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 The following is a variety of historical figures expressing, in their own words, their interpretation of socialism and their arguments for why they support the ideology. In framing this in such a way, my aim is to inform those who would otherwise be averse to, or ignorant of, socialist arguments and to show them that many, very smart, very important people supported these ideas. -Temporal Distortions

Albert Einstein

Monthly Review - Why Socialism (May 1949)  https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/ 

“Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.”

“...Socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.”

“I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naïve, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.”

“The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production…may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.”

“…The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.  Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population.

            Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.”

“Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. …Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions.”

“This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.”

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

#albert einstein #albert einstein quotes #einsteinquotes #socialism #history #anti capitalism #classwar #class struggle #capitalism #anticapitalism #late stage capitalism #philosophy #economics #ethics

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To My Colleagues: (An unsent letter to High School teachers during a pandemic)

April 2021

To my colleagues,

In regards to the current state of affairs with our student population, their grades and their mental health, I think there are a few things we should consider when it comes to putting in their final grade for the year:

1.This year has been hard for everyone.

The fact that we are going through a global pandemic is no fault of our students. They are doing the best they can, just like the rest of us- some better than others. If you looked at Mrs. B****'s email regarding the testimonies of students and families and what they have been dealing with you will understand that deaths in the family, loss of employment for the primary earner and the need to take in or take care of extended family members are very common things our students are dealing with. As a result many, many of our students are babysitting all day or primary caregiving for their grandparents and/or have had to pick up menial jobs to help the family make ends meet. Others are out on their own working full time and paying rent--and somehow, thankfully, still trying to stay in school. Obviously, this contributes to increased anxiety and depression. Many of our students have either attempted suicide or were/are hospitalized due to suicidal ideations. Anyone who has ever had to deal with strife at home knows that family comes first, even over education. I know all of you are aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Food, water, shelter, and sleep are all on the bottom tier -- the most important-- followed by personal security, employment, health, and resources on the next tier. So, from a lot of our students’ perspectives, our class just isn’t the most important thing in their lives right now-- nor should it be. “Love and Belonging” is the third tier. How can we tell our students that they are loved and that they belong more than by showing them grace and passing them?

2. Understand your power and your role in the system and in your students' lives.

We have the power and the ability to affect the course of these students’ lives with the decisions we make in regards to passing or failing. Research shows that failing students, and students who were held back, are more likely to drop out. There is no evidence that shows punitive grading-- punishing students with grades as a means to motivate them-- works. On the contrary, it makes students feel like they can’t cut it and increases the chances of them dropping out. Failing your students in no way helps anyone. It can ruin the lives of students because they may never graduate due to perceived ineptitude. Our community is the one that suffers when students drop out. They have a hard time finding a job and getting into higher education and can end up homeless. Youth homelessness is on the rise and us failing students will only contribute to that statistic. So we have the power to show grace-- and provide an opportunity for someone that could uplift them in the future, or show malice or disregard and punish a student when they are having to choose between their family, their well-being, or their education and not choosing the latter.

If we choose to fail our students due to perceived apathy, or because they “aren’t putting in the effort,” or as a way to get back at them for “getting away with doing nothing,” then we are not just choosing to be petty, we are choosing to allow that student to potentially have a harder life because of it. We have that power. Does anyone deserve to have their future jeopardized because of a petty teacher? We must ask ourselves “Does public education exist to ruin lives?” No. Then why do that with it-- even if the system allows it?

The other path that we can choose to take is to care for our students--the ones who we are hired to care for-- and provide them with opportunities that could enrich their lives and, more importantly, provide things like second or third chances. Just about everyone has a story about someone who showed them unmerited grace and how it changed their life. We have the opportunity to provide that story for our students. Or we can put them on the path of a very different story, one that isn’t as positive and one that maybe ends in the street. That is the choice we have to make.

3. Remember that “learning” and “education” are two different things. Emphasize the former over the latter.

Grades do not reflect learning. We all inherently know this. And when you go back to the mid-late 1800’s to see why they were created in the first place you find that it is not even what they were designed to measure.

When we make students do a bunch of mindless busy work in order to put a number in the gradebook they are not learning anything other than that they need to do X to get a 100. They are taught to work for the grade, not to learn. We should be incentivizing them to actually learn, not just “do this specific order of operations because you need the grade.” When we auction off grades to students: “Please if anyone turns in the assignment- even though it was due 3 weeks ago-- I’ll still give you a 90,” what we are teaching them is that grades are meaningless. How do we deal with this? Be honest with ourselves and your students about what grades actually mean and reflect and don’t fool ourselves into thinking that they reflect some objective truth about a students ability. They don’t and they never did. When we accept this, it becomes clear how arbitrary the 69-70 pass/fail distinction really is.

4. The world is not a meritocracy.

Life is unfair. We say it all the time and it is true. So why, then, do we treat our students' grades as some sort of fair arbiter. “It’s not fair to the other students if I pass so-and-so...” implies that grades are inherently fair, which we have already established they are not. Every teacher grades vastly differently and an A in English at one school may not be an A at another. Additionally, students learn at wildly varying rates. Some 9th graders read at a 12th grade level and some read at a 5th grade level, and this goes for every student in every grade. We all know this. This is why we are supposed to differentiate our assignments, because of this inherent inequality in human abilities. If every teacher appropriately differentiated the difficulty of our assignments to the correct subset of appropriately capable students, then every student would pass. However, rather than doing this, most of us put the responsibility off on the students.

The real world is not fair, so we shouldn’t pretend that grades are. When we come to realize this, we realize that it simply comes down to one thing: our decision--our power in this situation. Traditionally, we have put the responsibility off on the students and in doing so, abdicated our own in the process. Realize that actually we are responsible for the students' outcomes after high-school. We have the power to decide whether they pass or fail--which will have long term impacts on their future. We can tell ourselves it is their responsibility but we are the ones who sign off on the grade verifications, not them. We ultimately decide their fate. So if we tell ourselves, “they did this to themselves” then we are lying to ourselves. We, alone, have the choice. I urge you to choose wisely, for their sake.

So to recap, our students are dealing with unimaginable situations and stress. You have a role in this system and a role in your students lives, which role will you emphasize? Grades do not equal learning. Use taxpayer money wisely and lastly, life isn’t fair and neither is grading- so let’s not pretend that it is. With all these in mind and the understanding that we have the ultimate power in this situation, I hope we can all see that the lives and the futures of our students depend on US and the decisions WE make. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Anthony Sosa

****** High School

U.S. History

*201

M.Ed. Curriculum and Instruction

B.A. History

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner

P.S.

If any of the things I’ve said or the perspectives I have presented are new to you, or if you would like to know more about any of these things I do have reading recommendations:

Mrs. B***** Doc of Testimonies:

**********

Books:

Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) By Susan D Blum (Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) Paperback – December 1, 2020

https://www.amazon.com/Ungrading-Students-Undermines-Learning-Education/dp/1949199827

Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways To Go Gradeless In a Traditional Grades School by Starr Sackstein by «Dr. Doug Green

https://www.drdouggreen.com/2016/hacking-assessment-10-ways-to-go-gradeless-in-a-traditional-grades-school-by-starr-sackstein/

Grades and Grading Practices (Obstacles to Improving Education and to Helping - At-Risk Students) Charles H. Hargis (2003)

--contact me if you would like a copy of the PDF

Articles:

Liberating Grades/Liberatory Assessment by SJ Miller

http://www.sjmiller.info/uploads/8/8/5/4/88548862/lib_grades.pdf

Competitive Grading Sabotages Good Teaching BY JOHN D. KRUMBOLTZ AND CHRISTINE J. YEH

http://cultureofpeace.ernestojunsantos.com/uploads/6/4/8/7/6487837/competitive_grading_sabotages_good_teaching.pdf

The Relations of Learning and Grade Orientations to Academic Performance Hall P. Beck, Sherry Rorrer-Woody, and Linda G. Pierce

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Beck_Hall_1991_The_Relations_of_Learning.pdf

Human Restoration Project Resources:

https://www.humanrestorationproject.org/research?categories=ungrading

#teaching #teacher #grading #ungrading #gradeless #pandemic #2021 #letter #unsent #grades #high school #student #History

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Volume is Power

The following is a transcript of my "Audio Liner Notes" for Volume is Power, the album I released earlier this year under the project titled Temporal Distortions.

The album can be purchased for free on my bandcamp here: https://temporaldistortions.bandcamp.com/

and it is available on all streaming services:

-https://open.spotify.com/album/3983Bepp9uxIv1pb9qaEwY?si=qWpTAozTS2ujMQ79R_FZZg&utm_source=copy-link

-https://music.apple.com/us/album/volume-is-power/1557283830?uo=4

and music videos are up on the Local Famous Records Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRIjOlGfx0M

Volume is Power

Transcript of Audio Liner Notes and Recommended Readings

Hi. My name is Anthony Sosa and you have just listened to Volume is Power. I hope you enjoyed it. I began actively writing for this record in December of 2019. Some of the musical ideas were written in previous bands going back as far as 2009 and others were written after I had started working on the record. As you know, 2020 was an insane year. So, as you can imagine, it affected the writing and conception of what we were working on. When I began writing lyrics it was the middle of the democratic primaries for President. I was a Bernie Sanders volunteer. I wanted to talk about issues in the US and around the world. But then COVID happened and George Floyd happened, and I had to talk about those things as well--If anything, to document this moment in time. Honestly, those events backed up what I already wanted to say with this record: Our system is broken.

Sonically, Volume is Power has a lot of specific influences that influenced specific songs. For each track I tried to lean into whatever influences were present at the time and treat each piece almost as a genre study, though the genres span a narrow spectrum along the “rock” continuum. Time -- was, and will continue to be, an important aspect of the project. Temporal Distortions are happening all around us all the time. This record is essentially a series of distortions, or songs, that span, temporally, from the mid 1990’s to the late 2000’s. There are also audio clips from the 1950’s and 60’s as well as from this historic summer of 2020. Songs from my past still inspire me in the present to create an album for the future which is now here. Now, this album will exist in the past for me but for you this is your present. Maybe, if I did my job right, and you are so inclined, it will inspire you to create something in your future.

I had intended to make this album available for free everywhere, but youtube and bandcamp are the only platforms where I can achieve that. You can always email [email protected] and we will send you a free digital copy.

In this Audio Liner Notes track I intend to give credit to all of the amazing artists who helped me create this record. I am honored and privileged to know and have the pleasure of working with so many amazing people and to all of you thank you for giving me your time and energy. Chief among these is Dale Brunson, my colleague and compatriot. I met Dale in 2009 when he was playing in Werewolf Therewolf and I was playing in Housefire and The Raven Charter. We’ve been friends ever since and in 2012 we started a Top 40 cover band called Sweetmeat who is still together as of this recording. Dale mixed and co-produced this record with me and without his patience, insight and guidance this record would have been impossible. I definitely threw him some curveballs throughout this process and he has handled all of it graciously.

I, now, am going to give a track by track breakdown of the record but I am not trying to spend too much time explaining or discussing lyrics. Those are for you to interpret how you will. I’m not great at insinuation, anyway, so I’m sure you get the point. I’d rather discuss the people on the tracks and the musical influences behind them. So:

Track 1 is titled Our Streets and begins with the voice of Rod “Teddy” Smith whom I met on the streets of Fort Worth during the protests this May-July. Rod and I, as well as Defense Attorney Michael Campbell, Christopher Rose and my wife, Amber, started a non-profit organization in the wake of these protests called The Justice Reform League with the goal of advocating for evidence based socio-economic and criminal justice policies at the municipal, state and federal levels and to empower impacted communities through civic education. I, personally, believe that there needs to be more effort put toward educating our community on how local politics actually works, how it impacts us, and how we can get involved and change things. So that is what we are trying to do. I also feel that music, or art in general, can be an educator and is one of the reasons I was inspired to write this record.

In regards to the opening clip with Rod, I actually have hours of footage from weeks of protests in May and June but this clip stuck out to me particularly because it evokes Fort Worth and the particular sentiment I was wanting to express with this record. The piano was played by me, recorded here at my house. At the end of the track are protest chants from one of the larger protest-days this past summer here in Fort Worth. My wife, Amber, and I marched for about 3 weeks before actually beginning to organize. On those later days of the protests I started carrying a battery powered PA speaker on my back in a doggie backpack with a mic and using that for chants and to further project those giving speeches. The album cover is a photo by local photographer Zach Burns capturing me doing just that. Zach being another awesome person I met this past summer. Before I move on, the real first voice (and last) you hear on the album, and multiple times throughout, is of Jordan Buckly of Every Time I Die- my favorite band. Early in the pandemic I paid Jordan $30 on Cameo to say “Temporal Distortions” and to “purchase” a shitty riff idea. I didn’t use the riff, it was god awful like he said, but I made some clips of him because it made me smile.

Track 2 is Daring Bravely.

This song was intended to be a The Raven Charter song and was introduced to the band near the very end of our time together. For those who don’t know, The Raven Charter is the most serious project I have ever been a part of. It was the most important thing in my life for many years. I am not going to use this time to give a history lesson on TRC, though that would be fun. Go check out our stuff if you’re into Prog Rock. So this thing kicked around on my hard drive since 2015, I recorded multiple demos with guitar, bass and drums, over the years and finally settled on a bridge. I didn’t actually write the lyrics until I began working on this album proper in Dec of 2019.

I had the awesome pleasure of doing this song with my boys Daniel Baskind and Erik Stolpe of TRC. Daniel wrote a beautiful solo for this track. It was exactly the energy the song needed and also sounds quintessential Daniel. As I stated at the beginning, I was leaning into the genre for each track and the genre on this track was “Ravencharter” and Daniel nailed it. And Erik, I truly feel, did an amazing job in making this song more than it was. The orchestration and production aspects of his writing for this track are spot on. He really got the vibe I was going for and took it even further. It was great to get to work with both of them again to recreate some of that magic we used to make. The audio clips are from Dr. Brené Brown and her TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” from Jan 3, 2011. Funny story about that. When my wife Amber and I first saw Brené’s TED Talks we really enjoyed the concepts she covered. We both came away from watching those remembering the phrase “Daring Bravely,” which is why I named the song that. I like those two words together and the concept they elicit. However, when researching for these Liner Notes I discovered that all along she was saying “Daring Greatly.” She even has a book with that title. So, we’ve been saying it wrong the whole time. Regardless, I prefer “Daring Bravely” because it requires bravery and courage to dare greatly and have confidence and believe in yourself. So be brave. Dare Bravely.

Track 3 is titled Division of Labor.

What radicalized me? Working in the service industry and learning history. This song is essentially an amalgamation of that. The line in the bridge is an Oscar Wilde quote. This was just a rando idea on the guitar that I recorded into my phone on new year's day 2019. Musically, the main guitar riff seemed to me Every Time I Die influenced but when I put drums and bass to it it ended up sounding more like At the Drive In or something, to me. My demo leaned into that a lot more than the finished product. This song definitely ended up in a different place than when I started working on it which is always fun and surprising. Workers rights are very important to me and I tried to put that into this song.

Track 4 is Pay for your own Exploitation.

This is another relatively recent idea recorded into my phone on the acoustic in October 2019. I remember when I did it because my friend and fellow musician/producer Randall C. Bradley from Delta Sound Studios came over and before we could even really greet each other I had to stop and say “hold on I have to record this idea before I forget.” It kinda had an Aerosmith vibe to me when I put it all together in the demo process for the record. Like 90’s Aerosmith. I dunno. I guess really the 90’s are smeared all over this album. Another temporal distortion. And then from the bridge on it goes all ETID. The “sex organs of the machine world” line at the beginning of the song is a Marshall McLuhan quote. The bridge vocals “Politics is war without bloodshed. War is politics with bloodshed,” I heard from Adolf Reed Jr. but I don’t know if he was quoting someone else.

I had the pleasure of working with Double Bear on this song - my Local Famous Records brethren. The gang vocals in the song are myself, Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond, Matt Bardwell, Glenn Wallace, and Dale Brunson and we’re having a lot of fun, if you can’t tell. It makes me happy that we got to work together on this project and I imagine there will be more collabs down the road.

Track 5 is We Make the Past.

