APRIL 16, 2004 || 7:00 pm

Well, the tax refund arrived in the mail this week. Sorry to say the money's already been spent (for the most part on obscure Japanese albums from 30 years ago). Actually the money will go to my credit card company rather than my record dealers -- it's so easy to buy things with PayPal that I've really got to watch my monthly balance (oh, for the good old days when I still had the resolve to avoid using credit cards to acquire pricey vinyl...). Unfortunately, it's not so easy when you search beyond the industrialized world for old albums. Don't banks deal with money the same way all over the world? It shouldn't be nearly as difficult as it is to put cash in someone's hands anywhere across the globe (consider that my dig for the day at the Turkish financial system).

There are other things that ought to be easier than they are -- like tracking down "classic" albums on CD. This week I finally caught up with The Feelies' debut, Crazy Rhythms. After months of looking for one on eBay and thinking "I can find one cheaper than that," I finally decided "maybe I can't" and plunked down $30 for a clean copy. Now $30 is a drop in the bucket relative to what I normally spend on rare vinyl -- what really bothered me is: why is this disc rare in the first place? This is a record that Spin named one of the 100 greatest alternative albums of all time. The first (and best?) album of an influential '80s band who built a fan base with a couple of critically acclaimed major label discs (I wasn't really part of that fanbase myself, but did see them open for Lou Reed on his New York tour and thought they were pretty good). A record that Riverboat Sayles was desperately seeking several weeks ago while he was working on liner notes for an upcoming modern rock collection. And Crazy Rhythms, as far as I can tell, has been out of print all over the world for nearly a decade.

I think this album originally came out on Stiff and got reissued by A&M when they picked up the group in the late-'80s. Who owns the rights to this thing at this point? The band? Or if an actual record label owns it, do they even realize they might be able to make money off of it? For the past couple of years, I've been listening to people in the industry describe the Internet as an amazing opportunity (when they're not too busy cursing it over piracy). Look for any kind of Feelies music at iTunes or any of the other online retailers and see what you find (hint: it's not much). And there are scores of other artists with music that's just as worthy and just as unavailable (except from the file sharers). Fortunately, the Internet IS succeeding in hooking people up with physical goods, like my $30 CD. Now if only we can figure out how to do that with the music...

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MARCH 9, 2004 || 10:14 am

Dispassionate About The Passion

I was gonna throw myself whole-hog into the controversy surrounding The Passion Of The Christ—specifically, whether or not it’s an anti-Semitic reading of Christ’s final 12 hours on Earth. But it’s become clear that I’m in no real position (or no comfortable one among the requisite dusty volumes). And further given the scant bottom-line justification for any such posturing, I will cast half my swine in the court of Caiaphas and the other in quaint copy that will hopefully sell a few copies of Barbie Hit Mix.

So I’ve compiled a humble Q&A—questions I had, along with bits of stuff I’ve uncovered that might help in understanding Mel Gibson’s contested blood feast.

Anti-Semitic how? And who are the guys in the fancy robes?
Unlike other portrayals, The Passion spends much celluloid on Christ’s condemnation pre-Pontius Pilate. The robed ones who deliver Him to the infamous Roman procurator of Judea (southern Palestine) are priests of the Jewish high court, headed by the severe-looking Caiaphas. They’ve determined that Christ’s teachings are blasphemous, but under Roman law they don’t have the authority to order a crucifixion. The controversy arises in the film’s apparent vilification of Jews as Christ-killers. After all, Pilate (judge, jury, and nail-driver if you’re not paying attention in Sunday school) repeatedly refuses to convict. Furthermore, Gibson’s procurator is long on compassion, offering Jesus a drink at one point.

What does The Bible say?
The Gospels of The New Testament seem to support Gibson’s story. Jesus’s appearance before Pilate is covered in Matthew 27:1-26; Mark 15:1-15; Luke 23:1-25; and John 18:28-40, 19:1-16.

John 19:6: “When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him (Jesus), they cried out, saying ‘Crucify him, crucify him.’ Pi’late saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.”

Interesting note: Pilate literally washes his hands in front of the assembled, cleansing himself of responsibility—and perhaps giving rise to the common cliché.

It’s in The Bible, so what’s the problem?
Critics cite several. Here's a sampling: 1) While Gibson’s narrative basically lines up with scripture, what’s left out is the Gospels’ additional emphasis on God as the true architect of the Crucifixion. 2) It’s possible that the Gospel writers, fearing for their own safety under Roman rule, downplayed the Empire’s culpability. 3) Jesus’s followers presented a real threat to Roman governance, and the priests might have therefore sacrificed him for the greater safety of the Jewish community. 4) Gibson, assuming the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, takes them too literally. Scholarship rather reveals that they were composed long after the fact.

Who were the Pharisees?
Early on, The Passion mentions that the Pharisees hated Jesus. Why? During the period of the Second Temple (516 B.C. – 70 A.D.), the Jewish community was made up of dozens of sects. Mentioned most often in scripture are the Pharisees (“The Separate Ones”—from the heathens, that is), whom Jesus chastises extensively in the book of Matthew, calling them “hypocrites” and a “brood of vipers.” While they were often characterized as conceited temple capitalists, one Jewish scholar I read points out that Jesus wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know about certain members of their ranks. In particular, Jesus resented their hubris in teaching, literally, from “the chair of Moses.” To their credit, modern Orthodox Judaism derives mainly from Pharisaism, which concerned itself with moral dignity and unwavering piety, among other high ideals. It is believed that high priests such as Caiaphas came from the wealthy families of the Sadducees, a different sect.

For further reading, there are numerous Web sites and:

The New Testament
The Crucifixion Of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith by Gerard S. Sloyan.
Newsweek; “Who Killed Jesus?” by Jon Meacham, Feb 16, 2004.
The New Yorker; “Nailed: Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ” by David Denby, March 1, 2004.
Vanity Fair; “The Gospel According To Mel” by Christopher Hitchens, March 2004.
The Miami Herald; “Passion Sparks Interfaith Dialogues” by Donna Gehrke-White, March 6, 2004.

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FEBRUARY 13, 2004 || 6:30pm

Decided to push my luck and work late here in the office this Friday the 13th. No sign of Jason, Freddy, or any other movie maniac, but the silence can accurately be described as "eerie." I actually like working here after everyone's gone; it's the only time I can really get anything done. Like a new entry in the 'ol blog...

Bad news on the campaign front of late. I don't mean to get political here, but John Kerry's rise in popularity is of some concern to me. Because I have recently learned that one of the albums on my want list (an early-'60s prep school private pressing) features the Presidential hopeful on bass! This disc was elusive enough already; now I'll have to fight political memorabilia collectors for it as well.

O.K., I guess I WILL get a little political here for a moment. As annoyed as I am with the grocery strike we've been having in SoCal (and the over-paid, ineffectual labor leaders who have so far failed their rank-and-file workers), I set out last week to try to support the picketers by getting my groceries someplace else. I was surprised at how difficult that is to do. A couple of places in town cater to high-end health food-types, and I guess you can get some junk food at the drug store -- but where do you go for stuff in between? What if I just want a bag of frozen corn, and don't care if it's macrobiotic or organically grown? My search drove home the degree to which consolidation (the "Wal-Mart-ization of America") has swept this country. Thank heavens for diversity in music (and an Internet that can help bring diverse discs to my stereo system)!

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