A Test On Morality In The Age of #MeToo?

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“I thought about Lolita in reverse,” announces Liska Jacobs, adding, “why shouldn’t a 43-year-old woman desire a 17-year-old young man?” Her pronouncement sounds provocative, yet Ms. Jacobs’ almost reticent demeanor suggests she hadn’t thought of such a shocking idea. The Worst Kind of Want is Liska’s second novel, the publication day is almost here and she cannot hide her excitement. Her story tells of fastidious Cilla rescued from the bedside of her difficult mother, she dashes off to Rome to keep an eye on her wayward teenage niece. Instead of babysitting, she throws herself into her niece’s youthful, heedless world – drinking, dancing, smoking – relishing in the heady atmosphere of the Italian summer. Then Cilla quickly begins an ever-escalating flirtation with 17-year-old Donato. As she rationalizes her selfish behavior with Donato, the story moves slowly toward disaster. Is Liska Jacobs testing our perspective on morality as she talks of a woman’s desires, death, and sex in the age of #MeToo? Make sure you don’t miss our conversation on the next edition of Life Elsewhere.

Patrick O’Neil – What Do You Do?

Patrick O’Neil

In punk’s heyday, Patrick O’Neil worked at the legendary Mabuhay Gardens, San Francisco’s premier punk venue. He then went on to become a roadie and eventually the road manager for Dead Kennedys and Flipper, as well as the Subhumans and T.S.O.L. But that was before his life got totally out of control. O’Neil was a heroin addict for eighteen years, incarcerated for two and a half years, went to two long-term residential rehabs for a total of three years, and has been clean and sober for the last eighteen. His memoir Gun, Needle, Spoon follows his desperately out of control life from punk rock pioneer to his slide into drug abuse and life as an armed robber, all the way through to life in recovery and what it’s like to look back on those times, knowing all the while that he is still under the threat of three strikes, a twenty-five-to-life prison sentence waiting. For our ongoing series, What Do You Do, we asked Patrick to talk about his life now. His forthright answers and obvious passion for life should not be missed.

Also in the show, we present the new single from a London-based trio we have been keeping a watchful eye for some time, Richard Price, Roberto Sainz De La Maza and Elisa De Leon who together are known as The Loss Adjusters. Tidy Up The Scene is the latest offering from their forthcoming album. This thankfully, this hard-to-classify group deserves your full attention. And, while you are checking out new notable music, do make sure you listen to Life Elsewhere Music Vol 155 featuring brand new releases from some of our big favorites including, Arlo Parks, Benin City, Neev, Luc Seacroft, Eliza Shaddad, Cate Ferris and more.

Shoe #348

Frank, Honest, Real, Authentic & Phony

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Celebrated singer-songwriter & social activist, Ani DiFranco, has written a memoir, No Walls, & The Recurring Dream. We are especially delighted to have been able to chat with Ani while she dashes about on a hectic schedule. In her absorbing book, Ani recounts her early life from a place of hard-won wisdom, combining personal expression, the power of music, feminism, political activism, storytelling, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and much more into an inspiring whole. Her writing is frank, honest, passionate, as she tells the tale of one woman’s eventful and radical journey to the age of thirty. Her enthusiasm for life and her beliefs comes across so evidently in our conversation and she does not hesitate to comment forcefully on the recent anti-abortion move is some Southern States. “We should have a constitutional amendment ensuring women’s rights for reproductive freedom!” She announces, adding, “Choosing when to reproduce is the most fundamental right a human being should have!” Make sure you do not miss Norman B’s conversation with Ani DiFranco.

Does an authentic Andy Warhol painting need to be painted by Andy Warhol? Should we be outraged that some of those famous scenes in Blue Planet were filmed in a lab? Who are the scientists putting ever-more improbable flavors in our Jelly Belly beans? Welcome to the world of “genuine fakes”–the curious objects that fall in between things that are real and things that are not. Unsurprisingly, the world is full of genuine fakes that defy simple categorization. Whether or not we think that those things are authentic is a matter of perspective. In Genuine Fakes, historian Lydia Pyne explores how the authenticity of eight genuine fakes depends on their unique combinations of history, science, and culture. The stories of art forgeries, fake fossils, nature documentaries, synthetic flavors, museum exhibits, Maya codices, and Paleolithic replicas show that genuine fakes are complicated and change over time. Drawing from historical archives, interviews, museum exhibits, science fiction as well as her own research, Pyne brings each genuine fake to life through unexpected and often outrageous stories. You will be captivated by Lydia’s unabashed enthusiasm as she chats with Norman B about her remarkable book.

