Throwing out DaBaby with da Bath Water

             

        What about Eric Clapton? That would probably be DaBaby’s question if anyone asked. DaBaby—a rap artist whose music is happily unknown to me—was cancelled last week, literally, when concert impresarios C3 Presents struck his name from the famed Austin City Limits festival in October. Stop me if you’ve heard this before—for homophobic and highly ignorant comments. And justifiably so. But Eric Clapton who is white and is rock ‘n roll royalty has said a lot worse and will still be performing in Austin this September at the University of Texas Special Events Center. There’s been no call to cancel his visit, by promoters or by fans. In fact a good argument can be made that Clapton’s comments (“Stop Britain from being a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white . . . .”, hmmm), which led to the Rock Against Racism movement, actually, are worse, because they were directed against the very black people to whom Eric Clapton owes his music. There’s a silver lining to this episode, however, because DaBaby's time-out presents such a rich environment for puns—and also shines a long overdue light on the murky world of concert promotion in Austin, Texas, the World Capital of Live Music.

        C3 Presents is da baby of Charlie Jones, Charles Attal and Charlie Walker—the 3 original C’s—and was born in this burgeoning River City fifteen years ago. An early backer of the company was said to be cyclist Lance Armstrong. His longtime agent, Bill Stapleton, who is a former Longhorn swimmer and Olympian is somewhere in the early C3 mix too. Connection to Lance Armstrong is not necessarily a good thing, considering the famed athlete’s recent troubles, but we won’t get into that here. Indeed C3 has some very impressive credentials. Because the company also puts on the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, and came to the attention of the Obama clan, C3 was picked later to put on events at the White House. My source who has worked as a contractor for C3 said regarding the company’s use by President Obama, “They did everything for him from rallies to his acceptance speech in Grant Park and Easter egg hunts at the White House.” C3 is described as highly non-diverse (and declined to respond with its minority employment breakdown.) What’s interesting is that the company that cancelled DaBaby—and rightfully so—and also puts on a lot of shows in casinos—was bought out by Live Nation which previously merged with Ticketmaster. (It was the Obama administration, btw, that allowed Live Nation to take over C3, despite antitrust fears.) Live Nation’s former chairman is music mogul Irving Azoff, the former manager of the supergroup The Eagles. Azoff is also former CEO of Ticketmaster, and is founder, together with Tim Leiweke, former CEO of AEG—the largest sports promoter in the world—of “Oak View Group” which together with Live Nation has a $338 million contract to build and manage the new Moody Center in Austin to replace the old University of Texas Special Events Center where Eric Clapton will play next month. If it sounds like a small world, it is, and it gets smaller. The Moody Center will be home of Longhorn men and women’s basketball and music events. Enter Matthew McConaughey. Per Musicrow.com: “McConaughey, University of Texas at Austin professor, Distinguished Alumnus (BS ’93) and Academy Award-winning actor, has signed on as Minister of Culture of the Moody Center and will work on ideas including but not limited to suite designs, bar placement, color schemes, and other concepts, to create a symbiotic relationship between the arena, the city, and the university.” You couldn’t make this up.

        In addition C3 Presents has the contract for the Moody Amphitheater in the newly reopened Waterloo Park, smack center of downtown Austin, a couple of blocks from Irving Azoff’s new special events center on campus and a stone’s throw from the state Capitol and Greg Abbott’s crib. If the governor opens his windows he can probably hear the music. Interesting that these deals, which have led to Mr. Azoff becoming the single most important guy in music in Austin, in a very short time, through public-private partnerships, were done without apparent bidding or public scrutiny? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Mayor Steve Adler who will soon preside over the reopening of Waterloo Park has declined requests to explain what the public is getting out of all these music industry machinations. It’s like the privatization scandals of a prior Republican era, except instead of prisons it’s music. This template (creation of a new music venue at a public park, and handing over management of the venue to a non-profit that does not have to explain its contracting process or answer open records requests) will soon be applied to Zilker Park too, home of Barton Springs. That is corruption City of Austin style. The UT deal was executed, btw, by former university President Greg Fenves, in consultation with Mayor Adler, among others.