This song is essentially a Bush song, or was when I wrote it. Very Pixies influenced. Dale’s production took this a lot further than I imagined in the best way possible. I also showed up to the studio thinking my lyrics were finished but realized I was missing a second verse. The demo version was just like a minute and a half and I extrapolated the rest and got it wrong. Once that started I essentially re-wrote all the lyrics on the spot. The lyrics are meant to be scattered and random, like Gavin Rossdales’, though they come from a book by the late Hatian anthropologist and historian Michel-Rolp Trouillot. Bush was one of my favorite bands growing up in the mid-late 90’s and early oughts. I’ve always liked their raw energy and lyrical strangeness. (The same could be said for my love of The Mars Volta.) So this was my homage to Gavin, Nigel, Dave and Robin and shitty guitar playing. Also, I pronounced “His-tor-icity” wrong. I said histori-ocity and I don’t know why I didn't notice it until really late in the process. Same with “commodozation” instead of “commoditization” Oh well. Making up words is fun too.

Track 6 is Serve-Us Industry. This song was fun. It originally was going to be a new Huffer song. I had the pleasure of being a part of Huffer from 2015-2018 with Chea Cueavas and Jeremy Nelson, and we were working on a new album in 2017. Between Chea and myself we had about 10-13 ideas kicking around. This was one of the ones I had thrown out there. To me it had a Foo Fighters vibe, which makes sense because Chea and I were also playing in The Foo, our Foo Fighters cover band, a lot around that time. I just thought it would be fun to sing about all the mistakes that happen while working in the service industry and having to deal with customers. These lyrics made me laugh and sometimes that’s all you can do.

Track 7 is an interlude titled Employer vs Employee. This is a clip of David Griscom from the Michael Brooks Show episode 145 - Police & the ANC & We Need a Liberation Theology ft. William Shoki & Ronan Burtenshaw recorded on June 23, 2020. I really enjoy David and even though at the time of recording he has been living in Brooklyn for several years he has never forgotten Texas. His insight on economic issues and worker’s rights is immensely important. The underlying music on this track is just myself playing bass and guitar. A bass riff I had laying around for almost a decade.

The Michael Brooks Show has greatly impacted and influenced my life since I became a Patron in Dec of 2019. I wanted to take what was I learning from Michael, David and Matt and their guests and put it into music. Since Michael’s passing in July 2020, David and Matt Lech have gone on to create their own show Left Reckoning. Check them out for leftist theory and international news and analysis regarding the global left. As Americans, we all need a lot more international and historical perspectives.

Track 8 is titled Class Struggle.

This song was influenced by Silverchair's 1997 and 1999 albums Freakshow and Neon Ballroom. At least that’s kinda what I was going for tonally. The quote being shouted by Karl Marx from his Communist Manifesto, with a slight edit. In hindsight I probably should have use “their” instead of “his or her,” but it was an effort to use more inclusive language. I feel like most people hearing this will know that that was Marx, but if you don’t now you do. This track was originally written and proposed to Huffer as an idea in July 2017 but didn’t make it further than that. Dale plays the double stops in the middle of the song.

I suppose I should take this moment to say that this album is my first lyrical endeavor. I have written personal things in the past but never anything for any of the various bands and projects that I have been a part of, save one short lived hip-hop project back in 2010 I did with Aaron Anderson which was never released. So any idea that I “proposed” to any previous band was just music not lyrics. When trying to decide what to write lyrics about it became clear to me that politics and history was what I felt I needed to talk about. As a History teacher, and someone who studied history at the graduate level, I understand that not everyone learns history by reading historical monographs--but rather through pop-culture. So this is my contribution to pop-culture and I hope some people do learn some things by listening to this. And perhaps, then inspired to do some of their own research.

Track 9 is the Stoop Romans interlude.

These are 2 clips from two different performances of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The first is from the 1970 film and the second, I believe, is from the 1953 production. I got them from youtube and you ideally, got this for free, so hopefully no harm no foul. The piano is a repetition of the piano at the beginning of the album. And these clips, to me, summed up the sentiment of many in America in 2020.

That is another thing I want to take a moment to say. The creation of this record and the method of its release is a statement. I do not want to profit from this. That is not why I made it. I made it for the message and I want this message spread as much as possible and the best way to do that is to make it free. So it was a labor of love and I tried to reject the capitalistic game of “the hustle” that most musicians, and artists, are forced to play with their creations as much as possible. It is my gift to you and example that things can be done differently.

Track 10 is Imperialism get Fucking Bent.

Soooo I was reading a lot of Noam Chomsky at the time, what can I say. If you don’t know who that is look him up. He is an important intellectual whose perspectives on recent American history and economics are invaluable. This song was heavily influenced by ETID, though a lot more simple, and was written on the guitar in 2018.

Initially, when I began writing lyrics I wrote stuff about Magic the Gathering, of which I am an avid Commander player, at least before the pandemic. But the tone of the song didn’t match the lyrics so I scrapped them and started over. The clip in the middle of the song I got from the Congressional Dish Podcast hosted by Jen Briney, of who I am a Patron. She got it from the Senate Hearing: United States Strategy in Afghanistan, United States Senate Armed Services Committee, February 11, 2020. The two men speaking are Sen. Angus King (Maine) and Jack Keane: Chairman of the Institute for The Study of War who was appointed by John McCain when he was Chairman to the Congressional Committee on the National Defense Strategy.

If you want to know what congress is up to, which you should, then you should listen to that podcast, it is invaluable. The point of the clip is to demonstrate that these men acknowledge that we will be at war “indefinitely.” They said the quiet part out loud in an untelevised hearing of which at the end of they say essentially “let's not discuss this again publicly.” I’m not a journalist but this is me trying to do my part of getting this information out there. We, the American People, shouldn’t want “preventative war,” eternal war. IMO we should want no war unless all other options have been exhausted. Take those trillions of dollars of our money and give it back to us in the form of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and free college. Then there will be plenty of money left over to rebuild our infrastructure and provide Universal Basic Income. I believe a healthy and educated populus is crucial to a democracy. We need that in America, desperately. And it would be a lot easier to pay for all of that if we weren’t in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that is just for drone strikes. The U.S. military currently operates in 40% of the world’s nations including most of Africa and Central Asia. Check out the Smithsonian Magazine website for info on this. And read Chomsky. Book Recommendations are at the end.

Track 11 is Ka’s Dance. This is a straight up Stephen King love song. He wrote all the words and it’s the 2nd, 5th, and 8th stanzas from Song of Susannah, the 6th book in the Dark Tower series. The clip is from the audiobook narrated by George Guidall (gwidell). This song was another one that was influenced by ETID. Energetically, it reminds me of Jefferson Colby--the band I was in with Matt and Danny Mabe from 2010-2013. Those two have absolutely influenced the way I play and view music, as well as their father Mark Mabe-who taught me how to play bass. Anyway, that is a story for another day, I hope to collaborate with them again in the future. The clip at the end is Captain Janeway and Chekote from Star Trek Voyager.

Track 12 is You Opened My Eyes. I had the honor and the privilege of working with 3 amazing artists on this song: Tornup, Chill, and Canyon Kafer. Christopher Hill, AKA Chill, and I have known each other for years via Dale Brunson and we briefly worked together on a collaborative musician lottery competition thing titled DIG back in 2017 that never happened. I have always wanted to record with him and had a lot of fun doing so. He is one of the best drummers I know and his pocket gave this song the life it needed. Torry Finley AKA Tornup and I met on the streets this past summer of 2020 during the protests and I heard him speak at the public speaking event we held at Trinity Park-- and he moved me. Eventually, we started talking music and I found out he is a fellow musician and bass player as well, I thought “I definitely want to collaborate with this dude.” Fortunately, this opportunity presented itself and, as I am sure you can tell, this song wouldn’t be what it is without him. He performed the first verse. Canyon performed the sick bass solo before the final chorus and I am truly humbled and grateful to have all of these guys on this album.

Track 13 is Fight the Hegemony. This is by far the heaviest track on the album and I essentially shout out some of my influences in the lyrics. Thrice, Glassjaw, and The Used, Dream Theater, Cohoeed and Cambria and other early-mid 2000’s bands still have a big influence on me. My friend and colleague Chris Musso performed the drums on this track. Chris and I played together in Silverlode in 2004 and in The Raven Charter from 2005-2008. We still play together in the aforementioned Sweetmeat, with Dale, and I am super happy to get another opportunity to collaborate together again. As I mentioned earlier, I volunteered and canvassed for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic Primaries in 2020 and the lyrics in this song were inspired by his movement. Now that I am writing these Liner Notes in early 2021 I want to take a moment to reiterate and clarify-- in the wake of the attempted insurrection on January 6th--this song is NOT aiming to inspire violence nor an overthrow of the system by using violence. It is crystal clear to me now how people can read into things and take what they will. These lyrics are about the Bernie Sanders movement. Period.

Track 14 is Simp for the System (Free Market Capitalism Love Song). This is another one of those songs that, musically, was originally written for Huffer, well the bass part anyway. Chea and Jeremy, both had written completely different stuff but I didn’t want to rip them off so I rewrote it and made it as emo as possible. Brand New, was the band I had in mind, circa Deja Entendu. The lyrics are a joke. I was laughing out loud when I wrote them. I had considered just making it instrumental because for the longest time I couldn’t think of any lyrics to go with it. I didn’t want to do “real” emo but I couldn't think of anything else. Then I was like “ well, often these emo songs were about a girl. What if the girl wasn’t a girl but a system that people simp for all the time?” Ta-da. It was actually Dale who suggested the “Hey girl…” rant in the bridge and I think he was onto something. I hope you thought it was as funny as I did.

Track 15 is Cold War Nostalgia. This song is the oldest one on the record and has gone through the most changes- creating nostalgia for me on multiple levels. I wrote the original version in 2009 for my band Housefire. That version was more upbeat and the main verse riff was a dotted 8th note delay melody...very 2009… and Housefire broke up before it was properly recorded. I really liked the song and re-worked it several times on my own over 7 or 8 years until Huffer began working on our new record. I rewrote the track again to be more “Huffer'' sounding by making the bass carry the melody in the verses rather than the guitar. I also slowed it down quite a bit and went for a more rough sound (thinking Refused-esque) rather than polished, uber-compressed late 2000’s scene music. Chea and Jeremy weren’t that into it, and honestly even with the changes it didn’t sound like Huffer so we dropped it. Then, I picked it up again when I started working on this record and tried to put some words to it, and it has now become this sprawling lengthy piece. The original version was a tad over the 3 minute mark and it is now close to 7.

Lyrics were difficult at first. But because the song, for me, was oozing with nostalgia it seemed like a good topic to start with. I had written a paper in my final semester of Grad school in 2018 for a transnational history class about the Cold War- my area of study for my history degree. That paper is my proudest academic achievement to date, titled “National Narratives in Post Cold War America and the Former U.S.S.R.'' and was about the stories we tell ourselves. The ones we tell ourselves at the interpersonal level and the ones our culture, society and leaders tell us at the macro level--and how the totalitarian can affect those stories. This looked at Nostalgia of the Cold War and how that nostalgia is different for the US and the former Soviet states. All the lyrics from this song are taken from that paper- particularly from certain quotes that I quoted throughout. The first verse, starting with “Nostalgia then…” is either Olga Shevchnko or Maya Nadkarni (both are cited) in 2013 from Kevin Platt’s article “Russian Empire of Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Soviet Retro at the New Wave Competition” published in the Russian Review issue 72 no 3. The second verses’ “Does human nature undergo a true change in the cauldron of totalitarian violence?” is from a book titled “Life and Fate” by Vassilli Grossman-- an epic novel about Stalin written in 1960 from someone who lived under him. The only reason it was published was because a friend of Grossman smuggled a copy out of the USSR into the west. One of the few published examples from that period of people questioning the totalitarian state from the inside.

I encourage anyone interested in the full paper to read it, it can be found on my Tumblr blog- Sosations Transmissions.

Now, you may notice that there is phenomenal guitar playing on this track. That is the work of my very good friend Glenn Wallace. Glenn is one of the best guitarists I know. He and I met back in 2004 via Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe and Chris Musso from Silverlode and The Raven Charter. The only time we have had the pleasure of playing, or sharing the stage together was in Housefire, so I was thrilled when he agreed to do this song. Glenn was our 3rd and final lead guitarist in the band before we broke up, (following Eddie Delgado and Dusty Brooks). There actually is a video on youtube of one show we played at The Boiler Room in Denton from mid-late 2009. Getting him on this track was something that I had been thinking about for a while but the opportunity finally arose when Glenn, Dale and myself, along with the Double Bear guys: Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond and Matt Bardwell, as well as Erik Stolpe and the resourceful Tanner Hux, decided to start our own record label: Local Famous Records. Now that this relationship has solidified you can expect much more collaboration from all of us as well as more records like this one. Starting a record label with friends has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life and I highly recommend that you try it.

Track 16 is “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” - is the final track on the album and is a brief quote from the late Michael Brooks from his talk at Harvard University titled: “Michael Brooks MLK Jr. and Love and Power | Class Warfare | Harvard” from the Harvard College YDSA youtube page, recorded on Feb 1st. 2020. I had written a blog about Michael’s passing and how important he was to me personally and to the progressive movement in America today and in the world , and it can be read at the aforementioned Tumblr. I had set this clip aside to put on this record back in May or June of 2020 but after Michael’s passing in July it became clear to me that I would close the record with this sentiment. “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” is an affirmation I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I will proselytize this message wherever I go. Humans over entities. Always. “The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over all laws and institutions.” As far as the music for this track, it was just me pulling something out of my ass to go under the quote and I did it in one take, on an untuned shitty acoustic (for those familiar, the one from high school and college with the Albino squirrel sticker on it.) I recorded the guitar without any accompaniment into a handheld recording device and just got really lucky that it was an appropriate length. I was going for a Dashboard Confessional vibe and I think I got it.

So that is Volume is Power. Thank you to everyone who helped me create this thing and to those who supported me along the way. I am forever grateful.

Thank you to my wife, Amber, for without her this would not be possible. You are my superhero-bird-watcher, my anchor, my guiding light, my soulmate. Thank you for inspiring me to dare bravely.

Thank you to my parents for allowing me to follow my dreams and drop out of college to pursue a career in music. I know it didn’t make you happy at the time but you believed in me anyway. And thanks for not saying “I told you so” when I decided to go back to school 3 years later.

Thank you to my brother David for all the love and support over the years. For your artistic contribution on Daring Bravely. And for always having the courage to be you.

Thank you to Samantha, Lauren and Matt, for being so supportive all these years. I couldn’t ask for a better step-family.

Thank you to Dale for making this record happen, putting all the work into it that you did, and for putting up with my bullshit.

Thank you to every musician I have had the pleasure of playing with, on or off the stage.

Thank you to Aaron Anderson, Jason Dixon, Andrew Del Real and Anthony Davis for being the first band of dudes I got to do real shit with.

Thank you to the Silverlode/Solace Prime/ The Raven Charter guys: Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe, Brandon and Garrett Bond, Brian Christie, Chris Musso, Stephen Thacker, and Brandon Bailey. You guys are my brothers.

Thank you to the guys in Dreams Like Fire, who I only had a brief stint with in 2007 but learned so much from: Alan Mabe, Dathan Martin, Ryan Moody, and Kyle Istook.

Thank you to the Mabe Family for treating me like family and for--literally--teaching me how to rock: Mark Mabe, Matt Mabe, Danny Mabe, Chris Mabe and the beloved Terri Mabe.

Thank you to Chea and Jeremy from Huffer for bringing me into your lives and music. I am so glad we got to do what we did.

Thank you to Neal Todnem and Justin Jordan for being awesome roommates and apart of memories that I will always cherish and for our Tsegull Tsunami.

Thank you to Ben Napier for being a good friend, and at times mentor, and for asking me to be your Bogus “Green Day” cover band. I appreciate our time together.

Thank you to Ansley Dougherty, Nick Wittwer and Scott White for making our rage Against the Machine cover band a real thing, even if only for 2 practices. And to Scott for being my headbang partner at our The Foo and the Kombucha Mushroom people shows. And for trusting me to record some of your demos.

Thank you to Randall Bradley for being such a good friend. I value our talks and our jams and always look forward to hearing that you are in town from Argentina. Your perspective is unique and important.

