Dana Fuchs: Dreams Come True

Inside Television 561
Publication Date: 7-15-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn


I seem to have lost my cynicism along with my old car keys, but I can’t say as I miss either one. The cynicism part is much more important. Recently, my faith in the redemptive powers of art and artists has not only been restored, it has been buffed and polished into a golden glow. What follows explains why.

Now, I can’t pretend to you that this is strictly a television column. It’s not. But television with all other art forms is composed of, simply, dreamers. You can say visionaries but that term always seems so grandiloquent and stuffy. No, dreamers fits just fine. Artists have a dream, an idea, they want to express and seek the appropriate medium.

Last thing before we get to the main event. I’ve famously said as recently as last week that everything on television is a work - pre-planned, managed, and presented to provoke a response. That can be expanded to all arts. But there is an important codicil. Even within a work it is possible to be utterly sincere.

Dana Fuchs (photo credit - Amanda Zawacki)

Dana Fuchs is sincerity with a mighty voice. She played at last week’s Thunder Bay Blues Festival and I flatly wrote that she is the best singer I have ever heard. If you’ve been reading my stuff for any time at all, you know that I don’t exaggerate or hyperbolize. However, when you think someone is the best at something, why hide your opinion just because someone else might have a contrary take on the subject? Dana Fuchs is my favourite, you can have yours, and let’s just all enjoy life together.

Along with my lovely and talented step-daughter Amanda, I spent an utterly fascinating hour or so in Dana’s trailer after her set and after absolutely every last autograph seeker had received both a signature and a personal Moment to remember. What had intrigued me, even more than her voice - which matches her wind-tossed curls in beauty and natural force - was how she connected with the audience as individuals. I’d seen this on stages before - acting stages mostly - and it is the great unteachable quality. It’s almost like a coded speech, but an open sourced code, where the artist and audience let each other know they care.

I asked her where that came from. The answer was simple and sincere. ‘I want the audience to feel what I’m feeling - shout and cry and laugh and stomp. That’s why I get down on my knees. I’m tall anyway and in these big shoes so I don’t want to be above them.’

She dedicates a song to her brother as well. He passed away before her eyes of a brain tumor. I wondered why she chose to re-live that night after night. ‘I want to share with them. Everyone out there’s had something - brain tumors or cancer or heart attacks. I just want to let them know it’s okay to express that.’ Dana Fuchs deals in love and joy and making each moment beautiful.

When she was cast in Across the Universe, she was white-hot. ‘I had every agent in Hollywood after me - every agent. They all said the same thing: “Stay in LA, stay in LA.” But I’d been singing since I was 5 (she is 35 now) so I didn’t know what to do. It was a really, really hard choice to make.’

And here’s the nut of it. By deciding based on love rather than just success and opportunity, Dana has received both. In November, when her current tour ends, she flies to Asheville, North Carolina to star in a studio feature. I don’t know if the description of her part and the movie’s plot was part of the interview or part of the conversation, so I’m going to err on the side of caution. Hollywood steals ideas with the regularity of the Artful Dodger lifting wallets. But I can tell you this - Dana is doing the music for the film and given the lack of musicals produced these days...here’s a prediction and you’ll have a year and a half to lay down your bets. You’ll be seeing Dana Fuchs on television. February, 2013, Best Song at the Oscars.

Be true to who you are. Act with love. Fill each moment with joy. And dreams do come true. Be seeing you.

Thunder Bay Blues Festival Awards Column

Thunder Bay Blues Festival Daily Report

Publication Date: 7-11-11

By: Hubert O'Hearn

And so by the time you read this, the 10th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival will packed and gone. At the time I write this, it actually isn't quite over - more in the 'where's the toothbrushes and did anyone water the plants?' stage. So if Sunday night's curtain closers Blue Rodeo play the most monstrously magnificent set in the history of live music and it's not mentioned here, so sorry. Yet instinct tells me that The Who playing See Me, Feel Me as the sun rose at Woodstock is probably safe for another year.

