Monthly Archives: June 2021

Illustration by Tim OBrien.

As I walked along Manhattans 11th Avenue one day in late April, the wind seemed as if it were trying to blow the plywood outdoor-dining huts over and rip the spindly trees from the ground. I arrived early to the Gotham West Market food court. My date, Andrew Yang, showed up unfazed by the violent weather, as buoyant as he appears on TV.

A candidate for mayor of New York City, Yang is a businessman and failed nonprofiteer with no experience governing and a hodgepodge of centrist, liberal, banal, and just plain quirky opinions. He has some potentially interesting ideasa public bank, for instancebut he also loves solutions involving philanthropy and public-private partnerships. And right now, although Eric Adams, an ex-cop and a more conventional politician, has been pulling ahead recently, Yang is polling well with every demographic, including those identifying as progressive or liberal. With his name recognition, he could easily win a race made less predictable by the citys new ranked-choice voting system. The former executive of a small test-prep company, Yang may well become the next mayor of the biggest city in the United States. I wanted to know how a Mayor Yang would address the concerns of the progressive movement, from racial injustice to affordable housing to the climate crisis.

Given the inhospitable weather, we decided to eat indoors (a pandemic first for me). Yang, wearing his usual dark blue blazer over a dress shirt with no tie, exuberantly assured me that the pizza herefrom Corner Slice, an upscale enterprise aesthetically evocative of a vernacular New York pizza shopis the best. I decided to have what hes having, the special, festooned with a suspicious variety of items. Pizza is a risk for any New York City mayoral candidatewhen Bill de Blasio ate a slice, inexplicably, with a knife and fork, it was a tabloid scandalbut particularly for Yang, who has drawn mockery for his lack of authenticity as a New Yorker. His social media posts have reflected confusion on points ranging from the meaning of bodega to the trajectory of the A train, and hes been roasted for being a bandwagon fan of the New York Knicks. In this light, it seemed bold of him to consume a pricey square slice of pizza with a journalist, but Yang is too confident to worry about such things.

The candidate, whos 46, grew up in Westchester County north of the city. Raised by immigrant parents from Taiwan, he remembers almost no political discussion in his house. Once, he recalled, his mother looked at the TV and said, I dont like him. Yang is pretty sure him referred to one of the George Bushes.

Eating pizza with Yang made clear to me why he is popular with New Yorkers. He does not bring up his competitors scandals in conversation. He often changes the subject when asked about big, systemic issues, but he knows what most New Yorkers, especially the apolitical, care about: bringing back jobs, returning kids to school, lowering the murder rate, and getting some cash relief.

He told me he donated to Bernie Sanderss presidential campaign in 2016. He also said he voted for Cynthia Nixon, the Sex and the City actress turned education activist who challenged Andrew Cuomo for governor in 2018. Still, his politics are largely those of a centrist or conservative Democrat, friendly to school privatization schemes and cops. He did not join any of last summers protests over George Floyds unconscionable murder by a police officer, though he has met with family members of people killed by police violence and did attend a vigil for the victims at a church, an event he went out of his way to describe as very peaceful.

I asked Yang about education. After three decades of struggle and lawsuits by public school parents and community activists, the state legislature decided this year to fully and equitably fund New York Citys public schools. Parent advocates won the court battles years ago: The state was found guilty of underfunding city schools and had been under a court order to allocate billions of dollars to the citys public schools to enable them to provide a sound basic education to their students, most of whom are Black or brown. But it took much more organizing and protesting, and the election of a progressive legislature, to finally put that funding in the state budget this year. The city will also be flush with new federal reopening funds. This seems like an exciting opportunity to address the persistent racial and economic segregation and inequality that has plagued the system. Whats Yangs plan? He listened politely but a little blankly, as if much of this information was new to him.Current Issue

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I mean, he said doubtfully, I would love to make progress on some of these inequities. But, he insisted, the most urgent issue is reopening the schools. The topic has become a signature one for Yang, and it shows how attuned he is to the moment: Many parents are, indeed, desperate to have their kids back in school full-time. Not having school, sports, and normal sociability has been devastating for some childrens mental health and for most kids development, he emphasized. Im a public school parent, and it feels good to have our suffering acknowledged by a prominent person.

I pointed out, however, that he wouldnt be taking office until January 2022. Mayor de Blasio has said that all students can go back to school full-time in the fall. Some elementary school students are already attending full-time, and city officials say more may have the opportunity to do so later this spring. High school sports are back. Teachers have had the chance to be vaccinated by now. Many adults in the surrounding community have, too (at this writing, more than half of Manhattan, more than a third of Brooklyn and Staten Island, and more than 40 percent of Queens has been fully vaccinated). Wont this be a settled issue by the time Yang takes office? Youd hope! he said skeptically, but Im really concerned.

Yang has crusaded against other pandemic measures that are likely to be irrelevant to his mayoralty, calling for fully reopening the bars. A few days before we met, he held a press conference denouncing the Covid rule mandating that food be served with drinks. Thats a matter of policy decided by the state, not the cityand the legislature repealed it the next day.

All cops are beneficial? Andrew Yang strongly opposes reducing the size of the NYPD. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

A weird thing about Andrew Yang is that everything he says sounds reasonable unless you know anything about the topic. He talks a lot about making New York a hub for cryptocurrency, but as James Ledbetter of FIN, a financial technology newsletter, pointed out, the states intense regulatory environment, in which engaging in any virtual currency business activity is illegal without a license, makes that idea ridiculous. Much depends, I suppose, on the definition of hub, Ledbetter told me. But New Yorks reputation among blockchain and cryptocurrency companies is as a place to avoid, and changing that reputation would appear to be largely outside the capabilities of the mayor. Over lunch I asked Yang about this, and a mush of buzzwords about blockchains and trust ensued.

