Altercation

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called, believe it or not, "I'll See Your Testicles...' (Catfight on the Right)" and it's here. (though perhaps they changed the title later in the day)

Also, I did an op-ed on the move away from AIPAC-style politics for American Jews for the IHT, which is up on the NYT site, here.

Classified section: I'm selling fifty or so Miles Davis cds--everything on Columbia during the key period--mostly in beautiful box sets, etc, and would love to sell the whole thing as a package. Email if genuinely interested. Also, I have two lousy seats for Bruce on 11/8 and one for 11/7 I need to get rid of. Email below....

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October 16, 2009

People Who Died...

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called, believe it or not, "'I'll See Your Testicles...' (Catfight on the Right)" and it's here.

Also, I did an op-ed on the move away from AIPAC-style politics for American Jews for the International Herald Tribune, which is up on the New York Times site, here.

I'm getting to the age where the obituary pages are really starting to bum me out.  Wasn't AL MARTINO wonderful in the GF? Wasn't NAN ROBERTSON brave to go after the Times the way she did? Wasn't Stuart Kaminsky a fun read? But here is the one that really got to me. Captain Lou Albano. What a great guy, even better in reality than in the "ring" or on the sidelines as the manager of the great Bruno Sanmartino. But how could Mr. Goldstein omit the greatest tribute to Lou from this otherwise loving obit? It's Psychedelic Pandemonium.

Speaking of obits, did I mention that I was briefly in a reading group with Jim Carroll. Really nice guy. He never heard the Drive-By-Truckers' version of "People Who Died" and so I played it for him on my iPod. So history moves forward...

"Gonna Huey, Dewey, and Louie all over the room." Who's for legalizing sex with ducks? Me, David Rudd, and Garfunkel and Oates (but I hope not that juvenile druggist/anal rapist, Roman Polanski.

(By the way, did you notice that the above ducks all have rhyming names spelled totally differently?  Awesome, huh?)

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October 15, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new Think Again column called "CBS and Dan Rather--Doing the Right's Dirty Work," and it's here.

My Nation column, "Where have you gone, William Safire?" is here.

Sal's got an interview with Hall & Oates and Pierce follows below, which is followed by more mail. Now here's Sal:

Alter-reviews: New H & O Box Set.

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October 9, 2009

Sea of Heartbreak

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new Think Again column called "CBS and Dan Rather--Doing the Right's Dirty Work," and it's here.

My Nation column, "Where have you gone, William Safire?" is here.

The worst day of the Obama campaign for me was the day I got an email saying "Vote Charlie Rangel for Change." My congressman is quite properly a symbol of everything people hate about the Democratic Establishment and they are cowards for trying to sweep this away. If anyone can imagine a better symbol of corruption that a guy who can't be bothered to pay taxes on the resort he owns in foreign country--who gives the excuse that they were speaking Spanish to him when half his district is Spanish speaking--writing the goddam tax laws that the rest of us losers have to follow, I'd be mighty impressed... I wrote this column in December 2008, things have only gotten worse.

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October 8, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

We've got a new "Think Again" column called called "Kevin Jennings, the Mainstream Media, and Right-Wing Target Practice." Read it here. Now here's Pierce:

CHARLES PIERCE
NEWTON, MA.

Hey Doc:

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October 2, 2009

Wrecking Ball

By Eric Alterman

I've got a new "Think Again" column called called "Kevin Jennings, the Mainstream Media, and Right-Wing Target Practice." Read it here.

Also, I'll be doing an event next week on October 8 at Demos with Rich Benjamin, who's just written a book called "Searching for Whitopia" which you can read about here.