For as long as I've been filing these daily reports, I've always closed with my completely arbitrary and subjective Festival Awards. They come with no trophy or plaque; only warm feelings and a hand held open in expectation of bribery which has never arrived. There is always next year however. Onwards:

The Hardcore Award - To those several hundred plastic-wrapped souls who stuck it out Saturday from 11:30AM-7PM through a rain sheet that had animals gathering two by two. This Blues Award goes to those who found themselves blue-lipped in the cold.

The Shiny New Toy Award - There was really only one previously little-known band that made the crowd spark and rise, and that was Trampled Under Foot, who played as the rain ended Saturday. Nick, Kris and Danielle Schnebelen gave a kick of boisterous energy to a Festival that was calling for it.

The Tasty Num-num Award - I try and hit as many of the food vendors' booths as I can, proudly clogging arteries in the name of research. My favourite thing this year was the Fox on the Run's pulled pork sandwich gracefully oozing with a mustard grape sauce.

The Hooterville-on-the-Lake Award - Let's call this a tie. First mentioned is whomever the anonymous City Administration putz was that pulled the internet router out of Marina Park right before the Festival...when there just maybe might be a few hundred people wanting an internet signal. Also, Thunder Bay Transit for not running any departing buses after midnight. I'm sure downtown bars and restaurants might appreciate having another 500 or so patrons who shudder at the notion of $40 taxi rides back to the south side.

The Novelty Act Award - The Blues Brotherhood, who gave a note by note recreation of The Blues Brothers act made famous by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Crack studio musicians, led by original Blues Brother Tom 'Bones' Malone and high energy singing made them a great addition to the Saturday evening performances that were the guts of this year's Festival.

The Prodigal Son Award - Thunder Bay born Tyler Yarema brought his swing blues band back home for Toronto and played a sharp and enjoyable set that enlivened what had been a sleepy Sunday afternoon. I've long advocated that a local act at least be given a 6PM time slot and the crowd reaction to Yarema provided all the needed evidence for that position.

The Show-Stopper Award - Dana Fuchs. Nobody was close...okay, Buddy Guy was close. But Dana, who also kindly stayed late into the night after signing every autograph seeker's album to give an interview you'll be seeing soon, is the best singer I have ever seen. She made an incredible, personal connection with every member of the audience. The one act I would actually travel to see. To use an old wrestling line, If she's not back - we riot.

Dana Fuchs - Another wrestling line:
The Best there is, the Best there was, the Best there will ever be

Line of the Year - Again from Dana Fuchs. 'This is such an incredible city and country. Canada Rocks. There was so much love being shared out there, but I hope that everyone keeps sharing the love all the time, not just when we're at a concert together.'

Be seeing you.

Thunder Bay Blues Festival - Day Two

Thunder Bay Blues Festival Daily Column

Publication Date: 7-10-11

By: Hubert O’Hearn

It was a day as wet and as cold as a polar bear’s paw. There’s a fine old Irish saying that I’m fond of quoting: There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. On the Saturday of the 10^th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival, that saying was proven as a piece of Blarney. If ever there was a living definition of sodden, this was it.

The sheer wonder of it all is that several hundred people actually managed to gut it out from the day’s opening performance at 11:30 AM until the grey sponge overhead finally ceased wringing itself out around 7PM. Half-frozen hands clapped enthusiastically after each song, in equal due to the slightly drowning performers as well as perhaps generating a bit of warmth from the friction.

The performers indeed do deserve thanks and gratitude. Yes, they were under a show tent, but wind shows absolutely no respect to a tent’s open side. Between acts a cascade was swept off the front of the stage by the hard-working stage manager Rob Jensen.

The first truly memorable moment for me at this year’s Festival came when Big Walter Smith blessed us with a classic rendition of Stand By Me.  This by the way was on Walter’s 81^stbirthday, which proves if nothing else that you’re never too old to play or enjoy the Blues.

As I have written before, one of the joys of the Festival is discovering new acts. Trampled Under Foot was quite literally the last act booked for this year’s Festival. The two brothers and sister electrified the audience, closing with the first encore call-back – Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll.