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Hes famous for giving more prominence to the idea of a universal basic income, which is intriguing, but his proposal is neither universal nor basic (just $2,000 a year for some of the poorest New Yorkers). Yang, courting the citys Orthodox Jewish community, has praised the academic quality of the Orthodox yeshivas, but years of research, lawsuits, and testimony by graduates show that many of them dont meet their obligations to provide even a basic education. Hes floated the idea of a city takeover of its transit system, which seems sensibleif you dont know that the funding is controlled by the state, a knowledge gap that met with consternation from experts interviewed by Politico.

Yang doesnt know what hes talking about. He hasnt followed the long-term social and economic issues that have consumed the citys most political people for years. But he does know something that the citys institutional left seemingly doesnt: what people who dont care about politics care about. Getting kids back in school. Having fun again. Being safe on the subway and in the streets. Helping businesses that have suffered. Looking forward to the future.

As the New York City political journalist Ross Barkan has written, Laugh at him at your own peril. Yang sounds silly to the knowledgeable, but the idea of a return to better times is a powerful one. His vibe and rhetoric remind me of Ronald Reagans Morning in America, one of the most successful political appeals in US history. And didnt the liberal media also laugh at a certain repellent weirdos promise to Make America Great Again?

Yang benefits from being much more plugged into the zeitgeist than progressives are. The left lacks a clear message on school reopening. Several left-wing education groups even counterprotested Yangs reopening rally on May 1. You could disagree with the feasibility of the rallys demandfully reopen now!but to counterprotest means what? Dont reopen school, even as the pandemic wanes and the federal money pours in?

Yang speaks to another visceral issue on most apolitical peoples minds and overlooked by New Yorks NGO left: high murder rates. In a time of constant news alerts about shootings and stabbings in the cityNew Yorkers may remember the terrifying A train slasher this wintercalls to defund the police (though correct), coming from people largely silent about such violence, can seem tone-deaf. In fact, given how often high crime leads to far-right political reactionplease note that Brooklyn and Staten Island Republicans have endorsed Guardian Angels founder and racist madman Curtis Sliwa for mayorwe may be getting off easy with Yang, who speaks in measured tones about stopping both crime and police violence.

So far, no left mayoral candidate is as good at running for office as Yang is. In last years state Senate and Assembly races, New Yorks leftincluding but not limited to NYC-DSAran charismatic, visionary candidates who addressed broadly popular priorities like taxing the rich, single-payer health care, renters rights, affordable housing, stopping police violence, and funding public schools. They won big. In contrast, the progressive candidates for mayorMaya Wiley, Dianne Morales, and Scott Stringerhave been unremarkable.

Yang is also not vulnerable on the things that trigger the most outrage on the well-informed left, since that is not his base. When Yang was caught awkwardly shrugging off a sexist joke, Wiley took him to task in an Internet ad. Her scolding manner and stern visage offered a bracing reminder of why some voters preferred Trump to Hillary Clinton. Stringer has hemorrhaged endorsements because of a sexual harassment accusation, while Yang has been unharmed by complaints of sex discrimination and anti-Blackness by a few former employees. None of these charges have been proven, but among Stringers base of nonprofiteers and political activists, hes toast even without any evidence, while Yangs basethat is, most peopleprobably arent paying much attention.

Yang sometimes floats ideas that are absurd and terriblea casino on Governors Island, a crackdown on street vendorsand then backs off from them amiably. He issued an appalling statement in support of Israel, then walked it back after criticism from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and his own staff. Despite his bro reputation, he doesnt exude toxic masculinity; he can change course when hes wrong. To follow his campaign statements, then, is to constantly oscillate between alarm and relief.

Tunnel vision: Yang has floated the idea of a city takeover of the transit system, seemingly unaware that funding is controlled by the state. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

The week before our lunch, on Earth Day, I met Yang for the first time. I went out to see him give a press conference in the Rockaways, a coastal area of Queens that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It was a cold day, and the area felt gray and deserted. From the A train I saw buffleheads, cormorants, and a couple of egrets. Rockaway Community Park, the site of the press conference, is at the base of what used to be the Edgemere Landfill. The area is owned by the city, but only a small portion of it is clean enough to use as a public park. Yang is here in support of a proposal to install solar panels on the still-toxic part of this property. When I got there, I met Tina Carr, the policy director of AC Power, a group that promotes and develops solar energy projects on landfills and brownfields. She called the idea a no-brainer and was thrilled to have Yangs backing.

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Yang, sporting the cheery orange and blue striped scarf he always seems to wear in cold weather, praised the project quickly but sincerely, then expounded a bit on getting rid of burdensome red tape. He meant this to be in support of helping the environment, but this kind of language is, of course, beloved by polluters and libertarians.

A TV reporter asked about a letter signed by hundreds of prominent Asian and Pacific Islander American progressives declining to support Yang because he is not progressive enough. Yang was on surer ground here. Hes clearly aware that his base is the apolitical: I take exception to, frankly, trying to categorize people in various ideological buckets. Most New Yorkers are not wired that way.

A journalist who lives in the Rockaways asked about ferry service to the area. Yang has criticized the New York ferry service, since it is heavily subsidized by the city and its ridership is low. Its heavily subsidized, but we need it, the man said. This is a transit desert.

Yang wasnt sure about that one. He said hed look into it.

If youve ever knocked on doors or made phone calls for a political campaign, youve probably encountered that guy who doesnt know the issues but wont commit to your cause because, he says, he has to do his own research. Andrew Yang is that guy, said Susan Kang, a political science professor at John Jay College and a cofounder of NO IDC NY, which successfully ousted a group of conservative Democrats from the state legislature in 2018. (Kang is also one of the signatories to the anti-Yang letter.) If youve encountered that guy, you may have suspected that he isnt, in fact, planning to do any research.

Who wouldnt love the idea of turning toxic municipal properties into solar farms? But the rest of Yangs climate plans are vague compared with the lengthy specifics that some of his mayoral competitors, especially Stringer and Kathryn Garcia, have provided. And when I interviewed Veekas Ashoka of the Sunrise Movement NYC, along with some of his colleagues, Ashoka asked why Yangs climate plan accepts the Biden administrations climate targets: As one of the richest and most progressive cities on earth, shouldnt we aspire to do better than the federal government, to be leaders on this issue? Another youth climate activist I interviewed separately made the same criticism.