Thank you to Cody Lee and the 27’s for involving me in your record and to Jaryth Webber for being a badass academic colleague, a badass musician, and for introducing me to Congressional Dish.

Thank you to Ben C Jones for the opportunity to work together on your music.

Thank you to Daniel Kunda for the opportunity to be apart of what you’re creating and for, at times, letting me be your sensei. Your future is bright.

Thank you to Chill, Torry Finley and Canyon Kafer for taking You Opened My Eyes above and beyond where I possibly ever could have. I hope we can do it more in the future.

Thank you to all my Local Famous brothers: Dale, Garrett, Michael, Brandon, Glenn, Matt, Erik and Tanner, for believing in this thing with me and making it a reality.

Thank you to Collin Porter for being a good friend and letting me bounce creative and political ideas off you. I truly value our conversations.

Thank you to Ryan Smith for always being a good friend and for our jammy jams.

Thank you to the bands that invited any of my bands on the road with them over the years--you guys helped make my dreams a reality: Matt and Mike LoCoco, and Danny Borja from Transit Method in Austin; Nick Barton, Trey Landis, and Justin Huggins from Sleepwalking Home in Tulsa, and Johnny Hawkins, Mark Vollelunga, and Daniel Oliver from San Antonio’s Nothingmore. The memories I have from those shows and trips are truly priceless and I am thankful to have those experiences to look back on.

Thank you to Dr. Johnny Stein, Dr. Joyce Goldberg, Dr. Christopher Morris, Dr. Patryk Babiracki, and Dr. Andrew Milson at the University of Texas at Arlington for greatly influencing my historical knowledge and thought that has influenced the making of this record.

Thank you to all co-founders of The Justice Reform League: Amber, Christopher Rose, Rod Smith, and Michael Campbell. And to Thomas Moore from no Sleep till Justice. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to start a nonprofit with and I look forward to our future.

Thank you to Michael Brooks, Hank and John Green, Dr. Cornel West, Slavoj Žižek, Dr. Kevin Dunn, Dr. Richard Wolff, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fred Hampton, Rita Starpattern and Edward Snowden for being my exemplars, always daring bravely and inspiring me to do the same.

And thank YOU for taking the time to listen to the songs, and this Audio Liner Notes track. If you are unfamiliar with any of the influences I have mentioned over the course of this I encourage you to go listen. And if those bands resonate with you, find out who influenced them- you’ll find more awesome music, more temporal distortions, if you will. I hope you find some inspiration to create your own work, whatever that may be, and to put it out into the world.

Dare Bravely. Salut.

Anthony Sosa

12-6-2020

(Updated 2-6-2021)

Recommended Readings

Global Punk by Kevin Dunn (2016)

The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980)

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (2019)

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolp Trouillot (2015)

Reason in History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1953)

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)

Welcome to the Desert of the Real by Slavoj Žižek (2002)

Humankind by Rutger Bregman (2020)

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (2017)

The Hawk and the Dove by Nicholas Thompson (2009)

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (2005)

Tribe by Sebastian Junger (2016)

Give them an Argument: Logic for the Left by Ben Burgis (2019)

Against the Web by Michael Brooks (2020)

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher (2009)

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon(2006)

The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens by Bernard E. Harcourt (2018)

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (2014)

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff (2019)

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century: by Timothy Snyder (2017)3

Totalitarianism by Abbot Gleeson (1995)

Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World by Noam Chomsky (2004)

Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky (1999)

How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr (2019)

The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom (1995)

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (1977-2003)

[sosation]

Masculinity and Merica

This morning I watched 2 youtube videos and the subject of masculinity was brought up in both of them. In one, a young right-wing debater who watches Tim Pool and Candace Owens brought it up and in the other it was the topic of a news segment. 

It appears that this subject, once again, has become of some importance to American culture, particularly on the right. Having President Trump in office for the past 4 years, and his pseudo-strong-leader persona, has influenced the way some Americans view themselves in society. Some see Trump as a strong, masculine leader and seek to emulate that in their own lives. The right wing media has played into this feeling and aimed to profit from it, just like good capitalists should. They proffer stories of men in dresses and attacks on anything that challenges the traditional concept of “what it means to be a man.” I posit that the fairly recent acceptance and liberation of LGBTQA rights, in a zero-sum mindset, equals a deduction- a loss of the masculine. With this framework, there comes another dichotomy. The political right is viewed as masculine with an underlying subtext that the masculine is ‘inherently good.’ Thus, the contrary is that the political left is effeminate and ‘inherently bad’ because it is a devolution, a corruption. 

This is interesting to me because this is not a new juxtaposition. It already is a dichotomy that has been ingrained in American culture via late 19th century prep schools that groomed conservative ruling class elites like Teddy Roosevelt and his ilk, but more recently in the Cold War and its rhetoric. The Red Scare of the post-war period, instigated and accelerated by Senator Joseph Mcarthy, had “The Pink Scare”  alongside it. People who were suspected of being homosexual were then presumed to be communist and whatever blacklisting, blackballing, beating, firing, indicting etc. that could follow, would. Back then, being on the political left (socialist / communist) in America came with being othered, in a time not far removed from when communities would publicly lynch people they viewed as “others.” It is reasonable to assume that decades of anti-left propaganda would still influence how many Americans think today. These “national narratives,” or the stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be American through pop culture, media and history have a lasting effect. The Cold War generations are still alive and well, myself included. 

Secondly, since Ronald Reagan the American right has tended to be religious or even evangelical. These religious beliefs, (more stories we tell ourselves) influence the way one sees the world and how it “should” be constituted. As someone who grew up in a small conservative town in Texas I understand convervative religious values, even though they weren't the ones I was raised with. In a traditional conservative household the father is the authoritarian. All other family members should be submissive and defer to the father figure. The role of the woman is to serve the husband etc, etc. I am not here to debate the merits of such a philosophy but rather bring it up to demonstrate that this type of dynamic is “natural” to conservative, religious American families. If it is natural, or normal, to have a strong authoritative household leader then it follows that it would seem natural to have a strong authoritarian national leader. Whether or not Donald Trump is a strong leader is a separate issue. His followers believe him to be one and that is what influences their lives, worldview, and decision making.

Following this train of thought to its end is leading me to realize that perhaps the political left in the U.S. should appear to lead from strength more often. In my personal opinion there appears to be a tendency on the left to fetishize victimhood and our failures. Much could be said on this but, at the very least, it exudes weakness and leaves a poor taste in peoples mouths and could explain a portion of the animosity people express for the Democratic Party. (Ironically and inexplicably, the same could be said about Trump and his cronies.) The current progressive Representatives and Senator, however, do appear to project strength backed up by their determination and their constituencies in their districts. It would be promising to see more Democratic Party members exercise political power and tact and use their positions to create public pressure on their opponents. In my opinion Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the best at this and currently is still a freshman congresswoman. She and her “Squad”mates are setting a great example for those who will follow them on how to pressure the Democratic Party from the Left. 

However, since this began as a discussion about masculinity, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least acknowledge that “The Squad” (AOC, Rashida Talib, Illhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley) are all women of color. Meaning: not exuding the masculine but the feminine.  This fact would certainly move the goalposts as to how “strength” could be perceived since the concepts of a “strong man” and a “strong woman” are two very different gestalts. However,  these congresswomen are able to apply pressure, and exude strength. Women in positions of power are often unfortunately perceived as “pushy” or “bossy” when behaving the same as a man would. This aesthetic predicament historically has been resolved with a “motherly” pesona. If people see a male leader as a “daddy” then people, in turn, see a female leader as “mommy.” Thus, the motherly strength of women involves, perhaps, a different type of strength.  Love is the power of a mother, her capacity for love and dedication to her children, her family, or her country. Fierce love. These freshman congresswomen appear to have it as they all won their reelections this year, demonstrating that their victories in 2018 were not a fluke. 

As I mentioned at the start, masculinity is an important concept to the American political  right. Perhaps now is the time to start offering them some motherly love. This could be a way for the American political left to influence society at a subconscious level in the way “daddy” Donald has. 

Anthony Sosa 11-17-20

The videos I watched this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPo-2XGOVO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNuMFTwElFQ 

Suggested readings:

Imperial Brotherhood by Robert D. Dean (2001)

Fighting for American Manhood by Kristin L. Hoganson (1998)

#masculinity #america #merica #politics #culture #youtube #thesquad #vaush #rationalnational #leftist #conservative #progresive

[sosation]

On the Passing of Michael Brooks

I only relatively recently became aware of Michael, less than a year ago. In that time he has impacted my life more than any other media personality, more than anyone I’ve never met.

Even though the first time I voted was for Obama in 2008, my political consciousness really began during my 2nd stint of college at UTA circa 2014/15. My history undergrad was waking me up to the power dynamics and hegemonic systems that exist in our society. I was beginning to understand geopolitics under the tutelage of Dr. Joyce Goldberg and getting really wrapped up in 20th century diplomacy. The Snowden leaks had happened and the Michael Brown demonstrations in Ferguson were drawing attention to the militarization of our police forces and their tactics on US citizens. I began to see capitalism as consisting of, and causing and contributing too, countless problems. Then, the 2016 election cycle stoked my already burning interests.

During this time, there was little “left-tube” to be found. Since 2012, streaming on our X Box has been my wife and I’s primary means of entertainment. Slowly more and more of our time was being spent on YouTube. The Young Turks was really the only progressive voice on Youtube, to my knowledge, at that time. (I wasn’t yet aware of Pakman, Kulinski, Seder and Brooks.) And even though they were my primary source of news, I wasn’t crazy about the hyperbolic presentation, Cenk’s ego, or some of the attitudes expressed by various hosts at various times. That being said, I learned a lot. I was exposed to many many great journalists and they certainly helped me solidify and articulate many of the arguments I had been thinking and feeling during this time. I even became a Texas Wolf-Pac Volunteer right after Trump’s election. 

I ended my bachelor’s and master’s programs under the Trump presidency. (May ‘17, Dec ‘18 respectively.) During this time I read and wrote more than I ever have in my life. Under Dr. Christopher Morris, Dr. Patryk Babiracki, and Dr. Pawel Goral, I read Marxist historical theory and studied the history of the Cold War  from the perspectives of the US, USSR and Europe. I also began watching less and less TYT and more Secular Talk, David Pakman, and David Doel. While these shows are great, there was little to no international perspectives or geopolitical discussions happening. (Doel being Canadian accounts for something but, IMO, anyone who lives in the 5 Eyes is hardly a non-western perspective and therefore significantly less valuable in regards to gaining the insight of the peripheries of the globe. As the hegemonic “leader” of the world, Canadians, New Zealanders, Aussies and Brits, can point and laugh at the US all they want but they are taking our lead-systematically and economically.That’s not to say that their perspective is unimportant, just not the same as those outside the western sphere) Furthermore, there is still even less of a historical perspective being represented in regards to current events anywhere on YouTube. No one seems to have a long dureé, an understanding of how history plays out- again and again, and how capitalism is responsible for much of our recent history. Marx did. Michael did. 

I began my teaching career in earnest last summer, 2019, as a Geography teacher. First time I’ve ever had a salary and the first time that I didn’t have to wear a hat (or hairnet) to work. My lunch was 2nd lunch, 12:35-1:15. Here in Texas, The Majority Report was live and it began showing up consistently on my youtube feed so I began watching them while I ate my sandwich and apple, before students from guitar club would show up for a quick lesson before 6th period. I had watched TMR before, particularly live streams on twitch during the first few primary debates this cycle. They reminded me a little too much of an east coast morning talk show for me to take them too seriously at first but I eventually began to see that while Sam is--well-- Sam, the others on the show had quite a lot to say and clear, logical and articulate reasons for their positions...especially this guy Michael. Once I heard that he had his own show it quickly became the most listened to podcast in my feed. (This in itself is no small feet. I’ve been listening to podcasts for hours a day (sometimes 8) since 2012. It, too, no doubt contributed to my education and understanding of our world during this same time period but that is another blog all itself.)

Michael was everything that I was looking for. He was unabashedly a Marxist. He was intelligent and enjoyed rigorous thinking and leftist theory. He was hilarious and did fantastic impressions. He also was compassionate, kind and empathetic. He was a humanist, in the truest sense of the word and he understood, and articulated to me, that Socialism is a humanist movement. After I became a patron, I once asked him on Discord what his credentials were and he said that his Bachelor’s was in International Relations, which explained so much. Again, he was the only media personality that I was aware of that was knowledgeable and curious about the same things I was. He understood history. He valued history and its importance, so much so that he dedicated a separate Sunday show just to “Illicit Histories” where he would invite Historians from all over the world to discuss leftist movements in their own countries and how we could apply those lessons here and vice versa. This was it. This is what was missing from our national discourse--an international perspective and voice, and a historical perspective and voice. Michael was both and he was damn good at it. 

The Michael Brooks Show was an inspiration. Michael, Matt Lech and David Griscom were smart, eloquent, young men who articulated the systemic failures of our time, who critically discussed and analyzed our current political discourse and who pondered possible solutions based in history. The guests of TMBS, the network Michael created, really were the shining feature. Ben Burgis, Artesia Balthrop, Molly Webster, Glenn Greenwald, Adolf Reed, President Lula De Silva, Slavoj Žižek , Noam Chomsky, Dr. Cornel West, Dr. Richard Wolff...the list goes on and on and on. These people brought so much insight to the state of our world. Professors, Journalists, people who have spent their lives working on the cause, a cause for a better future, one based in humanity and empathy. Michael was able to bring his own empathy for humanity into his interviews, asking thoughtful direct questions that got to the heart of the issue-- while simultaneously bringing levity to a serious topic by making jokes in the voice of Gandhi, Mandela, Obama, or Bernie, to name a few. He, fucking, got it man. He understood how the world was connected. He understood that we are ALL humans, and that we all deserve to be treated with dignity, and he understood that Marx was right about a ton of shit and he wasn’t scared to remind you of that. 

Michael, for me, was an exemplar. He was a role model. I looked up to him. I had no idea he was only 13 months older than me, I thought he was probably in his early 40’s just based on the amount of shit that he knew. My personal 10 year goal was to be on his show. I wanted to either become a writer or go back into academia. I even wrote into a show a couple of months back and asked him which was a better choice. He was honored to be asked such a heavy question but didn’t feel comfortable giving that kind of life advice and I don’t blame him. He recommended that I continue teaching high school if that’s what I enjoy doing, and I do, and I likely will. He has shown me how to speak up for ideals that are right, regardless of what people think. Like, I understood that in the abstract, but watching someone do it multiple times a week really put it in my head that I need to advocate for my position publicly. I tell people that I’m a marxist- which in Texas is unheard of, even among leftists. Mostly due to people not understanding labels and what that even means. So I tell them. Thanks to David’s weekly recommended readings I haven’t stopped reading leftist theory even though I finished grad school over a year and a half ago. If TMBS never existed I never would have had the opportunity to read any of that. 

My heart bleeds for Matt and David. I can’t imagine what they’re going though. I want them to continue, to keep the community alive in his name. But I completely understand if that is just too painful. 

I was thinking earlier, trying to find an appropriate historical comparison to his passing. There are many but as a North Texan, the one that I ended up landing on was the passing of Dimebag Darrell Abbot. He did a lot. He accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. He inspired many to do things like him. It was entirely unexpected and not one person, not one, has a bad thing to say about the guy. Dimebag was adored. He listened to people, strangers, fans. He was kind and open-hearted and treated everyone with respect. Which made it extra hard when he passed. The same can be said for Michael. For Michael, since Socialism is more than just music, he inspired us to educate ourselves, to ask questions, to remember the periphery-Latin America, Africa, and Asia,-- to remember history and value it, to be compassionate, to educate others and to be active in our own communities. 

He will be sorely missed. The one thing I keep telling myself is that his death has the potential to bring even more attention to his message-- to help further catapult this movement into something undeniable. To bring more awareness to how power works and to finally activate us to become, as Michael said at Harvard on Feb 1, 2020: machiavellian.

