AIG Trumps Sarah Palin Trumps...
Since last I wrote, the nation has discovered Sarah Palin and the shiny new “fact” that Wall Street is populated chiefly by duplicitous and unregulated weasels. Funny, I seem to recall a movie called Wall Street that pretty much laid out that “fact” twenty-some years ago. Perhaps we were too busy playing our X-box games to notice.
Is the Fed to blame? Perhaps the Treasury Department, or the Bush administration? Maybe. For once, I’m inclined to be charitable. This Mortal Coil is complicated, and when most systems seem to be humming along nicely, it’s very easy to put up one’s feet, sip a nice merlot, and believe that all is right with the world. Analogy du jour: My garage door system worked fine, until Sunday, when it broke. Now, I’ve discovered there are support wires on either side of the track that guides the door as it opens and closes, and with those wires snapped (they look as if they came with the house back in ’52), the door no longer functions. I imagine, on a larger scale, this must be how the various banking giants have felt over the last few months. Gosh, they think to themselves, but we were going along so nicely, too!
In a less charitable mood, I might be inclined to think that anyone who trades on or bets on bad debts, which is the same as trading on the imagination instead of actual value (i.e., goods and services), is a greedy imbecile and deserves whatever punishment they get. The problem, of course, is that the behavior of the wealthy few is now functioning on such a global scale that it affects all the rest of us, no matter how responsible we are. (I take some pride in living in a house within and not beyond my modest means. Had I aimed my sights higher, I wonder what my flexible-rate mortgage would look like now?)
I cannot help but be reminded of Tom Paxton’s fabulous (and unfortunately timeless) song, “I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler.” Tom, under fair use laws, I’m going to quote a line or two, and I hope you don’t mind: “If you’re a corporate titanic, and your failure is gigantic, down in Congress there’s a safety net for you.”
Sing it, Brother Tom. Nobody’s going to bail out the local mom-and-pop restaurant when it goes belly up (as just occurred to El Aguila here in town, also the local bike shop where I tried to buy a helmet the other day), but if you’re big and wealthy and have your fingers spread into far too many pies, well, sure, we’d better perform financial CPR.
I wonder how many of the CEOs at the top went to Yale, and all knew each other as undergrads?
Why do these giant companies and banks have their fingers in so many pies, and why is no one asking about that? I remember when Goldman Sachs underwrote the IPO of Borders Books and Music, whom I then worked for. It struck me then as high comedy that a bunch of strangers in suits should be strutting around my Westwood (CA) store, acting as if they had any tangible way of assessing the value of the place. Or (as they temporarily and literally did) as if they owned it. Once the sale was underway, and they’d made a few million, they conveniently forgot about Borders. I gather through the grapevine that Borders, like Morgan Stanley recently, and Merrill Lynch, has been looking for a buyer. What if they don’t find one? Will the White House step in to rescue one of the few retail outlets that actually deals in ideas, concepts and culture? No. Borders will be left to die just like Eastern Airlines. Who needs ideas, concepts, and culture, anyways?
My point, I suppose, is that anti-trust laws were and are a good idea. Corporate mergers are a bad idea. Major companies will trumpet economies of scale and they’ll tell us it will all make everything cheaper if they’re allowed to grow infinitely bigger through mergers, but this proves to be balderdash again and again. Competition makes prices cheaper, not mergers. And if one enormous company like AIG is capable of bringing down the whole house of cards, then let’s stop trying to rescue it, per se, and instead rebuild AIG into a series of smaller, independent companies. Other large-scale firms, as Ma Bell once was, need to be taken apart––yes, at the behest of the Federal Government. Libertarians, scream all you want, but the only entity big enough to handle this, as is being made clear with the AIG bail out, is the Federal Government.
Small is beautiful. Always has been. Always will be. We’ll all be a lot safer financially if the corporations we’re forced to do business with have only one business and do it well. If they’re spread too thin, they get into arenas they don’t understand and that may well prove fatal. Exhibit A: any given mortgage bank.
Now, having mentioned Tom Paxton, it’s time to bring this whole thing back to children.
Am I a good parent?
Maybe.
One thing for sure, I know that music can change almost anyone’s mood. Music––the proper dispensing of it––is a skill that ought to be in any parent’s arsenal. And so, today, let us discuss Music for Children.
