Radar Love

By Lillith Branwen We live in interesting times. Our schedules are packed, with every minute of our day taken up with something important. At the same time, we are more sedentary than ever before. We are in our cars or in front of our computers for long hours each day. When we have a little “free time” we tend to spend it with family or friends. For many, meeting new people is increasingly difficult. Enter the Internet. As we turn to cyberspace in growing numbers for our shopping, information and entertainment, we are also looking there for social interaction. I’ve met people from all over the world through professional forums and music fan sites, and I count some of them as friends, though we’ve never met in person. Obviously, I’m not alone in this. For better or worse, the Internet has changed the way we meet and interact with others in a profound way. According to a 2003 study by Jupiter Research, online dating sites attract about 20�f the U.S. Internet population, with the market for those sites showing growth of about 19�o far in 2004. Last year Jupiter estimated that 17.2 million people viewed online personals each month and 2.5 million of them paid for online ads. In 2006, Jupiter predicts, 27.4 million will view online personals and 5.2 million will pay for ads. Meeting people the “new” fashioned way.Thirty-eight million Americans can’t be wrong, can they? (Some would say that depends on your politics, but that can be saved for a different story.) Another study by the Bloodhound Network reports that Internet dating is the fastest area of online growth. Its’ estimates for the number of people visiting online dating sites each month is even higher than Jupiter’s, at thirty-eight million. In our hectic lives, it is appealing to be able skip the bars and the blind dates. Meeting people online allows you to anonymously shop for an ideal partner without a large investment of your time or emotions. Most of us know someone who has tried a hand at online dating. Like all forms of the mating dance, it works for some people but not as well for others. Some people give up after a few failed attempts, while others seem to have enough luck right away to keep plugging away for months, or better yet to settle down with a new partner to pursue a lasting relationship. Wedding Rings…Christina and Aaron Ring are one such “success” story. Christina has been meeting people on the Web since the early days of the AOL chat room and has made lots of friends through various political and social bulletin boards. She says she loves the opportunity to meet people from different places and cultures. “There’s really no feeling that you need to censor yourself or ‘dress up’ in order to gain attention… the online public’s opinion of you is based entirely on how you present yourself verbally.” Her openness paid off when she joined SocialNet.com in 2000. As a […]

Nina Simone moves Holly Blue

by Nina Simone 21st Birthday April 5th, 1996 “Do you quiver, from your head down to your liver?” – Nina Simone The weather was beautful today. Cold, but the sun was shining on us like a goddamn hero. My senses were all standing on edge, soaking in every detail as I nearly became part of color and sound. The “synchronicity of life”, which Dad speaks so highly of, was so apparent to me. The intimacy of me I’d almost forgotten if it weren’t for my two best friends, some edible fungus, and Nina Simone. It was the best day ever. We spent the daylight sharing our stories, ugly girl truths and all. We danced to Nina, laughed and moved things with our eyes. And when we were coming down my girl’s sang happy birthday to me, after which we toasted our love for womankind with champagne and strawberry’s. Later that evening I could still feel the drug lingering throughout my body. From the intensity in my chest to the electricity in my toes, I knew I was alive. I knew love was with me even though I’d never been more alone (ie. without a boy) in my entire life. I felt a calm, peaceful understanding of myself that I’d never allowed before today. Fully connected with my beauty and vitality, I realized my need as a woman, to appreciate it all, even the desparation of heartache. The same heartache I hear in Nina’s voice, the voice of every woman, vulnerable and strong.