 “...we still have to put work into reminding everybody that (Dr. MLK Jr.) was on the left. He wasn’t a guy who came out once a year and said ‘everybody should treat each other nicely. ...The other thing I loved about this speech was he talked about the fallacy- that certain Christians misunderstand love as a seeding of power. And then Nietzsche came along and rejected christian morality because he thought it was denying someone’s vitality- the will to power in a healthy sense, and he said ‘Love without power is sentimental and anemic. And power without love is abusive and corrosive’ I’m paraphrasing. And that was when I saw, I thought, ‘well here, ok, we know the left-wing Dr. King. Well here is the machiavellian Dr King, and I love it.’ I want the left to have Machiavelli, so we can have the strategy, the ruthlessness, the clarity, to actually win these battles. And be ruthless with institutions. And then I want us to learn how to be really kind to each other, welcoming of a broad set, and actually have a movement that has the capacity to do that.”

Let’s do the best we can to make that happen. Educate yourself about power. Educate yourself about ideologies. Read Marx and Engels. Read Slavoj Žižek and Adolf Reed. Read Michaels book Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right. Don’t get caught up in identity politics. Never lose sight of class dynamics. Use this knowledge to educate others and make informed decisions. Register to vote. Run for office. Effectuate real change. Do the intellectual rigor that was happening on TMBS every week, multiple times a week. Thank you for all that you brought to us Michael, you will be sorely missed and I hope to see you at the clearing at the end of the path. 

Anthony Sosa

7-21-20

#Michael Brooks #TMBS #History #Geopolitics #International relations #humanity #compassion #humanist #Socialsim #marx #economics

[sosation]

The History Manifesto

The History Manifesto by Jo Guldi and David Armitage (2014) is a fantastic book that, personally to me, is life affirming-- something that I've believed all along but have never heard expressed (until this class) and what I wanted to hear. I really think this book should be presented to history undergrads to contextualize their role in academia. One thing that this book has reminded me of is the power and importance of context. Historians are better than any other discipline at applying context to any given situation and, as the book explains, the longue-durée is the most appropriate framework for conveying this type of context. My own personal academic struggles, I feel, are largely due to my lack of understanding of a given context. As someone who is going into teaching history at the high school level I am very glad that I read this book, as it will provide me with the comfort afforded by the backing and encouragement of the discipline itself. Rather than becoming a “history teacher who rallies against ‘traditional school of thought’” I will understand the context of History, itself as a discipline, and its historical role in speaking truth to power. I am not alone. I am where I am supposed to be.

The focus on interdisciplinary engagement, as stated in your previous course The History of Natural Disasters, is one thing, among many, that struck a chord with me. The value of such discourse seems obvious to one who thinks about it for a moment but it is unfortunate that such discourse in academia is rare. This point is complimented with the fact that History as a discipline lends itself to interdisciplinary facilitation. History encompasses so many other disciplines in its analyses and itself provides histories of those disciplines for analysis. 

As someone whose academic beginnings as a psychology major at UNT involved acceptance of the types of short-sighted truisms mentioned in the book presented by evolutionary psychologists, economists and sociologists (capitalism as a savior, one possible climate future), the argument that the book makes against the naive zeitgeist of the current line of social and political thought is more than valid. This final semester of grad school has been the most influential, thought-provoking, fun and intellectually stimulating semester of my entire UTA career (2012-2018). This is partially due the juxtaposition of my History/Geography undergrad with my Education graduate experience and that this semester was weighted with more History classes. The School of Education, in my experience, is less of a school where thoughts and ideas are exchanged, pondered and expounded upon but rather an entity for the indoctrination of many of the societal truisms discussed in the book and a place where the longue-durée seemingly doesn’t exist. The other half of why this semester was amazing is because these classes (HIST 5339, and Dr. Babiracki’s Space, Material Culture and the Cold War) are my wheelhouse, you are good professors and the school of history, at least at UTA and from my perspective, isn’t vapid and vacuous.

Which is why, again, this book was so satisfying and as I said earlier “life affirming.” It empowers me to speak on behalf of historians, the longue-durée, and history as a discipline, to educate my colleagues and students on the importance of a historical perspective, regardless of the field. I finally feel (due to this book specifically, and this class more generally) that I have a proper “context” to my personal goal in life of educating those around me in history/geography/humanity etc., to empower them to make informed and educated choices, and to hopefully have the tools to visualize and create a better world. I felt so inspired by this book (and the semester in general) that I created a new public Instagram account where I post photos of text from history books and articles that I read: @pasts_present_futures. I created this with the hopes that my friends and students will learn to see things from a more historical perspective.

History stands for something and this book made that very clear. As someone who is passionate about history, and passionate about educating, I could not have asked for a better book to read right now.

 Anthony Sosa

Dr. Christopher Morris

Historical Methods

HIST 5339.001 

12-3-18 

#history #history manifesto #guldi #armitage #historians #interdisciplinary

[sosation]

Dead Certainties

Simon Schama’s Dead Certainties is quite a bold work when viewed through the lens of History, as a discipline. Love it or hate it, this book is a thoughtful and intentional statement made in regards to the valuing of narrative in the telling of histories-- and that statement is powerful. I think he makes a good argument and a convincing product. As good and convincing as it may be, it is not without its faults. 

The story is actually two separate but tangentially related stories taking place in the northeast part of North America. The first, of General Wolfe in the Battle of Quebec. I’m going to stop right there because, to my knowledge, this book never actually calls the battle by name. Of course, no one at the battle would have known what it was to be called later but this, to me, is one of the flaws of this narrative presentation. So much emphasis is placed on the individual, their direct circumstances and trains-of-thought, that one can get lost in the greater picture. It, at times, makes it difficult to see the forest through the trees-- which is his point, I believe-- but the presentation remains unsatisfying. Regardless, his prose does evoke vivid visualizations that immerse the reader in a time. 

“Men returned to camp unmanned, with stories of slivers of wood pushed up the penis and behind the nails and more than ever they came to feel they were being sacrificed to some vanity of the General and his thirst for reputation.” (p. 10)

This is not only graphic but presents the relatable concept of feeling being taken advantage of for another’s means. One doesn’t have to have been enlisted and placed under command of a narcissist to grasp the general concept. 

“Painfully aware that he was losing the authority of his command, each day watching his force being eaten up by sickness, boredom, and desertion, Wolfe increasingly kept his own counsel and brooded sourly on the disappointment of his hopes.” (p. 11)

This, too, evokes an image, or archetype, of a person that, presumably, every other human has come into contact with at some point. The dour, worrisome, miserable wretch who lacks self-esteem and willpower-- not the ideal general. This proves Schama’s point. This is not the image of General Wolfe that people remember. (Though to be fair, far fewer people remember him now than shortly after 1771.) They remember the painting The Death of General Wolfe and the narrative that it created and perpetuates. 

“What had he done to Wolfe, his memory, his history? The success of the painting, in all its fanciful inventions and excesses of poetic license, had been such that when British children of future generations grew up drilled in the pieties of imperial history, it was West’s scene they imagined rather than any more literal account. Art had entirely blotted out mere recall, let alone evidence.” (p. 37)

Schama then moves onto another story (or stories), one that I found, eventually, far more interesting. The tale of George Parkman, his “pedestrian”-ness, his physique, physiognomy, and his strong will. 

“He abstained while others indulged, he walked while others rode, he worked while others slept...His face, with its long nose and pointed chin pulled forward by an underbiting jaw, looked as though it had been sharpened into the shape of the crescent moon...It was the face that spoke of direction and urgency, like the face of a ticking watch.”

And the tale of John Webster, a perhaps more complex character than Parkman. Or perhaps just presented as such, since Parkman’s own voice is much more sparse (if existent at all) in this book than others recollections and representations of him. Webster is portrayed as pitiful, selfish, and contemptible and yet someone that the reader can’t help, at times, feel sympathetic for.  

Despite their presentations, the trial of John Webster is used as a metaphor for historical thought and perspectives on the use of narrative and I feel it was the most poignant and powerful device of the story.  

“...related in so many ways, in so many narratives whose tracks crossed and recrossed, deviated and turned back on themselves but which, finally, came together in one broad highway, how could an alternative path to the truth be established? Yet, somehow that had to be done. The defence had to produce a version of history that was as compelling, as moving, as vivid and as persuasive as the one the court had heard told and retold...Sohier had to turn storyteller.” (p. 234)

This, to me, essentially describes the approach of many history books whose extensiveness tends to meander until their story has the appearance of totality. Additionally, the defense, the prosecution, the Chief Justice, the jury and the perspectives of various nearby regions are all, I assume, representing different perspectives within the discipline of history as well representing the perspectives of those outside of the discipline in relation to how ours is perceived. This representation is a concise capsule of our historical problem: We are up our own asses about ‘true representations’ of the past when in actuality there is no singular great story, and the public’s understanding and perspective on the production of history is not rooted in erudition but rather simply in stories-period. Additionally, as is often the case with a good trial, people are entertained. There is spectacle. Whether we want to admit it or not, spectacle is part of what makes learning about the past fun and, dare I say it, entertaining. As historians, if we do not entertain but include every possible detail then we risk burying our work where only graduate students can find it. However, in order to entertain (and seek mass appeal, perhaps outside of the discipline) then we risk losing factual accuracy (or academic prestige) but as discussed earlier, according to Berkhofer, there are no true facts to lose accuracy on. There are some things that will never be known. Dead Certainties is a great, and worthy, experiment and demonstrates the complexities inherent in writing any history. However, as a piece of entertaining literature, which is the medium Schama has chosen to tell this story -rather than a historical monograph, I give it a 6 out of 10. 

Anthony Sosa

Historical Methods

HIST 5339.001

Dr. Christopher Morris

11-5-18

#dead certainties #simon schama #history #historical Methods #historiography

[sosation]

Historical Representations and Truthfulness

         Robert F. Berkhofer’s third chapter of his 1995 book Beyond the Great Story is a terrible chapter. Terribly dense, terribly convincing, terribly contrarian, (which I enjoyed) and thusly terrible for the “normal historian.” His complex encapsulation of the traditional historical approach and the (rather obvious once observed) identification of irreconcilable issues within such an approach is apt. Despite his wordiness, there is quite a bit of conceptual unpacking that is required which necessitates a dense and rich text to properly explain and expound these ideas.

         First, he establishes the concepts of the “Great Story” and the “Great Past.” This falls under what Berkhofer calls a “Philosophy of Realism” (aka objectivism.) (p.47) This can be described as a belief in a Great Story/Past and a belief that history can accurately correspond to the real past. (p.48)  After establishing this, he demonstrates that “acknowledged facts are not enough to guarantee a single best interpretation” with a constitutional analogy on authorial “original intent.” (p.48) This calls into question one of the foundations of history, by questioning the existence of a “Great Story/Past,” but he doesn’t stop there.

         He proceeds to “shred” the value of the concept of a “single, right, or best interpretation.”

“Although a single fact can ‘disprove’ an interpretation, no number of facts can definitely ‘prove’ one.” (p.51) He continues to explain that facts create narrative and that narratives also create facts.

         In realizing how little space I have left, it is clear to me that I cannot fully flesh out his ideas here, as much as I would enjoy. Suffice it to say, he says (if I may paraphrase) that historians are doing it all wrong, conceptually, from the get go. Not only does he convincingly make his argument but he offers an alternate framework with his focus on the role of Meta-understanding. In order to reconcile a conflict between “representation” and “referentiality,” he says that they need to exist in a larger context of a “meta-story, meta-narrative, or meta-text” on the one hand and a “meta-past, Ur-text, or meta-source.”

         In addition to seeing things in a larger context, he offers the views of literary and rhetorical scholars on the function of history. They essentially see a historical text as a text while we historians see the text as a fetishized simulacrum of the past. (p.68) Furthermore, while historians see a “real world” outside of the text (aka the/a Great Story/Past,) “literary and rhetorical theorists see historians as constructing that real world through the forms they use to give their texts the appearance of history.” (p.71)

         Demystification of the role of story is his solution. What all of this says to me is a call for the historian to take their minds out of the past for a moment and to deeply consider and acknowledge the present. A call for us to be mindful of the lies we tell ourselves in order to feel legitimized or credentialed. To be more than mindful of our rhetoric and our audience and to actively shine a light on where things are the shakiest. At the risk of falling into subjectivity, such an honesty would strengthen the discipline, Berkhofer believes, and I am inclined to agree.

The real question is how to pivot. How does a leviathan institution of knowledge, such as history, change its course? To continue this analogy, the only answer I can see is through micro changes in course inevitably having a larger effect over time. Baby steps.

Anthony Sosa

 Historical Methods

HIST 5339.001

Dr. Christopher Morris 

10/29/18

#History #historiocity #Berkhofer #truth #great story #meta #ur-text #realism #philosophy of realism #objectivity #subjectivity

[sosation]

The Texas Revolution was Not a Clash of Cultures

The following piece was a paper for my Texas History class I took during my undergraduate program at UTA. Professor Sam W. Haynes was my instructor and the co-author of my textbook.

         The Texas “Revolution” is an interesting junction in American history. 1835 was a pivotal point for America’s development and it is strange to think of what the region may be like had the revolution not have ended in Texas’ favor. Though there were many contributing factors to sparking the rebellion, and some that have been more emphasized in the histories than others, it is my belief that the revolution was inevitable, though not as a result of a “clash of cultures” between Mexicans and Anglo Texans, as Eugene Barker has previously perpetuated.

         First let’s touch on the distance between Mexico City and the borderlands of Texas. There were over a thousand miles between these locations and much of the land was arid brush-country or desert. There were virtually no roads connecting the two regions so this made travel, as well as the spread of information and influence, very difficult. Additionally, the Mexican government was unable to protect the settlers from Indian raids due to the lack of infrastructure, leaving the settlers to fend for themselves. This did not foster dependence upon the government.  Had travel and communication been manageable it still may not have made much of a difference. The government in Mexico City was unstable and experiencing a lot of tension and pressure. Mexico had only been an independent country for a little over a decade and still had a lot of issues to work out. During the period of the Texas revolution (1835-36) Mexico was undergoing a change from a federalist system to a centralist system and in doing so it made passing and enforcing laws rather challenging.

         In addition, the people who were settling Texas were bringing with them a specific mind-set and view of the world which contrasted with Mexico’s. An important contributor to this mind-set was the 50-year anniversary of the American Revolution. “The Spirit of ‘76” was a distinct cultural phenomenon that permeated through all American societies, especially on the frontier. This spirit of revolution was top of mind to the settlers of Texas and they often were comparing their own experiences and problems to that of their forefathers. Also at this time newspapers were a common form of public communication and facilitated the incitement of emotions as people believed what they read regardless of whether it was fact or not. The well-defined “American” identity remained well defined on the frontier of Mexican Texas while there was little cohesive Mexican identity to influence the people settling there, so as the population increased the American cultural influence increased as well. The combination of a weak government in Mexico City, no protection or infrastructure, and a well-defined “American” identity increasing in population leads one to believe that there was more potential for a rebellion than for acquiescence on behalf of the Texans.

         Despite there being evidence to support an inevitable rebellion, it was not a direct “clash of cultures” between the Mexicans and the Texans that began this conflict. Firstly, there was a contingent of Mexicans who lived in Texas and who also resisted the government in Mexico. Under the new federalist system Texas was combined with Coahuila to create the state of Tejas y Coahuila. This was done because of the sparse population of Texas. It essentially gave to the settlers of Texas (Mexican and Anglo alike) no representation, as the seat of the State was located at Saltillo in Coahuila- and again there was little to no infrastructure to communicate with Coahuila. Some Mexicans did not like this at all and even fought alongside the frontiersman at The Alamo. Texas independence was not a “white cause”; everyone who had strong feelings about its’ independence took action. Barker’s “clash of cultures” theory necessitates two strong cultures in order to have a significant clash but, as I had previously stated, there was little Mexican culture represented in Texas to clash with. There was a strong American cultural identity leading up to the rebellion but the most represented culture in the region was neither Mexican nor American but native. The population of Anglos and Mexicans in Texas combined did not even come close to the population of Native Americans. Even though there were many tribes and various distinct attributes within each tribe, the native way of life was the one most perpetuated on the plains and in the woods of Texas.  There certainly was cultural clashing between these tribes, Mexicans, and Texans but it had little to do with the overall outcome of the Texas Revolution. On the surface the cultural differences between Mexicans and Anglos may have seemed significant but in actuality they turned out to be rather inconsequential.

