Corrosion of Conformity

I saw this band a few weeks ago, playing at the 9:30 Club in DC.   I’d known about them for some time but never had a chance to see them live before – they opened for Metallica back in 1997, but due to rush hour traffic we didn’t reach the USAir Arena (formerly Cap Center) in time to see them play.  Moreover, guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan left the band to join Down (with Phil Anselmo of Pantera) for several years, during which time COC dropped to a three piece and put out two albums.  But now he’s back.

Pre-Pepper.  I actually ignored them before he showed up, as my impression was they were another hardcore punk band, of which I had no interest.  This lineup had two albums, Eye For An Eye and Animosity, and an EP, Technocracy.   They’re OK, a punk band that thrashes.  However, given how poorly most punk guitarists play, I’d have to say it’s 70% thrash, 30% punk.  The punk comes from short, brutal, intense songs with some quasi-political lyrics I can’t decipher thanks to the usual thrash vocals. 

Pepper.  Pepper Keenan joined the band for the album Blind.  This album, with its “hit single”, “Vote With A Bullet”, signaling a change to a more thrashmetal style, got my attention and kept it.  I bought Blind on cassette and enjoyed it immensely.  From then on, I was a COC fan.

Shortly after Blind, vocalist Karl Angell left the band, and Pepper Keenan took over on lead vocals, establishing a 4 man lineup which could be considered the “classic”:  Woody Weatherman (rhythm guitar), Mike Dean (bass), and Reed Mulllin (drums).  This version put out Deliverance (featuring “Albatross”), Wiseblood, America’s Volume Dealer, and In The Arms of God, before Pepper left to join Down. 

Post-Pepper.  With Pepper gone, the band reverted to a three piece, and put out two albums, Corrosion of Conformity and IX, both of which are OK in quality, about 70% as good as the Pepper material.  Your de facto “Must Have”, CORE CoC is definitely the Pepper material. 

  

Down.  This is a joint project of Pepper Keenan & Phil Anselmo (Pantera).  They have three full albums, NOLA, Down II: A Bustle In Your Hedgerow, and Down III: Over the Under, two EPs, Down IV Part I and II, and a live album, Diary of a Mad Band.  I like the combination of the two.  If you liked COC, you’ll probably like Down, and vice versa.

Return.  Pepper is back – though Down is still going on.  I suppose he’s switching back and forth.  With Dimebag RIP, and Vinnie Paul hates Phil Anselmo, no luck with a Pantera reunion even if someone like Zakk Wylde was inclined to sub in for Dimebag, a scenario likely vetoed by Vinnie Paul and any Pantera fan who hates Wylde.  For his part, Anselmo also seems to be keeping Superjoint (Ritual) going, plus another project.  Be that as it may, stay tuned for more COC and possibly more Down. 

On second thought, Anselmo’s recent National Socialist indiscretion may negatively impact his marketability.  Half the posts on Facebook say, “I don’t care about his politics,” and the other half say “that’s it, I’m never patronizing PA or any band he’s in, anymore.”  So that might well doom Down as a band, but at least Pepper could keep COC going.  Anyhow.  

Cafeteria

Scraping the bottom, eh?  Come on. 

According to Wikipedia, a cafeteria is “a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen (in British English). Cafeterias are different from coffeehouses, despite being the Spanish translation of the English term.”  For that matter, I found the Wikipedia entry to be fairly useful and informative, so I’ll refer you there and try to avoid simply repeating its contents.

I think of a cafeteria as simply a dining hall specific to a large location such as a school, business, government building, etc., but the Wikipedia definition seems to be, place where you stand up and push your tray past, workers give you food that way, you bring your food to the cashier at end, and pay for it – as opposed a restaurant where a waiter/waitress takes your order and brings your food to your table.  By that definition, the fast food places at the New Jersey Turnpike rest stops (e.g. Roy Rogers) qualify - in fact, due to its setup, so does Chipotle - but most standalone Roys do not.  I consider my definition a bit more consistent with real-life experiences.