I should have mentioned that I was speaking at the Glory Days conference last weekend at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. I had a really nice time meeting Springsteen-interested academics, musicians, and interested parties. We had a really interesting discussion. I strongly recommend the next one. I did not give a formal paper, but I found the one offered by Jim Cullen, which you can find here to be enormously thought provoking and indicative of the excellent quality of many of the presentations. Joe Grusheky, Jen Chapin, Gary US Bonds and many others performed. I was also quite happy to discover a new book of photos and essays called The Light in Darkness which made me painfully, but happily, nostalgic about the 1978 tour, one of the greatest experiences of my life. The photos of the tour are fantastic and while the essays naturally vary in quality, some of them are real gems. "It was like lightning flashing through the darkness and the band was the thunder," writes Ron Wells. "I had never seen any performer so full of energy and joy. He was definitely on a mission. This was not just a gig for him; it was freedom and exhilaration personified." It's on large format 9.25" x 12" EuroArt Silk 200m paper stock and contains more than 200 photographs reproduced from the original negatives and slides. The book is only available online for purchase at: www.thelightindarkness.com. (Bruce is doing Darkness in its entirety Friday night at Giants' Stadium. He did Born to Run last night. It was awfully moving, after all these years. And he wrote a new song just for these shows, "Wrecking Ball." You can see it here…and if you want to hear Bruce discuss the pain of turning sixty, inside the "rap" portion of "Growing Up," that's here.

Now here's Sal on Rhino's new box set: Where the Action Is

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October 1, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

Wrapup: Our Think Again column is called "Falling for the Far Right's ACORN Agenda" and deals with the manner in which the MSM got rolled by right-wing re-working vis-a-vis ACORN. You can find it here. My Nation column this week is called "The House that Irving Built."

Alter-review:

Loudon and Charlie again: I wrote this little squib for TBD on the new (and beautifully packaged) Loudon Wainwright tribute to Charlie Poole, High, Wide and Handsome, which Sal reviewed so favorably here a couple of weeks ago here.

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September 25, 2009

What We Talk About When We Talk About ACORN

By Eric Alterman

Wrapup: Our Think Again column is called "Falling for the Far Right's ACORN Agenda" and deals with the manner in which the MSM got rolled by right wing re-working vis-a-vis ACORN. You can find it here. My Nation column this week is called "The House that Irving Built."

Alter-reviews: Raymond Carver, Thorton Wilder and Big Star. My friends at the Library of America have finally gotten around to Raymond Carver and collected all his stories in, you guessed it, Collected Stories, edited by William L. Stull and Maureen P. Carroll

Based on previous collections such as Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral and Where I'm Calling From, Carver established himself as the short story writer of his moment. That they are all in one place would be reason enough to want this on your shelf--even, if as I do, you have the paperback somewhere. LOA decided to offer up the pre-Gordon Lish version of Beginners, the manuscript of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and it's revelatory in the extensiveness of the collaboration between writer and editor--one that was a source of both inspiration and anguish to Carver, whom I met once, and struck me as a really decent, albeit sad, man. LOA has also published a bunch of novels and stories by Thornton Wilder: The Cabala * The Bridge of San Luis Rey * The Woman of Andros * Heaven's My Destination * The Ides of March * Stories and Essays, which were edited by J. D. McClatchy. Most of us know Wilder for his plays (which LOA has also published). These are, therefore, a wonderful surprise, and a perfect example of why we need a LOA, lest they be lost to us if publishing depended purely on profit. The volume concludes with a selection of early short stories--among them "Precautions Inutiles," published here for the first time--and a selection of essays that offers Wilder's insights into the works of Stein and Joyce, as well as a lecture on letter writers that bears on both The Bridge of San Luis Rey and The Ides of March.

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September 24, 2009

Slacker Friday

By Eric Alterman

I've got a new Think Again called "The Conspiracy Nuts Take Over," which compares media coverage of "truthers" vs. "birthers" and you can find it here.

Also, my old friend and history professor, Dick Polenberg is continuing to host his web-based Slope Radio program on the blues and folk music. Called "Key to the Highway," it's back at its old time slot: from 7 to 8 pm on Wednesdays. The shows are archived, though, so you can hear them whenever you wish. All of the past programs - more than thirty of them--are also still available and I think they are our kind of thing.

You can log on at the following site. No username or password is necessary.

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September 18, 2009

You Say You Want a Revolution...

By Eric Alterman

I've got a new Think Again called "The Conspiracy Nuts Take Over," which compares media coverage of "truthers" vs. "birthers" and you can find it here. (Mickey is a former student of mine at Brooklyn College).

That's all I did this week, but do take a look at Victor Navasky's letter (in and about TNR) here together with the two pathetic responses it generated, and muse for a moment, on the relative moral merits of each publication as represented by Mr. Peretz and The Nation's publisher emeritus.

Now here's a post by Reed Richardson, a former military officer who was once my student at Columbia and my intern at The Nation.

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September 17, 2009