When I raised the climate activists exhortation with Yang over our pizza lunch, as angry winds continued to batter Gotham West Market, he beamed disarmingly. I love that point! he exulted. I would love to drive past those goals.

I asked if hed ever researched the matter of the Rockaways ferry service. He admitted he hadnt.

Yangs press secretary told him it was time to go. As we stood up, a man in a Columbia Sportswear fleece waved him down, shouting, Mr. Yang, were behind you! He got a selfie with the candidate. The Yang fan was Jay Underwood, a principal at George Jackson Academy, a private school for gifted, mostly low-income boys. I asked Underwood why hes so excited about Yang. He praised the candidates connectivity and reflected on what a role model Yang would be for his students, many of whom are Asian American. Underwood acknowledged sheepishly, I dont know much about policy issues.

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Andrew Yang Doesn't Know What He's Talking About - The Nation

As cultural moments go, the current reassessment of the Tulsa Massacres true impact feels long overdue. Black artists and intellectuals have been telling these stories for a while now, but it feels like we have only just started listening.

Damen Lindelofs 2019 adaptation of Watchmen (the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) expanded the universe of the book, working both as a prequel and a sequel. Perhaps the most ambitious gambit was connecting some of the most disturbing moments in American history to the covert history of superheroes/vigilantes which is why the stunning opening sequence (the first thing they shot in the series as well) depicts the infamous Tulsa Massacre.

Hundred years ago this week, on 31 May and 1 June, 1921, white mobs aided and abetted by local authorities murdered hundreds (official estimates now place the toll at 300-odd) of Black residents and business owners in the neighbourhood of Greenwood, Tulsa. Greenwood was an oasis of Black prosperity amidst the racial inequality of World War I-era America and so, it was targeted by supremacist organisations like the Ku Klux Klan (in one shot in Watchmen, you can clearly see a hooded KKK member on a horse, directing the mob).

Where Watchmen succeeds spectacularly is giving the audience a ground-level view of the brutality as it unfolded in real time a childs point of view, no less. Young Will Williams, the son of a Black soldier who fought the Germans in World War I (this detail is crucial, as we discover later), watches as his neighbourhood is razed to the ground. Women and children are shot at point-blank range, their corpses tied to the backs of speeding vehicles. Their homes, salons, theatres and so on, are systematically destroyed.

Significantly, the episode is called Its Summer and Were Running Out of Ice," a line from the song 'Pore Jud Is Daid' (poor Jude is dead) in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!, one of the cornerstones of American musical theatre. The original song can be heard when Tulsa police chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson) is seen hanging from a tree circa 2019 we later discover that an elderly, wheelchair-bound Will is responsible for the hanging. Throughout the premier episode, a number of Oklahoma! references march by. Judd, we learn, had played Curly (the protagonist of Oklahoma!) in his high school production ofOklahoma!so he sings the feel-good number 'People Will Say Were in Love'during a dinner party. But as we discover through the course of the show, Judds actions he was a covert KKK member were more in line with those of Jud, the antagonist of Oklahoma!. And so we have the hanging scene, scored to 'Pore Jud is Daid.'

Earlier this week, The New York Timesreleased a startling new interactive story in their online edition: it collates the stories of the victims against a 3-D recreation of Greenwood. As you scroll down to read the stories, the POV shifts to show you the precise area of the neighbourhood occupied by the deceased. It is a sobering, non-fiction counterpart to the more visceral impact of that Watchmen scene. Before shooting that sequence in Georgia, the Watchmen set was blessed by a priest. Understandable, I would say: when you are channelising such untrammeled, large-scale brutality, even lifelong atheists can feel the need for a higher power backing them up.

In recent years, the Tulsa Massacre has received a great deal of attention, both in general terms pop culture. Journalists, historians, and documentarians have covered the pogrom in great detail. Apart from Watchmen, the HBO series Lovecraft Country also used the massacre as a major plot point in one episode. Last year, Bob Dylan began Murder Most Foul, a 17-minute track on his new album Rough and Rowdy Ways, with the line: Take me back to Tulsa to the scene of the crime. Earlier this week, Trinity University Press issued an all-new edition of Mary E Jones Parrishs 1923 eyewitness account of the massacre: The Nation Must Awake: My Witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.

Still from Lovecraft Country

Perhaps the clearest indicator of the zeitgeist yet: US President Joe Biden has confirmed that he will be in Tulsa for the 100th anniversary proceedings.

As cultural moments go, the current reassessment of the Tulsa Massacres true impact feels long overdue. Black artists and intellectuals have been telling these stories for a while now, but it feels like we have only just started listening.

In Rilla Askews 2001 novel Fire in Beulah, for example, there is a first-rate fictionalised version of the massacre in the final few chapters. At one point, we see TJ, one of the novels main characters, witnessing a fellow Black man being lynched by a white mob; he is shot and then hung from an elm tree the hanging bit is intended to strike fear into Black people. Askew channels historys crushing weight very effectively indeed, through the image of the elm tree.

Inside his mind, TJ watched again as the three cars drove away in crimson dust; again he turned to the elm tree, to know again, in the same sinking blood-rush, why theyd hung Everett as well as shot him. Because the image of the hanging black man was part of the terror. Because Everetts body had to hang there for black men to find, for a sign, for a warning.

In the second episode ofWatchmen, we see Will Williams father, OB in the middle of World War I. OB comes across a pamphlet air-dropped by the Germans, addressed to Black American soldiers like himself, urging them to switch sides on account of the fact that they are treated like second-class citizens by white people. OB is not entirely convinced by the argument, we can tell, but he pockets the pamphlet anyway. Fire in Beulah, too, has a similar moment of moral reckoning, when TJ and friends are planning their defense against the white mobs. Their service weapons remind them that they are being hunted by the same people they defended using these guns.

I got a shotgun home and a couple of pistols, Luther Adairs got some fine carbines

A bunch of us got service revolvers, aint we?

