people a few statistics to try to put in context why emotions are so raw around these issues.

According to various studies — not just one, but a wide range of studies that have been carried out over a number of years — African Americans are 30 percent more likely than whites to be pulled over. After being pulled over, African Americans and Hispanics are three times more likely to be searched. Last year, African Americans were shot by police at more than twice the rate of whites. African Americans are arrested at twice the rate of whites. African American defendants are 75 percent more likely to be charged with offenses carrying mandatory minimums. They receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than comparable whites arrested for the same crime.

So that if you add it all up, the African American and Hispanic population, who make up only 30 percent of the general population, make up more than half of the incarcerated population.

Now, these are facts. And when incidents like this occur, there’s a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same. And that hurts. And that should trouble all of us. This is not just a black issue. It’s not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we should all care about. All fair-minded people should be concerned.

Now, let me just say we have extraordinary appreciation and respect for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day. They’ve got a dangerous job. It is a tough job. And as I’ve said before, they have a right to go home to their families, just like anybody else on the job. And there are going to be circumstances in which they’ve got to make split-second decisions. We understand that.

But when we see data that indicates disparities in how African Americans and Latinos may be treated in various jurisdictions around the country, then it’s incumbent on all of us to say, we can do better than this; we are better than this — and to not have it degenerate into the usual political scrum. We should be able to step back, reflect, and ask ourselves, what can we do better so that everybody feels as if they’re equal under the law?

Now, the good news is, is that there are practices we can institute that will make a difference. Last year, we put together a task force that was comprised of civil rights activists and community leaders, but also law enforcement officials — police captains, sheriffs. And they sat around a table and they looked at the data and they looked at best practices, and they came up with specific recommendations and steps that could ensure that the trust between communities and police departments were rebuilt and incidents like this would be less likely to occur.

And there are some jurisdictions out there that have adopted these recommendations. But there are a whole bunch that have not. And if anything good comes out of these tragedies, my hope is, is that communities around the country take a look and say, how can we implement these recommendations, and that the overwhelming majority of police officers who are doing a great job every single day, and are doing their job without regard to race, that they encourage their leadership and organizations that represent them to get behind these recommendations.

Because, ultimately, if you can rebuild trust between communities and the police departments that serve them, that helps us solve crime problems. That will make life easier for police officers. They will have more cooperation. They will be safer. They will be more likely to come home. So it would be good for crime-fighting and it will avert tragedy.

And I’m encouraged by the fact that the majority of leadership in police departments around the country recognize this. But change has been too slow and we have to have a greater sense of urgency about this.

I’m also encouraged, by the way, that we have bipartisan support for criminal justice reform working its way through Congress. It has stalled and lost some momentum over the last couple of months, in part because Congress is having difficulty, generally, moving legislation forward, and we’re in a political season. But there are people of goodwill on the Republican side and the Democratic side who I’ve seen want to try to get something done here. That, too, would help provide greater assurance across the country that those in power, those in authority are taking these issues seriously. So this should be a spur to action to get that done, to get that across the finish line. Because I know there are a lot of people who want to get it done.

Let me just make a couple of final comments. I mentioned in my Facebook statement that I hope we don’t fall into the typical patterns that occur after these kinds of incidents occur, where right away there’s a lot of political rhetoric and it starts dividing people instead of bringing folks together. To be concerned about these issues is not to be against law enforcement. There are times when these incidents occur, and you see protests and you see vigils. And I get letters — well-meaning letters sometimes — from law enforcement saying, how come we’re under attack? How come not as much emphasis is made when police officers are shot?

And so, to all of law enforcement, I want to be very clear: We know you have a tough job. We mourn those in uniform who are protecting us who lose their lives. On a regular basis, I have joined with families in front of Capitol Hill to commemorate the incredible heroism that they’ve displayed. I’ve hugged family members who’ve lost loved ones doing the right thing. I know how much it hurts. On a regular basis, we bring in those who’ve done heroic work in law enforcement, and have survived. Sometimes they’ve been injured. Sometimes they’ve risked their lives in remarkable ways. And we applaud them and appreciate them, because they’re doing a really tough job really well.

There is no contradiction between us supporting law enforcement — making sure they’ve got the equipment they need, making sure that their collective bargaining rights are recognized, making sure that they’re adequately staffed, making sure that they are respected, making sure their families are supported — and also saying that there are problems across our criminal justice system, there are biases — some conscious and unconscious — that have to be rooted out. That’s not an attack on law enforcement. That is reflective of the values that the vast majority of law enforcement bring to the job.