        However everything shakes out, this is likely to be a big payday and another increase in power for Irving Azoff who is a legend in the music business and who has also been accused of a monopoly-like control in the industry in the past. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either. (Mr. Azoff would not comment.) The music industry may have made the correct call with DaBaby but it’s weird that what is right or wrong or not permissible, regarding race or culture, in live music in Waterloo Park is now in the hands of a bunch of white guys, mostly living in L.A., who have made no effort to diversify a very Caucasian group of music industry businesses. Back to DaBaby, who is presently in time-out. It’s been noted elsewhere that his recent gay-bashing was not his first offense and that the LGBTQ community is trying to make a stand against longtime prejudice in the music industry. How gays do that is a gay rights call and should be supported by the black community, because it ill-behooves blacks to complain about use of a social revolt playbook that we wrote. You feel me? What one would like however is more consistency in how sanctions are applied. 

        Unfortunately, Eric Clapton may not be the best artist to start with. First, his comments were made almost half a century ago, during a time in which he has described himself as “semi-racist,” whatever that means. Even if you drop the semi—and add his recent anti-vaccination comments, he is simply, on one level, an unrepentant old white guy, age 76, who happens to be a CBE, courtesy of Her Majesty the Queen who is also dotty. Be that as it may. As for DaBaby, he needs a spanking now—that’s the best argument—while it may have an effect on future behavior. Which is unlikely to be the case with Clapton. Now we can address the real determinant of forgiveness and punishment in the culture wars, Eric Clapton’s artistry. “Layla,” “Cocaine,” “Lay Down Sally,” the Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes among his former associations. DaBaby may have a biography like that too one day but Eric Clapton already does. This is Slowhand himself, people. There are fans who would push their own grandmother out of the way to get the ticket. He’s not God but he plays electric guitar like Him or Her. Anybody who can see Clapton play now—live—should.             

George Clooney's Diversity Vehicle

       

Everyone has a favorite movie but how many people have a favorite movie scene, as in all-time, in the history of cinema or cinema that you’ve seen? Not many of us can narrow it down. People have lists but not one single favorite, the single scene that you would absolutely want to be marooned with? But mine is unique. It’s from Steven Soderbergh’s 1998 film Out of Sight, starring George Clooney, and does not have Clooney in it even though he was star of the movie. And it’s short, there’s no time for over-acting, instead it's a couple of minutes in a Detroit rowhouse between Isaiah Washington—who is from Texas btw, not that that’s important here—and Jennifer Lopez who is from the Bronx. 

Also featured but not seen is Tuffy who is Isaiah Washington’s character’s dog, or was until she got run over, we are informed. Before that Tuffy “liked a good bone,” which is what Isaiah Washington is trying to interest JLo in too. Washington’s character calls his bone “The Monster” and he plans to introduce JLo whether she wants it or not.

The difference in performing style between these two actors, who are both underrated as performers btw, is also unique. Washington plays the scene like in a theater—delivering a eulogy for Tuffy not Caesar—and then talking about boxing, which JLo also knows a bit about. She tells him that she’s a flyweight. Washington’s character was a boxer—until his retina “got detached two time”—and he gestures at his own eye so that the back row of the theater can see. The critics would call it a “certain physicality,” like a black Brando, you feel me—something like that. JLo on the other hand plays her role like an actor who has grown up in movies. In this scene she is a woman who’s not interested in a brother’s come-on and who shows a certain fear, yes—while also being fearless. Her empowerment as a female in modern cinema comes from the knowledge that she has a collapsible baton and a Glock in her shoulder bag. 

The reason the scene appeals to me is that it is in one of the rare major theatrical releases, back in the day, just before the millennium, in which two minority actors got time to go at it and talk real shit, without the mediation or interference of the white star.

