Good morning,
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’
The Golden State is more than a place. It is the closest thing to paradise in the United States…with great weather, a vibrant and diverse culture, and great innovation. The state’s forefront in our culture has spawned an entire industry of songs telling of the state’s greatness (and some of its emptiness). I once made a list of these and many of you added your additional suggestions. I thought it was a good list of well-known favorites. What I’ve learned over the years is that quirky is good and comprehensive might be better, but overkill may actually detract. That’s the case when trying to find each and every song, regardless of quality or popularity. Thank you, Leslie Mayer, for forwarding along this definitive list of California-themed music, a new example of excess, from The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/us/california-songs-playlist.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
THE TINY LITTLE MINORITY
From David Berkey, a response to my Musing about all the controversy surrounding Kanye, Kyrie and Dave Chappelle. As a reminder, my view is that we need to point out virulent antisemitism that incites people to violence or seeks to further hateful tropes. But we also need to occasionally accept inappropriate humor as being just that, and not focus on punishing or “reeducating” the perpetrators. Instead, we should seek common ground with them and communicate with them. Here’s David’s perspective:
“The Jewish population worldwide is but 15.3M, with 6.5M living in Israel and 7.6M living in the United States. Of the 7.6M almost 5M live in but six states (New York, California, Florida, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania)… This number represents less than .02% of the world’s (as of last week) 8 billion people. While not the smallest ethnic group on earth – the Naxi people of China claim that designation with approximately 2,000 soulss – Jews are certainly well down on the list on par with native Hawaiians and Uyghurs, 12.8M of which live in China…Taking these numbers into account, it is hard to understand why the Jewish people are even a concern, but clearly there is something to all of this – an over 4,000 year sample set is plenty big in my estimation.”
“The fact that Jews have had an outsized role in community and world affairs, business, entertainment, etc. certainly is one factor in the ongoing animosity of which you speak. Perhaps the fact that Jews are such a small group has made them/us an easy target for prejudice and hatred. The long-held belief (in the entertainment world) that the entertainment world is at the center of the universe no doubt adds fuel to the fire as this even smaller community owns the loudest megaphone…”
“I am not sure where I am going with all this, but you are definitely on to something with the theme of this morning’s Musing, something I call a ‘Glennism.’ We the people of planet earth must (sine qua non) stop carrying on these senseless vendettas of hate against this group or that and come together to for the greater good. There is simply no other way. That doesn’t mean we should stop having a sense of humor and laughing about the world’s absurdities... We obviously cannot and should not stick our heads in the sand in the face of injustice, but also should not give those injustices the voice they seek by calling out the likes of Kanye West, or whatever he calls himself, Dave Chappelle and others because by doing so we are only amplifying their message of divisiveness across the forever echoing frontier of cyber space, thereby perpetuating the underlying hatred jealousy for generations to come.”
THE WORLD CUP
Bob LaMeres asks: “Was wondering if you’re going to opine about the World Cup and how you tell 1.97 billion people their cultural norms aren’t acceptable by their former colonial/imperialists masters. A sticky wicket.”
I actually don’t think this is so sticky. Bob’s observation is right. Qatar follows Islam’s prohibition of alcohol. Fans of the World Cup are welcome to attend games this year and cheer on their teams. They just aren’t welcome to order the 32 ounce can of beer typically found at sporting events and get sloppy drunk cheering their teams. We should honor and respect the traditions of our hosts.
But while we’re talking about the World Cup, there are other factors here beyond whether an English League thug can consume alcohol. For instance, it defies credulity that the Cup is being played in a country without a long history in the sport with typical temperatures north of 100 degrees. As such, the games, typically played in Summer, were moved to November to accommodate the host nation (the temperatures are “only” in the high-80s and 90s this week). The later timing necessitates overlap with other league tournaments and schedules, putting players at increased risk of injury.
But the real shame of this year’s World Cup is the corruption surrounding Qatar’s successful bid for the event and the human cost of the accelerated construction of facilities in a country that lacked them, in grueling heat and substandard working and living conditions. Of note, Qatar was granted the Cup after being more or less laughed out of consideration early in the process by those considering the bid. The Cup was awarded by many of the same people. A good number of them have since been banned from the sport. Further, beyond Qatar’s inadequate infrastructure is a history of human rights abuses (including continued application of “conversion therapy”), which ultimately manifest itself in many deaths of foreign workers working under standards that would be unacceptable to OSHA. According to one of the Qatari organizers, between 400 and 500 foreign workers died during the construction of the facilities.
For a good summary of the travesty that led to this year’s World Cup choice and the costs in lives, increased risk, corruption, and damage to the reputation of the sport and this event, here’s a decent summary from NPR: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/18/1137204271/qatar-world-cup-controversies
It’s not about the beer…
Have a great day,
Glenn
From the archives:
Hi Glenn - that list is the worst! I can barely look at it. I did note that Sinatra has a song called California, and I did not know that. I also noticed, among many other ridiculous entries, that Cash's Folsom Prison Blues makes the list. A song about a prison that happens to be in California!! Why not throw in Albert King's Laundromat Blues since there are laundromats in California?
A good list (mix, actually) should go for a unifying theme, demonstrating or building the myth about the topic. One can do CA from the Bay Area standpoint of Grateful Dead, hippies, wine country, maybe throw in Big Sur. The East Coast working class myth can be expressed by Springsteen (of course!), John Mellencamp, Woodie Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and several others.
But the real CA feel, to me, residing in the LA area, is sand, surf, girls, cars, and innocence. Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, many other surf bands. A surf mix. Which I have done. If one wants to add other Southern California dimensions then throw in Steely Dan, The Doors and the wide area of folk/rock artists that, during the late 60's and early 70's, made their way to the Troubadour club. Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Brown.
The given list, based on the broadest theme possible - anything at all to do with CA - is, as you have pointed out, very weak tea.