==================================================================== Stuck In Traffic "Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories" Issue #29 - October 1998 ÿ Contents: Deceit and Denial: Why President Clinton's scandal isn't about sex and why it's too late to save his reputation. Alan Chello-Jaxon: A tribute to the passing of a great story teller. Review: "Amphibian" by The Changelings: The latest success from a band that's taken gothic music where it's never gone before. Frank Sinatra's Last Letter to Nancy: Advice from Frank Sinatra that's good for us all. ==================================== Current Events Deceit and Denial "Every time (the president) talks about trust it makes chills run up and down my spine. The very idea that the word 'trust' could ever come out of his mouth after the way he has trampled on the truth is a travesty of the American political system." -Bill Clinton, speaking of President George Bush, 1992 Everyone would like to think that electoral politics are issues based competition in which the merits of policy propositions are debated in the market place of ideas and the candidate with the "winning" positions on the issues wins the election. But it's not true. Any seasoned political consultant can tell you this. The plain fact of the matter is that public will not even listen to a candidate they don't trust, much less vote for him, no matter what his positions on the issues are. That's why so many elections degenerate into mudslinging battles. That's why you see so many quotes from candidates like the one above from Bill Clinton. Is this a good thing or not? Which is more important, that you trust your political representative or that he states policy positions that you agree with? This is the fundamental question that has been raised by President Clinton's scandalous behavior over the past few months. It's not about sex The scandal that the United States of America has had to endure since January isn't fundamentally about sex. If a newspaper had published lurid sexual pictures of Bill and Hillary in the White House living quarters, its reputation would be ruined forever. Even if Bill and Hillary's sexual relationship was unusually titillating in any way, no one would stand for the invasion of privacy. And despite American's reputation for being puritanical and squeamish about sex, they are actually amazingly forgiving of sexual misconduct by public officials. In fact they are more forgiving of elected officials than they are of any other segment of the population. Barney Frank managed to survive the scandal over his misconduct relatively unscathed, with is political career as strong as ever. Salon Magazine's attack on Henry Hyde for his past sexual misconduct failed miserably to detract attention from the President's current scandal. What's the difference? How can Barney Frank and Henry Hyde survive their scandals and put it behind them when the President has been unable to do so? In various combinations, the scandals surrounding Frank's, Hyde's and Clinton's misconduct involved adultery, sex in the workplace, and sex with subordinates. All three of which, just for the record, are still considered to be Bad Things by the vast majority of Americans. Yet Barney Frank and Henry Hyde were forgiven by the public and the President hasn't. Why? Some have suggested that the reason Clinton's scandal has remained in the public eye is due to a partisan witch hunt by the Republican Party. But that's putting the cart before the horse. No doubt that Republicans are taking every advantage being offered them by the current scandal. No doubt that Clinton's now 10 month old scandal can't do anything but help the Republican's build their party base and win elections. One may be disgusted at how they are taking advantage of the current scandal, but it's difficult to pin blame on them for creating the scandal. It's about denial The public is fascinated by public figures being caught in a lie. They are fascinated by evasiveness. When a public figure is caught up in a web of deceit, the public refuses to let go. They love to watch public figures get more and more entangled. Take the O.J. Simpson trial for example. The scandal hits the public with O.J. Simpson barreling down a Los Angeles freeway trying to evade police. He never satisfactorily explains his behavior after the death of his ex-wife. As the murder case goes to trial, Simpson does nothing but evade the search for truth. He refuses to testify. His team of lawyers attempts to block every line of inquiry that the prosecution pursues. And the public loves every moment of it. They enjoy watching O.J.'s dream team of lawyers protecting their client with every evasive legal maneuver they could think of. But it wasn't until O.J.'s team of lawyers turned the public's attention to the Los Angeles police department that public sentiment in the trial began to shift. All of a sudden, it was the Los Angeles police department that appeared on the defense. It as the L.A. Police department that appeared to be evading inquiry and concealing the truth. But even though the public's attention shifted during that trial, the fuel that sustained the public interest was their fascination of watching people attempting to deny and evade the truth. As another example, look at the Iran-Contra hearings and Oliver North. As scandals go, It was a relatively dry