For Biden, Friday Might Be All Right for Fightin'

Two days in and already pressure grows on Joe to stand up to the GOP: plus music from Neil Young, Miles and a wild guy named Ludwig.

Jan 22, 2021

What’s the opposite of “doom scrolling”? Before we leave this hopeful and celebratory week behind, let’s go out with a reminder that one of the most influential—musically, culturally and, yes, politically—works of art in history remains Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Not long ago I co-produced an acclaimed documentary, directed by Kerry Candaele, about this, Following the Ninth. It focuses on concrete cases: Berlin and the Wall, Chile under dictator Pinochet, China at Tiananmen Square, and Japan in the disorder after the tragic tsunami. Bill Moyers (below) hailed the film in an eleven-minute segment, which covers all of this. Plus: more music down the page by Neil Young, who reminds us of the evil that was newly-fashionable Dubya. If you like today’s newsletter, please subscribe, it’s free!

Winners and Losers

Stephen Colbert on yesterday’s Biden opener: “The first day on the job is stressful — any job — but especially when you’re the new manager and the last guy got called into H.R. for inappropriate workplace treasoning.” Jimmy Fallon: “That’s big news right there: Our president spent a full day in the office.” Trevor Noah: “And we all know this is only thanks to Donald Trump for setting the bar so low. It’s like getting hired as a babysitter and your predecessor was a Roomba covered in knives — you are going to be better.”

Now this from Ezra Klein in The New York Times: “Democrats have a lot of good ideas to help people fast, and visibly. They have good ideas for deepening democracy, like the ‘For The People Act.’ But if they let Senate Republicans filibuster everything they will lose in 2022, and they will deserve it.” Adds my old pal and longtime activist Steve Van Zandt: “Dear Joe and Kamala, We are, truly, in an uncivil war. It’s real. We cannot speak of unity until the enemies of democracy, equality, science, and reason are defeated. McConnell is clearly the leader of those enemies. The filibuster must go. No compromise.”

And Stevie also addresses new Democratic national party boss Jaime Harrison: “I hope you’re not a nice guy like your predecessor. This is a war for the soul of America and we need a warrior to increase the House and Senate in ‘22. If you allow the enemy to brand the Dems like the last guy did, America loses. Good luck. We’re with you.” Silvio rules!

After Marco Rubio tweeted, “A radical leftist agenda in a divided country will not help unify our country, it will only confirm 75 million Americans biggest fears about the new administration,” I was reminded of this quote from McConnell three weeks after Trump’s inaugural in 2017: “Winners make policy and losers go home.”

Chuck Schumer, at 10:45 this morning: “I have spoken to @SpeakerPelosi. The articles of impeachment will be delivered to the Senate on Monday. Make no mistake: There will be a full trial. There will be a fair trial.”

Sean “Spicey” Spicer, the failed Dancing With the Stars contestant, tweeted a complaint yesterday about White House reporters allegedly treating the stunningly competent new press secretary with respect. “Tale of two briefings: Jen Psaki treated much differently by press than Sean Spicer,” Sean Spicer typed. David Cay Johnston, the award-winning journo, responded, “That reporters were less than friendly to you — a shameless liar and THE most unethical flack I ever dealt with in 54 years of journalism —speaks well of them. #IntegrityMatters. Too bad you never learned ethics.”

Speaking of haters, over in the world of sports, a Forbes article has found that “numerous” official voters who had already cast their ballots for this year’s baseball Hall of Fame inductees now wish to delete their backing for Curt Schilling, the QAnon believer who promoted the assault on the Capitol, under the “character” provisions. Keith Olbermann comments today: “Schilling publicly supported an attempt to overthrow the elected U.S. government, attack the Capitol, and kill Senators and Reps. MLB should put him on the Permanently Ineligible List. HOF is then closed to him.” MLB officials, however, are concerned about any “precedent” this would set.

Pausing here to say: R.I.P. “Hammerin’ Hank Aaron,” non-steroidal Home Run King.

Yes, another GOPer, who had protested the newly installed metal detectors, tried to bring a firearm onto the House floor yesterday. Unlike two other House members, who simply blew past the police on Thursday while packing—despite the mandated $5000 fine (but why not arrested?)—this nutcase halted at the gates. Love this detail: “HuffPost watched Harris try to get another member to take the gun from him so he could go vote. The member, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), told Harris he didn’t have ‘a license’ and refused to hold the weapon for him.”

