From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V13 #348 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, December 6 2004 Volume 13 : Number 348 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Have cello, will rock [James Dignan ] Re: The boy in the great curved bubble [James Dignan ] rock rock rock rock rock n'roll cellist ["Natalie Jacobs" ] Re: my best of 2004, so far ["Michael Wells" ] [bot-easytree-org] NEW on EZT: Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians Toronto, ON 1992-02-10 aud master (flac) [] [bot-easytree-org] NEW on EZT: Robyn Hitchcock & Tim Keegan - Met Caf, Providence RI Dec. 5, 1996 [] early U2 [Jill Brand ] Re: my best of 2004, so far [Eb ] Re: Music for Chores (was Re: I like the Thrills and REM's latest) [bison] Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 ["Cadtharsis" ] RE: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 ["Marc Alberts" ] Re: Music for Chores (was Re: I like the Thrills and REM's latest) ["Ste] Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 [Miles Goosens ] RE: Holy Jovian Gravity-well, Batman ["David Stovall" ] Tweedgnatiax! [The Great Quail ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 [2fs ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 [Aaron Mandel ] Re: Belleville [Eb ] Re: Waffle Sticks [Rex Broome ] Re: Belleville ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Fwd: to each his own eyelid-stapling-inducement [Rex Broome ] Re: Belleville ["Stewart C. Russell" ] RE: Belleville ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: Belleville [Ken Weingold ] itunes [Benjamin Lukoff ] Re: 20/20 vs. Matthew Shepard [Tom Clark ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 13:29:30 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: Have cello, will rock > > Bozulich was the opening act and did an entire set of new songs, >accompanied > > by a bassist, drummer, and exceedingly stylish cellist. > >Since there can be only one rock'n'roll cellist during any given >period, it must have been Fred Lonborg-Holm. He ascended to his post >following the abdication of Jane Scarpantoni ('80s into early '90s), >who in turn followed Paul Buckmaster (early '70s to early '80s). > >No, the guys from ELO didn't count. someone here needs to listen to Apocalyptica. There's also Helen Liebmann, though she doesn't quite qualify as "rock'n'roll". James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 13:41:29 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: The boy in the great curved bubble >James should be in a good position on this one, as NZ was a huge >battleground over the cultural embargo due to the 1981 South African tour to >play the All Blacks that was so controversial that divided the country. boy, did it ever... nice quiet NZ had not known much in the way of political protests up until then. Picketing strikers in 1951, a few hundred marching in the streets quietly and peacefully during the VietNam years, and that was it. A sports tour by South Africans, and there are tens of thousands on the streets. Not entirely peaceful either, a lot of the protests, and the riot police responded in kind and beyond (not quite to the Rodney King stage of police tactics, but pretty damn close). A real eye opener. James (who marched in a couple of the more peaceful rallies) - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 20:21:59 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: my best of 2004, so far Here are my Ten Best Music Albums of 2004, in alphabetical order: * The Animal Collective  Sung Tongs * The Arcade Fire  Funeral * Robyn Hitchcock  Spooked * Jolie Holland  Escondida * Joanna Newsom  The Milkeyed Mender * Of Montreal  Satanic Panic In The Attic * The Polyphonic Spree  Together Were Heavy * Sterling Roswell  The Psychedelic Ubik * Jim White  Dig A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See * Brian Wilson  Smile There are a lot of new artists in there that I hadnt heard before this year. Music that discovered me this year, although not necessarily released this year, includes: * Devendra Banhart * Calvin, Dont Jump * The Decemberists * Dressy Bessy * The Fountains Of Wayne * The Handsome Family * Kristin Hersh * The High Water Marks * Bob Log III * Kate Rusby * The Sadies * Elliott Smith * Carl Stephenson Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 18:20:22 -0800 From: "Natalie Jacobs" Subject: rock rock rock rock rock n'roll cellist Carla Bozulich's cellist was not Fred Lonberg-Holm, but rather an attractive young blonde lady named Jessica.... didn't catch her last name. She may be the new heir to the rock cellist throne... she can take over from Lonberg-Holm, who can go back to playing his cello with electric toothbrushes, which is what he apparently does in his spare time. I also have a terrible, wrenching confession to make which will break the Quail's heart.... I don't like U2. It is not a matter of them "selling out" or what have you. I have always thought they were dull, even back when they were just starting out. Brian Eno did his best to make them interesting, but they never caught my ear for more than a song or two. I have nothing against them, and certainly they are one of the few popular bands out there who have earned their dues and are worthy of respect, but still.... zzzzzzz. I'm sorry... please don't send me to U2 boot camp. I am thoroughly immune to their charms. Now I'm waiting for the Quail to copy this paragraph and insert "Wilco" instead of "U2" and "Jim O'Rourke" instead of "Brian Eno"... it's OK, I can take it. I still love you, Quail. Can't we all just get along? *sniff* n. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 18:25:57 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Memo to West Coast Hope everyone remembered that Bob Dylan is on 60 Minutes tonight! Big event!! Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 20:40:08 -0600 From: "Michael Wells" Subject: Re: my best of 2004, so far Stewart discovers: > * Kristin Hersh Beware the giant head shimmy! She's playing a couple nights at Schuba's next month...and while I normally would prefer having my eyelids stapled open to sitting through another evening of what she passes off as "music," there is an interesting draw: alt-folk recluse Ben Weaver, a man so reclusive no one is even sure he really exists, has been pegged to open both shows. At least I could leave after his set. Michael "wait, is Rex on this list?" Wells ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 22:01:23 -0500 From: bisontentacle Subject: [bot-easytree-org] NEW on EZT: Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians Toronto, ON 1992-02-10 aud master (flac) http://www.easytree.org/torrents-details.php?id=16753&hit=1 - ----- Forwarded message from EZT ----- A new torrent has been uploaded to EZT. Torrent: 16753 Title: Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians Toronto, ON 1992-02-10 aud master (flac) Size: 525.04 MB Category: Club Rock Uploaded by: carville Description - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the last of Marc's masters. A very nice recording of a good Egyptians show. I have a93 Egyptians show up next... C Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians Mon., 10 Feb. 1992 El Mocambo Toronto, Canada audience master(rec'd by Marc in Forestville) sony cassette recorder wm-d3 mic-sony ecm-909 transferred to harman kardon cdr 26 cdr>eac(secure mode)>flac cd1 Oceanside So You Think You're in Love Lysander Balloon Man Vegetation & Dimes Uncorrected Personality Traits Birds in Perspex Chinese Bones Child of the Universe A Globe of Frogs Ultra Unbelievable Love cd2 When I Was Dead Glass Hotel Madonna of the Wasps Eight Miles High (Byrds) One Long Pair of Eyes My Wife and My Dead Wife Acid Bird Somewhere Apart Freeze - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can use the URL below to download the torrent (you may have to login). http://www.easytree.org/torrents-details.php?id=16753&hit=1 Take care! easytree.org - ----- End forwarded message ----- - -- END LEFT LANE PROHIBITION ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 22:02:05 -0500 From: bisontentacle Subject: [bot-easytree-org] NEW on EZT: Robyn Hitchcock & Tim Keegan - Met Caf, Providence RI Dec. 5, 1996 http://www.easytree.org/torrents-details.php?id=16865&hit=1 - ----- Forwarded message from EZT ----- A new torrent has been uploaded to EZT. Torrent: 16865 Title: Robyn Hitchcock & Tim Keegan - Met Cafi, Providence RI Dec. 5, 1996 Size: 515.40 MB Category: Singer/Songwriter Uploaded by: hezekiahx2 Description - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First off a big Thank You to all those who put up RH Shows. I downloaded some shows for a friend and he gave me one to put up!! He recorded the Tim Keegan opening show too and gave me a picture he took of RH at the venue. The info file & picture are included with the show. Note: He would like to be know as 'The Tape Cursader'. All info is from him. Let me know what you think as he doesn't have access to this site. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can use the URL below to download the torrent (you may have to login). http://www.easytree.org/torrents-details.php?id=16865&hit=1 Take care! easytree.org - ----- End forwarded message ----- - -- END LEFT LANE PROHIBITION ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 22:20:51 -0500 (EST) From: Jill Brand Subject: early U2 Who thinks that October sucks? Well, that's just wrong. I saw U2 about six times until they hit the big stadiums (one advantage of being old), and those were always wonderful concerts with mesmerizing music. I *do* have a question for the fegjocks on the list (all 3). Uh, when did American football adopt U2 as its mascot? I found it totally bizarre that they were the group chosen to play at halftime during Super Bowl XXXVI, the one right after 9/11/01. You would have