scandal. The charges being levied against North, and indirectly against President Reagan, were serious charges which involved illegal arms sales and illegal interference into the internal affairs of another country. But the hearings lasted for weeks and weeks and they dominated the news and the public attention. Why? Because it appeared that Oliver North was Hiding Something. Exactly what he was hiding we didn't know, but there was no doubt at all in anyone's mind that we was doing his best to avoid facing the facts. He was doing his best to avoid telling the truth. No one ever quite got to the truth in that particular scandal, but North's reputation was ruined. On the other hand, Barney Frank was caught in a scandal involving a double dose of taboos, homosexuality and prostitution. Yet the scandal disappeared from the public's attention relatively quickly and he has continued to win reelection to Congress. Henry Hyde has twice faced the consequences and humiliation over his extramarital affair twice and yet his reputation is a solid as it has ever been. The reason both of these men survived their scandalous misconduct is because they realized that the issue at stake was trust and reputation. Both men faced the truth, they took responsibility for their failures, and, most importantly, they took positive corrective actions to fix the situation. Once they overcame their failures and took measures to restore themselves as honest and reputable men, the salacious details of their misconduct were not sufficient to sustain interest in the scandal. Deceit and denial are far more titillating than sex. The President's Biggest Mistake One might be tempted to think that the President's biggest mistake was that he had the affair in the first place. And certainly it was a big one. As President of the United States, he is probably the most guarded, scrutinized, and watched person on the planet. How he thought he could have an extramarital affair with a subordinate employee in the Oval Office and not get caught is anyone's guess. But as big a moral failure as that was, it wasn't the biggest. Clinton's biggest mistake was that he lied about it. It started in January, with a nationally televised statement by the President: "But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen, again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. These allegations are false and I need to go back to work for the American people." But the truth can be a pesky thing. As reports of more and more evidence to the contrary began to surface, Clinton and his team of lawyers and political spin doctors spent 8 months trying to deny that the affair happened. He spent 8 months trying to shift blame to anyone and anything else except himself. First, he and his supporters tried to float the idea that the scandal was all the result of a delusional little girl who was living in a fantasyland. When that didn't work, the Clinton team tried the partisan "vast right wing conspiracy" tactic. When that didn't work, even tried to blame the scandal on discriminatory biases against people from Arkansas. They have tried to demonize Ken Starr. They have tried to demonize Linda Tripp. They have complained about the amount of money that has "been wasted." And the most outlandish tactic of all attempted by Clinton and his team has been the claim that this is purely private affair and isn't really anyone else's business. Future politicians take note, when you go on national TV and claim that you have not had extramarital sexual relationship in the workplace with a subordinate, you are _making_ the issue a national issue and opening up your conduct to public scrutiny. Some of the Clinton team's efforts at shifting the world's attention away from Clinton and on to other peripheral aspects of the scandal may have some merit. No one is going to cite Monica Lewinsky or Linda Tripp saintly virtuous women. There is no doubt that there is a fair amount of political partisanship involved. But Hasn't He Apologized? This much is known to be true. After testifying before the Grand Jury, Clinton went on national TV and acknowledged "an improper relationship". And he apologized for something. But there has been much debate over what exactly he apologized for. Did he apologize for having an extramarital affair? Did he apologize for having lied to the American people in January? Rather than starting down the road to redemption, the President's speech looked like more evasiveness and denial. The Clinton spin team hit the talk show circuit and tried to convince the public that it was over and done with. The President, they said, has apologized and now it's time to put the scandal behind us. After all, they asked, do we _really_ want to hear the President acknowledge every lurid detail of his affair on national TV. The answer is of course no. Hearing the lurid details will not make the scandal go away. What will make the scandal go away is to have the President acknowledge that he had an extramarital affair, that it was in the workplace with a subordinate. Then just as in the case with Barney Frank and Henry Hyde, we need to see the President take positive, proactive steps to correct the wrongs that he has done and we need to see the President take positive action regain the trust of the American people. The President has done none of these things. Instead, his actions have been more along the