Many Things They Do

I can tell from all your cards and letters that you are wondering whether the Wonders' great song "That Thing You Do" has been performed by any other musicians, even an actual musical group.  And yes it has!  It was most famously performed (with slightly different lyrics appropriate to the occasion) by the A cappella group Pentatonix to honor Tom Hanks at his Kennedy Center Honors in 2014.  It's especially nice for the reaction shots of Hanks' sons, singing along in the audience.

The Wonders were a fictional band, created for the movie.  But the actors who played the band all learned their instruments so they could credibly look like they are playing.  Tom Everett Scott in particular learned to play drums quite well, but all the others could play at least the title song.  When they went on publicity tours overseas, they also went on concert tours: they became an actual band, if only briefly.

Similarly, the label in the film that released their record, that the Tom Hanks character works for, was the fictitious Playtone.  Playtone subsequently became Hanks' real TV and movie production company (Play/Tone) which has won 52 Emmys so far, and produced several of Hanks movies like Cast Away as well as Polar Express, Mamma Mia! and Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House.

The actors who played the Wonders remained friends (Steve Zahn, who played the lead guitarist, was the best man for Tom Everett Scott's wedding) and several members "reunited" a few years ago to perform the song in LA on the film's 20th anniversary.  As mentioned before, Charlize Theron (with a relatively small part in her second movie) presented what was essentially a lifetime achievement award to Tom Hanks at this year's Golden Globes.  They were both nominated for top acting awards in this year's Oscars, and though neither won, they sat together in the audience and made news by leading the chants to turn the lights back on for the speech by the producer for the surprise best picture winner Parasite.

The Wonders on record were studio musicians with Mike Viola singing lead and the song's writer, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, singing backup.  The two co-produced the track.  In the movie, the song reaches #2 on the Billboard charts in 1964.  In what is otherwise known as the real world, the song was released on the Playtone Label by Epic, peaking at 41 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1996 (the year of the movie's release), and scoring in the top twenty on adult contemporary charts.

Among the mostly live performance videos of the song on YouTube are several featuring singer Mike Viola, including this tasty acoustic version with an audience that knew just how to clap and sing along, as well as with various bands including Adam Schlesinger and Fountains of Wayne.  Unfortunately, the audio isn't great.  The audio is much better for another Viola and Schlesinger performance.  Once again, the audience provides the hand-claps.

Johnathon Schaech, who played the lead singer in the movie, has sung the song live here and there, including with Curtis Peoples and with some LA rockers.

 Some amateur ensembles have posted on YouTube, as well as (among others) bands called The Bloomfelds ,  Old Chevy and  Bubbles.  A Japanese band apparently, Shakabitts does a wild version. There are other A capella and acoustic versions, a piano ballad version, guitar only, drum only, etc.  There's even one featuring oboe, cello and violin that's worth sharing:




And of course, there's a "That Thing You Do" karaoke! A lot of people like this song!  There's even a performance  by actual pop stars, Nsnych, playing it in concert, pretty much a note for note cover but with great vocals and energy.  Ironically if appropriately, it was featured in their 60s tribute.



 Still, for me, the Wonders movie version is the best.

The movie's conceit is that the band intended this song to be a ballad, until their new drummer spontaneously gave it a beat during its first performance, and the rest is history.  Actually to my ear, this song structurally resembles "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," which was a 1959 hit as a ballad by the Platters.

Another Step Towards the Treich

I was going to begin by saying it's not every day that two absolute essentials of our democracy are simultaneously attacked by the Apprentice Dictator, but then this is 2020, and it does seem to happen every day.  However, recent events surrounding the Roger Stone case present a particular challenge to these essentials: the integrity of the law, and the integrity of elections.

Both may be relative even in the best of times.  But in these dark times, they are being attacked openly by the chief executive of the country and the Justice Department itself in a way that is without precedent in American history.

The relevant context is this: if you are going to create a lasting dictatorship, an autocracy (to use the fancier name), you must above all destroy the impartial rule of law.  That's what's going on at the moment in the Stone case, where four career prosecutors who tried the case have resigned in protest against AG Barr's attempt at the behest of Homegrown Hitler to reduce the sentence the prosecution is recommending, on behalf of the United States.

That's a direct challenge to the impartiality of the law and clear interference by the chief executive to retain his office and his power.  And it may well be just the beginning.

But it's also worth recalling, in the blizzard of these names, what the Stone case was about.  To quote from the original sentencing memo (via Lawfare):

"Investigations into election interference concern our national security, the integrity of our democratic processes, and the enforcement of our nation’s criminal laws …. It is against this backdrop that Stone’s crimes—his obstruction, lies, and witness tampering—must be judged. Stone knew the gravity of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation when he obstructed it by giving false testimony and tampering with a witness. Indeed, Stone acknowledged as much in his opening statement before the Committee. Stone chose—consciously, repeatedly, and flagrantly—to obstruct and interfere with the search for the truth on an issue of vital importance to all Americans."

Stone's crimes are related to inquiry into interference of the 2016 elections, particularly by Russia.  There has been a war going on between professional, career Justice Department officials and lawyers, as well as professional, career FBI and other agency investigators, and (on the other side) Trump and his political appointees and cronies.  This was a major battle in that war, and the numbers and status of career officials defending the integrity of the law have taken a major hit.

And while it was going on, this regime was openly conducting another purge of insufficiently loyal government officials--people who are supposed to be public servants, but keep their jobs only if they are Homegrown Hitler servants.

We know that the integrity of the 2020 elections is threatened, and this regime has a vested interest in doing nothing about it.  Now it is doing more than nothing, and doing it openly.  So far without consequence.

