Early Voting, the Super Bowl, and Music to Drive People Insane
It must be February.
(Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please let me know by hitting the Like button at the bottom, subscribing to this newsletter, and recommending it to others. Also, feel free to comment below.)
1. VOTE!
Early voting has begun for the March 1 GOP and Democratic primaries. Be sure and take time to vote – it is your country (and state, and county, and city, and school district) after all.
2. So, the Super Bowl Happened …
I confess, I watched the Super Bowl on Sunday, in spite of my churlish distaste for everything it is and represents. It was the first Super Bowl I sat all the way through in at least a decade. It helped that I was in a safe space, surrounded by friends, libations and good food.
The game was actually pretty good, and was not decided until its last couple minutes. That is the way it should be – two very good, evenly-matched teams vying for the world championship.
The rest of the Super Bowl – the commercials and the halftime show – was the celebration of America in Decline it was intended to be. The halftime show was very entertaining, although some folks in The Home of the Brave were troubled by the fact that the performers were overwhelmingly B-L-A-C-K. Two things struck me about the commercials, which cost between $6.5 and $7 million to air and probably again as much to produce:
Each commercial seemed jam-packed with “celebrities” – not one or two, but six, eight, ten. Half the fun (for those to whom this is fun) was identifying who they were and why we should know (“Oh, he was in one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies”). I did have to interrupt the flow of the evening to have someone explain to me what a “Jonas” is. Or was.
Lots of the commercials advertised what might be cutting-edge technologies or trends, like electric vehicles, cryptocurrency and sports betting. Maybe this is one of the ways new ideas gain cache with the Great American Masses. Think of Apple’s “1984” commercial or the one for Microsoft’s adaptive game controller; they introduced a product, yes, but also new ideas about what was possible. That may be a good bang for the approximately $10 million a pop it costs to produce and air them.
3. Music to Make Your Enemies Crazy
My pain will go on.
New Zealand, that paradise that was the set for the The Lord of the Rings blockbusters and is home to the marvelous Jacinda Ardern, has now been infected with one of society’s new transmissible diseases: anti-vaccine protesters blocking government buildings.
Hundreds of protesters continue to occupy lawns in front of the distinctive 'Beehive' parliament for a seventh day, ignoring repeated calls by the police to leave and undaunted by drenching rain over the weekend.
Claiming inspiration from truckers' anti-vaccine mandate demonstrations in Canada, the protesters have also blocked several streets around parliament with their trucks, vans and motorcycles.
The protests started as a stand against vaccine mandates but have been joined by groups calling for an end to COVID-19 restrictions, rejecting vaccinations, as well as calling attention to other social issues like censorship and rights of the ethnic Maori community. At the protests' peak, thousands of demonstrators were estimated to be involved.
In an effort to disperse the protesters from the Parliament grounds and environs, Speaker Trevor Mallard called out the big guns: Manilow and the Macarena.
Mallard initiated what RNZ described as "a battle of the music speakers" when he started playing a 15-minute loop of Barry Manilow music (including "Mandy"), "Macarena" by Los del Río and COVID-19 vaccine advertisements through the speakers inside Parliament buildings. News outlet Stuff reports the tunes were picked from a playlist of the world's 25 most hated songs …
Mallard's playlist has evolved in recent days, with RNZ reporting it now includes an out-of-tune recorder rendition of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" (linked above, and you owe it to yourself to listen to as much of it as you can). It also features catchy children's songs, like Frozen's "Let It Go" and "Baby Shark," CNN adds.
I know that my niece, who has young children, just loved “Let It Go” the first 1,000 times she heard it.
Of course, the use of music to discourage and even defeat an enemy has a long pedigree. Chapter 6 of the Book of Joshua tells the tale of the fall of Jericho, when the Lord commanded Joshua to have his armies blow their trumpets and shout as they circled the city walls. Verse 20:
When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.
In typical Old Testament fashion, this was followed by unholy carnage. Verse 21:
They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
I admire the irony of devoting the city to the Lord by killing every living thing therein. That vengeful God was some kinda sumbitch, wasn’t he?
The tactic has more modern uses. Texans are familiar with the continuous playing of “El DeGüello” – a sign that no quarter would be given – during the siege of the Alamo in 1836.
Such tactics continued during the last century’s wars and even after. In 1989 the Panamanian dictator and drug kingpin Manuel Noriega took refuge from American troops bent on arresting him in the papal embassy in Panama City. American soldiers began blasting music into the compound (playlist here), including Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” a personal favorite. Ten days later, Noriega was arrested, either because he surrendered or because the papists kicked him out.
The trend continued into this century.
Excruciatingly loud rock music was part of the torture menu during the war in Iraq and at Guantanamo.
In 2013, the British Royal Navy revealed it was using Britney Spears songs to scare off Somali pirates.
In 2015, the South Korean army blasted K-Pop songs across the DMZ, to the consternation of North Korean army units stationed there.
This tactic, unsavory as it is, may have practical uses in more civilian contexts. Perhaps realtors, seeking to encourage homeowners to sell and move to other Texas cities, could repurpose the boombox scene in Say Anything with classics like these, played at ear-splitting levels:
I’m pretty sure if anyone blasted “Amarillo By Morning” at me for 24 hours, I’d put my house on the market and skedaddle.