line of, "now it's time to get back to business as usual." In short, the President made a vague uncompelling apology and has made no actions toward atonement whatsoever. But it may be too late Of course, now the scandal has grown so large, it's difficult to imagine what Clinton can do to make amends. What could he possibly do to make up for the scandal he's caused since January of this year? After 10 months of scandal, there's not much hope of Clinton regaining the trust of the American people in a few days or even a couple of weeks. This is a big problem for Clinton because Ken Starr's report to Congress wasn't about his failure to be a moral leader. Ken Starr's charges are not about losing the trust of the American Public. His report is about specific allegations of possible criminal actions by the President in his attempts to evade the truth about his affair. If Clinton had been able to face up to his failures and make proper atonement for them, and if he had started work on regaining the trust of the American public, he might have been able to prevent Impeachment hearings because the public would then see the hearings as persecution of a man who has already redeemed himself. As the situation stands now, it is impossible to stop Impeachment hearings. All indications are that President Clinton will continue to shift blame elsewhere where he can, accept as little personal guilt as possible, and take no actions for atonement. There seems to be plenty of hard evidence and lots of truth left for to make Clinton squirm. Americans won't be able to get enough of it. They won't let the matter drop. And regardless of whether Clinton is found guilty or innocent of the legal charges levied against him in Ken Starr's report, he credibility as a leader has been ruined. ==================================== True Story Alan Chello-Jaxon: RIP Alan Chello-Jaxon passed away in early September, 1998. Officially he died of heart failure due to other medical complications. But the fact is he died of old age after living a long and full life. I can't remember the day I met Alan Chello-Jaxon. Whether you met him five minutes ago or five years ago, you always feel like you've known him your whole life. But I can remember where I met him, which was at Cup-A-Joe coffee house in Raleigh, near the NC State campus. Despite harassment from the local Tobacco Nazis who have a holier-than-thou attitude about teen smoking, Cup-A-Joe is the most vivid place in Raleigh to hang out. It caters to an amazing mix of folks: NC State students pulling all night study sessions in everything from engineering to veterinary medicine, fashionably oppressed goths, heavily jackbooted and pierced punks, wayward programmers in for a late night caffeine boost, starving artists, and even yuppie couples from the `burbs. The music is always great, the crowd always friendly, the coffee cups are always huge. And in the center of it all was Mr. Alan Chello-Jaxon. He was the sort of person you hoped to meet while hanging out in coffee houses. He was one of those people that could effortlessly sit down at a table with a group of strangers, introduce himself and start telling his life story. People these days give lots of lip service to the notion of "diversity", in which people from all social groups and strata are supposed to mix and mingle freely, celebrating their own identity while thriving on their differences. Alan is the only person I've ever met that seemed to be able to fully put this principle in to practice, and it came to him naturally. Alan had a great knack for drawing out peoples' passions. It didn't matter what you were into. You could be into radical libertarian politics, an up and coming punk band, a cool new programming language, or herbal gardening. It didn't matter. Alan could get you to talk about it. He was a master at the dying art of conversation Alan's particular passion was underground artists. He was a patron in the truest and noblest sense of the word. He bought his fair share of art from unproven and unknown artists. But more importantly he promoted them. He helped them find venues to show their work. He made introductions. He supported their ambitions. On more than one occasion he had been known to lobby the parents of high school student to let their children attend art school. Above all, Alan was a great story teller. Alan claims to have been married seven times and could tell you stores about each of his wives. And he claims to have had so many varied careers, it's difficult to catalog them all. His more common stories revolved around his days living in New York City, running two different art galleries. But he told many stories about working as a newspaper stringer in the deep south, during the civil rights unrest of the 60s. He claims to have served in the military for 2 years. He told stories about saving artists from going insane. He told stories of business deals that fell through. He told stories of being in the middle of riots. He told stories about the wild performances by Ginsburg, during his hey day. He told stories of being a sports broadcaster, covering baseball games. The fact of the matter is that Alan claimed to have had so many different careers, wives, and relationships throughout the years that it's difficult to believe them all. But he was so good at telling stories about his life that they were more like prose ballads. They