The editors at The Washington Post have selected ten finalists to compete for the title of “America’s Next Great Pundit”, and I regret to report that I didn’t make the cut. Guess I’ll have to wait a while to see my two cents in print; good thing I have a blog to give vent to my indispensable insights! In my piece, I discuss a common point of contention between gay rights advocates and their foes. Those foes recently scored a victory in Maine, where voters repealed a state law legalizing same-sex marriage. I’m not sure whether I should be concerned or amused that large portions of the American citizenry lie awake in bed at night, worrying about what will happen if we let “the geighs” marry each other. Sigh. A little of both?
“PAY ATTENTION…
…and it will pay you.” Thus writes poker legend Doyle Brunson in the introduction to his indispensable Super System. Retired FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro expands on this concept in Read ‘Em And Reap:
“Make observation a way of life…Please don’t delude yourself into thinking you can turn off your observation except when you’re at the poker table. It doesn’t work that way. You need to begin observing right up to the time you go to sleep at night. Conscientious observation has to become a habit.”
Mr. Navarro is quite right that, for most people, “effective observation is not a passive act. It is a conscious, deliberate behavior; something that takes effort, energy, and concentration to achieve and constant practice to maintain.” For a select group of individuals, however, this is not the case.
Death By Diamonds And Pearls.
“I might be a fan of your insolence,
but that don’t make you the innocent.
You’re just like the rest of those girls;
You’re all death by diamonds and pearls.”
–Band of Skulls, “Death By Diamonds And Pearls”
President Obama’s recent decision to cap executive pay at companies receiving financial assistance from the government has caused a lot of consternation in the business world. After all, outlandishly well-salaried executives have done an outstanding job of steering our economy to prosperity; and man cannot live on hundreds of thousands of dollars and comprehensive benefits alone. What’s a multi-national corporation to do? We need a hero: someone selfless enough to forego the country club membership that is his sacred birthright; someone with the courage to brave the cold, unforgiving world that lies beyond gated communities; someone willing to send his kids to a public school.
In a word, me.
Happy Birthday, Matt!
Trumpeter, composer, jazz iconoclast–Matt Rubin is many things to many people. Use the comment thread to let him know what he means to you.
You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play.
I just submitted my entry for The Washington Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest. Knowing nothing of the number or quality of entrants, I rate my chances at a notch above winning the lottery. Win or lose, though, I learned a lot from the experience. Contest rules prevent me from publishing my piece, so I’ll share some thoughts on opinion journalism instead.
Kesey aap, Panditji?
I’ve decided to take this week off to become America’s Next Great Pundit. I think this would make my grandfather happy; to be called ‘pandit’ in India is a great honor. And while American ‘pundits’–or ‘pundints’, as they’ve taken to saying on television–often fall short of the wisdom, mastery, and reserve my grandfather might associate with the term, I think it would be hilarious to see my ramblings published in a respectable newspaper. I’ve been developing a few ideas, but I welcome any suggestions on what I should write about for the contest. I think an ideal subject should be newsworthy enough that people know about it, but not so common that it has already been talked to death. What do you think?
A Creative Life
“A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He’s above all a human being . . . the true art form is being a human being.”
– Herbie Hancock
A number of people have graciously linked to this blog since Vikram and I started writing it over the summer. Some of those linkers have expressed a little confusion, or perhaps just curiosity, over the scattershot subject matter of our posts. One week, it’s a music blog, the next week political commentary, and then the occasional bacon recipe.
This is intentional.
We are both musicians, and we went to school to study jazz music. But we’re also poker players, and bemused political observers, and voracious readers, and gourmet dessert fans. We have interests besides music, and this blog is an attempt to put everything together in a pot to see what bubbles up.
During our graduate studies, we each had the opportunity to take a few lessons, play a few tunes, and enjoy a few sandwiches with a brilliant musician named Adam Benjamin. For those of you who don’t know him, Adam is a co-leader of the band Kneebody and keyboardist in Dave Douglas’s Keystone. He’s also an avid baseball card collector and mall enthusiast. Take the time to check out Adam’s bloggy-thing here.
One of the major themes of our work with Adam was our personal relationships with music, or more specifically, how music related to all the other interests in our lives.
Every Day A Star Is Born.
Marilyn Monroe is looking well after all these years. So is Darth Vader. I got a peek at his face when he pulled his visor up to negotiate with a tourist. Much less pale than I remember. Wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey, giant Elmo danced as a tall, thin woman in a glittering gold blouse played soprano sax above the smooth groove pouring out of her boombox. A few stars west, people gathered around Michael Jackson’s star in the pavement. Some took pictures, while a few left some small token. Most simply stood and stared. Near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, several dour young men silently carried signs declaring Jesus Christ to be our lord and savior.
I walked north on Highland, past the towering Hollywood United Methodist Church, past a medical marijuana store—where a clean-shaven young man held the door open for a smiling old lady—past a couple with a cooler full of beverages (“Sodas, juices, waters! One dollar here or three-fifty in there! Think about it!”), past a smoked-out hippie with a sleepy dog and a guitar, until I reached the paved path that leads to the Hollywood Bowl.
Size Matters.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Larry Blumenthal, celebrating Jazz at Lincoln Center’s fifth season in Rose Hall and evaluating J@LC’s impact on the New York jazz scene. Chris Rich, at Brilliant Corners, posted this characteristically acerbic response. Couched in Rich’s flame-thrower language, however, was an idea that I think deserves further exploration. About J@LC’s $38 million budget, Rich writes:
“Most musicians I know who actually keep the parasite afflicted idiom alive and healthy are quite thrilled to do a gig for 600 bucks a person. That is good money, so 38 million is more than fifty thousand gig units. You could buy an instrument for every poor kid in LA, New York City, Chicago and New Orleans who wants one and probably have enough change to pay their tuition at Julliard.”
This is the common complaint against J@LC — that all that money could be better spent if it was dispersed through the jazz community, rather than consolidated at one institution. There are a few other institutions that give artistic grants for jazz, such as the NEA and the MacArthur Foundation, and these spread wealth out into the community. But their grants tend to be huge lump sums to established artists, and thus prosperity is not so widely shared. Besides, there weren’t even any musicians listed among this year’s recipients of the MacArthur “Genius” Grants. This kind of top-down support is good, but it is not enough to maintain the grassroots of a community. What might an alternative look like?
Why I Love Jazz.
“Check this out.” For one edition of my trombone teacher’s weekly dose of music appreciation, he removed a red CD from a jewel case with dark blue liners and placed it in his stereo. Mysterious, rubato piano chords floated out of the speakers; then the bass kicked the time off, and the piano answered it with a simple riff. A drumset quietly simmered beneath it all. Three horns joined in with the piano for a while before giving way to a trumpet solo. “This sounds pretty cool,” my teacher said, fading the music out just as the trumpet solo ended. “He’s not a great trumpet player, though.” I was fourteen years old, and I agreed.