Dana Fuchs...what God looks and sounds like when God
feels like singing

But you’ll want to know my opinion of Dana Fuchs, who was my pre-Festival pick as the potential best act of the entire three days. I do not deal in hyperbole. I do not exaggerate. I state honestly what I feel. She is the best female – strike that – she is the best Blues singer I have ever heard. Over. Said. Done. Partially it must be due to her equal talent as an actor – she connects with a mass audience on a truly individual basis, specifically when she dedicated Keep on Rolling to her recently deceased brother. Simply astonishing, this connection, one worthy of the best stage actresses I have seen. And what an incredible instrument she has been blessed with. It was an honour to share this soggy time and space with her.

3:00PM


Amanda and I have made a retreat to the Prince Arthur to recharge equipment, update this blog and generally restore sensation to extremities. On the one hand, the rain is supposed to pass by 4PM. However, it's not 4PM yet and we're damn cold. Yes indeed, it IS possible to see your breath on a July day in Thunder Bay.

Not taken today...

But why complain? Well, it's fun for one thing. But the bands are playing bravely through the streams and are doing their best for a small, sodden audience. And there have been lovely moments. Big Walter Smith, who has been coming up to the Blues Festival from year one, celebrated his 81st birthday on-stage with cake and a gift chair presented by the Blues Fest organizers. He then sang one of the songs that always brings a tear to my eyes: Ben E. King's Stand By Me. And yes, those were tears and not raindrops.







12:35 PM

Someone throw a briquet on Richard Branson - it is raining like a sumbitch out here. Then again, God invented tents for a reason. Then again, according to the radar map, this should blow over in an hour or so. Mind you, one can always just pretend that one is swimming....whilw clothed...and walking around.

More later.

Thunder Bay Blues Fest 2011 Live Blog!

9:00 PM

Thunder Bay Blues Festival
Day One Column
Publication date: 7-9-11
By: Hubert O'Hearn

Without a word of a lie, as I walked into the friendly and comfortable lounge of the Prince Arthur Waterfront Suites Hotel to write this column (explanation shortly) there was the smiling face of Richard Branson on the widescreen TV. That absolutely ruined my intended opening joke.

The weather was perfectly perfect for the opening day of the 10th Annual Thunder Bay Blues Festival. That's not unusual. The weather is almost always perfect for the Blues Festival. So my thought was to put a twist on an old line and say that the organizers surely did not commit virgin sacrifice to guarantee the weather, but nobody's seen Richard Branson in a few days and there was a suspicious looking hibachi in the backstage area. Ba boom bing. Thank you very much. We're here all weekend.

The reason why the Marina Park venue has been abandoned for a hotel lounge, is that while the Festival venue offers virtually all the amenities one could ask for - outstanding food (mmm...Thai Kitchen), cold beverages and a standing army of water closets - its wireless signal is a blistering one megabyte per second. I could engrave these words on stone quicker than I could email them. Therefore, myself and a charming reporter for The Walleye have made the lounge into the press gallery. Cheers.

But that truly was my only complaint. It is surprising how many people come up to tall long-haired men (me) carrying laptops and assume that one is writing coverage. They then enquire, 'It's going to be positive, right?' Well good Lord of course it's positive! The reason I come back each year is for the - well - let someone else tell the story.

While I was waiting in the efficiently moving line to enter the site along with my aspiring photographer step-daughter Amanda Zawacki, we started chatting with a lovely couple from Winnipeg, the Stangers. This is their seventh year of coming to the Blues Festival. After asking them if they minded being quoted in the paper, Susan Stanger happily explained what they liked about the Festival. 'The music's great of course, but it's so well run and this such a friendly city.' Nicely said.

As to the day's musical events, Bob Halvorsen of the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium did his usual masterful job of booking. You never want to over-excite the audience on the first day of a three-day event; intrigue and entertain yes, but you don't want the energy drained on day one. Therefore the acts from the opening curtain jerker John Booth and the Southside Band, through to our long-time favourites Tracy K and Jamie Stenhoff and carrying through Les Dudek played what can be called comfortable Blues. Blues like your favourite pair of blue jeans; the ones you step in, hold you just right and make you want to stretch like a well-fed cat.