Oh, yeah, we good enough to get killed in their goddamn war, but we not good enough to try on clothes in their goddamn stores

Much of the recent attention coming Tulsas way can, arguably, be traced to the 2014 publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates long essay The Case for Reparations in The Atlantic. Coates signature brand of historical readings interspersed with memoir-ish segments and good ol fashioned reportage is at its strongest here. He is a polemicist who is quite aware of the limitations of the polemic approach but powers through anyway, thanks to the strength and the versatility of his style.

In The Case for Reparations,' Coates argues that the US government should provide Black people financial reparations for centuries of slavery, followed by systemic discrimination that persists to this day. Right-wing politicians, of course, feel that such a move would be divisive (a convenient buzzword designed to protect the status quo). To them, Coates says that the wealth gap between white and Black people in the country merely puts a number on something that we feel but cannot say namely, that as a country, the USs prosperity has been built on a solid foundation of murder, looting, and slavery (Black people. Modern-day Americans, therefore, are enjoying the fruits of a poisoned tree. Coates, therefore, makes the case for a series of Congressional hearings to decide the extent and trajectory of financial reparations.

A commission authorized by the Oklahoma legislature produced a report affirming that the riot, the knowledge of which had been suppressed for years, had happened. But the lawsuit ultimately failed in 2004. Similar suits pushed against corporations such as Aetna (which insured slaves) and Lehman Brothers (whose co-founding partner owned them) also have thus far failed. These results are dispiriting, but the crime with which reparations activists charge the country implicates more than just a few towns or corporations. The crime indicts the American people themselves, at every level, and in nearly every configuration. A crime that implicates the entire American people deserves its hearing in the legislative body that represents them.

Still from Watchmen

One of the major themes of the Watchmen series was the idea of masks empowering ordinary people to become vigilantes, without the fear of their family members suffering retribution. Young Will Williams, of course, grows up to become Hooded Justice, the first Black superhero in the Watchmen universe. But of course, the other, white superheroes/vigilantes are the public face of the superhero movement. In post-World War II America, they do not allow Will to reveal his identity to the public: they say that the public is not ready to accept a Black superhero.Will/Hooded Justices story is meant to be a critique of incremental reform, the idea that the pace of change must be slow and gradual, lest the oppressor majority rejects it wholesale.

Hundredyears after the events of Tulsa, its doubtful whether America has learned its lesson. The state of Oklahomas Centennial Commission,' which oversees Tulsas Greenwood Rising history center and has been involved in a number of awareness campaigns, raised over $30 million in recent years. And yet, they failed to involve the three remaining survivors of the massacres or the families of the victims who reside in Tulsa to this day. Indeed, one survivor, 106-year-old Lennie Benningfield Randle, has issued acease-and-desist letterordering the commission to stop using her name or likeness to promote the project. Randle and others feel that Greenwood Rising has appropriated their suffering to fill its coffers.

Even while deigning to honour the slain, America has fallen back upon old habits.

(Also read The Underground Railroad, Black Panther, Da 5 Bloods: How alt history is reshaping the Black narrative in pop culture)

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Hundred years of Tulsa Massacre: How cultural offeri..d Lovecraft Country have depicted the historical event - Firstpost

In The Number Ones, Im reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the charts beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.

Red Red Wine had a wild ride. The UK band UB40 first released the single in 1983. At the time, UB40 didnt even realize they were covering a song from cheese-pop master Neil Diamond. Their version was a cover of a cover, intended as a salute to a beloved reggae oldie. In its original form, Red Red Wine became UB40s first #1 hit in their homeland, and it did respectably well on the American charts. But Red Red Wine didnt truly become a smash in America until nearly five years later, when a pop-radio program director, unsatisfied with the new music he was getting, went rogue and threw the song into rotation.

UB40s label had to scramble to keep up with this new demand for a half-forgotten song, and Red Red Wine ultimately became the most straight-up reggae song that had ever reached #1 in America. By the time Red Red Wine topped the US charts, the songs co-producer was dead. Red Red Wine might be a simple song, but its trip to #1 was very, very complicated. Lots of elements went into the songs eventual triumph: Musical evolutions, shifting tastes, random happenstance, and the sort of music-business maverick shit that simply could not happen today. That song had a journey.

The Red Red Wine journey starts in 1967. At the time, Neil Diamond was an up-and-coming Brill Building songwriter who was also starting to make some noise as a solo artist. A year earlier, Diamond had landed his first-ever top-10 hit when the garage-rock rave-up Cherry Cherry peaked at #6. (Its a 10.) Hed also just scored his first-ever chart-topper as a songwriter; the Monkees version of the Diamond-written Im A Believer hit #1 on the last day of 1966. Diamond had written Im A Believer for himself, and he included his own version of the track on his second solo album, 1967s Just For You. That same album, which Diamond recorded with Brill Building greats Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich as producers, included the original version of Red Red Wine.

Diamond wrote Red Red Wine from the perspective of a heartbroken man who can only forget the love hes lost with the help of the titular beverage. (Diamonds first #1 hit as a solo artist, 1970s Cracklin Rosie, is about the same thing, more or less.) In its original form, Red Red Wine is a stately weeper. Diamond belts out these lyrics about his own misfortunes while strings and organs and rhythm-guitar clicks murmur consolingly. The song wasnt a hit; released as a single in 1968, it peaked at #62. But Red Red Wine went out into the world, and it found its way.

When they recorded their version of Red Red Wine, UB40 had never heard Neil Diamonds original, and they didnt even know that hed written the song. Instead, UB40 thought they were paying tribute to Tony Tribe, a Jamaican rocksteady singer whod recorded his own version of Red Red Wine in 1969. Tribe had turned Red Red Wine into an uptempo dance number less of a sulk, more of a celebration. His version of the song was a minor hit in the UK, where it peaked at #46. Thats the version that UB40 knew. Tony Tribe never got much of a chance to make an impact beyond that one single; he died in a car accident in 1970.

