Dana Blankenhorn

A Stand Up Guy

Republicans are having a primary fight right now that should rewrite some history books.

The assumption is that Republicans follow orders, while Democrats all want to lead the parade. Republicans vote with their heads, Democrats with their hearts.

So, Mitt Romney. It's his turn. He finished second last time, McCain lost, so it's his turn. He's got the money, he's got the looks, he's got the money, he's got the endorsements. And if his personality has a Nixon problem -- he's uncomfortable around people -- well so did Nixon. And if those Kennedys hadn't stolen 1960 Nixon never would have lost (and may have never gone paranoid).

But if Mitt Romney is the GOP ego, Newt Gingrich is its id.

Newt is still in this race because of one man, a guy I once worked for. Sheldon Adelson. Adelson cares about one issue and one issue only -- fealty to Israel and whatever Israel wants. The big story no one is writing is that Newt Gingrich has pledged such fealty, and he has $10 million (so far) to show for it.

But leave that aside. Other than Shelly's money, what is Newt Gingrich? You've got a man who was a politician for a quarter-century but who has actually spent the last 14 years in entertainment. He writes books, he talks in front of crowds or TV cameras.

He's a stand-up. As in stand-up comic. He's been doing it most of his life -- it was what propelled him into the House Speaker's chair, the idea that he could vamp on camera, keep the attention of the nation focused on him, defy Presidents (starting with Bush the greater) and leave 'em laughing. Not all of 'em, but his people, his audience.

It's just what every stand-up comic does. The secret to a stand-up's success is finding his people and cultivating that audience. Jeff Foxworthy never appeared on Def Comedy Jam. Dave Chappelle was not part of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

Your audience can be very narrow, or it can be very broad, like that of Russell Peters. Its devotion could be an inch thick or a mile deep. You can fly across the sky like a meteor, a la Bill Hicks (left, above), or you can hang in there and become a legend, like Bill Cosby.

Of course there's a less charitable way to put this.

Political Tectonics

Think of this as Volume 16, Number 3 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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Want to know the historical importance of the SOPA-PIPA fight? To learn that you must travel deep underground, to the world of political tectonics and what drives us.

Economically, what happened in the early years of the Nixon Era was that two key economic interests divided.

Manufacturing, mainly based in the Midwest, took political power throughout the Kennedy and Johnson years. Technology, companies like Intel and Hewlett-Packard, both based in California, gravitated toward the Republicans. And it was this divide within the business community that ultimately proved crucial, as the New Deal moat was destroyed in the 1972 Nixon landslide, validating the creation of “fiat currency” to solve tech's natural tendency toward deflation.

This sort of thing had happened before. Each one of our political crises began when one industry seized power and, in time, other industries objected. It was the final triumph of the new economic order, the validation of a new set of myths and values in succeeding elections, that eventually resulted in each New Thesis, each new Age of American politics.

From the Age of Jackson to that of Lincoln. From the Age of Lincoln to that of Teddy Roosevelt. From the Progressive Era to the New Deal. From the New Deal to the Nixon Era.

From the Nixon Era to the Obama Era. It's not the leaders who create their times. They just ride the waves and take the credit. It's economic change that drives the train, under the surface.

Internet Made Me a Video Star

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A few weeks ago I was contacted by Curtis Hollister of Investor Candy (the fellow on the left above.)

Curtis had seen my work at Seeking Alpha and was launching a video service for investors. Would I be interested in helping out?

Before I knew it, I'd turned the back bedroom into a rudimentary studio, complete with a green screen I hung over a bed and a fancy video camera Curtis sent me. He asked me to look into First Solar, which I did, then scheduled a GotoMeeting call.

The result is what you see above. He sat in his office and asked questions. I sat in my office and answered them. Same thing I've done for decades, only in reverse. He used a little technical magic to transform my bedroom into the Atlanta skyline and voila.

Let me know what y'all think. Has the Internet made me a video star or should I stick to my typing?

What Tebowism Really Tells Us

Think of this as Volume 16, Number 2 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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It's one of the ironies of our political cycles that a decisive turn is often followed by the other side's capture of the culture.

Think about it.

1. The South and the “Lost Cause” were culturally ascendant after the Civil War, even as the grave closed over the Confederacy.

2. Populist-fueled racism became a popular cultural expression after progressives captured the flag in the 1890s. See “The Birth of a Nation” for a fine example from that era.

3. The 1930s and 1940s saw a very conservative culture, which you can see in the movies of that era. I might point specifically to the Andy Hardy-Judy Garland movies for its truest expression.

4. The 1960s were all about the rise of Leftist culture. Funny how the sideburns suddenly start growing across the establishment after Nixon won in 1972.

Today I see another turn happening all around me. My kids are a lot more like those of the 1930s than they're like me. Even the “Occupy Wall Street” movement was well-behaved. It was the police over-reaction to peaceful protest that said otherwise. And did you notice the lack of reaction to that over-reaction? In a cultural sense, we're very respectful of authority these days.

