Johnny Hit and Run Pauline Wednesday, April 20, 2005

I will commit the great sin of BlockQuote, which ranks just below OwnLifeThoughts. I place this here as a (relatively) cheerful reply to the clamor against "Papa Ratzi" (as the Sun called him). So, here's James Lileks:

I’m still astonished that some can see a conservative elevated to the papacy and think: a man of tradition? As Pope? How could this be? As if there this was some golden moment that would usher in the age of married priests who shuttle between blessing third-trimester abortions and giving last rites to someone who’s about to have the chemical pillow put over his face. At the risk of sounding sacreligious: it’s the Catholic Church, for Christ’s sake! You’re not going to get someone who wants to strip off all the Baroque ornamentation of St. Peter’s and replace them with IKEA wine racks, okay?

I have my doctrinal differences with the Catholic church as well; I understand the reasons for requiring priestly celibacy, but I don’t agree with them. I don’t agree with many Catholic positions on issues regarding sexuality. Growing up Lutheran, I was gently guided away from the clanging errancy of Maryolatry. Because I disagree with the Catholic Church on these and a few other matters, I am– how do I put this? – NOT CATHOLIC. Hence I am always amazed by people who want the church to accommodate their thoughts, their new beliefs, their precarious and ingenious rationales, instead of ripping themselves from the bosom and seeking a congregation that doesn't make them feel like a heretic banging thier head on Filarete's doors. To those who want profound change, consider an outsider’s perspective: the Catholic Church is the National Review of religion. You may live long enough to see it become the Weekly Standard. In your dreams it might become the New Republic. But it’s never going to be the Nation. And if ever it does, it will have roughly the same subscriber base.

Yes, yes, easy for me to say, it’s not my church. New age of oppression and intolerance, and all that. Write me when hot-eyed Jesuits walk into a mosque in Qom with ten pounds of Cemtex strapped to their chest.

One story, linked by Blair, had this remark:

The election of Ratzinger to the papacy has disappointed the Ordination of Catholic Women who were hoping to begin a modern era with a new pope.

Habeum pap. Note: every era is the modern era to the people who inhabit it; a “modern” pope in 1937 would have announced that godless collectivism was the wave of the future, and ridden the trains to Auschwitz standing on top, holding gilded reins, whooping like Slim Pickens. The defining quality of 20th century modernity is impatience, I think – the nervous, irritated, aggravated impulse to get on with the new now, and be done with those old tiresome constraints. We’re still in that 20th century dynamic, I think, and we will be held to it until something shocks us to our core. Say what you will about Benedict v.16, but he wants there to be a core to which we can be shocked. And I prefer that to a tepid slurry of happy-clappy relativism that leads to animists consecrating geodes beneath the dome of St. Peter's. That will probably happen eventually, but if we can push it off for a century or two, good.

@ 8:58:00 AM, ,

Set 'em Up, Joe Tuesday, April 19, 2005

About Benedict XVI--wow, that feels weird to type; it's like saying "My wife and I" for the first time--I don't know much. Half the world seems to think he's an oppressive reactionary ex-Nazi who wants to step on the neck of every Catholic and tell them how to think. The other half thinks he's strict on doctrinal questions and a quiet, thoughtful monkish man in private. Six of one, right?

As I said, as luck would have it, I read one of his books and was impressed. I don't remember the title and can't be bothered to look it up, but it dealt with Catholicism's relationship with other world religions. It struck me as a measured, respectful treatment of the subject by a guy who knew his stuff inside and out.

Once again, best of luck and God bless.

@ 8:16:00 PM, ,

Damned Good Address for a Rat

Told you I'd be back. A helpful commenter suggested that I "could have gone with the obscure Stan Ridgway reference by titling your entry 'Calling Out to Karol.'" I figured I was being obscure enough with the Pixies reference, but the Ridgway one is better on all counts. The same commenter sent me a suitable-for-framing poster of JPII (addressed to "Yo slut"), for which I'm very grateful.