White stars generally want to be in the scene with a Negro or Latino in order to show that the white guy or white girl is cool and can hang with the oppressed peoples of the earth and all that. Clooney didn’t do that here, presumably because he’s not that insecure (he hangs these days, we are told in the popular press, with Barack Obama) and besides he already had some good scenes earlier in the film with Don Cheadle and with JLo herself who is Clooney’s love interest when he’s not robbing banks. It says everything that needs to be said about the confrontation in Detroit that it is my favorite scene of all time in the movies, not to repeat myself. As judged #1, by me, for each of the last few years. The scene actually begins with a lead-in by Viola Davis who plays Moselle and who is Isaiah Washington’s presumed squeeze or sister or something and who he has just sent out to get some chicken so that he can be alone with JLo and introduce her to The Monster. That’s all the background you need. Viola Davis is on screen just long enough to open her eyes wide, in foreboding, a beautiful thing to see, and my point is that if the cast is so strong that Ms. Davis is just the set-up, that means it must be a great scene, which it is. You have to see it. Probably the JLo-Isaiah Washington showdown won’t affect you the way it did me, but it might.

If you ask me for my second all-time favorite scene it would be the meeting in the board room in Margin Call, from 2011. Everyone is good and it’s smart moviemaking, explaining an idea not a corpse on the ground. It’s believable in the sense that a bunch of mostly white actors pretending to do wholesale generalized evil—well, these actors are right on the money: Jeremy Irons, Zachary Pinto, Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Aasif Mandvi, they're all about to pull out The Monster, too, but it’s a different one than Isaiah Washington has in Out of Sight. What about the whole movie, you may ask? 

Why not watch it? 

The answer is about not having the patience to sit still for two hours anymore, the length of the average Hollywood release. That can happen as you get older, especially the more movies you’ve seen. Watching a script unfold that—even before it starts—you kinda know how it’s going to end? Not to be a purist, or puritanical, not to be Old School or anything. There was a word that critics used to use a lot, “derivative,” as in one work is derived from another? We’re so far past derivative now, what’s the point? The unsurprising exception is anything with another actor named Washington—Denzel. With Denzel, you have to see the whole film. Literally, he can read the ingredients on a cereal box and it’s watchable, but my favorite is when he’s racking up the body count, especially if he’s doing white guys, not to be mean-spirited or racist or anything. The vibe he always gives off is justice. Killing can be beautiful art, especially when it's deserved. 

Historically the two movie scenes that have stayed with me through the decades, since my childhood, are the “I-could-have-been-a-contender” cab ride with Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront and the final shoot-out in the saloon in Shane (1953). There’s a dog in the saloon and the animal steals the scene from Alan Ladd and Jack Palance. In terms of sheer cinematic beauty there is the escape across the snow to Switzerland, at the end of La Grande Illusion, which has a brisk and beautiful narrative, not to sound artsy or anything but it really is a cool example of moviemaking. Being an action fan myself and seeing my share of war movies, through the years, one must consider the Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now of course. But each of these moments in cinema was picked at a time when the whole movie experience was important to me. Now it’s just scenes on YouTube.

Maybe it’s age, young viewers don’t know that the new movie is derivative of a prior film because they never saw the old one, you know? 

For me, it means no new favorite movies. It’s like a video diet, actually, and the results have been surprising. Revising my number one or number two scene is occasionally required but not as often as you might think. 

Right now a revision of number two is being considered based upon my number of viewings online. The challenger to Margin Call’s board room drama is a scene that also came my way entirely by way of YouTube, from a movie that very likely will never be on my list to see. There is just this one scene, it’s in a meeting room too, like Margin Call, but instead of being a real ensemble work it features a soliloquy, more or less, by none other than Sean Puffy Combs. Instead of the late lamented Tuffy of Out of Sight the animals here are cockatoos. The film is Get Him to the Greek, about the music business, a subject that does not interest me in the least. Again, as in the case of Isaiah Washington, the scene is basically a brother talking shit, there ought to be an Academy Award for a particular scene like this, different from the award for the whole movie. 