Music for Children: What is that, exactly? It’s not R or X-rated, of that we may be sure, but beyond that, the definition is wide open. We have friends who swear that the best in-car music isn’t music at all but tape copies of old Bill Cosby comedy routines. They’re clean, they’re hysterically funny, and they’re mostly about real-life situations that anyone over four can easily identify with. Dentists, for example. Slushballs. And who can’t laugh at Fat Albert and the various oddball Cosby Kids?
Still, if tunes are what you’re after, then Cosby eventually falls flat. What follows are some of this household’s greatest success stories, some of them obvious, some not. Enjoy!
The Best of Disney, Volumes I – V – Various Artists
Frankly, these require some editing. Obscurities like Annette Funicello on “The Monkey’s Uncle” are great fun to discover, and who wouldn’t want to hear Balloo singing, yet again, “The Bear Necessities”? On the other hand, large hunks of the more recent Disney music sound unfinished, especially next to the inventive classics of yesteryear––one listen to “Whistle While You Work” and you’ll see what I mean. Love it or leave it, it’s all here, from “I’ve Seen Everything When I See An Elephant Fly” to “Colors of the Wind.”
Listen, Learn and Grow – Various Artists
Classical music mostly from the Classical (pre-Romantic) era, featuring Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Vivaldi, among others. As an added bonus, this offering comes from Naxos, a budget label that guarantees this is instantly affordable. My only complaint is the peculiar label on the back of the liner notes: “Newborn Through Pre-School.” Are they suggesting that this timeless, gorgeous music isn’t fit for anyone over the age of four?
My Very First CD – Various Artists
This offering provides a more or less chronological tour through Western musical history, beginning in the 18th century and working forward to Gershwin and John Philip Sousa. More comprehensive and stylistically varied than many other classical music offerings for children, this one gets a double nod for including a coloring book in the liner notes.
Flanders and Swann – The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann
Back when the fifties became the sixties, London-based Broadway humorists Michael Flanders and Donald Swann had a bona fide hit with “The Hippopotamus Song,” followed it up with “The Gnu” and eventually recorded an entire long-playing record (made of vinyl, no less) of animal songs. They’re not strictly aimed at children, but nor are they aimed at adults; they simply exist, two voices and one piano, working through timeless odes to a bottlenose whale with the flu, a dreaming three-toed sloth and a warthog addicted to image and makeup. Not for toddlers, perhaps––but surely these will warm the hearts of just about anyone else.
Johnny Cash – The Johnny Cash Children’s Album
Flat out amazing. The carefully considered “There’s a Bear in the Woods” is worth the price of admission by itself, although it’s nowhere close to the best song. Cash, like Nina Simone, was simply incapable of singing a false note, or of delivering any song without 100% conviction. That’s why adults can listen to this terrific nineteen-seventies outing just as long as the kidlets––and that’s saying something.
Jim Gill – Jim Gill Sings The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes
Have you ever wanted to a do a dance that pretends you’re in the washing machine––and ends with the plea that you hope your mom won’t put you in the dryer? Now, to be truly dad-centric, it’s certainly true that Gill should have provided another verse in which the dad of the house really does put the child in the dryer, but these are small complaints for an album that also features the “Poison Ivy” song and all manner of other infectious silliness.
Arlo Guthrie and Family, Woody’s Twenty Grow Big Songs
Taking scribbled notes and jotted lyrics, Arlo and the other Guthrie family members tackle twenty of the vast unfinished tunes that dad Woody Guthrie left behind. Thanks to the miracles of modern recording, they even duet with Woody. The results are a time-capsule of childhood play from generations ago, when a toy wooden saw could be the height of kiddie entertainment and “Race you down the mountain!” had nothing to do with a snowboard. Twangy and rural, Woody’s Twenty Grow Big Songs literally arrives on our stereos plucked from a different era.