         If the rebellion was inevitable, then why was there little conflict before 1835? As a minority in the region, Anglos needed the assistance of Mexicans and Indians to survive on the rough Texas frontier. Only when the Anglo population became sufficiently augmented did defiant activity begin. More importantly though, there was virtually no Mexican military presence in Texas until 1835. In April of 1834 the federalist system in Mexico City collapsed and the centralist faction took hold. The Plan of Cuernavaca was issued by the military generals and nullified the Constitution of 1824. Santa Anna took control of the country and a lot of changes were to take place. The Mexican government became more aggressive with the unrest in Texas and other borderlands and decided to send troops to quell these problems. Even in mid-1835 Juan Almonte, a Mexican officer charged to inspect the Texas borderlands, claimed to have not seen that a war was imminent. It wasn’t until Mexican troops entered Texas in September of 1835 that overt rebellious activity began.

         Histories tend to point at grievances expressed in the Texas Declaration of Independence as legitimate reasons for rebellion, though many of these objections were unfounded. The claim that Mexico was denying Texans “the right of worshiping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience…” (MP-118) is essentially fabricated. Although the Constitution of 1824 stated anyone settling in Texas via an empresario had to convert to Catholicism, the Constitution was not in effect by 1835 due to the Plan of Cuernavaca, and even when it was in effect it was never enforced.  Mexico City had stated that they would send priests to Texas to facilitate with conversion but they never did. (The Vatican had something to do with this as they refused to commission any more priests to Mexico, with the hope that Spain would  re-assert itself in the region.)  Many other objections were either never expressed to Coahuila or the ones that were expressed were never given ample time to be addressed. José Maria Tornell expressed in his rebuttal to the Texas Declaration of Independence:

  “A change in the administration having taken place, the Texans should have waited the results of the principal innovations planned, in view of the fact that congress had raised Texas to the rank of a department, separating it from Coahuila to that extent.” (MP- 119)

This is evidence that even though Mexico was willing to work with the Texans in regards to their autonomy, the Texans had made up their mind that rebellion was going to happen- regardless of the similarities or differences in culture. The flood of Americans coming to the aid of Texas after its declaration is again more evidence that there was little Mexico could do to change the outcome.

         In conclusion, although there were cultural differences between the Anglo settlers of Texas and the Mexican people, these differences added color to the rebellion but were not the overt cause of it. A lack of infrastructure and an unstable, weak government in Mexico City, coupled with American settlers being fervently inspired by the anniversary of the American Revolution while dealing with a distant authority attempting to exert power over them, is enough to create the proper circumstances for rebellion. Of course these histories are even more complicated and nuanced, as there are multitudes of contributing factors to such an event however, the idea that the revolution was simply a “clash of cultures” is an unfair reduction of a very complicated story.

        Source: Sam W. Haynes and Cary D. Wintz, Major Problems in Texas History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.) 

Anthony Sosa

Hist 3363.002

10-28-15

#Texas History #History #UTA #1836 #texashistory #culture #tejas

[sosation]

Panarchy and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900

        As with the other natural disasters that we have covered in this class, many different things came together to engender what would become to be known as The Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Nature is unpreventable. The hurricane was going to come and how things were handled before it made landfall could have been a lot better. As often happens with natural disasters, negative synergies piled up and created a disaster greater than the sum of its parts. In this paper I aim to explain how “rebuilding the familiar,” as a human condition, created problems for Galveston -- then and now, as well as demonstrate the increased complexity in the Texas coast how that leads to increased vulnerability, and to explain the concept of Panarchy and how it relates to all of this.

First, let’s start with Panarchy to use as a foundation to build the rest of this paper on.

Panarchy, as defined by Crawford Holling, famed Canadian ecologist, is an “adaptive cycle” of growth, collapse, regeneration, and growth that “embraces two opposites: growth and stability on one hand, and change and variety on the other.” (1) The example he used was the adaptive cycles of a forest ecosystem, in our example we will use coastal ecosystems. During the early part of the growth cycle, the number of species increases at a rapid pace to exploit the “available ecological niches.” Small fish, algae, turtles, plankton, birds, and sea mammals alike increase in population. As Homer-Dixon puts it, “the flows of energy, materials, and genetic information between the (coastal) organisms become steadily more numerous and more complex. If we think of the ecosystem as a network, both of the number of nodes in the network and the density of the links between the nodes rise.” (2) As time passes further into the growth phase “the mechanisms for self-regulation become highly diverse and fine tuned.” Efficiency increases and, as time passes, this “fine tuning,” increased complexity and connectivity leads to greater vulnerability to disruption. Once the system is in the later stages of growth, there are fewer niches to exploit and fewer opportunities for varieties of species to develop.  The super-connectivity achieved by this time means a shock to the system can affect many different niches simultaneously. A shock could be a forest fire, or in our case a hurricane. This inevitable systematic failure IS part of the cycle. Hurricanes are a natural part of our planet and therefore are part of this natural system. The result after collapse is that “the organisms that survive become much less dependent on specific, long-established relationships with each other. Most important, collapse also liberates the ecosystem’s enormous potential for creativity and allows for novel and unpredictable recombination of its elements.” (3) It gives the “little guys” of the system who survived, those who weren’t able to flourish in the old system, the ability to flourish under these new conditions, creating more diversity and starting the cycle over again.

The final point to this theory is that “no given adaptive cycle exists in isolation.” It’s cycles all the way down, and a healthy super-system has cycles that are on different rhythms and pacings. This means that if one cycle fails, the slower rhythm of a higher cycle would provide stability from an entire collapse. A larger systematic failure involving several or many systems will eventually regenerate but the amount of time that is necessary to reach equilibrium again is vastly longer. (For example, the Galveston coast, specifically, would be one cycle, and the regional climate pattern would be a higher cycle. As long as the climate remains stable then the coast will regrow in a normal amount of time after a hurricane resets the cycle. But if the climate changes, say, due to directional changes in the jet stream caused by melting of the polar ice caps, then the systematic failures will cascade through as many systems possible, not just being focused specifically on the Galveston coast but, perhaps, the entire Gulf Coast region and into other ecosystems and surely human systems as well.) The concept of Panarchy isn’t just exclusive to ecosystems, but all systems- be they economic, political, commercial, industrial or social.

Now let’s consider Galveston in 1900. The way the city was built and the way the geography around the city was composed, considering the bay behind (north of) the city and the gradual slope of the shoreline similar to that of Bangladesh (incredibly shallow), demonstrates a unique cross section of human systems and natural systems. The bay has its system, the coast has its and they are connected, but all of the real estate and commercial developments on the island and the coast were present as well. Before the hurricane there were bath houses built right on the beach as well as the large Beach Hotel, which had a great view but was particularly susceptible to collapse from a storm surge. There were even train trestle tracks that were built right on the water and connected to parts of the island. At the time, storm surges were not attributed to hurricanes. In fact it was Isaac Cline, the Weather Bureau representative who experienced the hurricane first hand, who was the first to say that hurricanes brought with them storm surges. After the hurricane, and the disaster it wrought, the people of Galveston raised the level of the city and built a seawall. And though these measures were better than what they had done previously in protecting them from a hurricane, which was nothing, they didn’t account for the fact that most of Galveston Bay flooded the city from the north before the storm hit. This means that the south-facing seawall would have no effect on bay waters. Even more so, they built another hotel right on the beach, again. The Galvez. Which is a beautiful hotel, I’ve stayed there numerous times when I was a kid, but for whatever reason, it was important for the people of Galveston to rebuild the familiar and put another hotel on the beach, across the street from the seawall. It is still vulnerable to another catastrophe, as is the entire city,  if the conditions align. Fortunately they haven’t yet.

But my concern for the Texas coast wouldn’t be just solely for Galveston. In the past 116 years, the systems on our coastlines have become much more complex, in large part because of human development on them. That development includes shipping infrastructure as well as oil and gas infrastructure and other types of industrial infrastructure that require a water source or a shipping channel. The city of Houston is the second largest port in the United States and it also has “one of the most important shipping points for natural gas liquids.” (4) The complexity of our age, as well as the increased efficiency, if viewed through the “Panarchy” lens, leads to increased vulnerability. Case in point, the Murphy’s Oil spill in St. Bernard Parish, LA. “Where flooding from Hurricane Katrina ruptured a storage tank, releasing more than a million gallons of oil and ruined approximately 1,800 homes.” That is just one single storage tank. In Houston, there are an estimated 4,500 storage tanks, “many of them along the ship channel. If even two percent of those tanks were to fail because of storm surge, the results would be catastrophic.” (5) This is just taking into account the complex oil and gas networks that criss-cross the bay area. The shipping channel alone accounts for the movement of hundreds of millions of tons of American product, second only to the Port of South Louisiana.(6) The trading coming in and going out of the port would be disrupted for an extended period of time and would cost the United States an estimated $100 billion in damages alone, not even accounting for the lost trade. Which is difficult to calculate. (7)

There have been some efforts, however feeble, to address the hurricane issue. However, getting the local and state governments to fund and implement these measures is another issue entirely. When Hurricane Ike struck in September of 2008, it “killed nearly 50 people in Texas alone, left thousands homeless, and was the third costliest hurricane in American history.”(8) This would be a perfect time for the state of Texas to ask for federal assistance to better prepare for hurricanes in the future. Unfortunately for everyone, two days later Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and kicked off what would become the economic crisis of 2008. After that, getting funds for “nature stuff” was out of the question, we had to save the economy. Or in other words, we had to prevent this failing system (economic) from cascading into other systems and it obviously took priority over many other things.

Despite this, two main research teams have been developing ways of dealing with the next big storm. Bill Merrell at Texas A&M Galveston has been developing the “Ike Dike,” which is a 55-mile-long “coastal spine” meant to disrupt high storm surges. It’s estimated cost is between $6 and $13 billion dollars but still doesn’t address bay flooding and could potentially create a “Lake Okeechobee effect” wherein the spine acts to keep the bay water from washing out to see and still causes massive flooding. (9) Dr. Phil Bedient at Rice University proposes building a “mid-bay gate” that could be closed to protect the channel from a storm. However there is little political will to do anything to address this problem.  Alas, as this class has taught me, a disaster must happen to really get people to react. This is all part of that Panarchy cycle. Out of a disaster come copious amounts of creative energy. Out of the destruction of Galveston came Houston. And yet, Houston did not learn the lesson from Galveston and developed in a very familiar way with little regard for the power of the sea. Due to our greater connectivity and efficiency, the speed at which we can communicate can be nearly instantaneous, and as we result we are more vulnerable and things can be brought down just as instantaneously. All of this new technology and infrastructure that has been developed over the past century just goes to make the Texas coast more vulnerable than ever.

In order for the societies on the coasts of our planet to be more sustainable, we need to, as a society and a race, be educated of our global systems and understand them to better prepare for the inevitable outcome, and to consciously delay that outcome for as long as possible. We all need to understand that hurricanes are not “disruptive,” but rather natural processes of this planet that are beneficial to coastal ecosystems. Rather than trying to live against these storms, we need to try and live with them, or simply get away from the coasts. Education is the first step. With better education, hopefully, we can all make better and more informed decisions down the road to make our societies more sustainable.    

Anthony Sosa

Dr. Christopher Morris

HIST 4388

12-12-16

 Bibliography

1.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. 226-28. Print.

2.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. 226. Print.

3.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. 228. Print.

4. Scranton, Roy. "When the Next Hurricane Hits Texas." The New York Times 7 Oct. 2016: n. pag. Print.

5. ibid.

6. ibid.

7. ibid.

8. ibid.

9. ibid.

10. Larson, Erik. Isaac’s Storm. New York: Penguin Random House, 1999. Print.

#Panarchy #Galveston #Hurricane #History #TexasHistory #1900 #Texas #Houston #Climate #climate catastrophe #climate change

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Humans and Nature: The Paris Flood of 1910

 Humans and Nature: The Paris Flood of 1910        

The Paris flood of 1910 was a natural disaster that brought Paris together as a community, but physically nearly tore it apart. Over 100 years later, this summer, the water rose again to flood levels but this time many improvements had been made to prevent another disaster. Parisians’ relationship with, and understanding of, nature has evolved. In this paper I aim to compare and contrast the different perspectives on nature between the 1910 Paris and the current day Paris. In addition, I will illuminate Georges Bechmann’s 19th century understanding of “health science,” and describe the Parisian school of thought in regards to water maintenance.

         There were several ideas that influenced the way Parisians saw the world in 1910. Their concept of nature, and the role it played in their lives, is a western perspective.  Nature was to be overcome. In Georges Bechmann’s “Salubrité Urbaine,” published in 1888, Bechmann proclaims that “nature must be assisted.” The implication is that nature serves man. He claims that when too many people are accumulated in a relatively small area, the functions of nature for human benefit no longer work properly and must be assisted. To Bechmann, there occurred “a kind of artificial life which is the condition of existence of city dwellers in general.” (1) These ideas implied that humanity was designed to be separate from nature.

         Despite these “high” concepts at the time, the reality in 1910 was that many French, especially those living near the Seine, very much lived with nature and dealt with it on a regular basis. When the waters began to rise on January 21st, it was no longer a friendly force helping people go about their lives. It became an invading enemy and was perceived as a threat to the survival of the city. Although a state of siege was never officially declared, it was hotly debated in the National Assembly and the military was brought in to assist in the protection and maintenance of the city and its people. The slogan “Tout á l’égout” -everything into the sewer- is an example of people’s reliance on nature to take care of things for them, and during the flood this mentality continued to the detriment of downriver cities.

         The town of Gennevilliers is another example of the people's reliance on nature. The farming village had a symbiotic relationship with the city where “runoff from the city sewers had been collected in the fields near Gennevilliers and was available as free fertilizer to anyone who wanted it.” (2) Being positioned geographically downriver led the people of Gennevilliers to rely on the river to provide them with fertilizer. This became a problem when, in 1910, “the river, which was normally not even a quarter mile across, was now reportedly three and three-quarter miles at Gennevilliers.” (3) The fertilizer which was normally deposited in the adjacent fields was now a part of the vast amounts of water deluging the area.  

Bechmann, and other intellectuals of the time, understood that dirty and stagnant water was unhealthy, but the scientific and medical understanding of the world was not advanced enough to fully understand the means by which these microbes were transmitted. Bechmann refers to “gray water” and “groundwater” being unsanitary because of the “miasmas” they generate. While he slightly missed the mark with his notion of airborne illnesses, the end result was still on target. It was unhealthy and unsanitary to have pools of stagnant water, not because of miasmas but because of the other organisms that either seek out or develop in such pools. The Paris water problem on the whole could be summed up to an issue of “city hygiene.”  In thinking of the city as a living “body,” if the body was ill the apparent next step was to address the issue as one would address any illness with a human body- though health. The best way to keep the city healthy, according to Bechmann, was to have clean water. To achieve this the city constructed 600 km of additional pipeline to bring in clean water and take out soiled water. (4) This state-of-the-art sewer ended up being the reason Paris was so inundated during the 1910 flood as it allowed the rising Seine underground access to parts of Paris it otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. Parisians before the flood believed that they had subjugated the Seine (nature) and manipulated it (assisted it) to accommodate their desire to have a hygienically healthy city.  After the flood it was apparent that their domination of the Seine was actually their weakness and led to a mass pollution of the city and the surrounding areas.

In contrast, over a hundred years later it appears that Paris has learned at least some lessons from the catastrophic event of 1910. Some of this learning has been the global technological advancements that have been made in science and medicine in the past century. The understanding of how diseases are created and spread is vastly superior now than it was in 1910 and that leads to better decision making of how to achieve a healthy population.

Even though humans still are trying to conquer nature in all sorts of ways, it appears that in Paris there have been accommodations to live with nature as well. A better understanding of floodplains and water tables has educated Parisians on where the places most vulnerable to flooding are. In addition, meteorological science has advanced to the point where accurately predicting a flood before it happens is entirely possible and this gives authorities ample time to prepare and implement measures which have been put in place to deal with the eventual flood.  This past summer, forewarning was able to save many lives. “All water traffic...was suspended because there was no room for boats to fit under bridges.” and “more than 20,000 people” were evacuated before the flood. (5) All of these actions have an implicit understanding that there are certain things in regards to nature that are uncontrollable. These measures are an attempt to control the “controllable” and leave nature to do what it will. Doing so inherently is respecting nature and what it is capable of.