Anyway, my sincere wish is to thank George Clooney for backing off in Out of Sight and sipping his bottle of water, or whatever, behind the camera, and letting the supporting actors get in some quality time in front of the cameras. You have to thank the director or whoever who let a good black actor and a Latina star show their stuff and didn’t leave the scene on the cutting room floor. And lastly of course you have to thank the writer. It was Elmore Leonard, what more do you need to say?

Leonard also wrote Get Shorty, btw, which has a few good scenes too. In a career spanning decades Leonard first wrote Westerns—Last Stand at Sabre River and Valdez is Coming, to name a few, with the great Burt Lancaster in the latter. When Leonard's books were filmed in urban settings, Miami or Detroit for example, he has a better ear for multi-ethnic urban dialogue than anybody in the business. Which is what JLo and Isaiah Washington were doing, btw, having a dialogue.

10 Things to Know about Governor Greg Abbott

1. Greg Abbott is a very good lawyer. That should be kept in the back of your mind when discussing his agenda. Especially, obviously, any issue regarding Texas law. A lot of governors decide on a policy and check its legality while Governor Abbott has reverse-engineered the process and figures out what’s legal and then decides what to do. A good bet is that he has already role-played a case before the Supreme Court on arresting lawmakers or for curtailing minority voting rights and in those mock courts the governor believes that he wins. He may be right.

2. Speaking of the Supreme Court: A former high-ranking Texas official, who is in a position to know, said that Justice Abbott was first viewed with suspicion by his Republican colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court, where Greg Abbott served until 2002 (first appointed by W.) Other Republicans on the court thought he was not conservative enough. Those were the exact words used, “not conservative enough.” Abbott’s moderate reputation continued through his first term as attorney general. Then, per this source, Abbott went to campaign school—which apparently does not actually involve going anywhere, the consultants come to you. He became more outspoken and, frankly, more arrogant. His third term as attorney general was apparently the period of his famous quote about his typical workday, a one-liner that was actually pretty funny, going to the office, suing the Obama Administration, and going home. He was the longest-serving attorney general in the state's history.

3. His later period as AG was the beginning of a gradual assault on open records enforcement, fyi. This was in contrast to Abbott’s predecessor as attorney general (and as Supreme Court Justice) incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn, who respected the unspoken understanding between Democratic and Republican lawmakers regarding the integrity of the Texas Public Information Act. Abbott began the lax enforcement and questionable opinions that has reached its depths under incumbent AG Ken Paxton. Interestingly, two of Abbott's open records abuses involve his own office. Newspapers in the state have tried unsuccessfully to find out how much the governor spends on security, not the actual security measures or displacements but a dollar amount. Denied. Also, a request for names of guests who have been invited to the Governor's Mansion and who have spent the night there was met by a release of hundreds of names of tourists who have visited the Governor Mansion, not the people who Greg Abbott invited. My source above said that Democratic legislators are largely indifferent to attacks like these on the Public Information Act because it’s not in their interests, either, that governmental processes be transparent. Don't you love Austin?

4. Governor Abbott faces little scrutiny because, for one reason among many—W and Rick Perry and now Greg Abbott have turned the historically weak Texas governor’s office into one of the most powerful state offices in the country. And there has not been a State Auditor in Austin since the last one resigned five years ago. The Office of the State Auditor still exists, overseen by an assistant auditor, but the appointed head has not been appointed. If this sounds like it gives the governor extraordinary power, it does. The first inquiry of a truly independent auditor might be, for example, scrutiny of a wall on the Rio Grande or its funding. Traditionally in Texas, in the spirit of separation of powers, the State Auditor has been a big player at the Capitol, a thorn in the side of Democrats and Republicans alike, said my guy above, and no one in the Legislature is speaking out now, demanding an appointment to the post, because neither party particularly wants independent scrutiny of state government. Love Austin again.