Now there's been added a major threat to the impartial rule of law.  This is not only essential to our republic but to the entire world, including to the institutions and practice of capitalism--no matter how ironic that sounds.  Everything in the civilized world depends on the presumption of the rule of law.  Otherwise, everything becomes a matter of force and violence.

Governing by force and violence is the next step in solidifying a fascist dictatorship.  But first the conditions for imposing it must be accomplished: the disorder that follows the breakdown in the rule of law.  So many elements of our political culture seem headed in that direction.  This is another very big warning sign, as well as in itself a potential disaster.

Now It Begins...

Does what happened in New Hampshire stay in New Hampshire?  That's the big question, and the big mystery, in the Democratic presidential nomination process.

With Iowa a travesty, New Hampshire was the first real contest, but it is in many ways an artificial one.  The next two contests--the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina primary will tell us more, because those states are not so dominated by white voters.  Any Democrat will need substantial Latino votes and overwhelming African American votes in order to prevail in the general election.

In New Hampshire the first three candidates were very close: Bernie Sanders, Pete B. and Amy Klobuchar.  The two previous frontrunners, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, were way behind.

Sanders won, which positions him pretty well.  But he didn't do as well in New Hampshire or (as far as we know) in Iowa as he did in 2016, and certainly has not emerged with overwhelming support.  Consider that even with the unexpected collapse of Elizabeth Warren--next to Bernie, probably the best known of the candidates in New Hampshire, since much of the state is served by Massachusetts media--Sanders did not noticeably profit.  Either their reputation as the leftist twins is more in the mind of the media and party pros than the voters, or Bernie hasn't gained support from last time.

Even though he came in a close second (and perhaps a close first in Iowa), I am still resisting learning how to spell Pete B.'s name because I find it hard to believe he will last.  Of all the candidates he appears to be the least tested outside a mostly white electorate.

Then there's the surprise surge of Amy.  It could well be that New Hampshire's particulars won't be replicated elsewhere: she had a lot of time and staff in the state, and the major newspaper endorsements in a state that still pays attention to them.  And her performance in the debate just days before gave her local as well as national buzz.

But Amy does have a path to the nomination.  Mostly this is because she has faced a variety of voters before, though not as non-white as upcoming states.  She has to do well in Nevada and South Carolina to remain viable.  If moderate progressives fixate on her in those states, and if Biden loses his advantage with black voters in South Carolina, it could lead to Biden and Warren dropping out.  If that happened, it would not surprise me if both endorsed Klobuchar.

If she can continue to build momentum, Amy has the makings of a consensus candidate with party professionals.  She definitely is the one to watch in these upcoming contests.  She will need a lot of momentum to go up against candidates in Super Tuesday contests less than a month away (on March 3) with huge advantages in money and staff.  Otherwise this process probably continues into chaos, with a Bernie v. Bloomberg clash even at the convention. Which is really living dangerously.

I'm not entirely unhappy with this field.  There's no Obama, but there seldom is.  But Bernie isn't wrong about most things--he's certainly right about the greed of the health insurers and pharma, and that health care should not be for profit.  It's his followers I worry most about.  They tend to be so doctrinaire that they may not vote for anybody but Bernie.  I'm not crazy about Bloomberg, but when he says Trump can't bully him, it's reassuring.  He has the money to compete against the Trump's highly funded disinformation apparatus, and he's committed to applying it even if he isn't the nominee.

The New Hampshire primary was open to anyone who wanted to temporarily be a Democrat to vote in it, and the turn out was excellent.  What nobody knows yet is how strong the feeling in the country is that America can't afford any more of Homegrown Hitler, in any way.  It may not always seem to be, but it might be considerable.

Poetry Monday: One Night

by Rene Magritte

One Night

A voice within my shadow wakened me,
a glowing voice: "I love the dark
too much--I cannot sleep."  And there came
for me again one long away,
her face as it shone in candlelight.

That voice was always kind; it helped
me now to rest, in its long shadow:
"So much we loved the dark," it said,
"that all these years apart I have been
here, like this, hidden in your shade."

William Stafford

Mystery Solved

For generations, Americans have wondered how the people of Germany could have elected Adolf Hitler and especially, how they could continue to support him. They wondered how they could live with themselves for Hitler's treatment of the Jews, including the concentration camps.

Well, that mystery has been solved.  America elected a psychotic white supremacist, and according to the professionals, could re-elect this Homegrown Hitler in November, despite everything they know: the transparent lies, the hourly corruption and daily destruction of everything the US has said it stood for.

They've found it in their hearts to utterly ignore America's concentration camps, where the breaking up of families, the rapes and other abuses have continued and grown larger and worse.

The policies of sending people who apply for political asylum back to the countries they escaped because of violence and oppression have resulted in  hundreds of these applicants being imprisoned or killed upon their return--including at least 138 murdered in El Salvador.

Other applicants have been sent to dangerous Mexican border towns--some 60,000 non-Mexicans in just the past year, including 1600 children.  Hundreds of women and children have also been shipped to Guatamala.

Yet when Homemade Hitler's administration announced rules late this summer that would essentially legalize concentration camps for undocumented immigrant families, it was not a shiny enough object to capture public attention, let alone hold it for more than an Internet minute.

The rule change was pretty much of an afterthought anyway because the concentration camps have existed for years, despite a brief public outcry.  In many cases they are for-profit concentration camps, which not even Hitler was able to imagine.

Trump famously said that even if he shot someone dead on Fifth Avenue he would get away with it.  Would that include death camps?