But I repeat: If communities are mistrustful of the police, that makes those law enforcement officers who are doing a great job and are doing the right thing, it makes their lives harder. So when people say “Black Lives Matter,” that doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter; it just means all lives matter, but right now the big concern is the fact that the data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents.

This isn’t a matter of us comparing the value of lives. This is recognizing that there is a particular burden that is being placed on a group of our fellow citizens. And we should care about that. We can’t dismiss it. We can’t dismiss it.

So let me just end by saying I actually, genuinely, truly believe that the vast majority of American people see this as a problem that we should all care about. And I would just ask those who question the sincerity or the legitimacy of protests and vigils and expressions of outrage, who somehow label those expressions of outrage as “political correctness,” I’d just ask folks to step back and think, what if this happened to somebody in your family? How would you feel?

To be concerned about these issues is not political correctness. It’s just being an American, and wanting to live up to our best and highest ideals. And it’s to recognize the reality that we’ve got some tough history and we haven’t gotten through all of that history yet. And we don’t expect that in my lifetime, maybe not in my children’s lifetime, that all the vestiges of that past will have been cured, will have been solved, but we can do better. People of goodwill can do better.

And doing better involves not just addressing potential bias in the criminal justice system. It’s recognizing that too often we’re asking police to man the barricades in communities that have been forgotten by all of us for way too long, in terms of substandard schools, and inadequate jobs, and a lack of opportunity.

We’ve got to tackle those things. We can do better. And I believe we will do better.

Thanks very much, everybody.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Tagged Alton Sterling, black lives matter, Obama, Philando Castile, police violence | 23 Comments

Is Ypsi City Council pushing for a change in leadership at City Hall?

By Mark | July 7, 2016

Word on the street is that big changes may be coming at Ypsilanti City Hall. As I understand it, there’s going to be a closed session of City Council tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM, where options will be discussed concerning the future of at least one high-ranking City employee. It would seems that, now that the Water Street debt has been refinanced, and the campaign is officially underway to pass the millage, some on Council are thinking that the time might be right to find a different person to take the reins… someone who not only has financial skills, but the communications skills necessary to articulate a vision, build consensus, and get development moving in a positive direction. It’s unclear as to whether or not tomorrow’s meeting will yield a definitive answer one way or the other, as there are a number of items that need to be resolved before such a change can be made, given existing contracts and the like, but, from what I’m hearing, it sounds as though we’ve now got a majority on City Council demanding that a change be made at the top. So stay tuned.

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Tagged City Manager, Water Street, Ypsilanti City Council | 10 Comments

Bruce Conforth on the real life of Robert Johnson, the real hell of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and what it was like coming of age inside Izzy’s Young’s Folklore Center as the young Bobby Zimmerman hammered out songs on the typewriter in the back room… on episode 44 of the Saturday Six Pack

By Mark | July 6, 2016

When I first started talking with ethnomusicologist Bruce Conforth about the possibility of his being on the show, I wasn’t exactly sure what we’d be talking about. He didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic about the prospect of discussing his time at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, where he was the founding curator, and, while I very much enjoy early American blues, I didn’t feel as though I knew enough to really engage him in a conversation on the subject that he’d find stimulating. Thankfully, though, we decided to give it a shot, and what resulted is probably one of my favorite Saturday Six Pack discussions to date… And he did eventually open up about the living hell that was Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but we’ll get to that later.

We began with a discussion about Lawrence Gellert, the subject of Conforth’s most recent book, African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The Lawrence Gellert Story. Gellert, who Conforth would come to know about through his research in the archives of Indiana University as a PhD student 30-some years ago, was a pioneering figure in the field of ethnomusicology, traveling through the American south with his audio equipment, collecting field recordings of African-American musicians, a full decade before John Lomax did essentially the same thing to much greater acclaim. Conforth would eventually meet several people who had known Gellert, who “disappeared” in 1979, at the age of 80, and, through them, came to be in the possession of several of his previously unreleased recordings. Conforth would go on to release many of these recordings in two volumes; “Cap’n You’re So Mean” [Rounder Records 1982] and “Nobody Knows My Name” [Heritage Records 1984].