5. The demanding and impatient Greg Abbott that you see on television may be heavily influenced by stagecraft. The guy obviously has a sense of humor and his in-laws are an awesome family, btw, the Phalens of San Antonio and before that, of Mexico. Even people who can’t stand Greg Abbott adore his wife Cecilia, who has been a great First Lady and her sister, who is a well-regarded internist in the Live Music Capital of the World. Someone loves Greg Abbott, therefore, even if that someone is not in the Democratic Party.

6. Governor Abbott needs to act now. Demographics may lose him his base. If it is reasonable to assume that a lot of people moving into the state are not more conservative than the average current Texas voter—who is pretty fucking conservative—the red will eventually be diluted by blue. Or so that is the hope. There may be a long lag before Democrats become competitive in Texas but that delay won’t last forever, in Democratic theorizing. According to this theory, if Greg Abbott is ever going to live in the White House he needs to make the move soon. 

7. He may or may not have made a big mistake in the handling of the pandemic, the research hasn’t been done yet. Governor Abbott made his calls regarding closings and masking and one day researchers will say if he was right or wrong but they were apparently his calls to make. He does have a logical inconsistency in how he views local power, btw, what cities and counties can do. He is all for local control until somebody is doing something he doesn’t like and then it becomes a state prerogative. Probably not a fatal flaw to his aspirations. Whether Democrats like it or not, Greg Abbott is member of a minority group, people with physical disabilities. It makes him an attractive candidate because voters want to show acceptance. He's an interesting guy but whether he would be a good president—let's just say that the constituency he most needs to win over is the Republican Party's right wing, a disquieting number who live in Texas.

8. Whenever Governor Abbott is addressing the cameras regarding the border, you’ll see standing beside him a taciturn-looking white guy in accountant’s glasses and tan uniform. That is Colonel Steve McCraw, commander of the Texas Department of Public Safety that includes the Rangers, Highway Patrol and all the other assorted Lone Star lawdogs who have been sent to stop refugees crossing the mighty Rio Grande. Colonel McCraw is the quiet enforcer behind the Abbott administration. A former Democratic sheriff who knows the Colonel says that the description “conservative Republican” does not do the DPS commander justice, but this old sheriff adds that McCraw was always a straight-shooter with him. The Colonel is from the West Texas shithole of Marathon, near Alpine, in the God-forsaken Trans Pecos, and he served as a trooper before joining the FBI and then coming home to Texas as Governor Rick Perry’s criminal justice advisor. There are two interesting stories about Colonel McCraw, in the Greg Abbott context, one that is scurrilous and may not be true and another that may be true and is definitely funny. We’ll tackle the latter here. According to a very good law enforcement source, a top guy who knows the Colonel but did not get the story from him, when Agent McCraw was in the FBI he served for a time on the organized crime squad in New York where he became familiar with none other than a young Donald Trump, who at the time was a wannabe wiseguy. (The ex-president could not be reached for comment.) Apparently, per my source, “Everyone in the New York office knew Trump,” which helps to explain why the ex-president was so anti-FBI even before things turned to shit for him in D.C. How cool an anecdote is that? It could even be true. My question is if, when the former president comes to Texas, and there’s a moment when Governor Abbott is tied up with something else—or they’re all kicking back on the DPS plane, on the way to the border, do Colonel McCraw and the ex-president talk about goombahs they knew back in the day? It’s a cool story, even if it’s not true, but my source, who is very good, says it is true, from a time when Donald Trump wanted to be Don Donald, apparently, or was running with a Mafia or Mafia-like crowd. DPS refuses, btw, to discuss Colonel McCraw's past postings.