I particularly enjoyed Les Dudek. This will be quite a description, so breathe deeply. On his first visit to Thunder Bay, the legendary guitar player seemed like a trimmed-down Santa Claus on summer vacation playing a jazz-blues fusion with a country twang. And if that is hard to imagine, well, you should have been there Charlie.

Tonight is the act I am most looking forward to - Dana Fuchs, star of Across the Universe, who I suspect will be the show-stopper of this year's Festival. Be seeing you.








7:15 PM - Well THAT has certainly been frustrating. I am writing this from the comfortable lounge of the Prince Arthur Waterfront Suite Hotel because...Thunder Bay in its infinite lack of wisdom chose to REMOVE the wireless routers from Marina Park right before the biggest event of the year. Nice. helpful.

The event itself is going wonderfully - the local bands, given the traditional Curtain Jerker spots did solid, capable sets. Plaudits to John Booth and the Southside Band and the returning favourite Tracy K & Jamie Steinhoff.

As I write this, Les Dudek is entertaining on-stage. So back I go. Next update will be tomorrow's column in about two hours.

Cheers from me and Amanda!








PREAMBLE: 
The blog will be up and running at about 5PM EDT today, assuming the wireless signal is better than last year's 1 MPS. Yes, I said 1 MPS. Your hosts will be Hubert O'Hearn (words) and Amanda Zawacki (pictures)

Blues Festival 2011 Preview

Thunder Bay Blues Festival preview column
Publication Date: 7-8-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn

TITLE: Blues Festival Offers Quality, Professionalism and Discovery


Once again, for three days starting today, Thunder Bay gets to live up to its long-ago ambition to be considered the Chicago of the North. A century ago, the city fathers of the former Fort William and Port Arthur felt that because of their cities’ central location, rail hub and natural harbour unquestionably this part of Northwestern Ontario would be challenging the City of Big Shoulders as a midwest giant metropolis. Millions and millions of people would produce billions and billions of dollars.

Well, things haven’t quite worked out that way. Nonetheless, for these three days Thunder Bay can rightfully challenge any basement bar or concert hall in Chicago, New York, Austin or Natches as the summer palace of the Blues. Except for a short interruption I have covered the Thunder Bay Blues Festival since hour one, year one back in 2002. My judgement of it has never varied: singularly, this is Thunder Bay’s World Class Event. Not a single musician over the years has ever - ever! - had anything but compliments for the event, its organizers and the support of the audience.

If one wants to take a ballpark number of 15,000 attendees for the weekend as a sellout audience - always a tough estimate for an outdoor venue - the Blues Festival has been a virtual sellout since Year One. That said, being an outdoor venue, there is always room for one more. So what keeps people coming back, and coming back from cities across North America?

What keeps me coming back is a combination of three things: Quality, Professionalism and Discovery. Quality is in the form of the acts and this year’s Saturday closer - Buddy Guy - is still the best guitar player I have ever heard anywhere. You will always hear grumblings about booking - i.e. why is Grand Funk Railroad, Homer Simpson’s favourite band from high school - headlining on Friday? The answer is evolution. Without the Blues roots, there is no rock, and the old rockers still have a few bullets left to fire.

No, really...ignore the T-Shirt - Homer's a Funker...honest

As to Professionalism, that is marked by the imperial skills of the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium tech crew who have literally battles the elements to give every act a crystal clear sound and look under the big striped show tent. Professionalism is also seen in the food and merch vendors who offer a wide variety of treats and souvenirs at non-gouging prices.

Really though, I love discovering new acts I have never heard before. the act this year i most look forward to hearing is Dana Fuchs, who goes on before Buddy Guy this Saturday night. Having watched her YouTube clips, Dana comes across as the product of what would have been a prodigious coupling of Robert Plant and Etta James. equally, I know there will be some other act that will make me go ‘Wow’. Come on out and enjoy your own Wow moment.