Conforth and I talked at length about Gellert, the far left politics of his immigrant family in New York, and the evidence that would seem to indicate that he himself wrote a half dozen or so of the more politically charged songs he claimed to have discovered black musicians singing in the American south. Conforth believes that Gellert was so anxious to prove to the New York left that he’d discovered the true voice of the American proletariat on his travels, that he didn’t want to leave anything to chance. So he wrote a handful of timely protest songs, and found black musicians to perform them. Conforth not only has Gellert’s notebooks, where it’s clear that he’s working on the songs in question, but he also has audio of Gellert teaching people how to play and sing at least one of these songs that he’d written. This, Conforth tells us, wasn’t all too uncommon. John and Alan Lomax, he says, were known to send Lead Belly into southern towns to teach people how to play certain songs, when they couldn’t find musicians performing the kinds of music that they wanted for their field recordings.

Despite the fact that Gellert wrote some of the material which he passed off as the authentic work of black musicians, Conforth makes it clear that he finds Gellert’s work superior to work of the John and Alan Lomax. When asked why people know of the Lomaxes, and not Gellert, Conforth attributes much of it to the politics of the day, and the fact that Gellert was caught up in the red scare of the 1950s.

And we talked about the sad end of the eccentric Gellert, who appears to have been whisked away from his Greenwich Village home in 1979 by his family when he was named a “person of interest” in the high profile Etan Patz kidnapping case. According to Conforth, Gellert’s landlord likely offered him as a potential suspect in hopes of driving the elderly man from his rent controlled apartment. Gallert, however, who suffered from mental health issues his entire life, chose not to stay and cooperate in the investigation, but instead flee the city.

And, after that, we discussed Conforth’s life as a young man in New Jersey in the late 1950s, and how he came to discover Izzy’s Young’s Folklore Center at 110 MacDougal Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village, right next door to the Gaslight Cafe, where Conforth would see the likes of Son House and Mississippi John Hurt perform, thus beginning his evolution away from folk and toward the blues. [He describes Mississippi John Hurt as being a mix of Yoda and ET.] We talked about the early New York folk scene, his memories of a young Bobby Zimmerman writing songs on Young’s typewriter at the back of the Folklore Center, and his friendship with Dave Van Ronk, who would later be immortalized in the Cohen brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis. [The film did not ring true, Conforth noted, saying that Van Ronk’s book, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, was much better.]

After saying that he decided against publishing a tell-all book about the launch of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for fear that it would define him the rest of his life, I wasn’t sure that Conforth would want to say too much about the time that he’d spent traveling between the record industry execs in New York and the Cleveland business owners who funded the construction of the museum, but, once the subject was broached, Conforth didn’t hold back. We talked about the origins of the Hall of Fame, and about the bad blood between the record industry executives in New York and the business people in Cleveland who put up the money. The New York board didn’t want to put the museum in Cleveland, Confourth said. It’s just that Cleveland was the only city that came up with the financing package to make it happen. The record industry people hated that it was there, and that, according to Conforth, is why only two induction ceremonies have ever been held there, which pisses off the Cleveland board to no end. And it was Conforth’s job to travel between these two dysfunctional boards, and try to make something happen. While he refrained from naming names for the most part, he did mention his first meeting with Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, just a week after getting the job as curator. Wenner, says Conforth, was behind a giant desk in the corner of an enormous office. As he walked the 30 yards toward him, according to Conforth, Wenner put his bare feet up on the desk and said, “Now do you know where the power lays.” And, it would seem, this was just the tip of the iceberg. The whole enterprise, as Conforth tells it, was “unbelievably corrupt” and driven by the heads of record labels who either wanted their people in, or to keep others out. Speaking of which, Conforth told us that a very senior record label guy once told him, “the Moody Blues will never get in.” It didn’t matter that they defined the art rock genre, they apparently crossed the wrong person, and that was it. [They’ve yet to even be nominated.]

As for why Conforth decided to open up about the experience, it may have had something to do with the fact that, just days before, Steve Miller, who had just been inducted into the Hall of Fame, said the following to the press. “This whole industry fucking sucks and this little get-together you guys have here is like a private boys’ club,” Miller said, “and it’s a bunch of jackasses and jerks and fucking gangsters and crooks who’ve fucking stolen everything from a fucking artist.” Conforth, who told us that he’d fought to get Miller inducted when he was on the Hall of Fame’s nominating committee years ago, said he was happy that he stood up and told the world how it really is.