Another example of the French, more recently, respecting nature is Operation Sequana, a simulated flood drill that was carried out over eleven days in March 2015. (6)  This drill went a long way to training Parisians on how to deal with the dangers of the flood. Even the staff at the Louvre were drilled on removing art from the basement of the building. This was another lesson well learned from 1910. Even though in 2016 the Seine was 2.5 meters lower than it was in 1910, it still did significant damage to the city; costing Paris over 1 billion euros. (7) The difference this time around was that flooding is now a well understood phenomenon and Parisians mostly got out of its way. Some even seemed to enjoy the rare, and perhaps beautiful, sights of Paris under water.

To conclude, Parisian scientific understanding in the late 19th century up through 1910, and the perceived role of nature at the time, led decision makers down a path of vulnerability and overconfidence in their man-made systems which resulted in the disastrous flood of 1910. Many of these “health science” concepts being applied to city planning was introduced by Georges Bechmann, who could be viewed as the stepping stone between archaic concepts of health and the modern ones we ascribe to today. Today, Paris has drawn from these past experiences, built on them, and adapted to be more accommodating to nature.

 1.Bechmann, Georges.Salubrité Urbaine.1888.Paris

2.Jackson, Jeffery H.Paris Under Water. St. Martins Griffin.2010.pp154.

3.Paris Under Water.pp155.

4. Les égouts parisiens. Article:

https://web.archive.org/web/20061003225317/http://www.paris.fr/portail/Environnement/Portal.lut?page_id=1313&document_type_id=5&document_id=2158&portlet_id=3139

5. Chrisafis, Angelique. “Paris Floods: ‘There’s something terrifiying about it.’” 4 June 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/03/paris-river-seine-floods

6. Van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan.”Rapid attribution of the May/June 2016 flood-inducing precipitation in France and Germany to climate change”.22 June 2016.

7.Flooding in France- Image of the day. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov./IOTD/view.php?id=88157

Anthony Sosa

Dr. Christopher Morris

HIST 4388.001

10-21-16

#Paris Flood 1910 #1910 #paris #history #naturaldisaster

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Earthquake Disaster Response Then and Now (2016)

Anthony Sosa

Dr. Christopher Morris

Hist 4388.001 History of Natural Disasters

9-21-16

Earthquake Disaster Response Then and Now

          The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 2016 Italian Apennines earthquakes are two examples of natural disasters with many similarities and differences. Even though over a century has passed between the two events, there are things that have occurred in both in which we can compare and contrast to see how we, as humans, have learned from these lessons over the past century. In this paper I aim to compare and contrast four different facets of each event: their respective backgrounds, tectonic stresses and negative synergies, their management of the disasters and their respective catagenesis. By doing so, my goal is to adequately explain the various problems each situation has dealt with and how I, as a history major, can offer insight regarding such issues.

         Background

 San Francisco was settled in 1849 and is located on a peninsula pointing north. The fifty-seven years between its inception and this infamous quake is a relatively short amount of time but the city experienced many earthquakes in its brief history. Actually, San Francisco still could be called a “new” city compared to others on the east coast. In that 57 years San Franciscans had developed a fear of the news about earthquakes, rather than a healthy fear of earthquakes themselves. As a result, the news of earthquakes in the region were always downplayed for economic sake. This peninsula had a very hilly terrain with small steep hills and a swift drop into the ocean. Over time more settlers came. Land that was moved to make room for earlier parts of the city had been gathering near the shore and people began to build structures on this unstable land, called “made land.” The most unfortunate feature of the terrain was the distant water source. Unbeknownst to the San Franciscans, their water supply ran west across two fault lines.

As San Francisco thrived it became the largest economy west of St. Louis and the city’s social elite coveted the city’s commercial position. There was also a very diverse immigrant population in the region, consisting mostly of Chinese but composed of Japanese, Italians, Germans, Irish and Jews, as well. These people unfortunately are poorly represented in the histories, while the white aristocracy is well represented. This aristocracy represents the political corruption that contributed to the disaster, as well as the group who seized control of the city after the disaster.

Italy, on the other hand, has a very different history and geography. They have been dealing with earthquakes for millennia and it was never a secret. Also the Apennines are located much higher above sea level (2400 - 3300 ft.) and the ground itself is much more stable. In addition, there are natural water sources nearby with various lakes and streams. But fire isn’t as big of an issue in Italy anyway, so the water isn’t as necessary. The structures here are built out of stone, rather than wood, and are dangerous in different ways. Instead of risking fire, the Italians are risking being crushed by falling stone.

The biggest similarity between the backgrounds of Italy and San Francisco is that both governments refused to take pro-active approaches to the earthquakes, for fear of advertising the quakes and generating a loss of- tourism in Italy’s case and loss of commerce in the San Franciscan case. In both instances the common people suffer as a result.

Tectonic Stresses and Negative Synergies

         Tectonic Stresses and Negative Synergies could be described as factors that are inherent in each respective situation that combine to create a larger problem that is greater than the sum of its parts. In the case of San Francisco, the tectonic stresses were many and they compounded rather quickly.

First and foremost, there was the ever increasing and diverse population. The large immigrant population and income disparity combined with, initially, the geography of the city put the poorest of the people in the worst locations. Environment is another stress which includes the geography. The internal geography of the city is taken into consideration as well as the surrounding landscape. The city itself, being primarily built out of wood, and the two fault lines that run in close proximity to the city fall into this category as well. Let’s throw in the unstable “made land” as well as part of the environment. Then combine all of this with the tectonic stress of energy and resources. The water supply that was immediately cut off during the quake compounded the effects of the disaster by depriving firefighters of their necessary water.  Couple the loss of water with the loss of electricity and the destruction of the gas line infrastructure-which was the initial cause of many of the original fires, and we can begin to see how complex this problem is becoming. When we combine all of these problems together it becomes easier to see how the problem gets exponentially worse and more difficult to understand. Now take these physical stresses and combine them with the more intangible, yet very present, stresses of the local economy, corruption in the local government and power politics. All of these things are delicately connected and when a cataclysmic event happens it creates immense pressure on the already existing stresses and if the system is fragile enough it causes a temporary societal collapse.  

It appears in the case of Italy similar stresses were present but the situation didn’t develop to the point that the San Franciscans’ had. The Italian stresses were social, economic, historical and political. The population of the region is much less than that of San Francisco in 1906 but the population that is there is largely a tourist population. Italy depends on tourism for a large part of their sluggish economy, thus even though the affected population was relatively small the incident still reverberates throughout the world and affects future tourism. The environment comprises the ancient structures in the region as well as high elevation. San Francisco is very close to sea level while the Apennines mountains are rather high up. This mountainous terrain makes getting trapped or crushed rather easy. Couple this with the politics of the region and we can see that, just as in San Francisco, the government had the appropriate information to be more prepared for a disaster, but due to corruption chose not to be for various reasons.

Management of Disaster

I feel it is appropriate to measure the management of the disasters in terms of victories and defeats. The victories of the San Francisco earthquake are few and they can be solely credited to Lt. Frederick N. Freeman who saved the harbor and the southeast edge of the city.  He was able to do so due to his leadership skills and availability of salt water, but also because he was separated from the command of the corrupt officials whose poor decision making and uneducated use of explosives perpetuated the fire and destroyed the city. However, the defeats are many. The loss of over 75% of the city can be described as a defeat because of the sheer amount of human error involved in doing so. That was the result of a systematic failure along all of the tectonic stresses. They are all connected and are all to blame. The loss of water was a defeat, the amount of homelessness and the refugee crisis was a defeat. Oligarchy control during the disaster was a defeat as it facilitated poor leadership and decision making, and subsequent oligarchy control after the disaster prevented proper safety measures being implemented for future quakes--another defeat. Finally, a significant portion of the population of San Francisco, the immigrants, were not represented and their best interest wasn’t taken into account during the disaster and the reconstruction.

In regards to Italy, there are more victories to speak of. The region, and the world, were better equipped to deal with this disaster and aid was immediately dispatched. The Red Cross arrived within hours and rescue operations began as soon as possible. The people of Italy were immediately involved and engaged and as a result many people were saved. The defeats are present but less drastic. The deaths were preventable because earthquakes are known to happen and are a part of the region’s rich history, yet many buildings remain to be retrofitted. In addition to the loss of life, the loss of the structures themselves was a defeat, as they were a part of history being lost. The future economic consequences due to loss of potential tourism are also a defeat. Both disasters have their dark clouds and their silver linings, hopefully as time passes we, as humans, can continue to learn from our missteps and we can increase our victories and lessen our defeats.

Catagenesis

This can be broken down into three subcategories: fixable problems that were foreseeable, fixable problems that were unforeseeable, and unfixable-unforeseen problems.

In regards to San Francisco, the foreseeable and fixable problems were the earthquakes themselves- as they were known about in the region, even if not well known outside of it. You can’t fix an earthquake but you can plan for one. Building on “made land” and building so many wooden structures was foreseeable as perhaps a bad idea- fires weren’t uncommon occurrences. The erroneous use of explosives was another problem that was foreseeable but was disregarded and considered as a solution.  Italian foreseeable and fixable problems were the ancient structures collapsing, as earthquakes are known to happen in the area.

Unforeseen yet fixable problems for San Francisco were the loss of the water supply, which could have been addressed better had they been aware of the existing fault lines, and the emergency logistical issues involving the distribution of resources. There was no plan and if there had been one more lives could have been saved.

I don’t believe there were any unforeseeable yet fixable problems in Italy but an unforeseeable and unfixable problem for San Francisco was the size of the population present at the time of the disaster. There is no way to plan for that. For San Francisco, the loss of communication, the closing of banks, and the pseudo-existence of martial law are all things that were unforeseen and were impossible to resolve.

Finally, given all of the information that I have presented, I now will explain what I can do as a history major to help address the many problems created by this type of natural disaster. As a student of history, you are taught to analyze the big picture and consider future implications based on previous experiences. In doing so, one must have the regional and historical understanding of an event as well as an understanding of the social and political significance and ramifications. I believe that my area of expertise allows me to properly advise leaders on their decision making regarding such issues. It also allows me to be an aggregator of information to then provide for the use of examples to show the long term consequences of various actions with the purpose of educating the population as well as the leadership. When one knows many or all of the possible options or outcomes, one can make an educated decision.

The areas I would need assistance in are any one specific area of expertise. As a broad-based thinker examining the wide scope to gain insight, it is necessary for me to consult experts in a specific field to provide the proper amount of detail to fully understand said issue. History itself covers a wide range of smaller disciplines but economists, engineers, architects, geologists, sociologists, anthropologists, doctors and so forth are necessary when trying to understand a disaster event from all sides and perspectives. These specific fields of study, combined with history, have a synergistic effect when being presented as a whole and it would be my goal to facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to best educate the interested parties.

In conclusion, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the Apennines earthquake of 2016 have similarities despite a century between the two events. Fortunately, the more recent event was handled better and as a result was less catastrophic. Hopefully, as time goes on, we will continue to learn from our missteps fostering an  environment wherein future disasters will continue to be less tragic. Achieving such will require a lot of education on such disasters.

1.Fradkin, Philip L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. Berkeley: U of California, 2005. Print.

2.Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington: Island, 2006. Print.

3. Synolakis, Costas. The Global Lessons of Italy’s Earthquake.Wall Street Journal. Aug. 28, 2016.

4. --. Death in the Apennines Quake- prone Italian towns have not bothered to protect their buildings.The Economist. Aug 26, 2016. 

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Page Update:

Sup y’all. I plan on posting several series’ of my past academic work over the coming weeks.

The first will be 3 papers from my final semester of my History undergrad at UTA. That semester I took a “History of Natural Disasters” class taught by the department head Dr. Christopher Morris. Those papers will be on the Paris flood of 1910, the San Fransisco Earthquake of 1906 and the Galveston hurricane of 1900. 

I would later have Dr. Morris again in grad school for a Historical Methods course. That class, actually was my favorite class in my entire, 13 year, college career. Those writings will be another series that will be forthcoming. 

Finally, the previous post, my paper on National Narratives was the product of a semester long and meandering research process wherein I wrote an entire paper from a slightly different angle only to have Dr. Babiracki essentially reject it in the rough draft evaluation. I essentially had 2 weeks to read his recommended reading (Totalitarianism by Abbot Gleeson) and rewrite my paper with a different angle. The result is that paper but I would like to show the evolution of a research paper and how the topic, thesis, and approach changed over time and I also think there was something there with my first paper, though I agree with Dr. Babiracki. I did need to widen my perspective and include post-cold war Russia. I do think the final product is a better paper for his criticisms. However, I ended up not expressing what I initially intended and I still feel the desire to do so-- so I will put the unfinished product up for the world to see. 

I don’t see this page as a social media where I try to create content for the present. I see it as a repository for stuff to be found or discovered later, in the future. Hopefully then, the past(s) can inform one’s present and, ideally, positively affect their future(s). 

#past #present #future #Knowledge #college #history

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The following link is to my academic history paper for my graduate level trans-national history class with Dr. Patryk Babiraki titled: National Narratives in Post Cold War America and the Former USSR:American Exceptionalism and Soviet Revisionism.

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Fort Worth Music Scene Preface:

Since this paper is receiving more attention than I initially expected, I would like to preface the piece by stating that this was a History Paper for my Research Methods class at UTA in the fall semester of 2013. I am not a writer or journalist and I wrote this for my professor, not necessarily the current Fort Worth Scene at large. I have received some criticism in regards to how the Fort Worth Scene was represented in the early 90's and I would like to state that I wrote what my research led me to write. There certainly was plenty of things happening back then but all I had to go on was my research so perhaps many of those things have gone unmentioned. I hope any reader understands that I am not an authority on this subject and I in no way mean to imply that my story is a complete one. I did the best i could given the time frame and the material I had to cover and I tried to be diligent in covering as many bases as possible while sacrificing some details. It was supposed to be a 15 page paper and ended up being closer to 20. I hope the information is helpful and I certainly enjoyed writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it. Thanks!!

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PS

To be honest, I wish I would have had the space to elaborate more on a lot of the music mentioned. I feel I could have written another 10 pages on it... I suppose its long enough as it is.

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A Brief History and Rise of the Fort Worth Rock Music Scene from 1990 to 2013

                                          By Anthony Sosa

 Fort Worth, Texas has a very proud and rich history. Tales of railroads and cattle drives, gunslingers and gangsters. When people think of Fort Worth today the image of a cowboy still resonates; the strong, stoic, dirty type of man who rides horses and knows how to get things done. So it is fitting that The Stockyards, The Will Rodgers complex, and Billy Bob’s Texas, the largest country and western club in town, are a key tourist attractions. It is reasonable to assume that rock music isn’t the first thing to come to one’s mind when they think about Fort Worth. That being said, there is still a very rich and interesting history of the “underground” music scene in Fort Worth. It has gone through several transformations over the past few decades and is currently undergoing metamorphosis right now. It has grown expansively in size, as well as in the depth of its quality and character; even more so in the past decade than ever before. Though rock music has been around since the 1950’s, (Fort Worth has had its own incarnations of that scene as well, up through the 60’s and 70’s,) this paper will be focusing on what transpired throughout the 1990’s into the current year of 2013. I aim to detail the type of culture that existed among the teenagers and twenty-something’s who comprised this scene, as well as chronicle the names of bands and people who influenced it the most and helped shape it into what it has become today.