Mitt Romney and the Worked Shoot

Inside Television 561
Publication date: 7-8-11
By: Hubert O’Hearn


Two observations leading to the test of a hypothesis. The first is that I truly believe people like being fooled. I suspect this is why so few card cheats or scam artists are either shot or charged. Knowing that someone else is moving at a Zen level of consciousness so far above our own that they can play us like fiddles or fools leads to a begrudging admiration.

For instance, the old gag where an elderly relative points a bony digit at a child and says, ‘Pull my finger’ before fumigating the upholstery has been greeted with laughter rather than disgust since time immemorial - or since the first Brussel Sprout was eaten, take your pick. Similarly, my dear friend Paul Ruebsam aka children’s magician Martin Wonderland was telling me that he showed a couple of full-grown adults two very basic tricks and they were squealing with delight and awe. Now Paul’s good at what he does - he can make a tray of nuts vanish faster than you can say pistachio - but really when was the last time you were really fooled by a magic trick? Yet, we all play into it. People take entertainment value from being fooled.

Second observation: From my seemingly incongruous enjoyment of professional wrestling I have learnt a great truth about television. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: Everything on television is a ‘work’. Everything shown is designed to invoke some form of visceral response that ultimately will make you buy something: a pay-per-view, a new phone, or an idea. Everything is a work; there are no exceptions.

Mitt Romney prepares for the long campaign ahead...

The natural evolution of pull my finger mixed with wrestling is Mitt Romney. I would bet the mortgage on the farm that Romney gets the U.S. Republican nomination to run against Obama in 2012. (Actually, I don’t have a farm, so I’ll bet the mortgage on your farm. That way if we win, we both win ;and if we lose, I don’t lose. Deal?) The Republicans since 1948 have always nominated the natural heir apparent. No upsets.

But for a while this week, it appeared that Romney had blown it when he said of Obama, ‘I’m going to hang him by his neck.’ In case you haven’t noticed, Barack Obama is black. In case you haven’t read, black people used to be lynched and hung by the neck. For maybe 30 seconds, I thought the former Massachusetts Governor Romney might have blown the nomination. So did most of the American news media. Then I remembered my two observations.

When is  a faux pas not a faux pas? When it’s planned. When it’s called in wrestling terms a ‘worked shoot’. A worked shoot is something that appears real, that seemingly goes against the script, the unguarded moment. Romney making this quote enquote blunder forced a tidal wave of anger from the so-called left wing of mainstream media, followed by the usual backtrackings and apologies from the Romney camp.

I don’t believe a bit of it. My theory is that Romney said the line in order to make the apology. The original line will have gone over great with the weird and loopy wing of the GOP. It makes Romney, who had come across as a bit of a wet in Thatcherite terms, much more palatable to those who are themselves unpalatable. Similarly, the media anger plays well with the frothing dogs who think all mainstream media is evil and out of touch. But really, Romney’s moment allowed for multiple explanations and images of Mitt Romney being Not Racist. Go to church, play with the kids, pat the dog - it had to be a slip of the tongue, because look at what a nice guy Mitt is.

Of course if my hypothesis is correct, you might think that I am saying that the Romney campaign is making cynical , manipulative and subversive propaganda into a main strategy. To which I reply: Exacly my point.

Be seeing you.

Democracy and Capitalism: Brothers Who Hate Each Other

Politics for Joe
3 July 2011
Hubert O’Hearn

for: Lake Superior News


Brothers in Arms


Have you ever known brothers who don’t get along? Or, to put it less mildly, have you ever known brothers who positively hate one another? They put on a good enough public show of solidarity at family weddings, funerals and to read the Christmas cards sent from one address to another one would think that the two were united from the cradle to the grave in love and solidarity. Oh, they’re united to the grave all right - but each prays that the other is dropped into the hole first. The survivor (and yes I’ve actually heard this with my own ears) then wants nothing more out of life than to send a pleasantly arcing stream of golden, beer-fueled piss onto the deceased’s headstone.

So much for familial love as a natural state. The lesson is that just because two beings happen to emerge from the same womb, do not make the false assumption that their goals, their ethics, and their raison d’etre are necessarily the same. Pleasant when it happens; not shocking when it doesn’t.