So the best sign of the left's rising to a semi-permanent state of power in America is probably the rise of Tim Tebow.

Tebow is the ultimate expression of muscular Christianity. He is a man who lives his values, and they're values that even Rick Santorum would approve of. He defies our expectations in a throwback sort of way, a run-first quarterback throwing himself into the line. Sort of like a Republican Muhammad Ali, and I'm very afraid he may wind up the same way, a victim of repeated head trauma, old before his time.

I'm seeing similar expressions across the culture. What are the biggest movie hits of the last few years? Why, it's the “Twilight” franchise, in which a young girl swoons before a strong, masculine presence. Our most popular musicians, like Jay Z and Bruno Mars, are self-consciously consumer products, careerist, careful in how they live, careful with their money.

What I find most fascinating about the Tea Party is not how reactionary it's been, but how ineffective. The Congress and governors elected by that movement in 2010 are now almost universally mocked, much as hippies were derided 40 years ago. We don't need Spiro Agnew, they write their own lines. Here's one – will someone get this guy a joint and a paisley flag, please?

It makes sense. Culture tends to act best in opposition. If we don't have anything to be angry about, we really do stagnate.

Leave Klinsy Al-o-o-o-o-ne!

Like other American footy fans I was very disappointed in the national team's losses to Costa Rica and Belgium over the international break.

The youngsters came out flying at the start of the first game and faded. The oldsters did the best they could but made one mistake and paid for it.

The announcers were all upset with the coach. In a way that's good. It shows we care. But in this case it's unfair.

The reason lay in Klinsmann's smile, which almost never left his face throughout the two matches.

Pants on the Ground or The Politics of Sagging

This has been going on in my neighborhood for some years now, black (usually) teenagers walking around with their pants down below their hips and their underwear showing.

A lot of people are disgusted by it. Some even want to ban the practice. But recently I had a little thought experiment and reached a different conclusion.

 

The Best Journalist In The World

It's not me. It's no one who was trained in the field.

It's this guy. Anthony Bourdain. A cook.

At the heart of all the best journalist is that you go to the heart of the story, that you invest yourself in the story you're telling, and that you change as the reader or viewer changes. 

This is what Bourdain does. It's what no one else does, because we're all trained to be detached, like cops, or given the concept of a “false equivalency,” which makes all actions by anyone equally valid. Which is crazy.

What made Bourdain a journalist was his Beirut show in 2006.  As he said, he went there as a snarky chef out to stuff his face and have a good time. He left it as a refugee, in an American warship. You can actually see the change take hold of him as the show goes on.

It never left. We can all be thankful for that. Because when you watch the run of his shows since then, he's a different man, with a different mission. Instead of having “fixers” show him where the good restaurants are, now he works to find sources who can tell him the story of a place. And then he sits, and he listens, and in the editing room he explains.

It's beautiful.

Intellectual Property Imperialism, or The 1793 Game

Think of this as Volume 15, Number 24 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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Ideas have no intrinsic value.

They are only valuable if they are exploited. You can only get value from them if you pursue an idea to a completed work or invention, or if you get so good at coming up with new ideas people who do scale works or invention will pay you to supply them.

Patent and copyright were first created as “monopolies” in our 1787 Constitution, but they did not become enforced until the late 19^th century, after the U.S. gained a positive balance-of-trade in the products of ideas – in books and inventions.

When countries like China and India choose to ignore our copyright and patent laws, they are walking in the foodsteps of people like Samuel Slater (right), the people whose inventiveness built this country. Slater copied his 1793 Rhode Island mill from one he'd worked at in England, in violation of English law. Eli Whitney never made money from his cotton gin – his money came from a gun made with interchangeable parts he was able to manufacture.

Even when copyright and patent rights are fully maintained, most of the money they generate does not go to the people who came up with the ideas. In fact, very little does. A singer or author may only earn a 15% royalty. Royalties on patents are even more modest.

So why has the United States become such a stickler on patent and copyright, to the point where the government is willing to call Google an outlaw in order to enforce these laws more rigorously? 

Tyler Perry's Sweet Auburn

While riding back from the Georgia Capitol yesterday  I detoured (as I often do) past the King Center.

What I noticed is that there was a bigger crowd by the MLK Birth Home than at the center itself, where Dr. King and Coretta are now buried, side-by-side. And the atmosphere at the home was different as well. It was festive, alive, without the reverence found at the grave site.

There's a reason for that. With the passage of time we see, not just the tragedy of Dr. King's death, but the wonder of the life preceding it, and we're curious about it.

The home itself isn't much of a much. It dates from the time of my own home. It's a two-story wood structure very similar in design to many of the infill homes going into my own neighborhood.

So I get this idea.

The Market is Bigger than the Law

To hear Florian Mueller tell it  Google is doomed.

In addition to its other legal troubles involving Android, it may have grossly violated the General Public License (GPL), taking copyrighted work willy-nilly from open source and turning it into the semi-proprietary Dalvik.

Well, since it's St. Patrick's Day, we'll quote a little Finian's Rainbow.  Things are desperate, but not serious.