Technology Gifts for that Special Geek Each year it seems as though the hype for a few products jumps through the roof. Remember Cabbage Patch Kids, Teletubbies and Elmo? And for the over-kindergarten set, Trivial Pursuit, the Star Wars VHS box set and UGG boots have all had their time in the sun. But these days, it’s technology gadgets that make our holiday hearts go pitter-pat. In 2003, techno-gifts topped shopper’s lists. This year that trend is expected to continue, with more products available at better prices. What a relief for those nice moms and aunties who, in the past, have struggled to bond with the geeks they love through gifts of high-end calculators and heavy duty pocket protectors! Depending on your budget for that special nerd in your life, there’s something out there for everyone. In an extremely unscientific poll, we asked at least six people (geeks and regular folks) what they wanted for the holidays, gadget-wise. Here are the three that scored highest on the ole’ coolness chart. Digital Music DevicesHands-down, portable music and their respective hardware devices was the clear leader, with Apple being the favorite brand (based on our “poll,” sales data and various chat rooms we visited). Choose between the regular iPod and the iPod Mini, both of which enable you to carry around more music than you’d find at a jukebox convention.To help you pick a player, check out the features of each. iPod Mini:Price: $249.00 Storage: 4 GB (1,000 songs)Weight: 3.6 ouncesSoftware: Mac and Windows compatibleExtras: Calendar, games, contact lists, notes and other file storage. iPod:Price: $299-$599Storage: 20, 40 or 60 GB (5,000 to 15,000 songs)Weight: 5.6 ouncesSoftware: Mac and Windows compatibleExtras: Everything the Mini has, plus to-do lists and multiple language support. Record voice notes and store up to 25,000 photographs with accessory purchase (40 and 60 GB models only). But wait! Mighty Apple may have some competition in the Rio Carbon. Priced around $225, CNet’s Charles Kim says this is the player that will finally give the iPod a run for its money. With 5 GB of storage (about 1,250 songs), the Rio Carbon is a great choice for those who have a lot of Windows Media files, or don’t want to be restricted to Apple’s online music store. The 3-ounce Carbon bests the Mini in capacity and undercuts its price and weight. ConsumerSearch.com testers squeezed 20 hours of battery life out of the Carbon-more than twice as much as the Mini. They also complimented the player’s sound and sleekness. Blockbuster who?A subscription to Netflix is a great gift for anyone that loves movies. Most who join the service swear they will never step foot into another movie rental store. And with Netflix, you’ll never pay another late fee! If you’re not familiar with Netflix, it’s a subscription-based DVD rental portal on the Internet. You sign-up for a flat fee (try a 15-day free trial), then order as many movies from their website as you’d like, which they send you, three […]

The Needless Oppression of Ideological Gridlock

By John Hughes I was viewing the movie Motorcycle Diaries recently, watching Che Guevara’s revolutionary consciousness incubate, and I became reflective. Sitting in the dark, I began to wonder what a Great Liberator would look like if he or she arrived in America in 2004. From what would that Che, or that Gandhi, or that Malcolm X, liberate us? By what are we oppressed? Anything? Anyone? Under the spell of that movie, I made a natural jump from South America in 1952 to today. I rummaged through the causes and issues that need a serious boost:  the environment, violence, the economy (global and domestic), health care (which is becoming apocalyptically expensive) and America’s frighteningly imperialistic stance towards the rest of the world. But somehow, as I sat holding a good woman’s hand, watching the scene where Che’s best friend danced with a nun, I realized that more than specific relief in any one of our many tactical pain points, we as a nation are in need of liberation from our ideological gridlock. I certainly don’t mean that progressives should give away the store just so they can get along with conservatives. I don’t mean that anyone should back away from a good fight, a good debate, a rousing contest of wills. I don’t mean that we should airbrush differences of opinion in the popular arena, for the sake of a faux national unity. But I do mean something. If a Great Liberator were to come along now, I’d want that person to liberate America from the fact that we are in serious danger of becoming two permanently estranged halves, in a muted civil war for the rest of history. We need deliverance from this fate so we may continue to live out Abraham Lincoln’s dream of harboring, in his immortal words of1865, “malice toward none,” and “charity toward all.” The day after I watched that movie, I was eating lunch with a colleague from my day job, and we invited a brand new acquaintance to join us.  This new acquaintance, Tracy, was a warm, empathic woman with a soft laugh. I liked her and we had a nice conversation. My colleague Helen eventually got around to discussing George W. Bush supporters in a stingingly frank manner. She lampooned suburban soccer moms in Hummers, screaming from the sidelines dressed in sweaters and pearls. I joined in, mentioning that often-seen sticker affixed to the back of redneck trucks, of a Ford boy peeing on the Chevy logo, and compared it to Bush’s attitude toward the rest of the world. Helen chipped in with some sort of adjective, like “pathetic” or “disgusting.” We shared a laugh. Tracy wasn’t laughing. She’d grown silent, and watched us through a frozen smile, with eyes glazed. She was a Bush supporter, no doubt, and our friendship with her, ten minutes old, was cut off at the pass. She hasn’t eaten with us again. We are at risk of becoming a nation of two ideological poles, and it’s […]