All that leads to a discussion of Democracy and Capitalism. (What?) Don’t interrupt, just read on. The other night, as a bank of thunderstorms and threatened tornados came ripping up the coast of Lake Superior towards Thunder Bay, I kept my mind off the  possibility of Wizard of Oz outcomes by playing what I call Word Tennis on a friend’s Facebook wall. Word Tennis is the snappy give-and-take on an issue, hopefully delivered with brevity, a degree of intelligence and - when the volleys are precision-centered on the racquet - wit.

The ball that we were whacking back and forth was the Tea Party movement in the U.S.. My friend, who is as compassionate and perceptive a person as I have ever known, was in righteous anger against the Palins, Bachmanns, Kochs and Pauls along with their deregulating, program-cutting brethren. Money for Big Oil? Certainly! Health care for your old Granny? Sorry, we’re out of stock at the moment.

I made two points. The first was that I could see much the same thing clouding over the border into Canada as our polite and friendly politics become more polarized. This was met with sympathy and shared benevolence by my tennis partner. The second was that the Tea Partiers deserved both a hearing and a calm discussion of the issues. They deserve both because at root they are correct in their basic perception - the system, to use a small word encompassing a vast shelf of issues, is broken.

That didn’t go over quite so well. Back over the net came a barrage of serves worthy of Boris Becker in his Teutonic prime. I believe the first words were, ‘Are you serious!?’ Well yes actually, I was being serious.

I just took a quick look at something called the U.S. National Debt Clock (http://www.usdebtclock.org/) and the whizzing numbers there show a U.S. National Debt of $14.5 trillion, or nearly $130,000 per taxpayer, $46,000 per citizen. We’ll take a cheque thanks, but only if it’s certified.

The Canadian numbers only seem small in comparison when viewed at Canada’s National Debt Clock (http://www.debtclock.ca/). The total national debt sits or squats at around $560 billion, with the individual share rounding out to $16,400 - about the cost of a modest car or a snappy fishing boat and motor. So as a nation, Canada is no more in hock than its citizens. The U.S. on the other hand has spent like a university student who just got a credit card in the mail.

There’s a lot more to Tea Party anger than just the national debt. There is a psychological observation that people become lost in large numbers. If I asked you how many bricks there are in the Empire State Building, what would you guess? 100,000? 500,000? A million? The answer is actually 10 million, but that’s just bar stool trivia. Of more consequence is how the trillions of deficit bricks come crashing down around us.

The Tea Partiers, and red meat Conservatives in Canada, view government as - in Ibsen’s terms - An Enemy of the People. The nation and most of the world went through a white knuckle crisis in 2008 when the financial industry waved frantically and screamed, ‘We’re drowning!’ Out went the life rafts in the form of aid and emergency loans, up went the debt and the thankful industries...took the life rafts to Hawaii on vacation and whispered back over their shoulders, ‘Thanks sucker!’ There were lots of dubious practitioners involved in the creation of the bonds and loans that led to the crisis (a subject for another day) but according to a consumer trust study I looked at the other week, the least trusted corporation in the United States is the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is expected to pay its executives with $15.3 billion in salary and bonuses this year, 2011.

And you wonder why people get angry? It’s like the villagers were all rounded up to attack Frankenstein and when they returned home, there was Frankenstein rummaging around in the kitchen, eating all the good stuff.

There’s much, much more to the anger than that. This is however a column and not a University reading list. So let’s get to the heart of the matter.

Democracy and Capitalism don’t get along. They are the brothers I had in mind when we began this discussion. (What?) Now I’ve told you before and I’m not telling you again - don’t interrupt. I’ll make this as understandable as I can for you.

Suitable visual metaphor

We tend to link Capitalism and Democracy as closely as Siamese twins. Intuitively, I suspect this is for two reasons. First, we in the West spent virtually the entire second half on the 20th Century arming ourselves against an invasion from the Soviet Union. As the USSR was neither capitalistic nor democratic (despite a beautifully-written constitution; well worth the read) and ‘we’ were both, therefore there must be an inevitable linkage. Before moving on, I want to note in passing that ‘we’ also played a lot of golf and checked our daily horoscopes while ‘they’ didn’t. Commonalities do not necessarily imply a linkage.