thought that Ted Nugent or Charlie Daniels would have been up there singing about how proud they were to be Americans. But no, it was U2 (and since then all New England sports radio and TV shows have adopted It's a Beautiful Day as the song for winning events (like said Super Bowl). And for WEEKS before the new album came out, the IPOD/Vertigo commercial played during every football game and lots of baseball play-off games. Inquiring minds want to know. Jill ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 19:22:40 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: my best of 2004, so far >> * Kristin Hersh > > Beware the giant head shimmy! > I *love* the giant head shimmy but, alas, she doesn't seem to do it as much now as in the past. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 22:29:41 -0500 From: bisontentacle Subject: Re: Music for Chores (was Re: I like the Thrills and REM's latest) one time at band camp, Lauren (softboygirl@hotmail.com) said: >Best vacuuming music: i like boiled in lead's _antler dance_ to be playing when cleaning. woj - -- END LEFT LANE PROHIBITION ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 16:26:14 -0700 From: "Cadtharsis" Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 Lauren rubbed off the cuff: > Best vacuuming music: > Raw Power by The Stooges > or maybe for something a little different > Funhouse by The Stooges Oh, come on. "Here comes the Yodeling Hoover" is the best vacuuming song. - - Bill ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 20:07:04 -0800 From: "Marc Alberts" Subject: RE: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 Cadtharsis wrote: > Lauren rubbed off the cuff: > > > Best vacuuming music: > > Raw Power by The Stooges > > or maybe for something a little different > > Funhouse by The Stooges > > Oh, come on. "Here comes the Yodeling Hoover" is the best vacuuming song. > What? No votes for "Scrutinizer Postlude" from Zappa's "Joe's Garage"? I would have thought it would have gotten at least one mention. Marc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 08:13:31 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Music for Chores (was Re: I like the Thrills and REM's latest) bisontentacle wrote: > > i like boiled in lead's _antler dance_ to be playing when cleaning. Um, The B-52's' _Housework_, anyone? Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:30:54 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 On Sun, 5 Dec 2004 20:07:04 -0800, Marc Alberts wrote: > Cadtharsis wrote: > > > > Lauren rubbed off the cuff: > > > > > Best vacuuming music: > > > Raw Power by The Stooges > > > or maybe for something a little different > > > Funhouse by The Stooges > > > > Oh, come on. "Here comes the Yodeling Hoover" is the best vacuuming song. > > > > What? No votes for "Scrutinizer Postlude" from Zappa's "Joe's Garage"? I > would have thought it would have gotten at least one mention. It's just that it was so completely overshadowed by "Vacuum Genesis." not responsible for exploding Ebs, Miles p.s.: gotta mention the Triplets of Belleville somewhere in the vaccum category. p.p.s.: Thanks to Final Fantasy X and X-2, I almost always call it The Triplets of Bevelle. Why weren't the triplets Yuna, Rikku, and Paine, anyway? :-) p.p.p.s: Why didn't they just use the real title, Belleville Rendezvous, in the U.S.? I realize that under Dubya, we've been gripped by a fear of all things French, but "rendezvous" is also part of the English language. And it's not like this was the sort of movie whose French-speaking-world origins could be concealed with a title change... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 06:55:40 -0800 From: "David Stovall" Subject: RE: Holy Jovian Gravity-well, Batman >From: Eb >Subject: I can't believe this album exists! > >http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005K9XU/ > >Weird! I have this disc. I'll listen to it tonight (since I haven't played it since I bought it a couple years ago) and report back. >From: Jeff Dwarf >>2fs wrote: > Natalie Jacobs wrote: > >> Bozulich was the opening act and did an entire set of > >> new songs, accompanied by a bassist, drummer, and > >> exceedingly stylish cellist. > >> Since there can be only one rock'n'roll cellist during >> any given period, it must have been Fred Lonborg-Holm. >> He ascended to his post following the abdication of Jane >> Scarpantoni ('80s into early '90s), who in turn followed >> Paul Buckmaster (early '70s to early '80s). >Except that Scarpantoni's heyday coincided with Martin >McCarrick's and (to a less extent) Knox Chandler's. Aw, Jane still rocks. I always dug Tiny Lights. Is/was (the late) Tom Cora too far outside to be considered a "rock" cellist? He played with The Ex to great effect, and Third Person, besides all the John Zorn projects. d9 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 11:35:57 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Tweedgnatiax! Gnat, > Now I'm waiting for the Quail to copy this paragraph and insert "Wilco" > instead of "U2" and "Jim O'Rourke" instead of "Brian Eno"... it's OK, I can > take it. I still love you, Quail. Can't we all just get along? *sniff* Man, I love Wilco! Old and new. Jeff Tweedy can have my children. Or at least my parrot, he can definitely have my parrot. - --Quail PS: Natalie, as far as I'm concerned, you are the Queen of Indie Rock. The chances of you liking U2 are, like, 0.42%. Your email did not break my heart. Now, if in your arena rock contempt, you'd refuse to make Brother Bono a tin-foil starving Ethiopian; now, that would break my heart. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 10:36:43 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:30:54 -0600, Miles Goosens wrote: > p.p.p.s: Why didn't they just use the real title, Belleville > Rendezvous, in the U.S.? I realize that under Dubya, we've been > gripped by a fear of all things French, but "rendezvous" is also part > of the English language. And it's not like this was the sort of movie > whose French-speaking-world origins could be concealed with a title > change... Family values. "Triplets" bespeaks "children"; "rendezvous" implies romance. 'Course, if they'd called "The Belleville Three-Way Rendezvous," they might've really misled people. - -- ++Jeff++ The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 11:42:30 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V13 #346 On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Miles Goosens wrote: > p.p.p.s: Why didn't they just use the real title, Belleville > Rendezvous, in the U.S.? I realize that under Dubya, we've been gripped > by a fear of all things French, but "rendezvous" is also part of the > English language. And it's not like this was the sort of movie whose > French-speaking-world origins could be concealed with a title change... No money, no hamburger! This was actually a rare case where I thought the altered title was much better. The original gives you a sense early on of what's going to happen in the movie, while the American title doesn't. (At least, that's my opinion-- its structure seemed loopy enough that I thought it could easily have been named after characters who only appeared briefly at the beginning.) a ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 08:44:09 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: Belleville > p.s.: gotta mention the Triplets of Belleville somewhere in the vaccum > category. > > p.p.s.: Thanks to Final Fantasy X and X-2, I almost always call it > The Triplets of Bevelle. Why weren't the triplets Yuna, Rikku, and > Paine, anyway? :-) > > p.p.p.s: Why didn't they just use the real title, Belleville > Rendezvous, in the U.S.? I realize that under Dubya, we've been > gripped by a fear of all things French, but "rendezvous" is also part > of the English language. And it's not like this was the sort of movie > whose French-speaking-world origins could be concealed with a title > change... I tried to watch that on cable, about a week ago. Had to turn it off after about a half-hour. God, what a repellent film. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 09:07:00 -0800 From: Rex Broome Subject: Re: Waffle Sticks Jeff Dwarf wrote: > For some reason, I remember someone bemoaning something > related to the cost of frozen wafflesticks a while back, > and I saw this while putting together my Chrismas list: Me, although it wasn't precisely cost-related. My parents got my daughters addicted to waffle sticks. I found the concept odd. Take a damned normal waffle and cut it into strips. You're gonna cut it anyway! Oh well... - -Rex - -- "Maybe baby election twelve who I really am!" - -Miranda Mellbye Broome ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 12:18:57 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Belleville Eb wrote: > > I tried to watch that on cable, about a week ago. Had to turn it off > after about a half-hour. God, what a repellent film. What?! It's one of my favourites, ever! Stewart PS: iTunes Music Store *sucks*. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 09:22:08 -0800 From: Rex Broome Subject: Fwd: to each his own eyelid-stapling-inducement Michael: > > * Kristin Hersh > > Beware the giant head shimmy! > > She's playing a couple nights at Schuba's next month...and while I normally > would prefer having my eyelids stapled open to sitting through another [etc.] > Michael "wait, is Rex on this list?" Wells Duuuuuude. I don't care how Canadian he is, Geddy Lee sucks donkey balls. Meanwhile Nat is right about most things. Hi,, Nat. You were in a dream I had a few nights ago. - -Rex - -- "Maybe baby election twelve who I really am!" - -Miranda Mellbye Broome - -- "Maybe baby election twelve who I really am!" - -Miranda Mellbye Broome ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 12:25:11 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Belleville On Mon, Dec 6, 2004, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > > PS: iTunes Music Store *sucks*. Why exactly? I think it's quite good, if you don't mind not having the media itself, that is. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 13:54:06 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Belleville Ken Weingold wrote: > > Why exactly? I think it's quite good, if you don't mind not having > the media itself, that is. * the range is dreadful; it has very little content that I would buy. * it lists lots of artists, but has no tracks for them. * the genre system is messed up. * the burning disc/playlist interaction is confusing. * the burnt discs have no CD-TEXT (c'mon, it's easy to do!) * it's expensive. * the m4p file format is proprietary, and only works on iPods. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 14:03:33 -0500 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Belleville > Eb wrote: > > > > I tried to watch that on cable, about a week ago. Had to > turn it off > > after about a half-hour. God, what a repellent film. > Stewart came back with: > What?! It's one of my favorites, ever! Cuts from the soundtrack get played on the jazz program I listen to at night, Mon-Fri. I want to check out the film. Michael B. NP Joanna Newsom - The Mike-Eyed Mender ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 14:06:43 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Belleville On Mon, Dec 6, 2004, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > * the range is dreadful; it has very little content that I would buy. I find that too, for the most part. It's gotten better, though. I also find that a lot of albums I would like are incomplete. > * it lists lots of artists, but has no tracks for them. Click the Browse button at the top right. > * the genre system is messed up. I never pay attention to the genres. In fact I disable it. > * the burning disc/playlist interaction is confusing. Oh, you just have to look in the docs. I found it dumb too. If you want to burn an album that you see in the browse mode, just drag it over to the Source column and then you can burn it. > * the burnt discs have no CD-TEXT (c'mon, it's easy to do!) I don't know what that is. > * it's expensive. I think so too, but I live in NYC. If I lived in Nowhere, USA, where CDs at most stores were between $15 and $20, I would find it a good deal. And even moreso in Canada, where each song is something like US$.82. > * the m4p file format is proprietary, and only works on iPods. Well it's AAC (m4a) with DRM. There are utilities out there to strip the DRM out and make it a standard m4a. The problem either way is players supporting AAC in the first place. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 11:19:12 -0800 (PST) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: itunes On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Ken Weingold wrote: > > * it's expensive. > > I think so too, but I live in NYC. If I lived in Nowhere, USA, where > CDs at most stores were between $15 and $20, I would find it a good > deal. And even moreso in Canada, where each song is something like > US$.82. Is the high price of CDs at bricks-and-mortar stores even an issue anymore with mail order from the likes of Amazon, B&N, and cheap-cds.com? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 11:35:24 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: 20/20 vs. Matthew Shepard On Dec 5, 2004, at 2:40 PM, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > The ex-police chief of Laramie calls shenanigans. > > > Frank Rich expands on the whole media issue... December 5, 2004 FRANK RICH The Nascar Nightly News: Anchorman Get Your Gun [demime 0.97c-p1 removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of i.gif] F Democrats want to run around like fools trying to persuade voters in red America that they are kissing cousins to Billy Graham, Minnie Pearl and Li'l Abner, that's their problem. Pandering, after all, is what politicians do, especially politicians as desperate as the Democrats. But when TV news organizations start repositioning themselves to pander to Nascar dads and "moral values" voters, it's a problem for everyone. There's a war on. TV remains by far the most prevalent source of news for Americans. We need honest information to help us navigate, not bunkum skewed to flatter one segment of the country, whatever that segment might be. Yet here's how Jeff Zucker, the NBC president, summed up the attributes of Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw's successor, to Peter Johnson of USA Today: "No one understands this Nascar nation more than Brian." Mr. Zucker was in sync with his boss, Bob Wright, the NBC Universal chairman, who described America as a "red state world" on the eve of Mr. Brokaw's retirement. Though it may come as news to those running NBC, we actually live in a red-and-blue-state country, in a world that increasingly hates