A Reality Check on the Values Voter

By Paul McLeary In the last few weeks, there has been much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments among the “reality-based community” about the great new albatross supposedly hanging around the Democratic party’s neck: The Values Voter. As with so many other dumbed-down media constructions (think “Security Mom” or “Nascar Dad”), the sheer intellectual laziness and utter sophistry of the media’s lunging groupthink is here on full display. While it would be foolish to claim that that there isn’t a core group of socially conservative Americans who vote with one hand placed firmly on their Bible, it’s another thing entirely to promote this vocal minority into the stratosphere of the major voting blocs. The history of this supposedly new group can be traced back to a single question in the Election Day exit poll. Question J asked: “Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?” The answers ran as follows: Education, four percent; Taxes, five percent; Health Care, eight percent; Iraq, 15 percent; Terrorism, 19 percent; Economy and Jobs, 20 percent and the kicker, Moral Values, 22 percent. Yes, moral values had the highest ranking, but just what does it mean to say that people hold moral values to be important? Are they against lying? Cheating? Liberal Hollywood? Adultery? War? Running the numbers.What are we asking when we ask about moral values? Given the exit poll’s muddy terminology, it would probably be helpful if we combine the poll’s choices in a more logical way – grouping them into categories. After all, education, taxes, etc. are incredibly specific answers, while moral values allows for quite a bit of wiggle room in its interpretation. For example, grouping “war issues” (Iraq and terrorism) together, we find that 34 percent of voters felt they were the most important issues facing the country, while economic issues (economy and jobs, taxes, health care) clocks in at 33 percent. When looked at this way, moral values bring up the rear at 22 percent. It seems that despite all the post-election revisionism, the issue Americans are still most concerned about is the war and the West’s fight against violent Islamic fundamentalism. And there’s plenty more where that came from. Remember those weepy Democrats saying that it was gay marriage that sunk Kerry’s chances? Turns out, that wasn’t quite right, either. As Alan Abramowitz over at the Donkey Rising blog reported, “In 11 states with gay marriage referenda on the ballot, the president increased his share of the vote from an average of 55.4 percent in 2000 to an average of 58.0 percent in 2004 – an improvement of 2.6 percentage points. However, in the rest of the country, the president increased his share of the vote from an average of 48.1 percent in 2000 to an average of 51.0 percent in 2004 – an improvement of 2.9 percentage points.” Digging even deeper, we find that voters who cited moral issues as most important gave their votes overwhelmingly to Bush (80 percent to 18 […]

Mark Metcalf is the Accidental Actor

Mark Metcalf had been supporting himself as an actor for over ten years before he realized that he really was one. “All during that first decade” he says, “I kept thinking I was going back to the West Coast to get my degree in Marine Biology.” Metcalf, a stage, film and television actor, director, film producer, and now also Mequon restaurant owner and morning radio show regular, was born in Ohio in 1946. After moving to New Jersey with his family in 1959, Metcalf returned to the Midwest to pursue a degree in Engineering at the University of Michigan. It was there he discovered acting. At his roommates’ urging, he auditioned for a theater department production. His motives weren’t entirely pure. “I was convinced when they suggested that the girls in the theater department would be a lot, um, friendlier, than the girls in the engineering department.” He laughs. At 58, Mark is distinguished, a veteran of both his profession and parenthood. Tallish and thin, his dark blond hair is a little long and his attire tasteful, favoring earth tones. He quickly assures me that it only took seconds for his motivations to shift entirely. “I fell in love with acting instantly when I walked into the green room and saw all these people together, laughing and fighting and arguing one minute, and making love on the couch the next. All the vital emotions were right there out in the open. It was a world I had been craving and needing, without knowing it.” Mark was hooked. He moved to New York in the early ’70s and performed in both classical and modern theater. He eventually moved out West to work in film. In 1978, he earned a permanent place in pop culture history as crew-cut fraternity jerk Doug Neidermeyer in National Lampoon’s Animal House. I asked him how he dealt with instant celebrity. “I was thinking moment to moment at the time. After the movie was done, I took almost two years off to produce my own film. I know now that had I continued to act through that period when I was the “hottest,” things may have turned out differently as far as my acting career.”  That film was Chilly Scenes of Winter, also released as Head Over Heels. It was a good film, but not a big commercial success. He’s done other directing and producing projects, and continued to act on stage, but the two other roles he’s best known for emanated from the small screen – as The Maestro on Seinfeld and The Master on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. But Mark was unhappy as a television actor. It was a grind, he says, like any day job. Work wasn’t generally awarded on merit, and the professional challenge was, in his words, “less than zero.” When his son was six, he and the boy’s mother, Libby, a Wisconsin native, decided to head back this way. They wanted a healthy place for him to grow up, and knew […]