     To begin, I would like to first introduce myself and explain why; I too, am a primary source on this subject. I was born in 1984 in Fort Worth and moved to Burleson, a southern suburb of Fort Worth, in 1989. I am the son of a teacher and a stand-up comedian and was fortunate enough to have the type of childhood where creativity was encouraged. Music was always playing at my house. My mother played Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton records a lot. I often heard everything from The Allman Brothers and James Brown, to Garth brooks or Aerosmith; quite a diverse catalog. Around the time I was 13 I started developing my own heavy interest in bands like Bush and The Offspring. I started playing bass guitar in 1999 at the end of my 8th grade year and quickly picked up the guitar after that. I received bass lessons from Mark Mabe, who himself was involved in the local music scene in the 70’s and 80’s performing in bands called Rastus and The Blues Terminators. Mark’s wife Terri worked with my mother at Nola Dunn Elementary and the Mabe’s were family friends. Mark’s son Matt would join in on my lessons and play drums with us whilst I was learning. Mark would teach me Led Zeppelin and AC/DC songs and he also taught me how to “jam,” the general term used by musicians for improvisational group performances. This greatly increased my enjoyment and love for music. Matt would later become a local celebrity for his drumming skills, often being compared to Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham and Nirvana’s Dave Grohl. I would even get the pleasure of playing with him again when I joined a band called Jefferson Colby in 2010. JC was a 3 piece band, fronted by his brother Danny Mabe, which has been around since 2004; but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

     Up until now I have participated in 26 different projects or bands of various genres and styles starting with my high school band, Cord 603, which recorded a full length album and took part in the growing Fort Worth scene in 2003. Currently I am still playing with The Raven Charter, a progressive rock band I took part in founding in Denton, TX in 2005. I have personally attended and experienced many of the places I will talk about in this paper as well as listened to and/or seen a lot of the bands I will mention, personally. Before we get to anything I experienced we must first go back to 1989, a time where things were in flux all over the country. Everything was changing, including music, even in little old country-fried Fort Worth, Texas.

     Kelly Parker has been considered “the Godfather of Fort Worth Rock ‘n’ Roll.” [i] At this time he was working as a cook at The Hop and was playing in a band called The League of None. He and some of his friends thought it would be fun and a good idea to open a rock club. There had been a void in Fort Worth in 1989. By the late 80’s the clubs were aging with their audiences and they preferred softer music. Most of the other rock joints had closed and by 1989 “rock” music was becoming pretty passé. Kelly’s club, The Axis, was located on the corner of Magnolia and South Main St. The Axis did not serve alcohol, it did not have a bar, and it didn’t even have employees. What it did have was a space for Fort Worth’s angst ridden youth to congregate, and thrash out their hormones and emotions, with fellowship and music. The Axis was only open a year, but in that time span the band Nirvana had played there; still a couple of years away from their monumental success. Also a new up and coming band named The Toadies had played their first show there.[ii] The Axis’ demise was a result of a confrontation between a drunken off-duty police officer and some young patrons who were hanging around outside of the club. The officer had thrown a glass bottle at the kids and after some words were exchanged, the young men proceeded to beat the man up, not knowing he was a police officer. Having friends who worked for the city, it wasn’t hard to get the place shut down. Parker had some minor building code violations, and had been over occupancy at the time. This did not thwart Kelly. He kept the ball rolling by opening up The Mad Hatters, with his girlfriend Melissa Kirkendall, at the opposite west end of Magnolia. The Mad Hatters was small and had minimal parking. It also served healthy, Mediterranean, vegetarian food.[iii] Perhaps a pre-curser to the type of atmosphere that currently is developing in the Fairmount district today. This is where the Toadies cultivated their audience. Lisa Umbarger, the bass player of The Toadies had said:

“I don’t know if the Toadies would have broken in the Metroplex if not for the Mad Hatter’s shows. It was a small place, and when we played there we would pack it, and it made it seem like the tickets were harder to get than they really were. Record people would come to those shows that were jam-packed with sweaty people. They could feel the energy and they wanted to sign us.”[iv]

   And signed they were. In 1995 their album Rubberneck debuted and has since gone platinum. The sound they had created was unique within itself. It had the “alternative” sound that was proliferating through the airwaves at this time, but also was peculiarly southern. I imagine the songs “Possum Kingdom,” “Tyler,” and “Away” are as ingrained in the psyche of this region as much as Nirvana‘s songs may be in Seattle; probably even more so. 

        In 1993 Kelly and Melissa opened The Engine Room over off of West Vickery. For a time the clubs existed in tandem but The Mad Hatter’s closed later that year. The Engine Room was far larger than Mad Hatter’s consisting of a 4,000 square foot space with a balcony too. Parker had later said in a Fort Worth Weekly article: “There were times we had 1,000 people. We were way over fire code, but there were crack houses right down the street and the fire marshal wasn’t crazy enough to come down to that area.”  They had hosted local acts and touring bands alike. One could currently find videos on YouTube of Blink 182 and Korn playing there in 1995. A lot of the bands who came through town ended up staying at Kelly and Melissa’s rented duplex. Things seemed to be going swell until the great “May Fest” hail storm of 1995. On May 5th baseball sized hail bludgeoned people at May Fest, Fort Worth‘s seminal spring festival. Not only were many people injured, a lot of roofs caved in as well, including the large one at The Engine Room. According to Parker “It absolutely destroyed the roof. The next day you could see right through the roof and see blue sky.” Parker wasn’t able to open his next venue until 1997, and in that time two men had more than filled the gap which had been left in the Fort Worth underground “scene.” Those two men were Brian Forella and Danny Weaver.

     Danny Weaver opened The Aardvark in 1995, in the same building that The Hop had been located on West Berry Street. The same club Kelly Parker had worked in 6 years earlier. The Hop (an acronym for House of Pizza) had been a prime destination for live music in the 70’s and 80’s, had closed by the early 90’s. Weaver renovated it and reopened it to the TCU area music-goers. Inside it was fairly spacious, with a decently sized elevated stage. One big room (save the small green room to the left of the stage,) the club could hold about 450 people. The Aardvark’s close proximity to the TCU campus made it a welcomed light in which the students flocked to like moths. Not even a year later Brian Forella had opened The Wreck Room off of West 7th Street and University. These two “districts” are still represented as the main hubs of the music scene today, connected by University Blvd.

     The Wreck room was deeper than The Aardvark. It had a front room with a long bar on the left. Standing behind the bar would be a large, bespectacled, long-haired man on crutches, (due to the fact that he had only one leg,) with a sour disposition. Carl Pack, the co-owner of the establishment, was a well-known curmudgeon and he would often be the first thing patrons would see.[v] Then one could walk through and enter the back room where the stage was located. The Wreck Room certainly fit the description of a dive bar. After a while there were carvings in the wood, band stickers everywhere and a faint smell of stale beer and urine. It was the perfect place for Fort Worth’s rather grungy rock scene to incubate. These two venues would be the cornerstones of the “counter-culture” located in our fair burg for the next 10 years.

     Charles “Chas” Cook has lived in Fort Worth most of his life, and has been an avid fan of local music since the early 90’s. He was a frequent attendee of The Mad Hatter, The Engine Room, and was a regular at the Wreck Room during it’s time here. He was a fan of the local band Buck Jones at the time, but also speaks very highly of The Wreck Room’s ability to book quality out of town bands too. Chas claims: “The best live show I ever saw was this crazy punk band from San Francisco called ‘Veronica Lip Gloss and the Evil Eyes,’” at The Wreck Room.[vi] These two venues “held down the fort” (no pun intended) until 1997 when Kelly Parker opened the Impala over off West Vickery Blvd near downtown. Unfortunately the location was poor and Parker had no liquor license. The venue just couldn’t compete with the activity off of West Berry and West 7th and closed in about a year.

     Around this time, 1996, is when a publication called The Fort Worth Weekly began releasing issues and covering art, theater, food and music in Fort Worth. The Weekly has been one of my main sources for this paper, and I am thankful for their diligent coverage of all of these topics. No other publication at that time was covering local music, and since there was no coverage it was hard to draw more people into the things that were happening. It even took The Weekly a while to the get the pulse of the scene. The December, 26 1996 – January, 2 1997 issue’s “Year in Music” feature doesn’t mention local acts at all, just albums that have come out that year and large national acts that came through town. The first mention of The Wreck Room is in the May 22-29 1997 issue under the Rock Clubs section; though the place had been open almost a year. Things certainly improved when Anthony Mariani took the helm in 2002.

     In order to illustrate the fact that there wasn’t much going on to yet write about, The Fort Worth Weekly released in July of 1996 a feature by Melanie Grizzell titled “Is There a Scene Here?”

“Does Fort Worth have a music scene? A real music scene? Many a city asks that question when it appears to have a growing number of bands and places to hear them. For instance, Dallas has posed the question and has attempted to boost itself on a national scale. Granted, there are a lot of bands there, and there is a buzz among music industry people that something is indeed going on there, though few recognized outside the area.  ‘Dallas is where it is right now,’ says Arlington’s Chuck Ebert, independent record producer. ‘There are more bands there than just about anywhere else. I get this weekly producers’ magazine, and it talks about all the bands out of Dallas.’ However, we asked disc jockeys from several radio stations across the country, including KROQ in LA and KUNC in Chapel Hill, N.C., ‘Can you name five bands from Dallas?’ Answers included The Toadies –wrong- and Tripping Daisy. One deejay named The Flaming Lips- close they’re from Oklahoma. Our hamlet fared even worse in the informal poll. One Deejay asked where Fort Worth was, another said “Willie Nelson” and another said ‘I suppose some kind of country something or another.’ One correctly named The Toadies.”

  Melanie then ponders the most prolific scenes in recent time, including Athens, GA 1980-85, where REM originated, the Austin blues scene in the 80’s and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Manchester England in 88’ where its “ecstasy fueled warehouse parties evolved into the world Techno movement,” as well as the explosion in the Seattle scene in 1991. She also frankly asks “Do we have any consistent, dependable action that can really be called a scene? And if not, what are our prospects for developing one?”[vii]

     To me it seems pretty evident that there wasn‘t much to work with. A city with a strong music culture doesn’t ask these types of questions. Even though The Aardvark was covered in the piece, it was hard to find the key components of a good music community; mostly because they didn’t exist just yet. Kelly Parker’s clubs were gone and Brian and Danny have just gotten started in 1996. However, from 1996 to 2003 those components did develop and something vibrant was born, climaxing with Flickerstick’s rise to stardom in 2001.

          In 1999 Wesley and Richard Hathaway opened The Ridglea Theater at the corner of Camp Bowie and Bryant Irving on the west side of town. The building was an old theater remodeled by Cinemark in the 1980’s. It is a large structure with a large “sanctuary” which can hold about 1400 people. Wesley’s open-mindedness towards booking young talent helped cultivate the growing number of teenagers’ desire to play music even more. Tyrel Choat, guitarist and lead singer for Addnerim (and currently Cosmic Trigger), out of Granbury, Texas has said, “There’s never been cooler people who ran a club other than Wesley and Richard. They really did everything. I owe at least 50% of what I’ve done in the local scene to them.” Tyrel and his brother Dustin have both been avid contributors to the rock music culture around here. Tyrel even works at the stalwart Zoo Music store, located on Camp Bowie, not too far down the road from The Ridglea Theater. Zoo Music has been in town for decades and even supplied me with my first bass cabinet and PA. All of this is of course not to say Danny Weaver and Brian Forella weren’t supportive of the young up-and-comers. They too let younger, less experienced groups in their doors. This last addition to the scene had created a tri-fecta of great venues in three different areas of town. The Aardvark off South University Blvd., The Wreck Room on North University Blvd., and The Ridglea Theater on the west side.

     Other bands who were playing shows in Fort Worth during this time were Yeti; what Tyrel has called “Experimental-proggy-heavy-doom-metal.” Goodwin, fronted by Tony Diaz who is still today one of the great propagators of Fort Worth music. Hosting “The Good Show” on KTCU on Sundays, and organizing the Fort Worth Rock Assembly festival are only a couple of things he continues to do to spread the word of Fort Worth rock. Garuda was another trashy “math-rock” metal band which frequented The Wreck Room. The aforementioned Buck Jones was a quintessential female fronted 90’s alternative band; tonally resembling Garbage or Hole at their heaviest moments.[viii] The founding members of Buck Jones, Burette and Gabriel Douglas, are currently in The Cush.

     Pimpadelic was another large draw for crowds, mostly at The Ridglea Theater. This rap/rock act’s shows were infamous for attracting scores of young women who were often convinced via one of the bands front men to remove their shirts and bra’s and they often willingly complied. They were known mostly for their raucous and often scandalous shows, not as much for the quality of their music. It would be fair to say that similar acts like, Limp Bizkit and Rage Against the Machine were very popular nationally at the time.[ix] Although Pimpadelic sounded more like The Beastie Boys or The Red Hot Chili Peppers than the heavier rap/metal stuff that followed.

    The band Flickerstick was all the rage by 2001. Fronted by Brandin Lea, and featuring his brother Flectcher Lea and Rex Ewing on guitar this U2 influenced rock act would captivate Fort Worth audiences. Drawing heavily from the TCU demographics and the fact that the band members would often be out and about around Berry St, their faces became well known. They were picked up by VH1 to be in a “Battle of the Bands” type show called “Bands on the Run.” This was early in the history of reality television and the idea was still new and fresh to America. The fact that a local act was being featured on VH1 was a really big deal to the community. Through much struggle and drama the band ended up winning the contest and was signed to Epic Records on a multi-album deal.[x] This resonated throughout the Fort Worth music community like a watermelon being thrown in a small kiddie pool. I believe more attention was drawn to Fort Worth rock music, which inspired more people to participate in the scene, and more bands were created as a result. Bands from Dallas and Denton began coming to Fort Worth more as well; “hard rock band’s that were pretty badass,” according to Steve Steward. Bands like Doosu, Baboon, and Brutal Juice.[xi] Steve, who was originally from California moved to Fort Worth in 1996 and attended TCU. He has since become one of the biggest contributors to the essence of the Fort Worth music community. He formed a rock/reggae group Darth Vato in 2004, and has been contributing to the Fort Worth Weekly since the early 2000‘s. Many of my source articles were written by him. We will certainly hear more from him later.

        Another venue created around this time in 2002 was 1919 Hemphill, a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) venue that is a collectively-run, all volunteer, non-profit warehouse space that completely runs on donations.[xii] Located not too far from the intersection of West Berry and Hemphill, the club was opened by punk-rocker Rick Vandeveerdonk, from Burleson, Texas. 1919 remains a microcosm all in itself. It was the heart of the enduring punk-rock scene then, and it still is to this day. Rick was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and his punk band, Skunky Beaumont, was one of my favorites in high school. The youthful “punk” scene mostly consisted of suburban kids who congregated at Laser Tracks Studios in Arlington. Many of the punk bands at the time, some who recorded there, were: 41 Gorgeous Blocks, Springfield U, Retro Spectro, Unit 21, PVK, which was reincarnated as Cityview, and The Charlie’s. Even though this venue and these bands received relatively no coverage from the music writers, they still were a completory part of the Fort Worth underground landscape.

     In the wake of Flickersticks’ success a flurry of new bands emerged as well as a few new venues. The most significant of those was The Moon. It was located adjacent to The Aardvark on West Berry St. and was initially owned and opened by Danny Weaver. “He had it for a short while. It was like a martini lounge. He basically wanted a clubhouse for him and his buddies to drink,” according to Steward. “It was kinda swanky then, it had a fish tank…”  During this time the Sunday nights belonged to The Acoustic Mafia. Joe Rose, Tim Locke, Collin Herring and Brandin Lea and their friends would play acoustic shows on Sundays; and it became sort of a tradition. In coming into existence The Moon had opened up the Fort Worth scene to more opportunities. It granted more opportunities for the musicians to get in front of people and more opportunities for people to go see bands. Being next door to the bustling The Aardvark didn’t hurt either. But when Chris Maunder purchased The Moon from Danny in 2004 things really started to heat up. The venue’s image was slowly became more “rock” oriented. The fish tank disappeared, and tables were removed to provide more standing room. The place was small enough without tables crowding it, and in that small room many great bands were born. According to Matt Mabe:

     “Up until that time it was pretty much a frat-kid bar. And we somehow turned it into more like a ‘hipster-musician’ bar. It became (the place) where all the musicians hung out. We ran out everybody else because they didn’t like hanging out with us because we were insane.”