Years later, UB40 percussionist and vocalist Astro said, Even when we saw the writing credit, which said N. Diamond, we thought it was a Jamaican artist called Negus Diamond or something. The eight members of UB40 grew up listening to reggae in Birmingham, a working-class English town with a big West Indian population. The members of the biracial band had all grown up loving reggae; the music had been part of their environment. They became a band after singer Ali Campbell got a glass smashed into his face in a barfight on his 17th birthday. Campbell got a corneal implant and 90 stitches, and he spent a month in the hospital. The UK has a thing called Criminal Injuries Compensation, where victims of violent crimes get payouts from the government. Campbell used that money to buy some instruments, and UB40 started.

Campbell put the band together with his brother Robin and with a whole crew of his childhood friends. They named themselves after the form Unemployment Benefits form 40 that broke young people would use to sign up for the dole. The band members were mostly unemployed when they started, and that name works as a kind of sly statement of working-class solidarity. UB40 played their first show at a Birmingham pub in 1979, and theyd only been a band for a few months when Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde saw them play a London pub. She invited UB40 to tour the UK as the Pretenders opening act, singlehandedly yanking them out of obscurity. (In the US, the Pretenders highest-charting single is 1982s Back On The Chain Gang, which peaked at #5. Its an 8.)

While touring with the Pretenders, UB40 released a double-sided indie single, King b/w Food For Thought, which took off in the UK, reaching #4. UB40 had showed up at the exact right moment; their sound and working-class leftist perspective fit perfectly with the British pop zeitgeist. In the late 70s and early 80s, groups like the Specials and the Beat were playing around with early-60s Jamaican ska, and they were scoring huge UK hits. (That whole two-tone movement never took off in the US; the only real hit from any of the British ska bands was Madness Our House, which is not a ska song and which peaked at #7 on the Hot 100. Its a 7.) UB40 played reggae, not ska, but their whole approach and lyrical focus wasnt too far from what those bands were doing. Within a couple of years, UB40 cranked out two albums and sent four singles into the UK top 10.

None of UB40s early singles charted in the US, and their third album, 1982s UB44, didnt do as well in the UK as its predecessors. But UB40 turned their fortunes around with 1983s Labour Of Love, a collection of covers. That album, recorded when UB40 didnt have enough new originals to make a whole new record of their own, was made up entirely of the bands versions of reggae classics from the late 60s and early 70s. UB40 wanted to bring pop attention to this music that they loved, and they had no idea that the most immediate of those covers was a damn Neil Diamond song.

UB40s version of Red Red Wine fits right in with the rest of Labour Of Love. Musically, their take fits somewhere between the Tony Tribe version that the band members knew and the Neil Diamond original that theyd never heard. UB40 slow the tempo to a crawl, building the song around a digital bassline and a breezy, loping drum track. They were playing around in the studio at the time, messing with some of the same electronic techniques that Jamaican reggae artists were using at the same time, and some of Red Red Wine sounds closer to early dancehall, which was being born at the time, than it does to UB40s earliest singles.

On UB40s Red Red Wine, Ali Campbell sings lead in a high, reedy sigh. He sounds both fond and regretful, and his voice almost effortlessly floats through those cleverly phrased Neil Diamond lyrics: I just thought that, with time, thoughts of you would leave my head/ I was wrong, now I find just one thing makes me forget. (I love the little hesitation between that line and the chorus.) Theres real yearning in Campbells voice, but the rest of the band wont let the song get too sad. Instead, the groove bubbles away pleasantly, and Astro comes in with a thick-accented toast. Astro starts out by saying that red red wine makes him feel so fine and keeps him rockin all of the time, and by the end, hes gotten into a story about, Im pretty sure, a monkey who smokes weed. (Shout out to that simian. I bet hes a great hang.)

Working with Bernard Rose, the director who would later make the modern horror classic Candyman, UB40 built a half-hour black-and-white short film around the songs from Labour Of Love; the Red Red Wine video comes straight from that. On that video, and on the single version of Red Red Wine, Astros toast has been edited out. Thats the version of Red Red Wine that took off in the UK, giving the band its first #1 hit over there. In the US, the toast-free edit of Red Red Wine was also a respectable hit in an era when reggae only rarely made a dent in the charts. In March of 1984, Red Red Wine peaked at #34 on the Hot 100; it was UB40s first single to chart in America.

None of the other singles from Labour Of Love charted in the US, but the album eventually went gold over here. In the UK, UB40 kept cranking out hits. In 1985, UB40 teamed up with Chrissie Hynde for a reggae cover of Sonny and Chers 1965 smash I Got You Babe, and that became their second UK chart-topper. In the US, I Got You Babe did better than Red Red Wine had done, peaking at #28. UB40 had found a lane for themselves, doing digital-skank versions of old pop songs. It would serve them well over the years.

In 1988, UB40 and Chrissie Hynde teamed up again, this time for a cover of the Dusty Springfield classic Breakfast In Bed. When Guy Zapoleon, a program director at a Phoenix radio station, heard the bands version of Breakfast In Bed, he wasnt impressed. Zapoleon decided that UB40s new single wasnt a hit and that Red Red Wine, which had been a hit, shouldve been bigger. Zapoleon had a Saturday-night dance party show called Party Patrol, and he started playing the full original version of Red Red Wine, with Astros toast included. People in Phoenix loved it, so Zapoleon put the song in rotation on his station. Other pop stations started playing the song.

Zapoleon started telling A&M, UB40s American label, that they needed to reissue Red Red Wine and to promote it like it was a new single. The people at A&M were trying to push UB40s new music, so they werent into the idea, but they couldnt deny the demand. Eventually, they gave in, and the reissued Red Red Wine took off nationwide. Ray Pablo Falconer, whod co-produced the song with UB40, didnt live to see the track climb back up the American charts. Falconer died in a 1987 car crash. His brother Earl, UB40s bassist, was driving. Earl served a six-month prison sentence for drunk driving; hed only just gotten out when Red Red Wine reached #1.