By Laura Martin I have always been the type that fought for what I believe in, and this year, there was an inferno lit under my butt. I have watched the last four years as funding has been cut from our education system; I have cringed as the American people were told of a great new program to protect the environment with cleaner air and water that somehow allows for more mercury emissions; my heart has hurt over the injustices suggested by limiting people’s right to live their lives, whether it is an attack on a woman’s right to choose or an individual’s right to marry. This is my story. So I decided to get up off my seat and do something about it. At first, I spent time talking to anyone who would listen. I then worked to register voters. During this process, I was completely non-partisan, as I had vowed to be under oath. As the election drew near, I focused on canvassing door-to-door in my neighborhood. After working eight hours at my day job-the one that pays the bills-I would come home, change clothes and hit the streets. This is how I spent all my free time in the five weeks leading up to the election. I had entirely put my life on hold. My friends and family were understanding and didn’t pressure me to spend time with them, as time was dear. They would have to wait. I hope my nieces will someday understand why I wasn’t there for their soccer games, but nothing-I mean nothing-was going to get in my way. In October, things seemed hopeful. Everywhere I turned, I saw lawn signs encouraging a “regime change;” bumper stickers urging “protect our environment: plant a Bush in Texas” and pins professing “Don’t tell me who to love, and I won’t tell you where to go.” I had vowed to do everything I could ensure an administration change, and I did. But it wasn’t enough. The time is upon us.Before I knew it, it was the Election Day Eve. I was physically and emotionally spent. All I wanted to do was sleep, since I had risen way before the sun the morning before. But there was work to be done. Months of hard work by so many people was about to be tested. Almost everyone I know spent the night before the election preparing. Volunteers worked in the cold and rain putting up signs all over the city. My boyfriend, Bill, and I spent hours organizing each volunteer’s duties. We wore out our tired printer outputting pages and pages of walk lists, all which needed to be sorted and prioritized. All over the country, people just like me were preparing for what was probably the most important election we will see in our life times. The energy of all the months of hard work was coming together; the excitement was contagious. Unlike the morning before, when the alarm went off on Election Day I sprang out […]

December 2004

Dear Readers, It seems like this would be the month to recount a touching holiday memory, wish everyone peace in the New Year, mention that it’s my two-year anniversary with Vital Source and be done with it. But in the words of Chuck D., I’ve got so much trouble on my mind. I’ve been trying, hard as I can, to engage in the same liberal/progressive group hug so extensively talked about in this issue. I’m trying to tell myself that given the choice between the ineptitude we knew and the vote of no-confidence we couldn’t trust, it’s not surprising-and maybe even not the worst thing in the world-that we stick with the leadership we have for another four years. But I don’t know if I can continue to tamp down my uneasiness and be a good national citizen in light of some pretty scary shit going on around the country and in our own backyard. I’m kind of freaked out about Weldon Angelos. He’s the 25-year old Utah man convicted for the first time of selling pot while carrying a pistol in his bootstrap and having more guns at home. Granted, it’s no way to raise a family, and I have a low opinion of him for putting his two young sons in harm’s way, not to mention the example he was setting. But U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell was forced to sentence him to 55 years with no probation because of the weapons possession element, which forced the case into federal court. Now before you dismiss me as a sniveling liberal soft on drug crime, hang on for just a second while we place this in its larger context. Judge Cassell himself, described as a brainy, conservative former law professor, surveyed the maximum sentences for other federal crimes, and this is what he found: Hijacking an airplane: 25 years. Terrorist bombing intending to kill a bystander: 20 years. Second-degree murder: 14 years. Kidnapping: 13 years. Rape of a 10-year-old: 11 years. Selling pot while carrying a pistol: 55 years. Needless to say, Cassell is mortified, Angelo’s family is devastated and people everywhere are starting to call for re-examination of mandatory sentences and the possibility that some violate our Eighth Amendment rights under the Constitution. In the meantime, Weldon’s plans are to sit behind bars until he’s 80 years old and his sons are old men themselves. So much for family values. Speaking of which, I have a good friend whose two sons are teenagers in New Berlin. The eldest is a senior, and he’s had his share of troubles. He’s been picked up by New Berlin’s finest for awful crimes like stealing a hood ornament off an abandoned car, leaving campus for lunch and littering in a Taco Bell parking lot (that one earned him four squads and a canine unit). This week, he received a detention for swearing. The naughty nugget? “Jesus Christ.” Yep, that’s what this seventeen year-old boy said, and the fine administration of New Berlin […]