       Even though some of the snootiest TCU types were put off, a new audience began to inhabit The Moon. “Big” Mike Richardson began playing on Wednesday nights and soon had all the young musicians who frequented the place talking. They all were amazed at his talent and musicianship. He was so great at covering anything tasteful from the 60’s on that Matt and the guys would try to stump him by picking obscure songs by eclectic artists. “…and he knew all of them.” According to Mabe:

“Sometimes…he would say ‘you know how it goes’ after halfway or something. But most of the time he would just nail the whole song. And with The Moon being the musicians hang out and everything the word just spread and we just told everybody about him. And it was just him and his acoustic and the place would be packed with all the TCU kids there with the musicians, people would be dancing, it was crazy.”[xiii]

       It was this type of atmosphere, a close community of musicians, which gave birth to the new bands of the next wave. “I had my first shows with all of my bands there,” said Mabe. Those bands were Stella Rose, a rock trio fronted by Stephen Beatty, Jefferson Colby, Quaker City Night Hawks, and Mike’s Big Box of Rock. The latter, which was the award winning, full band, incarnation of “Big” Mike’s acoustic cover shows, was formed in 2009.  All of these projects spanned the course of several years and all of these projects have been critically acclaimed in some way, shape or form, by The Fort Worth Weekly.

      Other bands that were playing The Moon, The Aardvark, The Ridglea, and The Wreck Room from 2004 to 2009 were The Burning Hotels, who are often compared to The Killers.[xiv] Villain Vanguard and Darth Vato were grooving reggae bands. The Methink’s was one of Steve Steward’s favorite bands. Rather than describing them as “hard rock” he had offered “Smart, coherent burnouts,” or “The sonic manifestation of the bong rip you took right before puking,” as alternate descriptors.[xv] Scott Vernon’s style of “gypsy rock” was revealed in Sally Majestic. Black Tie Dynasty’s new-wave songs “I Like U” and “Tender” wound up on the Hot 100 charts.[xvi] And Calhoun was formed by the ever prevalent Tim Locke, formerly of Flickerstick, The Grand Street Cryers, and Coma Rally.[xvii] Calhoun is a smooth, ambient type of folk/rock. All of these bands received coverage from the local media, and with the rise of internet blogs and music sites, the coverage was increased even more. Things were happening in Fort Worth music.

     A few other venues existed in Fort Worth during this time. Brian Forella and Jerrett Joslin opened Axis in 2006. I’m not sure if the name was meant to hearken back to Kelly Parker’s The Axis or not but this venue was in roughly the same part of town. Located on 120 S Main St. immediately south of I-30, the club was a tad off of the beaten path. It was intended to compete with Trees, the best rock club of Deep Ellum in Dallas. Also, it was to fill the role of downtown Fort Worth’s gem, The Caravan of Dreams; which was located in Sundance Square and closed in 2001.[xviii]  As a result, nearly no local bands played there, they mostly hosted touring acts. The West 7th area was undergoing a lot of construction; the city had big plans for that area. The Wreck Room was begrudgingly closed in 2006 to make way for a new office park. People weren’t too happy about it. Even with The Moon getting a lot of play and attention, people still regarded The Wreck Room as the “heart” of the scene. Over in the Stockyards, on the north side of town, there were 2 venues that didn’t accurately represent the Fort Worth rock scene, but they were still active venues nonetheless. The Door and The Rockyard ironically existed in the shadow of Billy Bob’s Texas and neither survived for very long. The Door was a haven for mascara smeared teenagers and pre-teens to go see their favorite Christian metal bands. It was a Christian venue that did not serve alcohol, allow smoking, or allow their artists to curse onstage. Although not many people over 21 went to this venue, they regularly had packed shows and there it certainly its own thing happening. My last show with Dreams Like Fire in 2007 was played there and it was a pretty great one, despite not having a drink. It was briefly called The Bandwagon before closing in 2010.  The Rockyard had a great sized room and stage, and a pretty big bar as well. Unfortunately for this venue, the 21 and up rock music crowd was located off of West Berry. The only people hanging around The Stockyards were interested in country music. A lot of things began to happen as the 2000’s rolled on and (not so) slowly developed into what we have happening in Fort Worth today.

     In this final era I will cover (2008- 2013) things explode exponentially. In January of 2008 Brian Forella opened Lola’s Saloon on the corner of 6th and Foch, one block north of the famed 7th St. Located only a stone’s throw away form the old Wreck Room, this part of town still seemed to be the best place for live music; as the big plans that the city had for the area seemed to have come into fruition. High rise apartments, office parks and storefronts galore created a new hub of Fort Worth commerce. Amidst the nice restaurants, upscale shops, and a Movie Tavern were several bars that people could go that featured live music; Lola’s being the most popular and significant. It has been dubbed by the community as the new “heart” of the scene. Features like being large enough to fit 300 people and having two stages, made this the main destination for many of the music festivals to come. (That’s right, Fort Worth has music festivals now.) Other venues near 7th Street are The Grotto, The Pourhouse, the recently closed Wild Rooster Bar, the Capital Bar, Fred’s Café and Magnolia Motor Lounge. The Grotto was originally called The Blue Grotto and was then obtained by Cody Admire in 2009.[xix] After Cody bought the place, the same type of renovation that happened at The Moon had happened there. Both venues were of comparable size and both had a similar atmosphere. The Grotto has essentially taken the place of The Moon, which was closed in 2011.[xx] It’s a sad tale really, Chris Maunder was offered by Jerry Schultz, the current owner of The Ridglea Theater, to move his establishment into the Ridglea Complex. He closed the old location with full plans to open a much larger version of the club in the space occupied adjacent to the Ridgela. Unfortunately, a convoluted fight between the city council and Ridglea about “zoning issues” resulted in the new Moon never reopening.[xxi] Despite The Moon closing The Aardvark is still there today going strong, though not quite holding the same reputation as it did in the late 90’s.  

        The Cellar, named after the famed Fort Worth hangout off of Main St in the 60’s, opened across the street from The Aardvark. As the name implies it is a small basement but still serves as a decent locale to see bands. They have recently renovated their stage.[xxii]  Two new music halls have opened up. In 2011 the Live Oak Music Hall opened in the Fairmount district off of Magnolia. It is a very nice establishment, quite unlike many of the venues around town. A classy room that could fit about 200 seems to be more for softer music, not so much rock, as illustrated in the “Lee Bains III incident” that took place this October. After being asked by the venue several times to turn his amp down, Bains stubbornly kept turning his amp up; resulting in the curtain being dropped and power to the stage being cut. It was the talk of the town for about two weeks.[xxiii] The other music hall is the Queen City Music Hall located in Sundance Square downtown, formerly the City Streets club from the 90’s. This is where the familiar character, Chris Maunder, has ended up. He is the general manager for this venue, which has essentially become what he originally envisioned for The Moon in the first place; and yet another attempt by Fort Worth to compete with Dallas’s Trees.

     On the west side of town was Spencer’s Corner. Spencer Taylor opened it in 2008 by the Ridgmar Mall. Many of the bands currently playing shows had once played there. However, the shows were sparsely attended, and it was closed in 2011.[xxiv] Also representing the west side is Tomcats West and The Rail Club. The Ridglea had cultivated Fort Worth’s metal scene more than any other venue and when they stopped hosting shows in 2011, those bands needed somewhere to play. Tomcats West and The Rail Club, located across the street from each other on Alta Mere, became those venues; much to co-owner of Tomcats’, Rustin Luther’s, chagrin. Tomcats has tried to bring more of the “authentic” Fort Worth bands and crowds to their establishment. Despite having the best sound system in Fort Worth (in my opinion as well as many others’,) the core people of the scene do not attend shows on that side of town. The west side, for whatever reason, has been relegated to the metal bands. 

     There is The Basement Bar located in the Stockyards where the original Lola’s was located. The only successful rock bar in the area to my knowledge, and I attribute this to its aesthetic and the ongoing coverage of the music scene in Fort Worth. It fits in just right with Lola’s, The Grotto, and the “other basement bar,” The Cellar. Fort Worth bands don’t seem out of place at The Basement Bar, and the “cowboys” and “cowgirls” in the Stockyards seem more willing to listen to authentic Fort Worth rock there. Perhaps because it is now something that people speak of when discussing Fort Worth.

    The final “new era” venue is The Where House. Owned by Casey Smith, it was opened as a DIY art space in 2010. It began having occasional shows with a BYOB policy at first. It slowly developed into a prime hangout, largely thanks to Nicole Ofeno. Currently bartending at The Boiled Owl alongside Steve Steward, Nicole did a lot to organize shows and parties at The Where House; including organizing the “Hump Day House Parties” on Wednesday nights. These types of events really gave another reason for all of the people who supported and participated in the scene to get together, further solidifying the relationships that all of these individuals have together.

      This cast of “characters” would include Blake Parish and Alex Zobel, founding members of The Hanna Barbarians. Blake is a bartender The Grotto, as well as other local establishments, making him quite the familiar face around town. Kristopher Luther is another “Barbarian” who is often onstage filling in or jamming with other acts. Ben Napier, engineer, producer, and musician extraordinaire from many projects which include Bogus Green is often seen. Sam Anderson, Dave Mastler and Pat Adams from the largest band in the scene right now The Quaker City Night Hawks are quite prevalent. Matt Mabe, who plays in Quaker City as well, as played with Stephen Beatty in Stella Rose. Stephen himself is still getting around with his new band, Un Chien. Ryan Torrez, Brain Garcia, and Bobby McCubbins from the dreamy Skeleton Coast are scene staples. Also members from Oil Boom, (Steve Steward’s new project,) Animal Spirit, We’rewolves, Secret Ghost Champion, Calhoun, Foxtrot Uniform, The Phuss, Cosmic Trigger, Southern Train Gypsy, Cleanup, Katsuk, Danny Weavers’ Holy Moly, War Party, are all common figures in this area. There are many more which I am neglecting to mention. Each of these bands has their own unique history and relationship with Fort Worth and I wish I had the time to talk more about them at length. That is the great thing about where the scene is now though, we actually have one; so much so that it is difficult to keep track of.

      This began when Fort Worth kids in the late 80’s needed a place to play music after most venues in town had shut them out. Kelley Parker was the spark that things moving, and with his 3 venues he was able to keep everything warm until Brian Forella and Danny Weaver came around. Even though they planted their flags here almost 20 years ago, they are still carrying the scene today. The great thing is that there is a scene to be carried. We no longer have to be asking ourselves the question of whether or not we have a music scene in Fort Worth. That can be answered undoubtedly. All one has to do is open a Fort Worth Weekly or even a Dallas Observer and they would see an ever growing list of venues and bands representing the Fort Worth side of the Metroplex. The past couple of years have even been peppered with music festivals which have been growing in size every year. The Fort Worth Weekly Music Awards, the West Berry Block Party, Lolaspalooza and The Fort Worth Music Festival (formerly the Main Street Festival) are just a few examples of some of the events that utilize most of the current venues; and occasionally making temporary “new” venues just for the event. These types of festivals bring out new crowds who don’t normally frequent the weekly shows, exposing even more people to even more Fort Worth music. Right now is a golden age for the Fort Worth music scene and one can only guess where it will head next.

     “We’ve got a great local scene now, it’s just ridiculous. There are so many great bands here you could never go see a touring band and be entertained every night.” says Chas Cook. According to Matt Mabe, “There were like eight good bands in town when we started, now there are like 30.” “If you try to book a show in OKC you will see…the scene is different. They don’t have what we have here. Even step on over to Dallas, they don’t have what we have here,” claims Tyrel Choat. I couldn’t agree more. There is something special happening in Fort Worth. And whether someone comes here for the rodeo or the rock n’ roll, they can be glad that there is a rich history and culture here for both.

[i]  Griffey, Eric. “Remembering Local Rock Legend Kelly Parker” FWWeekly.com. 24 Jun. 2010. 15 Nov. 2013. http://www.fwweekly.com/2010/06/24/remembering-local-rock-legend-kelly-parker/

  [ii]  Prince, Jeff. “Magical Misery Tour” The Fort Worth Weekly. 16 Jan. 2008. 15 Nov. 2013. http://archive.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=6618

   [iii]  Bundy, Beverly. “Hats off to a Veggie Place” The Fort Worth Star Telegram. 5 Feb. 1993. 15 Nov. 2013 http://www.celaborelle.com/mad-hatters/

   [iv]  Prince, Jeff. “Magical Misery Tour” The Fort Worth Weekly. 16 Jan. 2008. 15 Nov. 2013. http://archive.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=6618

   [v]  Hearsay. “Reality Bites” The Fort Worth Weekly. 22 Aug. 2012. 1 Dec. 2013. http://www.fwweekly.com/2012/08/22/reality-bites-3/

   [vi]  Cook, Charles. Personal Interview 11-1-13

 [vii]  Grizzell, Melanie. “Is There a Scene Here?” The Fort Worth Weekly. July 11-18 (1996): 8-11.

  [viii]  Blair, Brian. “Brian Child” The Fort Worth Weekly. July 24-31 (1997): 27.

  [ix]  Blair, Brian. “Barely Rappin’ The Fort Worth Weekly April 3-10 (1997): 25.

   [x]  Drabicky, Victor. “All Hail the new Stars” The Fort Worth Weekly August 14-20 (2001): 20-25

   [xi]  Steward, Steve. Personal Interview. 10-26-13

   [xii]  About. “1919 Hempill About” 1 Dec. 2013.  http://1919hemphill.org/about

 [xiii] Mabe, Matt. Personal Interview. 10-26-13

  [xiv] The Show. “The Burning Hotels” FWWeekly.com. 6 Dec. 2006. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2006/12/06/the-burning-hotels-2/

  [xv] Steward, Steve. “The Wasteland” FWWeekly.com. 15 Nov. 2006. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2006/11/15/the-wastedland/

   [xvi] Hearsay. “Chart Movements” FFWeekly.com. 12 Dec. 2006. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2006/12/27/chart-movements/

   [xvii] The Stash Dauber. “Tim Locke” The Stash Dauber Blog. 21 Jan. 2005. 1 Dec. 2013.

http://stashdauber.blogspot.com/2005/01/tim-locke.html

  [xviii] Mariani, Anthony. “Axis to Grind” The Fort Worth Weekly. Nov. 3-9 (2004): 38

  [xix] Steward, Steve. “The Grotto’s got it Going on.” FWWeekly.com. 10 Nov. 2010. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2010/11/10/the-grottos-got-it-going-on/

   [xx] Hopkins, Daniel. “The Fort Worth’s The Moon Bar Set to Move to The Ridglea Theater Complex.” The Dallas Observer. 9 Sep. 2011. 1 Dec. 2013. http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2011/09/fort_worths_the_moon_bar_set_t.php

   [xxi] Steward, Steve. “Moon Over Queen City” FWWeekly.com. 21 Aug. 2013. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2013/08/21/moon-over-queen-city/.

   [xxii] Clubs. “Time to Get Dressed Up and Effed Up.” The Fort Worth Weekly. 30 Oct. 2013. 15 Nov. 2013 http://www.fwweekly.com/2013/10/30/time-to-get-dressed-and-effed-up/

   [xxiii] Steward, Steve. “Live Oak, Lee Bains III, and Professionalism” FWWeekly.com. 25 Oct. 2013. 15 Nov. 2013. http://www.fwweekly.com/2013/10/25/live-oak-lee-bains-iii-and-professionalism/

   [xxiv] Jones, Preston.  “Fort Worth Music Venue Spencer’s Corner has Closed.” DFW.com 1 Nov. 2011. 15 Nov. 2013. http://www.dfw.com/2011/11/01/531914/fort-worth-music-venue-spencers.html

   FW Weekly Staff. “FW Weekly Music Awards” The Fort Worth Weekly. February 20-27 (1997): 12-17.

  FW Weekly Staff. “FW Weekly Awards Winners” The Fort Worth Weekly.  March 6-13 (1997): 7-13.

  Drabicky, Victor. “The Price of Fame” The Houston Press. 30 Aug. 2001. 15 Nov. 2013

http://www.houstonpress.com/2001-08-30/music/the-price-of-fame/

  Fort Worth Weekly Staff. “Year in Review” FWWeekly.com. 20 Dec. 2006. 15 Nov 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2006/12/20/year-in-review/

  Collier, Caroline. “Old New World” FWWeekly.com. 27 Dec. 2006. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2006/12/27/old-new-world/

  Hearsay. “Triple as Chemistry Clashes” FWWeekly.com. 09 Nov. 2005.15 Nov. 2013.

http://www.fwweekly.com/2005/11/09/triple-as-chemistry-clashes/

  Mariani, Anthony. Personal Interview. 11-8-13