An empty statistic

The US Census Bureau has declared that Hispanics have become the largest ethnic minority in the US and within a few years, whites will be in a minority in the country.

This is an entirely empty statistic. Hispanics are not an ethnic group, and I write this as someone who would fall under this category. At present, their only bonds are the Spanish language and a strong Catholic faith for many, but that will dilute with the passing of time. Without Spanish, what will Mexicans, Cubans or Puerto Ricans have in common?

The Pop Rock Musical Tradition

The other day, while I was in a cab, the driver turned the radio on. Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence was playing. The cabbie, who must have been at least sixty, started to sing ever so quietly. I mouthed the words as well.

“Forty years this album’s been around”, he said.

“It’s great,” I replied.

“It was the soundtrack to a movie…what was it called?”

“The Graduate.”

“You know it?” He asked.

“Yes. I’m a big fan of Simon & Garfunkel.”

Later that day, I pondered about the unique continuity afforded by the pop rock & roll tradition, starting with Elvis, down through The Beatles and The Eagles and beyond. I think the Baby Boomers tuned out around the time Run DMC and Tone Loc arrived on the scene. But Gen Xers like me find themselves in a rare situation in the annals of pop: we can look back to the rockabilly crooners and doo-wop hits of the fifties and take our pick, mix it up with The Beach Boys, The Byrds and some Bowie, perhaps add a sprinkling of U2, Pixies and Nirvana and then end up with Outkast or The Killers. None of these choices implies a drastic break with the past, but rather a progression, sometimes sudden, often gradual, of the same musical tradition over decades.

The view, or the sound, we get by cramming all these elements together is the evolution of popular music and, at least for me, none of it is alienating or foreign. We grew up listening to sixties and seventies pop because of our parents or perhaps because of our own dabbling in boomer music during the late 80s flower children mini revival. The songs are entirely familiar. What came afterwards is the soundtrack of our youth and adulthood. Compare this uninterrupted flow with the Baby Boomers, whose parents belonged to the Cocktail nation used to Crosby and Sinatra and for whom rock & roll represented a tuneless, diabolical invention. The break between one generation and the next was drastic. Not so with us.

Which brings me to think that this uninterrupted chain in the pop rock musical tradition cannot last. Already my daughter will probably find Simon & Garfunkel hopelessly antiquated, if not unpleasant, the way I would react to the Cole Porter or Glenn Miller songs favoured by my grandparents.

I’ve found the best thing since sliced bread

It’s called www.readitswapit.co.uk and it allows me to indulge in my bibliophilia at a tiny fraction of what it used to cost me. The premise is simple: post the titles of your books on the website. Then you either wait for someone to ask you to swap or you ask a member with a book you like to do so. If they agree, you must mail the book within a set time frame. You’re encouraged to be prompt by the rating each swap-partner can give you upon completion of the swap.

Why didn’t anyone think of this before? It’s brilliant: access to a trove of old and new books, a chance to pass on and share your own collection and even talk about your reading preferences with fellow book lovers. Amazon…look out!

A Gay Muslim Racist?? (!)

Over the last 219 years, starting with George Washington through Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Harry S. Truman, William Jefferson Clinton and George Walker Bush, the vast majority of US Presidents have been white males with British or Irish roots, be these English, Scottish, Welsh, Ulster Protestant or Irish Catholic. A handful have had Dutch or German origins, but considering the diversity of European immigration to America - already by the turn of the 19th century some Americans feared the influx of non-English speaking Germans overwhelming the country - the dominance of Anglo-Celtic candidates as heads of state is a glaring historical fact.

After all, British immigrants were the first to immigrate to the United States. Their imprint spread far and wide across the land, as their descendants became the pioneers who opened up new territories in the West, South West and South East. Even when Americans with British roots were outnumbered by German-Americans in Wisconsin or Italians in parts of the North East, these first settlers retained a cultural advantage that translated into political prominence. Even accounting for nativist sentiment, racism towards newcomers and the exclusion of women and non-whites, it is surprising that the White House has not been occupied by a more diverse crop of individuals with German, Scandinavian, Italian or Eastern European origins.

The rise of Barak Hussein Obama is a stunning break with long-established historical patterns. And it is no wonder it has resulted in a low-level campaign of hostility and rumour against the candidate, including wild speculation across small town America that Obama is a secret Gay Muslim racist who refuses to pledge allegiance to the flag (!). A good number of white Americans, either out of bigotry or plain ignorance, are simply not ready for this change and what it signifies for society, however long overdue.

But racism doesn’t matter as much as it used to, pricipally because it is becoming an increasingly marginal and downwardly mobile phenomenon. As long as only a minority succumbs to xenophobic fear, Obama’s election chances should not be harmed. Should the Republican Party abandon all restraint and stir up nativist sentiment to a fevered pitch, at a time when anti-Hispanic hysteria has reached unprecedented levels among certain Americans, they may end up winning the White House once again, but the consequences for the fabric of American society will be dire.