As for that: this week I had to drop off paperwork at the Fairfax County government building around noon, and hunger compelled me to visit their ground floor cafeteria.  It was pretty much the same as the one in the Fairfax County courthouse.  I just picked up potato chips and a fountain drink, so I really didn’t give the staff a chance to shine or impress me with their institutional cooking.

Schools.   Probably the bane of these.  In Paris – the American School of Paris - I’d just get French fries, a Coke, and a Raider bar (Twix to us Americans).  I never ventured further than that.  We had no real alternatives within walking distance, as I never even sampled the fare at the café across the street from the school. 

University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) had its huge Dining Services, with several huge dining halls across campus, South Campus being my general base of operations.   In senior year, before going off to White Flint Mall for an LSAT prep course, I sampled the steak & cheese sub, and got hooked ever since.  I haven’t been back to UMCP to eat at the dining hall since summer 1990.  I do see that the Eateries at the Stamp Union have been replaced by a food court of mainstream fast food places. 

Government.  Government buildings have their own unique cuisine, very close to hospital cafeteria in nature.  In the past we’d visit the cafeteria in the Dept of Commerce building in DC, which was as generic as any other and probably served as my baseline.  A special shout out to the National Shrine cafeteria, which is odd when you think about it: a CATHEDRAL with its own cafeteria?  GET OUT OF HERE.  However, as cafeterias go, it’s normal and ordinary.

My favorite.   Not merely nostalgia and loyalty, but also outright quality: that has to be the US Embassy in Paris, in the basement of the main building at Place de la Concorde.  My favorite meal was a hamburger “au point” (medium rare), fries, and a Coke, plus maybe a hot fudge sundae for dessert.  The dark and smokey lounge next door served cold roast beef sandwiches.  Nice.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been there since 1990.  Because it’s a US facility, the lounge could not serve alcohol to anyone under 21, while you could go outside the embassy to any French bar and be served if you were over 14. 

The only other embassy cafeteria I sampled was London (US), which was VERY substandard; the Navy Annex next door was County Fair quality, but still better.

I suppose an Army mess hall is the ultimate “cafeteria”, but never having served in the military I can’t comment thereon by firsthand experience.  I do have extensive experience eating in PX facilities, though, which are often open to civilian dependents of military personnel (my mother is a retired Navy officer) such as myself.  Those would tend to pretty much mimic standard cafeteria food you might find anywhere else.  Lately many of the PX locations are subcontracting to mainstream fast food places such as McDonalds (Bethesda - USN) and Burger King (Henderson Hall – USMC).  I lost my PX privileges when I turned 23, so it’s been a rare occasion since then that I’ve been able to go back.  But I will make one comment…

At the Raymond Hotel in Mons, Belgium, which catered to US personnel – military and civilian – they had a kitchen which made pizza.  This was a strange and unique mozzarella pizza which bore no resemblance to any pizza I’ve ever experienced anywhere else.  Not Domino’s, not crappy cafeteria, nor any European “you call this pizza?” variant.  In Brazil they make a pizza that seems to be crust and cheese with no sauce – “oh, here’s ketchup”, they tell you if you inquire about that – which is the closest I’ve found, but the Raymond Pizza did have sauce, it was the cheese that was utterly unique.  If anyone has the recipe, let me know.

Black Power vs White Power

The last time the Carolina Panthers were in the Super Bowl, Justin & Janet caused a scandal.  This time around, Beyonce’s Super Bowl “Black Panthers” style show has been upsetting those of us with lighter complexions.

Meanwhile, in stonerville, Phil Anselmo has caught flak for making a Nazi salute and shouting “White Power”, which he tried to explain as a goof on drinking white wine backstage.  Uh, yeah.  And some Flynn guy jumped up immediately to crucify him as a white supremacist and conveniently gather attention for himself as well. 

What’s going on here?

I’ve seen people on Facebook bitching (shock horror, I know), that blacks, Asians, Hispanics, etc. – any non-white minority – can get away with “pride” in their race, but when whites assert the same they’re accused of being racists, or more specifically, white supremacists. 

