Sometimes the blues is
the best morning music. Not all blues
mind you. But in the morning, fumbling
around the kitchen table, country blues sets it off steady and gentle. Now I had my funk and my hardcore punk at the
gym. But when I sat down with the morning
coffee at the breakfast table, and I knew my younger daughter would be coming down
stairs I wanted some Texas blues. And
that could be a few people but the man I had in mind was Lightnin’ Hopkins,
cause he’d say something wise, and say it slow and then he’d say it again, and
when he'd solo it would be meaningful and I would feel it. I was looking for tune I had from an album I had when I was a
teenager called “Rocky Mountain Blues” with the blind harps-man Sonny Terry wailing
and “whoohoohooing” along side. That
album, that session, had a beautiful consistency from beginning to end. I can see the album’s blue and green cover in
my mind leaving a sky-blue and a leaf-green residue there in my mine, when I
think about that music.
Rdio is great but I found 94 Lightnin’ Hopkins albums on the
music service when I searched. "Po Sam" was a busy man. There was
no way I was going to find Rocky Mountain Blues in all this. I settled on an
album with a title that sounded like it could have been out of some scene from
the musical ‘Oklahoma’ called “”the Great Electric Show and Dance.” Lightnin’
looks awful cool, sitting on the cover with his shades and his matching saffron
shirt and pants. It was apparently
recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio there in Alabama. The tune I settled on
was “Breakfast Time” which seemed appropriate as I sipped my shake and my
daughter spooned her Cheerios. Lightnin’
wants his woman to bring him coffee. It
seems to work the other way around in this homestead.
My wife didn’t know and she bought the bag of coffee with the faint pink script of the word “decaf” written across the cover. It was written so faintly you wouldn’t even know it was there. Well, I’m drinkin this coffee now and I don’t even know its there. I may have to hop in the car and head on over to Starbuck as this isn’t cutting it we’re getting off to a slow, sort of decaf-start for the day. I just don’t get the point of decaf coffee. It’s like non-combustible fuel or something. All that great bitter taste stripped of its raison d’etre.
My wife didn’t know and she bought the bag of coffee with the faint pink script of the word “decaf” written across the cover. It was written so faintly you wouldn’t even know it was there. Well, I’m drinkin this coffee now and I don’t even know its there. I may have to hop in the car and head on over to Starbuck as this isn’t cutting it we’re getting off to a slow, sort of decaf-start for the day. I just don’t get the point of decaf coffee. It’s like non-combustible fuel or something. All that great bitter taste stripped of its raison d’etre.
What’s going on over in North Korea? Supreme Leader Kim, didn’t want no
coffee. He decided to 灭此朝食[1] The thirty-year old Kim
Jong-un’s uncle, Jang Song-thaek, was rather publicly stripped of power. Normally these things happen behind close doors and the rest of the world finds out later. Mr. Jang was, was publicly escorted from a
party meeting and the photos shared with the world. It would appear that, perhaps not unlike Xi Jinping
in China, the new North Korean leader is consolidating his power faster than
people expected. The clear message is
that he has what he needs to rule by himself without anyone supporting
him. Both country’s leaders standing before
the legacy of their fathers and in Mr. Kim’s case, grandfathers who ruled
before them. The North Korean version
really does feel remarkably similar to every imperial transition one goes over
in Chinese history, where the chief counselor rules for a time and then, is
usually, eventually, done away with when he falls out of power. That or he does the ‘doing-away-with’. I’m thinking of Wang Anshi, during the Song.
Meanwhile here in China we’re not sure if the New York Times, and Bloomberg which are already blocked here in town will be bullied into covering
China from outside the country, as key reporters appear to be having their visa
renewals blocked. This after each paper
reported on the personal wealth acquired by Wen Jiabao and then, Xi Jinping,
respectively. From the days of the 2008 Olympics
reporters were rhetorically allowed to go about the country without
pre-announcing their “flight plans”.
They could go where they wanted, with some exceptions. One couldn’t help but wonder if the timing of
the Wen Jiabao article wasn’t coincidental with the Bo Xilai scandal. Was it one faction leaking information to the
foreign press to help bring another down?
The Times, perhaps being used by CCP factions with their in
fighting? There probably isn’t a member
of the standing committee who’d want his immediate family wealth revealed and
its’ unlikely they are not all fabulously wealthy. But once it’s outside of the control of the
state media organs, any reporting “feels” like espionage, or state subversion,
by another name. Especially if, and it's
a big if, they are played by internal factions to bring one or another down.
I remember the Wen Jiabao story broke during the
U.S. election cycle and Mitt Romney was being slammed for having paid a
comparatively low effective tax rate in the U.S. on an annual income of
something like $20M. I remember
discussing with my wife how paltry it all seemed next Uncle Wen when his mother
was sitting in Tianjin with $2.7B in Ping An Insurance Company, stock. American’s considered Mitt Romney wealthy,
and surely he is, but how can it even be discussed in the same sentence as a
complementary leader who commands over 100 times those resources.
That kind of wealth is surely obscene,
particularly in a country that is still developing, with so much poverty. Uncle Wen might argue that he has no personal
involvement in it all. But to my earlier
point about envy and how it is shifting and confused with China’s rise, isn’t
there a bit of odd, unexpected envy at play, when our “rich” Republican
candidate is a comparative peon next to the central CCP cadres. That would have been utterly unimaginable
even just one generation of leadership back in China. And how this plays out with the Chinese
public who wants and traditionally expects rich, powerful leaders, and CCP
rhetoric and practical demands for frugality.
Are Chinese on some level proud of such effective kleptocrats? Disdain and envy always closely intertwined.
[1] miècǐzhāoshí： lit. not to have breakfast until the
enemy is destroyed / anxious to do battle (idiom)
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