Red Red Wine made its its improbable comeback at a time when there was a serious demand in America for breezy vacation-sounding music Dont Worry, Be Happy was a #1 jam and I guess Red Red Wine fit that bill. But I maintain that Red Red Wine, repetitive as it may be, is a whole lot richer and prettier than the other tiki-bar jams that were floating up the pop charts at the time. The bass is heavier. The groove is punchier. And while Red Red Wine isnt an actual Jamaican record, its still the first real reggae song that ever reached #1 in America.

That distinction is up for debate, of course. Reggae had been influencing the Hot 100 ever since the late 60s; Desmond Dekkers outright classic Israelites made it to #9 in 1969. (Its a 10.) Over the years, a bunch of #1 hits attempted to engage with Jamaican music in one way or another: Johnny Nashs I Can See Clearly Now, the Staples Singers Ill Take You There, the Hues Corporations Rock The Boat, Elton Johns Island Girl, Eric Claptons cover of Bob Marleys I Shot The Sheriff. In 1981, Blondie got to #1 with their cover of The Tide Is High, the Paragons 1967 rocksteady classic. But Red Red Wine was different.

Red Red Wine is a distinctly pop version of reggae, made by a half-white band from the UK. But reggae was always more closely entwined with the British charts than the Hot 100, and UB40 were a full-time reggae band. They were fully immersed in the genre, and they never tried to venture outside it. Instead, they brought pop sounds and, increasingly, actual mainstream pop songs into reggae. The success of Red Red Wine helped clear the lane for Jamaican artists to score American chart-toppers, something that would start happening in the 90s.

The success of Red Red Wine also cleared the way for something else. Once a five-year-old single reached #1 in America, other radio programmers started digging through their stacks of songs that had never reached their full pop-chart potential. Those re-released songs, usually just a few years old, started hitting the Hot 100 in a serious way in the late 80s. This craze didnt last long, but it mustve made life tough for record-label promotional teams, who were stuck with the task of pushing new songs to audiences who were suddenly very into rediscovering near-miss hits from the recent past. Red Red Wine will not be the last reissued single to appear in this column.

If you like this column, I would heartily recommend my friend Chris Molanphys Hit Parade podcast, which goes deep on fun, weird little chart-history stories like this one. When Chris started doing his podcast a few years ago, he did his first episode on Red Red Wine, a song that rode a freaky and unpredictable path to #1. Red Red Wine was a song with ripple-effects, not least for UB40 themselves. The band will appear in this column again.

GRADE: 8/10

BONUS BEATS: Theres a great scene in Steven Soderberghs underrated 2019 film The Laundromat where Will Forte hears Red Red Wine in a Mexican bar, gets into a conversation about how Neil Diamond wrote the song, and then promptly walks into the wrong bathroom and gets murdered. Unfortunately, that scenes not online anywhere except for Netflix. So instead, heres the bit from a 2019 Community episode where a local band plays an easygoing reggae song called Pierce Youre A B, which Im pretty sure is supposed to be a Red Red Wine parody, mostly because of the poopoo in his pants and poopoo in my heart bit:

(Donald Glover will eventually appear in this column.)

THE 10S: Bobby Browns sleek percussive glide Dont Be Cruel peaked at #8 behind Red Red Wine. Its a real troop-trooper, aiming for the top, and its a 10.

Read more:

The Number Ones: UB40's Red Red Wine - Stereogum

Has Prince Harry ever had a thought and not made it public? Are there feelings or emotions he has experienced but kept to himself?The latest episode of The Me You Cant See, the Dukes documentary series exploring mental health and emotional well-being, aired this week. Loyal viewers were rewarded with a bonus town hall conversation show in which Harry and his co-host and producer, Oprah Winfrey, were reunited with advisors and participants from the series.

The premise of the programmes, drummed home once again in the town hall special, is that having a me we cant see is bad for our mental health. Full emotional disclosure is open, honest, liberating, brave and true. Keeping our feelings to ourselves, on the other hand, is dishonest, repressed, unhealthy and, most likely, dangerous.If this is the Princes guiding philosophy, he certainly walks the talk. We are all by now familiar with Harrys unresolved grief, his genetic pain and his youthful self-medicating with alcohol, as well as every twist and turn of his decision to break away from the Royal Family and start a new life in California.

For Harry, the boundaries between therapists couch and television studio are completely erased. In one episode of The Me You Cant See, he is filmed undergoing an eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy session.Given how much Harry has already revealed, this weeks releases offer little new. In the town hall show, he talks with Robin Williamss son Zak about the pain of losing a parent whos in the public eye, you see so many people around the world grieving for someone they feel as though they knew better than you did, in a weird way because youre unable to grieve yourself.

Harry alludes to his own difficulties and adds to his criticisms of his family, when he discusses the shame people still feel when talking about mental health problems. This echoes his claims, aired in the latest documentary episode, that families hide their struggles from close relatives, even when everyone is aware that there are problems. The Duke said: As parents, and as siblings, theres an element of shame that we feel because were like How could we not have seen it? But we all know that when people are suffering or when people are struggling, were all incredibly good at covering it up for those that know we are covering it up.

It is all too easy to mock the privileged Prince who likes to bang on about his struggles for a fee. We can laugh at the hypocrisy of the privacy-loving Duke whose favourite topic of conversation is his own personal life.But, as so often with Harry, he unwittingly exposes the zeitgeist and helps us clarify whats troubling about the times we live in.And there is something that should concern us about Harry and Oprahs push for openness. Certainly stigma around mental health difficulties is dangerous if it stops those who need it fromseeking professional help. But must the opposite of stigma be the boundary-less individual who, in exposing all, is left without a private, interior world? Revealing every intimate detail of our lives brings its own pressures. Complete transparency both robs personal relationships of significance and makes it more difficult to separate ourselves off from the lives of others.

In this weeks town hall discussion, Harry talks about dealing with his wifes suicidal feelings - a fact Meghan disclosed in the couples first public outing with Oprah. This time around he told Winfrey:Im somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with it. Because of the system that we were in and the responsibilities and the duties that we had, we had a quick cuddle and then we had to get changed to jump in a convoy with a police escort and drive to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event.

