02/11/2016
Matador Playlist 1/28/16
An election year in the U.S. of A.: A depressing scenario even in the most favorable of circumstances. Election years are the ones when all the crazies not only come tumbling of the American political closet but then parade about waving their crazy banners and proclaiming an alarming assortment of mind-bending agendas to the bafflement and horror of not only their more levelheaded countrymen but the world at large. It's like spending four years peeping through the curtains at your mildly alarming neighbors only to find them rallying in the front yard one morning, heavily armed and proclaiming allegiance to vague, deranged notions regarding the Second Amendment, 'Winning,' racist immigration policies and returning America to some imaginary pre-liberal paradise. Broadcast news of any sort becomes treacherous terrain: You're casually flipping through the channels one day when suddenly—blasta from the pasta!—there's none other than Sarah Palin, draped in some sort of Tea Party chain mail and screeching out a largely incoherent endorsement of Dumb Donald Trump. You're not sure whether to laugh, cry or run screaming into the streets. Even DDT hisself is looking mildly alarmed and baffled. (To Ms. Palin's credit, she gamely trotted out in front of the cameras to deliver her endorsement shortly after her daughter Bristol was knocked up again and her son Track was arrested for drunken assault—doing a great job there, mom!) What to do, what to do? The obvious thing is to pull the curtains tightly shut, restrict your viewing to Downton Abbey and Netflix, turn up BBC Radio 4 slightly louder than usual, consider taking up a new hobby (prayer), and hunker down until election day. Then there is also, as R. Crumb suggests, Despair. Not easy to discern the difference sometimes.