Leonard Cohen

By John Hughes In the song “On That Day,” Leonard Cohen – arguably the wisest man in music – addresses September 11, 2001. Original perspective, even revelation, is expected from a writer such as Cohen, tangling with that subject. The song lasts all of two minutes and four seconds, is highlighted by the playing of a weirdly comic Jew’s Harp, and concludes with the underwhelming question, “Did you go crazy/or did you report/on that day/they wounded New York?” So much for revelation. That disappointment sets the tone for Dear Heather. The disc sounds like the career of 70-year-old Cohen ending not with a bang but with a shrug. It’s a grab bag of songs marred by the preponderance of too many brief and minor sketches by the old master, and it fails to add up to much despite some strong moments. Cohen augments his case with a few of the 13 songs: “Go No More A-Roving,” “Villanelle For Our Time,” “Morning Glory,” and “The Faith” recall the Leonard of old-playful, sagacious, penetrating, and moving.  The singing of Anjani Thomas and Sharon Robinson helps a lot, especially because Cohen’s own singing here is even more melancholy than usual. The occasional piano playing of Thomas and the tasteful saxophone renderings of Bob Sheppard contribute musicality. But much of the album achieves little more than easy-listening status, and the record requires only that you listen to it with one ear, rather than the usual full engagement. Dear Heather concludes with a bizarre live version of “Tennessee Waltz,” a lurch into country music as unsettling as YoYo Ma trying his hand at rock and roll might be.  What was he thinking? It’s ultimately desultory, sometimes pretty, and disposable.

Rammstein

From the title track that opens this album, you might get the idea that Rammstein remain the same: Till Lindemann growls verses and operatically chants choruses, everyone else stomps up a blitzkrieg behind him, and the song fades in a swoon derived from both beer hall and dance club. Yet even here, Rammstein sound more open, more ready to emphasize their musicality as much as their omnipresent German muscularity. Throughout Reise, Reise, they manifest the playfulness of a band who have realized that their prominent quasi-military discipline-still in force on their last album, 2001’s Mutter-was becoming less an impression they left with others than a repression they imposed on themselves. Of course, you wouldn’t mistake this looser, freer Rammstein for a jam band, but an actual rock ‘n’ roll groove (as opposed to a sturm und drang march) drives tracks like “Keine Lust” and the relatively barebones, acoustic guitar-based “Los.” And it’s hard to imagine the old Rammstein chuckling heartily in the midst of “Amerika,” a buzzing grind that mixes English and German and quotes Public Image Ltd. (“This is not a love song“) relevantly. Reise, Reise does hold onto the metallic-tinged Wagnerian grandeur that immediately distinguished Rammstein from their American peers, while it also brings their previous hints of electronic melodicism-the influence of Depeche Mode and New Order-directly to the surface. Hearing that combination and the flowering variety it catalyzes, you might get the idea that Rammstein have changed for the better.

Rufus Wainwright

By Erin Wolf Want Two, Rufus Wainwright’s follow-up to last year’s Want One, is quite the veritable mobile of whirling sonic fancies. Like its predecessor, Want Two hops from cabaret tunes to operatic orchestrations. Borrowing influences from Latin, French and classical sources, Wainwright pens grandiose songs that are rightly focused around his beautifully satiating vocals. Wainwright’s trademark flamboyancy isn’t quite as prevalent as it was on 2001’s Poses. Want One and Want Two are Wainwright toughening up his writing chops, and lyricizing with a bit more introspection and indulging in the morose and despairing, but always shining a ray of light on seemingly dark subjects. Wainwright’s ability to work humor into his lyrics (“I’m so tired of waiting in restaurants / reading the critics and comics alone / with a waiter with a face made for currency“) and his ability to incorporate odds-and-ends instruments such as banjos into his orchestral-like epics-and to make that incorporation seem like a perfectly natural occurrence-is refreshing and uplifting for such serious songs. Therein lies the talent of Rufus Wainwright-with his ability to make the oddly unnatural seem perfectly ordinary, he creates a solid album that is anything but concrete in its structure.

Lydia Lunch

First, Lydia Lunch was the girlfriend of Dead Boys frontman Stiv Bators; then she took over the mic herself in Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, then Eight Eyed Spy; since then, she’s been on her own. But she’s always been a mercurial figure, a no-wave queen and a hot-and-cold seductress. That continues with Smoke in the Shadows, Lunch’s first full album in five years. Slipping into a familiar role-the faded jazz chanteuse, lighting a cigarette with gloved hands and exhaling that first postcoital cloud of smoke-she slips along back alleys drawn from dimestore novels and film noir. She narrates more than she sings, and her lyrics swerve closer to beat poetry than they do to song structure, but with the able co-production of Nels Cline, Len Del Rio, and Tommy Grenas (all of whom also throw in on songwriting), she doesn’t need to be normal. Lunch’s collaborators-including, notably, Cline’s Geraldine Fibbers bandmate Carla Bozulich-supply bend to her strong will, generating atmospheres sodden with sex and death. From the break-in of “Hangover Hotel” to the closing “Hot Tip,” Smoke grovels in bad impulses and bodily fluids, lonely horns and sleazy keyboards. Lunch moves through everything here with the air of someone who craves the guilt that comes with the pleasure. Her trick is to make the listener feel the same.