Harrys intentions are no doubt good. He advises: But what you [want] to say is Youre there. Listen, because listening and being part of that conversation is without doubt the best first step that you can take.But in going public with the idea that suicidal individuals can have a quick cuddle before pulling themselves together and glamming up for a gig at the Royal Albert Hall, the pair risk trivialising the contemplation of suicide.

Indeed, The Me You Cant See series utterly fails to distinguish between mental health and mental illness. Mental health, as the fashionable meme has it, is something we all have. Mental illness is most definitely not. Mental health can be improved with a walk on the beach, a bubble bath or a quick cuddle. Mental illness cannot.In the town hall show, Harry and Oprah try to counteract some of these criticisms. They are joined by a team of mental health experts and discuss the need for better funding for mental health provision and the need for healthcare reform. But the pop psychology mantras of openness and self-care remain.

Princess Diana famously wanted to be a queen of peoples hearts but her son seems determined to become Prince of our feelings. Its enough to make me nostalgic for the stiff upper lip.

Continued here:

The problem with Prince Harry's mental health drive - Spectator.co.uk

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Season 5 finale of Lucifer. Read at your risk!]

Lucifer's co-showrunner Joe Henderson wasn't kidding when he told TV Guide: "Season 5 is our big, crazy spectacle season." In the hefty second half of a 16 episode order, Lucifer Season 5B plunged deep into the darkness to unearth the traumas of a usually happy-go-lucky Devil. The latest episodes had Lucifer's (Tom Ellis) traumatic reconciliation with his father; Lucifer running a campaign as God (Godcifer); Michael being responsible for Dan's death and killing Chloe (Lauren German) as a twisted hellish gift for Lucifer -- and then Lucifer dying in order to give Chloe a second chance at life.

As they say, the road to Hell (or Heaven, in Lucifer's case) is paved with good intentions, but even the Devil wasn't impervious to death or protecting those he loves most from dying. Through the finale's epic battle, and the ultimate sacrifice of both Lucifer and Chloe, we learned that with death also comes rebirth and second chances for redemption.

"We decided that he was going to save [Chloe], and put himself at risk by going to Heaven, where he was supposed to burn up if he ever re-entered," co-showrunner Ildy Modrovich told TV Guide. "And by loving somebody, finally, more than himself, officially, [Lucifer] earned the right to be in Hell and in Heaven."

Lucifer dying to save Chloe was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this jam-packed season. TV Guide sat down with both Lucifer showrunners to talk about Michael's path of villainy, Lucifer's maturation, the long-awaited "I love you," the epic battle to become God, and what's in store for Season 6.

What's on Netflix This Week: Lucifer Season 5 Part 2, Bo Burnham's New Stand-up Comedy Special

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Lucifer Morningstar is a serial self-sabotager.

"Lucifer's the kind of person who doesn't realize something until he actually does it," Henderson laughed. "Sometimes his heart is in front of his head."

It's undeniable that Chloe and Lucifer love each other in one form or another through various stolen glances, soft and curious kisses, and the inevitable case of "BlueBallz," which finally ended with the consummation of their relationship. Everyone alive, or otherwise, knows that Lucifer is in love with Chloe, but it took his own death for him to realize it.

"It was the combo of saying it and showing it," Modrovich explained. "He was willing to sacrifice himself for her, and that act was showing her he loved her even more than saying it."

In the last remaining moments before he combusted into flames, Lucifer realized not only that he has always loved Chloe, but that a world without her would be much worse than his own death. And so with his last breath, he saved her with his immortality ring and succumbed to the ashes.

"So much it was sort of chicken and the egg [for Lucifer]. When can you realize that you are capable of love and do love someone, but you have this denial? The answer was that he had to show it. So that was always a big part of how we structured Season 5," Henderson said. "I think the way it happened probably shifted here and there, but it was always the plan to end Season 5 with him finally saying those three words."

Tom Ellis and Lauren German, Lucifer

In the season cliffhangers to end all cliffhangers (never mind The Sopranos), Lucifer ascended. Modrovich and Henderson spearheaded what was initially a relatively light-hearted, fantasy-crime procedural into new territory going where no Devil has gone before; God. Now the question is what does this new job have in store for Lucifer and how will it affect his relationships with those around him.

"That sounds like a great question and exactly what we will explore in Season 6." Henderson quipped. "Lucifer's greatest enemy is always himself." Meanwhile, Modorovich teased, "[Becoming God] is more than Lucifer bargains for, I'll say that."

Oh and about that fantastic line that the show ends with, "Oh my Me"? Unscripted. It turns out the triumphant flaming sword moment as Lucifer stood proudly while his siblings bowed down to his holiness at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was courtesy of Modrovich, Henderson, and an adlibbing Ellis.

"That's what's so great about being on set sometimes, you're like 'Ooh, let's do that!'" Modrovich recalled. "I think Tom did like a 'Holy Sh--' or 'Bloody Hell' kind of thing. We threw some alternatives at him, and he tried them. Tom [Ellis] is so good at finding those lines in those key moments that are reflective. And we often keep them in there," Henderson added.

Lucifer Season 5 Part 2: Release Date, Casting, Spoilers, and More

After God announced his retirement and left Earth to live in another dimension with The Goddess (Tricia Helfer), it was not entirely surprising that Lucifer's twin Michael revealed secret plan is to take up the mantle of The Almighty just to spite his brother. The twist was the second part of the plan -- sending Chloe to Hell.

"In 5B, one of the things we wanted to do is peel back [Michael]'s heart, understand his pain, understand his rivalry towards Lucifer," Henderson said.

It was surprising is just how deep the rot is behind the unpeeling of Michael's unhinged plans: to give Chloe guilt so that when she died her soul would go to Hell, further solidifying Lucifer as the underworld's leader so she could stay with him for eternity.

"Michael was given multiple opportunities to redeem himself and he just [continuously] chooses the wrong path," Henderson explained. "You see his regret and his pain, but he thinks he's right. And that was what we wanted to build towards."