Lots of good songs bubbling around lately. I am quick to dismiss Loudon Wainwright III as a goofball, particularly compared to his ex and in-laws and kids, but he came up with a stunner on his most recent album: a two-for-one tribute to Hank Williams and Fred Rogers that's the sweetest, saddest thing I've heard in some time. Also heard a Rodney Crowell tune with a nifty lyric, listing reasons why he wants to stay alive in a crummy world:

Tom Waits, Aretha Franklin, Mary Karr
Walter Cronkite, Seamus Heaney, Ringo Starr
The Dalai Lama, Charlie Brown...think I might stick around


The first line lowers your expectations; the second makes you laugh out loud at the cleverness; the third sends you clicking over to iTunes. What an original image, what a nifty song.

In the not-so-lovely category is the latest by Bruce, the title song from Devils and Dust. Basically, it's your Mad Libs "soldier from the front misses gal, don't know what I'm fightin' for" tune. Essentially the same as the weepie Tom Waits put on his last record. Bruce does get some points for brevity; loses many more for use of bathetic harmonica.

As I have said a zillion times, I don't mind people writing political songs, as long as they're honest and have aesthetic merit. (And, indeed, who am I to mind? People can write whatever the hell they want.) Nor am I saying that nobody goes off to war missing his gal and wondering what he's fightin' for. But these songs are lazy boilerplate--for Chrissakes, I could've written them, knowing what I know about Bruce and Tom's politics. I could've sung them, too: maudlin craggly vocals, acoustic guitar (or tinkly piano) not doing anything too fancy...

Look: Put aside whether or not I agree with the point the songs are trying to make. What bugs me is that the tunes just don't stack up. Both of those guys have spent their careers writing gutsy, original songs about guys on one front line or another. So why do they have to go back to the Popular Front Book of Sing-Along Favorites when they want to make a point?

I would love to hear Tom Waits write an antiwar song as original and evocative as Shore Leave--now that's a tune about military life that feels as weird and disjointed as the real thing, with dwarves and pool tables and shirts with horses on them. (He even misses his gal!) And you can't tell me Bruce couldn't reach down and come up with another Atlantic City: an impressionistic narrative, an urgent vocal style, a cast of characters that still surprises me.

Every time I bring this up, the discussion usually turns into: Rock songs are not a forum for reasoned arguments. I'm not asking for a reasoned argument. Again, put aside the politics. I'm asking for a song that shows what these guys are capable of.

To end snarkily, I keep seeing a video for a live performance of the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by the hateful goth moppets of Green Day. Before the song, some doofus in the audience asks the doofuses onstage if "the Boulevard of Broken Dreams is a real place." The hatefulest goth moppet of them all replies that, no, it's not, they got the name from that James Dean poster where he's walking down the street all hunched over...

In other words, no mention of the Al Dubin/Harry Warren tune--you know, "gigolo and gigelette can share a kiss without regret"--the one that has been recorded hundreds of times by dozens of artists for decades now.

What can I say? Except point out that the title of the record on which that song appears is American Idiot--a comment, I believe, on the oppressive uninformed dopiness of the corporate-brainwashed Middle American do-nothing yadda yadda. Ah well. I'll be generous and assume Karl Rove maneuvered them into it...

@ 7:35:00 PM, ,

This Is a Song for Karol

Sorry for the delay. In the interim, big doings. I can safely report that 87.894% of columnists in the Western world used the Stalin "How many divisions" bit as the focal point of their pope obits. For my money, the best elegy was J. Bottum's in The Weekly Standard. I don't have the energy to track down a link; tool around the site for five minutes and you'll find it.

Fresh pope! I was pulling for Ratzinger and glad to see he got in. Not necessarily for any doctrinal reasons; it's just that I've actually read one of his books, which is a good conversation starter (or stopper, depending on your circle). I can't say I got a bead on him from his prose, but many of the best observers seem to like him, so we'll see. Here's wishing him well.

More to report, but life intrudes. Take care till then.

@ 1:46:00 PM, ,