Jessica Harper – Rhythm In My Shoes
One-time Hollywood star Jessica Harper (My Favorite Year, Suspiria, Phantom of the Paradise) long ago turned her talents toward brilliant, poly-rhythmic music for children. A few of the numbers (“A Day in the Life of Elizabeth”) are aimed at older elementary kids, but the majority can be enjoyed immediately, since each and every one is infectiously bouncy. World Beat artists beware: Ms. Harper pulls off flawless Reggae, African drumming and just about anything else she puts her mind to. Her other albums are also worth searching out, including the sleepy-time songs on 40 Winks and the mid-nineties effort, A Wonderful Life (containing the stupendous longing of “Good Company” and the silly excitement of “Back Door Open”).
Catfish Hodge – Adventures at Catfish Pond
Ace bluesman Catfish Hodge never achieved widespread success targeting grown-ups, so he switches gears here to offer up a taste of Southern musical gumbo. Blues riffs anchor the songs (“Pancake Man,” “Count From One to Ten”) and Hodge turns his obliging band into a host of swamp denizens (frogs and such). Forays into zydeco and Cajun stylings keep the proceedings lively, as does a sharp horn section. Time to seek out the rest of the Catfish Hodge catalog? Could be...
Bret Holmes and Marty the Moose – Moose Tunes
Loping tunes, engagingly goofy lyrics (occasionally sung by Holmes’ alter-ego, Marty) and simple but elegant arrangements make this an instant winner. More than one adult has been caught picking this one to listen to on their own, with nary a child in sight. Built around light acoustic guitar and the delicate plink of dulcimers, every song involves a moose: chocolate moose, a moose in a tree house, a moose “dancing around the cookie jar, turning green.” Even a moose can eat too much. Holmes also created Cow Tunes, well worth a listen. Hard to find in chain stores, the easy way to get hold of these under-the-radar gems is via www.cowtunes.com.
John McCutcheon – Mail Myself To You
McCutheon’s flat vocal delivery becomes an asset in these relaxed but often up-tempo numbers, some familiar (“Over in the Meadow”) and some not (“New Car”). The best he saves for last, in a terrific life-lesson tale based on the words he remembers from “the kindergarten wall.” As advice goes, this is top-notch, eminently sing-able, and at least as applicable to adults as it is to children.
Tom Paxton – Goin’ to the Zoo
As if the title track alone isn’t worth the price of admission, this set also contains the very first children’s song folk veteran Paxton ever wrote, “The Marvelous Toy,” a classic of the genre in every sense. (“I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler” does not appear on this record.)
Peter, Paul and Mary – Peter, Paul and Mommy
It’s got “Puff the Magic Dragon.” What more need be said?
Pete Seeger – The Children’s Concert at Carnegie Hall
Nothing fancy here, just voice and guitar (or banjo, depending). Seeger has become so identified with a kind of traditional and therefore obsolete folk music that it can be hard to remember just what a marvelous performer he is. His rapport with his sometimes noisy audience is pitch-perfect, and for those worried by his decidedly left-leaning politics, fear not: he saves that for more topical songs for adults, on alternate albums. Other delightful Seeger releases for children include Stories and Songs For Little Children and Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Fishes Little and Big.
Sesame Street – Platinum
Truth be told, the best of Sesame Street has mostly fallen out of print or been dispersed between the standard ten or so Sesame Street CDs. Where are the digital releases of classics like “Mad” by Little Jerry and Monotones, with the refrain’s in-your-face doo-wop honesty, “Very angry, very very angry––mad!” Is PBS Broadcasting implying that children aren’t allowed to be emotional any more? But I digress. “C is For Cookie,” and that’s good enough for me.
They Might Be Giants – No!
Everybody’s favorite (?) punk-polka outfit tries their hand at music for people under the age of fifteen, and scores one demented hit after another. “I Am Not Your Broom” conjures a household tool that now refuses to work, while “Four Of Two” sends us into the Rip Van Winkle future with a young romantic who really ought to learn to read a clock. Not for everyone, with a heavier instrumental attack than most kids’ fare––but it certainly is different.
Marlo Thomas and Friends – Free To Be You And Me
A musical and spoken-word celebration of childhood wonder and sixties-era acceptance. Has it aged well? In my opinion, yes––and the fact that it can still strike shivers up the spine of some listeners (consider “Jimmy Wants a Doll”) is a sure sign that Thomas and Company struck and emotional chord that resonates still. Guests artists include Carl Reiner, Rosie Greer and Gene Wilder, among many others.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