all our states without regard to our provincial obsession with their hues. Nonetheless, Mr. Williams, who officially took over as anchor on Dec. 2, is seeking a very specific mandate. "The New York-Washington axis can be a journalist's worst enemy," he told Mr. Johnson, promising to spend his nights in the field in "Dayton and Toledo and Cincinnati and Denver and the middle of Kansas." (So much for San Francisco - or Baghdad.) I don't mean to single out Mr. Williams, who is prone to making such statements while wearing suits that reek of "New York-Washington axis" money and affectation. But when he talks in a promotional interview of how he found the pulse of the nation in Cabela's, a popular hunting-and-fishing outfitter in Dundee, Mich., and boasts of owning both an air rifle and part interest in a dirt-track stock-car team, he is declaring himself the poster boy for a larger shift in our news culture. He is eager to hunt down an audience, not a story. He's not an isolated case. You know red is de rigueur when ABC undertakes the lunatic task of trying to repackage the last surviving evening news anchor, the heretofore aggressively urbane Peter Jennings, as a sentimental populist. In a new spot for "World News Tonight," Mr. Jennings tells us that "this is a really hopeful nation, and I think there's a great beauty in that." This homily is not only factually inaccurate - most Americans continue to tell pollsters that the nation is on the wrong track - but is also accompanied by a tinkling music-box piano and a montage leaning on such Kodak tableaus as a fishing cove, a small-town front porch and a weather-beaten man driving a car with a flag decal. Mr. Jennings is a smart newsman, but his just-folks incarnation is about as persuasive as Teresa Heinz Kerry's chow-down photo op at Wendy's. If the Nascarization of news were only about merchandising, it would be a source of laughter more than concern. But the insidious leak of the branding into the product itself has already begun. Last Sunday morning both NBC's "Meet the Press" and ABC's "This Week" had roundtable discussions about - what else? - the "moral values" fallout of the election. Each show assembled a bevy of religious and quasi-religious leaders and each included a liberal or two. But though much of the "values" debate centered on abortion and gay marriage, neither panel contained a woman, let alone an openly gay cleric. Allowing such ostentatiously blue interlopers into the "values" club might frighten the horses - or at least the hunting dogs. A creepier example of the shift toward red news could also be found last weekend when ABC's prime-time magazine show "20/20" aired an hourlong "investigation" into the brutal 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in the red state of Wyoming. "20/20" added little except hyperventilation to previous revisionist accounts of the story, most notably JoAnn Wypijewski's 1999 Harper's article filling in the role crystal meth might have played in driving the crime. But ABC had obtained the first TV interviews with the killers and seemed determined to rehabilitate their images along the way. The reporter, Elizabeth Vargas, told us that while the pair had been "variously portrayed in press reports as 'rednecks' and 'trailer trash,' " they were actually just all-American everymen with "steady jobs, steady girlfriends and classically troubled backgrounds." Aaron McKinney, the killer who beat Shepard into an unrecognizable pulp, wasn't even challenged on camera when he said he had "gay friends" (none of whom were produced or persuavely vouched for by ABC) and that he had only invoked a homophobic "gay panic" defense in his trial because that's what the lawyers told him to do. What's not to like about the guy? As chance would have it, this episode of "20/20" ran opposite the special "Dateline NBC" farewell to Mr. Brokaw. There could hardly be a more dramatic illustration of the changing of the tone, as well as of the guard, in network news. Though the retrospective paid tribute, as Mr. Brokaw often has, to his roots in deeply red South Dakota, the career highlights that unfurled were not tied to any agenda but the stories the anchor reported. The newsmakers who made freshly shot guest appearances in the program to augment Mr. Brokaw's own accounts included not just George H. W. Bush and Norman Schwarzkopf but also Betty Friedan (who talked of how women of the 1950's "were supposed to have orgasms waxing the kitchen floor"), the AIDS activist Larry Kramer (whom Mr. Brokaw identified as his friend), Tom Hayden and, for the Watergate recap, a "former impeachment committee staffer" who happened to be Hillary Clinton. If Mr. Brokaw were arriving as anchor instead of leaving, this genuinely fair-and-balanced account of his career would have been vilified by the right-wing press and blogosphere 24/7 - assuming the red-state-besotted suits at NBC would have allowed him anywhere near the