Show #347

 

Unprecedented Times

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No President in the history of the United States has inspired more alarm and confusion than Donald Trump. As questions and concerns about his decisions and qualifications for office have multiplied, they point to one primary question: Does Trump pose a genuine threat to our country? In his book, Trump On The Couch, Dr. Frank answers this question by observing Trump’s actions through a psychiatric lens, using years of study to connect Trumps’s actions to the psychosis of narcissism, misogyny, pathological deception, racism, and lack of empathy. While for years the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater Rule has precluded psychiatrists from offering diagnoses on public figures who are not patients, Dr. Frank feels the actions of our President are too destructive for him to remain silent. According to Dr. Frank, Trumps’s Presidency caps a lifetime of dysfunction and disorder, stemming from his childhood. His mother was known for riding around Queens in a rose-colored Rolls Royce with vanity plates to collect the change from laundry machines in her husband’s buildings. His ruthless father and grandfather made their fortunes in dubious ways – brothels during the gold rush, seedy housing deals during the Great Depression – and took financial advantage of government-funded programs originally meant to benefit WW11 survivors. Cut to the present day, Dr. Frank observes that we find ourselves with a President whose verbal idiosyncrasies range from deception to hyperbole, and a whose inability to experience empathy permits him to express misogyny and racism/sexism toward anyone he sees as a critic. 

There are questions that the Mueller report couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer. What actually happened to instigate the Russia investigation? Did President Trump’s meddling incriminate him? There’s no mystery to what Trump thinks. He claims that the Deep State, a cabal of career bureaucrats—among them, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok, previously little known figures within the FBI whom he has obsessively and publically reviled—is concerned only with protecting its own power and undermining the democratic process. Conversely, James Comey has defended the FBI as incorruptible apolitical public servants who work tirelessly to uphold the rule of law. For the first time, bestselling author James B. Stewart sifts these conflicting accounts to present a clear-eyed view of what exactly happened inside the FBI in the lead-up to the 2016 election, drawing on scores of interviews with key FBI, Department of Justice, and White House officials and voluminous transcripts, notes, and internal reports. In full detail, this is the dramatic saga of the FBI’s simultaneous investigations of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—the first time in American history the FBI has been thrust into the middle of both parties’ campaigns for the presidency. Stewart shows what exactly was set in motion when Trump fired Comey, triggering the appointment of Robert Mueller as an independent special counsel and causing the FBI to open a formal investigation into the president himself. And how this unprecedented event joined in ongoing combat two vital institutions of American democracy: the presidency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At stake in this epic battle is the rule of law itself, the foundation of the U.S. Constitution. There is no room for compromise, but plenty for collateral damage. The reputations of both sides have already been harmed, perhaps irrevocably, and at great cost to American democracy. Deep State goes beyond the limits of the legally constrained Mueller report, showing how the president’s obsession with the idea of a conspiracy against him is still upending lives and sending shockwaves through both the FBI and the Department of Justice. In this world-historical struggle—Trump versus intelligence agencies—Stewart shows us in rare style what’s real and what matters now. And for the looming 2020 election.

                      

From two excellent books focusing on these Unprecedented Times, we focus on talented folks making noteworthy music. Arizona-based dark rock outfit Audra return with Dear Tired Friends their first album in 10 years. They say the LP deals heavily with loss and letting go. A testimony to the effect the last decade had on each band member. Comprised of 10 tracks, this album was mastered at The Cage Studios in Coventry, UK by Martin Bowes of Attrition, well known for his work with Nine Inch Nails, Psychic TV and Steven Severin of Siouxsie & the Banshees. You’ll hear two cuts from Audra, Drinking Yourself To Sleep and Sunglasses. Shore Dive Records is an enterprising indie label based out of Brighton on England’s south coast. They have an optimistic tag-line we appreciate, “We hope to surprise you.” This is an imprint that appears to be open to different genres and where music or artists hall from. For this show we selected Privative Heart out of Brooklyn with, Dying To Live (Memoryhouse Remix). With an exciting catalog, you can expect to hear more from Shore Dive on Life Elsewhere and Life Elsewhere Music.

Show #346

 

 

Antisocial! Interlude! Kavanaugh!

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Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation by Andrew Marantz

For several years, Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, has been embedded in two worlds. The first is the world of social-media entrepreneurs, who, acting out of naïvete and reckless ambition, upended all traditional means of receiving and transmitting information. The second is the world of the people he calls “the gate crashers”–the conspiracists, white supremacists, and nihilist trolls who have become experts at using social media to advance their corrosive agenda. Antisocial ranges broadly–from the first mass-printed books to the trending hashtags of the present; from secret gatherings of neo-Fascists to the White House press briefing room–and traces how the unthinkable becomes thinkable, and then how it becomes reality. Antisocial reveals how the boundaries between technology, media, and politics have been erased, resulting in a deeply broken informational landscape–the landscape in which we all now live. Marantz shows how alienated young people are led down the rabbit hole of online radicalization, and how fringe ideas spread–from anonymous corners of social media to cable TV to the President’s Twitter feed.