inspired you to live deliberately and live large. And while they may have transcended the notion of "legally accurate" truth, they touched a universal truth. That is his legacy. I want to believe. ==================================== Cultural Phenomena Review of "Amphibian" from The Changelings Like no other band before them, the Changelings have once again managed to take an unusual pallate of musical instruments, ranging from a toy accordion to violins, from keyboard synthesizers to classical guitar; used them to build soundscapes around vocal arias; and created a sound that's both haunting and beautiful, tragic and uplifting. While their last album, Terra Firma, drew heavily from a Middle Eastern influence, most of the songs on their latest album, Amphibian, are built loosely around tales of life at the edge of the water and the creatures that inhabit it. The first track, "Deeper Than Light," sets the musical stage. They introduce haunting echoing soundscapes that are reminiscent of whale song. The vocals are dissonant, as if they are coming from far away and tell the story of somone who hears the call of lost love, calling them out to sea to drown. "Frog Song" and "Afternoon of a Newt" introduce a living presence to life on the edge of the water. "Frog Song" tells the tale of frogs contemplating the rise of the cities and how they are in contrast to those who "choose a simpler beauty, pooling out wills for the globe." And as the frogs watch the world, they wait for the day when "our day has come to rise up/we'll take the city by storm/crushing non-circular things." No cute, princess bait here. "Afternoon of a Newt" adds a chamber music period feel to the background of the album. Against this backdrop we have two songs songs that loosely tell the tale of mermaids and life on the sea. "Port Royale" is a true ballad that tells the story of a Pirate Captain who captures a King's daughter. But rather than sell her back for ransom, he tries to win her heart. When she refuses him her love he throws her overboard. And as she's sinking to the bottom of the ocean she sings out one last song that so captivates the sea and the fishes and the whales whe becomes a mermaid, And eventually gets her revenge on the Captain. It's a great tragedy with a refrain that captures the adveturous yet sad lonely lives of pirates. "Oceana" is the central track for the whole album. It pulls elements from all the background songs. tells the tale of a mermaid who loses her love to the deadly fishing nets of a sailor and yearns for revenge against mankind. Another strong track on the album is "Caterwaul." Here Regeanna Morris steps out of her usual gothic vocal style and sounds a little more modern, a little like Kate Bush perhaps. At first it soundls like it's going to be a cutesy song about a cat, but you quickly realize it's bout the lusty, blood thristy predators behind those cute, furry faces. Finally, my personal favorite track on the album is "Maelcum's Righteous Dub," which sounds like something Victor Hugo would compose if he had been a reggae musician instead of a gothic novelist. Lyrically, the only thing I can figure is that it's about a woman trapped in some sort of virtual reality gone horrbly wrong. A highly recommended album. If you can't find it in your local record store, you can get it directly from the band at http://www.draven.net/changelings ==================================== Cultural Phenomena Frank Sinatra's Last Letter To Nancy Chicken---a thought. Strange, but I feel the world we live in demands that we be turned out in a pattern which resembles, in fact, is a facsimile of itself. And those of us who roll with the punches, who grin, who dare to wear foolish clown faces, who defy the system -- well; we do it, and bully for us! Of course, there are those who do not. And the reason I think it that, (and I say this with some sadness) those up-tight, locked in people who resent and despise us, who fear us, and are bewildered by us, will one day come to realize that we possess rare and magical secrets, and more -- love. Therefore, I am beginning to think that a few, (I hope many) are wondering if maybe there might be value to a firefly, or an instant-long roman candle. Keep the faith Dad As forwarded to me from the publisher of _The Tower of Babel_ `zine. Check them out at http://www.towerofbabel.com ===================================== About Stuck In Traffic Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to evaluating current events, examining cultural phenomena, and sharing true stories. Why "Stuck In Traffic"? Because getting stuck in traffic is good for you. It's an opportunity to think, ponder, and reflect on all things, from the personal to the global. As Robert Pirsig wrote in _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, "Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce...." Submissions: Submissions to Stuck In Traffic are always welcome. If you have something on your mind or a personal story you'd like to share, please do. You don't have to be a great writer to be published here, just sincere. Contact Information: All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and hate-mail about Stuck In Traffic should be sent to Calvin Stacy Powers preferably via E-mail (powers@ibm.net) or by mail (2012 Talloway Drive, Cary, NC USA 27511). 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