anchor chair in the first place. That both Mr. Brokaw and Dan Rather are going into retirement in the aftermath of the election is a coincidence of timing but widely seen as a fateful one. It's been a cue to roll out once more the funeral rites for network news. We know the litany. The evening newscasts' ratings have been sinking for years, their budgets slashed, their audience forever slipping into the pharmaceutical demographic. The investigation into Mr. Rather's apparent reliance on forged documents in a "60 Minutes" exposi of President Bush's National Guard record is an added embarrassment, perhaps rivaling Rupert Murdoch's publication of the "authenticated" Hitler diaries two decades ago. But the perennial demise of network news has been the slowest final curtain in the history of show business, and is likely to continue indefinitely. All three network newscasts, not to mention the morning-news franchises led by "Today," draw exponentially more viewers than even Fox News's top-rated hits and make tons of money. Though more and more Americans use the Web as a news source, even there they often turn to the sites run by TV news. In the real world of 2004, it's still a TV culture - just look at the flat-screen set breaking some relative's bank this Christmas. And so network news still counts. The idea, largely but not exclusively fomented by the right, that TV news might somehow soon be supplanted by blogging as a mass medium may remain a populist fantasy until Americans are able to receive blogs by iPod. (At which point they become talk radio.) The dense text in the best blogs often requires as much of a reader's time and concentration as high-end print journalism, itself facing declining circulation. Since blogging doesn't generate big (if any) profits, there's no budget for its "citizen reporters" to reliably blanket catastrophic and far-flung breaking news. (There are no bloggers among the 36 journalists thus far killed in the Iraq war.) Bloggers can fact-check documents (as in the Rather case), opine, organize, talk back, leak early exit polls and publish multimedia outings of the seemingly endless supply of closeted gay Republican officials. But if bloggers are actually doing front-line reporting rather than commenting upon the news in a danger zone like Falluja, chances are that they are underwritten by a day job on the payroll of a major news organization. Kevin Sites, the freelance TV cameraman who caught a marine shooting an apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner in a mosque, is one such blogger. Mr. Sites is an embedded journalist currently in the employ of NBC News. To NBC's credit, it ran Mr. Sites's mid-November report, on a newscast in which Mr. Williams was then subbing for Mr. Brokaw, and handled it in exemplary fashion. Mr. Sites avoided any snap judgment pending the Marines' own investigation of the shooting, cautioning that a war zone is "rife with uncertainty and confusion." But loud voices in red America, especially on blogs, wanted him silenced anyway. On right-wing sites like freerepublic.com Mr. Sites was branded an "anti-war activist" (which he is not), a traitor and an "enemy combatant." Mr. Sites's own blog, touted by Mr. Williams on the air, was full of messages from the relatives of marines profusely thanking the cameraman for bringing them news of their sons in Iraq. That communal message board has since been shut down because of the death threats by other Americans against Mr. Sites. The attempt to demonize and censor Mr. Sites simply for doing his job is not an anomaly. Last spring The New York Post smeared Associated Press television cameramen as having "a mutually beneficial relationship with the insurgents in Falluja" simply because their cameras captured the horrific images of the four American contract workers slaughtered there. Well before the National Guard fiasco at CBS, red-state news-hounds tried to discredit Mr. Rather's scoop on the photos of Abu Ghraib as overblown if not treasonous. This hysterical rage at the networks is a testament to their continued power - specifically the power of pictures in each of these cases. Such examples notwithstanding, the networks were often cautious about challenging government propaganda even before the election. (Follow-ups to the original Abu Ghraib story quickly fell off TV's radar screen.) As far back as last spring Ted Koppel's roll-call of the American dead on "Nightline," in which the only images were beatific headshots, was condemned as a shocking breach of decorum by the mostly red-state ABC affiliates that refused to broadcast it. If full-scale Nascarization is what's coming next, there will soon be no pictures but those promising a mission accomplished, no news but good news. And that's good news only if you believe America has something to gain by fighting a war in the dark. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V13 #348 ********************************