Second, modern Democratic government - both Parliamentary and Republican forms - sprung up at about the same time as modern Capitalism. We could yak about the exact origin points endlessly without ever reaching a definitive answer, reminiscent of the late George Carlin’s line about once upon a time there were six people on Earth. Two is a controversial number, but we can all agree that at some point there were six. For argument’s sake though, I’m going to place the starting line of modern Capitalism in a coffee shop in London in 1689 where Lloyd’s of London was formed. And yes, it was over coffee, not tea. Insuring merchants against loss did ta very important thing: one, it made finance a profession and out of that sprang banks, loans, bonds and all the other goodies which allowed for investment and profit for people who didn’t actually sail the ships or off-load the goods. Hence, Capitalism now had Capitalists - people who worked quite literally for the accumulation of money.

So I'm placing the birth of Capitalism first. As to Democracy, well yes there was Switzerland but who really cares about Switzerland except the Swiss and fans of Heidi? I’d more likely say that modern Democracy is properly launched with the French and American revolutions of the late 18th century. Each influenced the other and both were robustly exported and imitated. One could make an argument for Magna Carta and the later Corn Laws and I’d more or less shrug and concede because the precise moment is like the number of bricks in the Empire State Building - more trivial than consequential.

What is consequential is that Capitalism and Democracy were not simultaneous but sequential. Their unity, I think (as did Karl Marx) emerges from the fact that Capitalism had spawned all these Capitalists - the bourgeoisie if the word doesn’t cause a violent itchy skin rash to bloom on the reader’s skin. The Capitalists wanted their piece of the action. If the nation was going to be a-marching off to war and expecting the Capitalists to help pay for it through taxation, then the Capitalists wanted their say. Given the lack of job openings for King, Democracy seemed the next best thing.

Note: I said the next best thing.

Aye, there’s the rub - for one can’t write at length about anything without throwing in at least one Shakespearean allusion. Capitalists would merrily endorse monarchy or dictatorship as the finest form of government provided one of the Capitalists could be in charge. Problem is, there are lots of Capitalists, but dictator is a singular noun.

The problem Capitalism and Democracy have with one another is that they move in exact opposite directions. Democracy, ever since the Athenians hit on a pretty nifty idea, involves the diffusion of power. The more power is spread among the many, the less likely it is that an individual or conspiratorial oligarchy could become corrupt and take the nation straight to hell in a handcart. Capitalism, on the other hand, because it requires excess profit to distribute among shareholders and those financial professionals slurping java in London (or in Java) seeks to concentrate power. There’s only so much money to go around, so the more competitors I eliminate the more I get to give to My Team.

And this is why the brothers don’t get along. Brother Democracy looks at  Brother Capitalism as a greedy pig who wants it all for himself. Brother Capitalism looks at Brother Democracy as a lazy layabout who’s forever coming by for a handout.

The modern problem, as I head to an all too brief conclusion, is that Capitalism has out-grown the nation itself. The nation and its democracy are an annoyance that just gets in the way of increased concentration of money and power. But the nation is still useful to Capitalism as a source of short-term funds, paying for research through its universities and subsidizing its activities through i.e. handouts to Big Oil to suck out the last drops of fossil fuels.

This is what the Tea Partiers and other Conservatives are right about. The system, the nation, the government is being sucked dry. What is ultimately evil is how the Capitalists (yes I’m taking sides here) have bought and packaged the discontent. Instead of arguments to rein in and regulate the Capitalist economy, the finger is instead being pointed in the exact opposite direction - at poor old Democracy. ‘See! There’s your problem! They spend too much and are making it impossible for us to operate and make your life better!’

And unless Democracy manages to get its shambling self together in a hurry...well, we’ll deal with the consequences another day. Assuming we have one.

Be seeing you.