9. There were actually two surges of state troopers ordered by Governor Abbott, one to the Rio Grande and one to Austin. The governor talks a lot about helping law enforcement in the capital city and occasionally you do see troopers on the hike/bike trails downtown—but they are most visible at the Governor’s Mansion and on the Capitol grounds, naturally. There's been a lockdown ordered by the Governor's Office, through Colonel McCraw. The Capitol used to be open 24-7 but is now closed 7pm to 7am, including the grounds. The governor took advantage of the Black Lives Matter protests last year, around the Capitol, and around the Governor’s Mansion frankly, to restrict access to what Ann Richards liked to call the People’s House. The Mansion today looks like Fort Apache, no disrespect to Native Americans intended. For example a few blocks from the Abbott crib, the same night of the most recent and deadly Sixth Street shooting, in which one person was killed and a dozen wounded, that night around the Governor's Mansion there were troopers everywhere, hours before the shootings. In unmarked cars, for instance, shining search lights on pedestrians, another trooper out on foot to check pedestrians out personally if they approached the Big House. My source on DPS, who is none of the guys mentioned above and who is well-regarded in the Republican establishment, said that troopers were on “high alert” at the Mansion that night but would not say why. Greg Abbott was apparently home, if that's what you're wondering, and it’s important to remember this is his home, but it’s also important to remember what the Mansion used to be like. When Ann Richards lived there you could walk by at night and, literally, hear women’s laughter. When W was governor, there was still a sidewalk at the back, on Lavaca Street, and you could walk by on a summer afternoon and peek through the fence and see the fashionable parties and barbecues, the Bush family and various Bushites. When Rick Perry became governor all that changed. The sidewalk was removed. There were a lot of people who hated Perry, to be honest, but it was also that times had changed, crazies had upped their game and a couple of troopers with handguns was no longer adequate defense. There was the famous incident when Governor Perry himself was out jogging, on a trail somewhere here in our bucolic River City, and carrying a pistol under his shirt, or his shorts or whatever, he said, “for coyotes,” you remember that? A good guess today is that DPS drones are over the Capitol day and night, it is what it is, security is the governor's call both at his home and up to a point on the border. But who does Greg Abbott fear more? Not the antifas or whoever on the left, but the kind of nutjobs who wanted to take over the U.S. Capitol. In other words what Governor Abbott most fears is his own right wing. Which is also a metaphor for his life politically. 

10. It is now against the rules to film or take photos in the Legislative Reference Library in the State Capitol. No shit, a library. Which is kind of scary actually, what’s next, you can’t turn the pages of the books? Or are we going to have a good old-fashioned book-burning out on the South Lawn? Arrangements like these are made by the State Preservation Board (consisting of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the House and a handful of public members.) The Preservation Board controls the grounds—the Capitol and the Mansion, the whole state complex, actually. There's an actual public meeting of the board, or supposed to be, and used to take place a few times a year but no longer does. Like the State Auditor’s Office, the Preservation Board is now run out of the Governor’s Office, like everything else in state government. Not to be judgmental. Preservation Board meetings were, actually, great moments of transparency in Lone Star government, from a time when the Governor was less powerful than today and the Speaker and Lieutenant Governor had bigger balls, both physically and politically. The three men would all sit down and talk about the grounds of the Capitol, exhibits in the state buildings, and remodelings of the Mansion, or whatever, and these were the three most powerful people in the state, with big egos, and you see could see how our leaders interacted among themselves, as they talked about the Capitol or Capitol grounds. You could tell who was a big dog, who was a little dog, who was a bitch and who had a big dick, frankly, not to sound all macho. And the public knew or could ascertain who was a big dick, in a metaphorical way. These days, whenever you see the three together, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House, Greg Abbott is the one doing the talking. Speaker Phelan who is said to be a decent guy who just made a wrong turn somewhere in the Republican Party, looks squirmy like a kid in church. Lt. Gov. Patrick nods like the good lieutenant he is. It's Greg Abbott’s state and the rest of us just live in it.