However fascinating or promising Obama’s candidacy may be in terms of the sweep of American history, he should no win because of his ethnicity. And a McCain win is not a victory for racists. If McCain runs the better campaign and convinces more American citizens of the value of his views over his rival’s, then so be it. It is only when fear and bigotry are brought into the mix that any electoral success would become tainted.

The best advantage Obama has, what makes his prospects the best facing a Democrat for a long time, is George W. Bush. He is terribly unpopular. The Republican Party desperately needs to renew itself after 8 years of Bush incompetence. It is a party with dwindling appeal and an eroding base. David Brooks accurately pinpoints how the knowledge class, the affluent professionals working in finance, medicine, the media and technology, are already overwhelmingly liberal, and natural Democrats, in outlook while managers and executives in industries like oil and gas remain Republican, supported by the white lower-middle and working classes. This coalition has served the Republicans well over several decades. But in the 21st century, both sources of GOP support are becoming less demographically and culturally important. It is the knowledge economy that continues to thrive; America’s workers are more diverse with every passing year, with more Hispanics joining its ranks. If the party of Bush and McCain doesn’t figure out a way to appeal outside its traditional support groups, the numbers don’t bode well for future electoral successes.

TV Obsolescence?

So the hype is true - the young and the restless are migrating to You Tube or Wii and only the “mature” audiences remain for the older medium. A recent study puts the average age for TV viewers at 50! Perhaps I am too old to get it, but clips of alligator attacks, juvenile pranks and amateurish sketches (The Manny, anyone?) are about as compelling as watching the toilet flush.

There are a few factors that might snag the brave new world of post-television entertainment:

a) The coming broadband crisis. Too much data is being transferred and there is not enough bandwidth to support endless downloads of Battlestar Galactica or Heroes.

b) A good chunk of what You Tube offers cannibalizes TV and film. There is very little original, scripted content on the internet and even much of that is utter crap.  Like any mass medium, it is entirely anarchic and we won’t know what the ownership structure will be like in a few decades.

c) How is anyone going to make any money out of this?

The clear alternative is for production companies and studios to migrate to the internet and give viewers absolute control.

Emmy Nominations

The Academy of TV Arts & Sciences revealed the nomination favourites last week. FNL is included, as well as other great shows such as Flight of the Concords, Mad Men and Damages. Check out the list of nominees . Who knows? Maybe we’re in for a surprise and Two and a half men gets snubbed!

Friday Night Lights, or the best “cable” drama on network tv

We all now that network television audiences have been shrinking since the advent of cable back in the ’80s. The Internet age, with You Tube and Facebook and countless other such e-phenomena, have only gone on to compound the effect.

Network television has responded with what can be seen either as a scorched-earth policy, by reducing quality at a critical juncture, or as simply playing to its strengths: reality television. By focusing on programming whose appeal lies on just how ephimeral its subject matter is, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox want to stop their slide into demographic irrelevance. American Idol, Survivor, The Apprentice, the Amazing Race or any other in the latest batch of reality shows rely on people expecting a ”real-life” event will be taking place, that Simon Cowell will diss a would-be pop star live or Paula Abdul will have a sanity blip, and hope that it will draw potential viewers away from watching yet another clip of Matt Harding dancing a jig in Kuala Lumpur. They can only hope. The upshot is that scripted television programmes, comedies and dramas alike, take up less and less time on the schedules every year.  The Writer’s Strike didn’t help. And It is not a wildly outlandish thought to predict that at some point in the next few years, the networks will call it a day and simply churn out variations of Wipeout or I Survived a Japanese Game Show every few months. What they’ll do when the appeal of the reality formula erodes is anybody’s guess.  

These factors in the television industry make Friday Night Lights, or FNL, all the more remarkable - it is a gem that reminds us what a well-written, well-acted drama can do for its audience: compel, entertain, educate. The ability the series has to bring a small, no-hope, football-obsessed Texas town to life week after week is a formidable achievement. Which brings me to the conclusion that FNL is a quality “cable” drama that has been stranded on NBC. The deal with DirectTV has been cited as yet more evidence of network television’s inevitable decline. Perhaps it is also a promising development for scripted shows that manage to sneak into network programming. If they attract critical raves and a devoted cadre of fans, they will get to have a life after networks pull the plug.

The irony of course is that FNL, Mad Men or Dexter attract sophisticated audiences with higher than average disposable incomes - the sort of audience that networks would love to have. But they have given up on this type of audience in some quixotic bid for mass appeal that will deliver ever-diminishing returns.

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