And then we talked about the new biography of Robert Johnson that he’s working on with Gayle Dean Wardlow. [Conforth currently sits on the Executive Board of the Robert Johnson Blues Foundation, in addition to being the Director of the Blues Heritage Foundation.] Conforth promised that it will be the most exhaustive book on Johnson ever published, and we went into his research at some length. We talked about the myth surrounding Johnson, and the difficulty of disentangling fact from fiction now, almost 80 years after the iconic king of the delta blues died at the age of 27. We talked about the individual stories and how, going back to first person interviews and original documents, he was able to discern the truth. We talked about the seven months Johnson studied with Ike Zimmerman, who was one of th best guitarists in Mississippi at the time, and how the story of his having sold his soul to the devil probably got started. I ask if, by demystifying the man, it might hurt his legend. Con forth replied with a no. It’ll make him more human, he said. It’s an incredible story, he says, both heartbreaking and tragic… Oh, and if you don’t listen to anything else, you should listen to the part when Conforth reacts to the suggestion made by some that Johnson’s recorded tracks were all sped up 20%. [Let’s just say that Conforth doesn’t ascribe to the theory.]

And we ended the segment with Conforth, an accomplished musician himself, playing a few songs on his guitar, and demonstrating different regional variants of the blues. [On his sonic tour, Conforth gives examples of the east coast piedmont style, which is more piano and ragtime oriented, the more thumping Texas style, which relies on the bass of the “dead thumb”, and the Mississippi delta blues, as personified by Robert Johnson, who, Corforth tells us, was the first to incorporate the riff.]

There was a lot more… I remember, for instance, that we talked about Nickleback… But you really should just listen. It was really an incredible conversation… Here’s Conforth taking us to blues school.

[If you would like to listen to episode 44 of The Saturday Six Pack, you can either download it from iTunes or scroll the bottom of the page, where you’ll find the Soundcloud file embedded.]

Then, after a new song called “Lost Serenade” by our friend Pete Larson in Osaka, we were joined in the studio by Frank Uhle, the man behind the Festival of Found Films from the Vault, which took place the day after the episode aired at Bona Sera. Uhler and I discussed our personal experiences with found films, the treasure trove of instructional films he recently acquired from the Askwith Media Library, and why it is that he feels compelled to share things like 1951’s Improve Your Personality and the completely bewildering My Snowman’s Burning Down with strangers. [I also share a traumatic memory from my youth during this segment!]

And, after our discussion about found films, we were joined by our old friend Jim Cherewick, who I’d brought onto the show to apologize to. [The last time Jim joined us was the night that The Patti Smith Group’s Ivan Kral was on, and I didn’t let him say a single word. And, the time before that, we forced him against his will to perform the Ted Nugent song Fred Bear.] For the most part, we just drank beer and chatted, but Jim also played a few songs for us, and, at some point, ran out to his car for his portfolio, so we could flip through his drawings together. Oh, and Dylan Beckwith, of the band Soft Milk, popped in at some point and attempted to hijack the show… Here’s Jim making beautiful music.

[At some point during the show, I mention the fact that people are watching us from the rooftop across the street. Here, in case you’re interested, is photographic evidence.]

Thanks, as always, to AM 1700 for hosting the show and station owner Brian Robb for running the board, making sure the bills paid, and insuring that the toilet paper and bleach stays stocked… Oh, and extra special thanks to Cindy Hudson for introducing me to Bruce Conforth and making this episode possible.

If you like this episode, check out our archive of past shows at iTunes. And do please leave a review if you have the time, OK? It’s nice to know that people are listening, and, unless you call in, that’s pretty much the only way we know.

Now, if you haven’t already, please listen for yourself, and experience the magic firsthand.

[Episode 44 of the Saturday Six Pack was recorded live on April 16, 2016, in historic downtown Ypsilanti, Michigan, in the studies of AM1700 Radio.]

Posted in Art and Culture, The Saturday Six Pack, Uncategorized | Tagged African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The Lawrence Gellert Story, Alan Lomax, bare feet, biographies, Blues, Bob Dylan, Bruce Conforth, Cap'n You're So Mean, Cindy Hudson, Cleveland, Cohen brothers, corruption, curation, Dave Van Ronk, Dylan Beckwith, estival of Found Films from the Vault, Etan Patz, ethnomusicology, field recordings, folk, found film, Frank Uhle, Frank Uhler, Gaslight Cafe, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Greenwich Village, Ike Zimmerman, Indiana University, Inside Llewyn Davis, Ivan Kral, Izzy's Young, Izzy's Young's Folklore Center, Jann Wenner, Jazz, Jim Cherewick, John Lomax, kidnapping, Lawrence Gellert, Lead Belly, Mississippi John Hurt, Moody Blues, Nobody Knows My Name, Pete Larson, power trips, record industry, Robert Johnson, Rock and Roll, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Rolling Stone, Soft Milk, Son House, Steve Miller, The Mayor of MacDougal Street | 12 Comments