The decision to have Lucifer -- imbued with God's powers at the end of the season -- spare Michael's life was controversial. Why didn't Lucifer kill Michael, banish him from Earth, or trap him in Hell for a millennia or two?

"I don't think that [storyline] is a done deal," Modrovich said. "But we can say this about Season 6 [is] we don't like to tread the same ground. We like to explore different things and put our characters through new obstacles."

Tom Ellis, Lucifer

Season 5B picked up right after the end of an epic celestial blowout interrupted by the surprise appearance of God at the precinct. As fans know, Lucifer has always had a complicated relationship with his all-knowing, all-absent omniscient father. Upon his arrival, God revealed that he had come down to Earth in order to reconnect with his son, retire, and to find a successor to the kingdom of Heaven. But while God was trying to make amends with his rebellious son, Lucifer was projecting his feelings of parental neglect onto his relationship with Chloe.

"So much of the story of Lucifer is one step forward, two steps back. Or two steps forward, and one step back. In this case, he was so close, but his father's arrival coming at the exact wrong time for his arc forced him to take that step backwards." Henderson said.

A big cliffhanger from the first half of Season 5 was God's arrival and the fact the Lucifer couldn't say "I love you" to Chloe. In the first episode of the new batch, "Family Dinner," Lucifer dealt with his father's mysterious arrival, but then Lucifer admitted to himself and Chloe that he believed he doesn't love her because his father never loved him. Therefore he didn't think he can love anyone, at least not until his father expressed his love for Lucifer (which he didn't do).

"The biggest thing was really channeling the idea of a character who finally is face-to-face with his dad for the first time, really almost ever in the physical form on Earth, and channeling that idea that when we're with our parents, we regress." Henderson explained. "On top of that, when we're with our parents, we see ourselves in them. Combining those two things was really the heart of it because it was the idea that here is Lucifer, he finally gets to confront his father. And unfortunately in 'Family Dinner,' he sees himself in his father more than he likes and projects it onto his relationship with a woman he loves."

Though Lucifer can't see it fully until the last moments of the season before earning his godliness, this confrontation and resolve pushed him on the path to ultimate growth and maturity.

"The point was for him to regress and to devolve." Modrovich added.

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Now that Season 5B is out, the wait for the final Season 6 begins. What can fans expect to get out of these last 10 episodes?

"With a character as rich as Lucifer, there's a lot of places you can build a good ending, but I do think that where we end in Season 6 is the best ending," Henderson explained. "What I love about our show is that we entertain while also trying to sneak up with emotional insight. We're trying to all have a great time, but we also hope you walk away surprised at how much you cried or had a great time watching a devil solve crimes in Los Angeles. It's fun to be a stealth bomber for feels and emotional insight. I hope people feel fulfilled."

As Lucifer unfurls its wings, propelling us to the sixth and final season, the Lucifer creative team felt a responsibility to address the ongoing discussion about police and the Black Lives Matter movement. With America continuing to reckon with policing and racial inequalities, Henderson and Modrovich felt the series, which centers around police detectives, should dive deep by addressing the Black Lives Matter movement in the show.

"Speaking personally, it was something that I really reckoned with as someone who wrote a show that glorified the police for six seasons. And you know, there's a lot of looks into how 'copaganda' affects how people see the police and the sense of us having to reckon with our place in it. We felt like we wanted to tell a story that also grappled with that, and there is an episode that focuses on it, but also permeates Season 6," Henderson explained.

While Season 6 aims to permeate the BLM movement, this won't be the show's first foray into racial profiling. Season 4's "Super Bad Boyfriend" launched the show from the religious to the political zeitgeist to talk about societal and police profiling of Black males. When Season 6 digs back into the topic, the optics of Amenadiel being an angel in Heaven but having to tackle being viewed as a Black man on Earth will be further explored.

"That's a large part of Season 6. It also goes hand in hand with our BLM episode." Modrovich said of the Season 4 connection to the final season. "We were on Zoom just a few weeks after George Floyd had been killed, and it was in our minds. We're a show about cops. We're solving crimes, and we felt that none of us should ignore that. Even though we're this escapist show, we didn't want to shy away from it. We do it from an emotional standpoint through a character's eyes, and through our emotions and care that's the [storyline] we found."

Tom Ellis, Lucifer

Though Season 5B was supposed to be the final arc for Lucifer, some loose threads remain. After a run-in with a serial killer boyfriend, and "a close encounter with an emu," Ella (Aimee Garcia) is the only one that has yet to discover Lucifer's true identity. Henderson and Modrovich promise that something "big, adventurous and cool" is in store for Ella.

Of course, the biggest questions going into Season 6 are whether Chloe is officially immortal now that she's in possession of Lilth's soul ring that brought her back to life? Does her staying alive depend on whether or not she wears it? Can fans suspect that Chloe can now live forever with Lucifer in harmony? Henderson was quick to set the record straight.

"The idea is that the last remaining [magic of Lilith's immortality] brought her back to life. And now that it's spent she does not need [the ring to survive] it. One of the things that's important to us is always wrapping up a season arc, and so much of that was planting that seed in the first half of Season 5 so that it could pay off [in the finale]. That story has been told, and now it's just a beautiful ring."

In regards to having an impact on the fantasy pop-culture zeitgeist, the executive producers are hoping the show's journey is symbolic of its message.

"If people take something away from having watched all six seasons of Lucifer, it's that none of us are perfect and that we are all worthy of love and forgiveness," Modrovich adds. "I think that's what people connect within our show. We're all broken, we're all fallen angels. That's been the heart of our show. Who doesn't want to be loved despite all of our flaws?"

We all know that when angels fall, they also rise. And though our time is coming to an end, we can't wait to see the final ascension for all of our beloved characters in Season 6.

LuciferSeasons 1-5 are now streaming on Netflix.

Originally posted here:

Lucifer Bosses Weigh in on That Heavenly Season 5 Finale Cliffhanger - TV Guide