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The great George Saunders has a new book out but, who cares, we just want an update on his music tastes not what he thinks about Russian writers. I recall his lengthy Q & A with my man Jason Isbell and now, in a new LitHub interview, asked to list what he can’t live without, he cites “a few things by Copland, ‘The New World Symphony’ by Dvorak, Kinda Blue by Miles Davis, a bunch of songs by Wilco, Sleater-Kinney, Jason Isbell, Springsteen, Leo Kottke. And ‘Partita for Eight Voices,’ by Caroline Shaw, Harvest by Neil Young, Lemonade by Beyonce—well, that’s just the start of a long list.” I can sign off on most of these, including the Shaw (check it out). Note: Isbell, with wife and band mate Amanda Shires, on Jimmy Fallon’s show tonight.

Also: Today is the great Sam Cooke’s birthday. Here is my recent review of One Night in Miami and maybe his greatest recording.

Not-so-fun fact: We highlighted yesterday the use of “This Land Is Your Land” at the Inaugural but there is this footnote….Woody Guthrie’s father, a businessman, reportedly took part in a double lynching in Oklahoma when he was growing up and later joined the Ku Klux Klan. Woody wrote a couple of songs about that late in his career. Earlier he had penned, “All These Fascists Bound to Lose.”

Meanwhile, Amanda Gorman’s book has hit #1 on Amazon.

From NPR yesterday:

As a violent mob descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lawmakers and aides hid wherever they could, waiting for the military and police to arrive. But many of those who stormed the Capitol were military veterans themselves, who had once sworn to protect the Constitution. In fact, an NPR analysis has found that nearly 1 in 5 people charged over their alleged involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol appear to have a military history….Some veterans who allegedly stormed the Capitol are still serving in some capacity….
Roughly one-third of active duty troops said they had "personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism within the ranks in recent months," according to a 2019 survey conducted by the Military Times and Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families. Troops said they had seen "swastikas being drawn on service members' cars, tattoos affiliated with white supremacist groups, stickers supporting the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi-style salutes between individuals."

Film

I have this odd, if slight, personal connection with the new movie News of the World: When my 2016 book The Tunnels was optioned for a movie, Paul Greengrass was attached as director (after we spoke on the phone). And years earlier, my book Joy in Mudville was optioned by Universal for Tom Hanks to, ahem, play yours truly. Greengrass is no longer connected to The Tunnels, and Mudville never got made. Now they team up, as they did on Captain Phillips, for News of the World, but as a fan of the book it is based on, I found it disappointing.

The book does a much stronger job of making vivid how the girl, who was raised by an Indian tribe after they kidnapped her, had become a real wild child (but fully adapted to and identifying with her captors). In the movie she is tamed rather quickly during her travels with Tom, and despite some well shot and moving passages here and there, the movie is rather inert—a little shocking coming from the always dynamic Greengrass. Not bad, a respectable miss, but little more.

Coming attractions…the First Attack Ads

Yesterday I was interviewed for a C-SPAN special inspired by my book The Campaign of the Century on Upton Sinclair’s race for governor in 1934—and the now infamous “first attack ads on the screen” that I located many years ago. These were “fake news” movie shorts made by MGM’s revered Irving Thalberg to defeat the former Socialist running as a Democrat who was backed by a mass movement. Sound familiar? It’s a key plot point in David Fincher’s Mank, which I recently wrote about for The New York Times. The C-SPAN show will air multiple times in February. Here’s more on the Thalberg newsreels and a glimpse of them, from a film I worked on many years ago.

Song Pick of the Day

Once again, on Inaugural Day, many in the media got all warm and fuzzy in their treatment of former President George W. Bush, who was portrayed as one of the Three Amigos, filmed hanging out with Obama and Clinton. Did you hear, he is a devoted painter these days and has moved on from dogs to people in trouble? Yeah, we get it, he looks better, in some aspects, than GOP brother Trump, but still: He did lie to get us into a war that would kill thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians. So let’s return to Neil Young’s angry 2006 antiwar album for this stellar “Shock and Awe” reminder of, as Neil warbles, “Back in the day of Mission Accomplished, our chief was landing on the deck….” Another song on the lp was called “Let’s Impeach the President For Lying.”

Bernie, Baby, Bern

Okay, the fun photo bombing has now neared its end—perhaps doomed by a shot of Sen. Sanders riding shotgun with Guy Fieri—but here are a few late arrivals in case you missed them, starting with one I dubbed “Crosby, Stills, Nash and No Longer Young.” Then Bruce and, from one of my all-time favorite movies, the War Room in Strangelove, plus a certain Clash cover and some Fear & Loathing. Bernie’s team, meanwhile, is taking advantage of the meme by selling sweatshirts with the now-iconic photo at his site for 45 bucks, which will go straight from his mitts to charity.

…and as a long-suffering Mets fan since 1970, I have to pay homage (I have been in those seats with old guys like this in the past):

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels, the current The Beginning or the End, and The Campaign of the Century, which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. For all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he won more than a dozen awards as editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony andnow has written and directed his first feature, Atomic Cover-up, which will have its American premiere at a festival this spring.

Between Rock and a Hard Place

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