Celebrating the Fourth of July with Howard Zinn and Frederick Douglass

By Mark | July 4, 2016

I marched in the Ypsi 4th of July parade this morning. If I didn’t wave back to you, I’m sorry. I had my hands full making sure that Arlo didn’t get too close to the SUV in front of us, which I believe contained someone seeking elected office. Here we are, fulfilling our patriot obligation. Next year, assuming we’re invited back, we’ll be dressed in matching, super patriotic ensembles.

[Photo courtesy Mike “the G is for g-string” G.]

As I went directly from the parade to a New Belgium Brewing event at Cultivate, I’m not able form coherent thoughts at the moment… Here, however, is something I posted a few years ago about the Fourth of July. I think it still rings true today…

In spite of the warrantless phone tapping, the daily drone strikes, and the fact that wealth is rapidly concentrating in the hands of just a few, I actually love America. For all of its flaws, I think we’ve created something truly unique and beautiful here… something worth fighting for. It’s an extremely fragile thing, this nation of ours, and I don’t know how long we’ll be able to manage it, but it’s awesome that, for generations, we’ve been a beacon for fairness and equality, and I truly appreciate that. And I’m happy to have been given an opportunity to raise my family here. We may not always live up to the promise, but, for the most part, we do the right thing when it matters, and we continue to move forward. With that said, though, I’m not terribly keen on blind patriotism, and the belief that we were somehow singled out by God for greatness.

What we’ve been able to achieve isn’t thanks to God having chosen us. It’s thanks to the men who risked their lives to sign the Declaration of Independence. It’s thanks to the suffragettes who went on hunger strikes to secure the vote for women. It’s thanks to the young black men and women who sat down at segregated lunch counters and refused to leave. And it’s thanks to the millions who gave up everything they had in other countries in order to come here and be a part of this great American experiment.

I’m reminded of a comment made several years ago by historian Howard Zinn, the author of A People’s History of the United States. “On this July 4,” he said, “we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.”

The belief that your country is somehow inherently better than every other country on the globe because God somehow favors us is dangerous, and it’s a disservice to all those great Americans who gave their lives to ensure that we remain a representative democracy dedicated to equality and the protection of individual rights. A true patriot, in my opinion, is someone who is constantly questioning his or here country, and demanding that we stay true to the belief that all people are created equal, not just those of us who wave flags and wear t-shirts declaring our patriotism.

And, it’s with that in mind, that I pass along the following quote from abolitionist Frederick Douglass, spoken 154 years ago today, on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York.

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

Those, to me, are the words of a true patriot.

And today, as we celebrate our nation’s founding, this is why I’m thinking of the men and women fighting to get the money out of politics and end corporate personhood more than I am about parades, flags and fireworks. That’s what true patriotism looks like.

Posted in History, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged A People's History of the United States, Fourth of July, Frederick Douglass, God, Howard Zinn, nationalism, parades | 9 Comments

Totally Quotable Arlo: Velvet Underground edition

By Mark | July 2, 2016

This morning, while Linette and Clementine were out running errands, Arlo and I spent a little time cleaning up his bedroom. And, because he’s too young to know of any music that isn’t my music, we listened to Wire’s Pink Flag and The Velvet Underground & Nico. For the post part he just sat and quietly played with legos as I swept under his bed, put away his clothes, and sorted all of his toys into various boxes. While he didn’t sing along, he also didn’t complain, which I took as a victory. After hearing The Velvet’s perform Heroin, though, he stopped what he was doing for a moment and said the following to me.

[The original image accompanying this post contained a misspelled word. To my knowledge, this was the first instance of misspelling on this site. I give you my word that it will never happen again.]

If you’re curious as to how I trained Arlo to sit through entire Velvet Underground albums without complaint, I think it’s mostly conditioning. In accordance with cool dad protocol, he’s been listening to my favorite records since he was about one week old. [Infants, it’s been my experience, can warm up to anything – even Captain Beefheart – if you expose them to it while they’re breastfeeding.] Also, last summer, I locked Arlo and his sister in the Velvet Underground room at the Andy Warhol Museum for several hours while I drank at the bar downstairs.

[If you’ve got a few extra minutes, check out our Totally Quotable Arlo archive.]