Elizabeth Owens – Rabbits | Spartan Jet-Plex – Meant both available on Grimalkin Records

Nancy Kells has been featured a number of times on Life Elsewhere over the last couple of years. Not least of all because of talent and hard work at putting out uniquely different and uncompromising music. Nancy now owns and operates the Grimalkin label releasing recordings by those who share similar ideals. Their most recent press release says, As an LGBTQ centered label, it is extremely important to us to affirm the genders of the artists we represent. We understand that mistakes can be made, but do ask that you double-check to ensure you are using the correct pronouns in coverage. So included in this edition, Richmond, Virginia-based, Elizabeth Owens, they/them’s Still Coming Of Age record is the baby sister of Elizabeth Owens’ debut release, Coming Of Age. This 4 track EP includes unique, unplugged versions of songs from the original release and a new track, Rabbits. Spartan Jet-Plex is one of Nancy Kells’ musical monikers, from  Resurrected, they/them’s album of alternate versions, we selected, Meant.

The Education Of Brett Kavanaugh – An Investigation by Robin Pogrebin & Kate Kelly

In September 2018, the F.B.I. was given only a week to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. But even as Kavanaugh was sworn in to his lifetime position, many questions remained unanswered, leaving millions of Americans unsettled. During the Senate confirmation hearings that preceded the bureau’s brief probe, New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly broke critical stories about Kavanaugh’s past, including the “Renate Alumni” yearbook story. They were inundated with tips from former classmates, friends, and associates that couldn’t be fully investigated before the confirmation process closed. Now, their book fills in the blanks and explores the essential question: Who is Brett Kavanaugh? The Education of Brett Kavanaugh paints a picture of the prep-school and Ivy-League worlds that formed our newest Supreme Court Justice. By offering commentary from key players from his confirmation process who haven’t yet spoken publicly and pursuing lines of inquiry that were left hanging, it will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand our political system and Kavanaugh’s unexpectedly emblematic role in it.

Show #345

The Girl To City Conversation With Amy Rigby

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When I lived on East 4th Street, the staircase had been clogged twice a month with tenants waiting for the mailman to bring disability and welfare checks. My 14th Street neighbors were more of a mix of writers and musicians, the employed and the unemployable. Above and below and on either side of me, people were reading books, painting, making clothes. I also saw a lot of them hustling to the subway or bus in the morning dressed in business attire, off to do their day jobs. I won’t be like that, I thought. I’m only tempting until I’m successful at music. Then I won’t have to work another job.

Amy Rigby, Girl To City – A Memoir – Summer Of My Wasted Youth

In this short, brilliantly written example from Amy Rigby’s memoir, you cannot ignore her raw honesty. Even describing humdrum, day-to-day scenarios she doesn’t wander off into fanciful wordplay. Instead, Amy has a marvelous knack for not only conjuring up the scene but also her feelings at that moment. It’s a powerful skill, she modestly acknowledges. “I write better than I say it.” She announces with a slight giggle. Conversing with Amy is always a treat because you never know what tangent you’ll go in. Reading Girl To City is not unlike having a private conversation with the acclaimed singer-songwriter. She speaks directly to you, sometimes wistfully:

He wore a tank top in winter and summer.
But I loved him.
He gave me a crash course in art and film history.
He also gave me crabs, gonorrhea and herpes.
But I loved him.

Amy Rigby, Norman B & Eric Goulden, Hudson NY, 2016

And she always speaks with a wink in her eye. Never jaded, often knowing and occasionally with a tartness that catches the reader by surprise. Her memoir is packed full of information, details, names, cultural references, a history of rock and roll as seen through Amy’s almost always bright-eyed vision. There have been a lot of memoirs from the rock fraternity, Girl To City deserves its own unique category, as Lenny Kaye says, “Amy Rigby writes the way she performs and sings, laced with insight, humor, self-awareness, and above all, heart”.

During the conversation, Norman B asked Amy to select some music to play during the show. She decided on two cuts from A One Way Ticket To My Life, a companion album to her book, Girl To City, featuring unreleased tracks and demos. Plus she requested we play, the Summer Of My Wasted Youth from her 1998 album, Middlescence.

Life Elsewhere Music Vol 152

  

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