What seems to be going on is this:  the value judgment made by non-whites is that when THEY assert pride, they are simply saying, “we’re proud of who we are, and we’re just as good as anyone else,” but when white people do so, they’re saying, “we’re better than anyone else.” 

Globally and historically, whites are the only race consistently capable of asserting meaningful power and hegemony over other races.   There was no Nigerian Empire which conquered Europe.  The Chinese in the past subjugated Korea and Vietnam, and the Japanese did so during WWII, but for the most part the victims of Asian aggression were other Asians.   I suppose if you want to classify Hispanics as a separate race, you could accuse them of dominating the native Americans in the New World, but my inclination is to classify Hispanics as a subset of whites.  Anyhow.  Whites have been the only race to dominate other races.

When the statistics are compiled in recent years, in the US at least, most victims of crime tend to be blacks preying on other blacks, and racially motivated crimes show a relative increase of blacks killing whites rather than the other way around.  We all know that many of the slaves were sold to whites by other blacks – tribal rivals – and as “Django Unchained” pointed out, there were black slavers.  On the aggregate, though, whites can take credit for the majority of racial violence, oppression and deaths.

In more recent terms, and closer to the analogy, I’m not aware of any white people killed by the Black Panthers, but the Klan’s body count from the late 1800s through today has been substantial and verified.

Ok, where does that leave us?   Many whites are NOT members of the Klan and do not hold white supremacist values.   I’d say it’s a minority these days, and at that a very small minority.   The most tangible elements of white privilege I can identify as being a beneficiary of in an ordinary, day to day sense is that when I’m pulled over for a traffic violation, the cop simply gives me a ticket, doesn’t ask to search the car, and doesn’t look at me like he suspects I’ve done anything other than the violation for which he cited me.

I would assert that, blaming members of a race – of any race – for crimes committed by others of the same race, is itself racist.  White pride can be, but is not necessarily, an assertion of white supremacy.  Here is where I would distinguish – as I did before – the CSA flag from Nazi imagery.  

Anselmo’s idiocy was making a Nazi salute under circumstances in which it’s impossible to verify that it was made in jest; his explanation sounds highly implausible and ridiculous, and thus his apology comes off as insincere.  The swastika, SS runes, Totenkopf, and the Nazi salute are too closely linked to Hitler & Co. to be divested of any white supremacist intent. 

I’d draw a distinction with the CSA flag, however.   No one believes secession and abolition of the Thirteenth Amendment is politically feasible or reasonable today.  Black perception aside, for many whites it simply means, “I’m proud of being a white Southerner.”  Clearly, when the Klan waves it around, they mean it expressly to offend blacks and assert their cause, but when individuals do so in their capacity AS individuals, I don’t see it as necessarily racist.  In fact, if you google search pictures of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing live in the 1970s, you'll see the CSA flag on stage countless times.  Yet none of their songs advocate slavery or the CSA, and the band itself was fairly liberal by southern standards.  In their case it was obviously meant as a symbol of southern pride rather than white supremacy.

However, having said all that, any white with even a few brain cells has to concede that nonwhites will take offense at the flag no matter what the expressed intent of its display may be.  

Labor & Unions

I've busted on Michael Moore and Bernie Sanders in the past, so it's only fair that I articulate some areas in which I may in at least partial agreement with them; my concessions, if you will.  Here goes...

Profit-sharing.  I saw on Facebook someone posted a picture of the Papa John’s guy, quoted as stating that his company was under no obligation to share its profits with its workers – as if this was some horrendously evil policy.  Nope, it’s not.  He's right, as brutal as it may sound.  

The sad thing is, a company isn’t even required to pay dividends to its shareholders, which is the only real profit sharing arrangement in a company – with the exception of an employee-owned company, in which case the workers are sharing in profits not as workers, but as shareholders themselves.    

For that matter, the next time I hear Michael Moore or Bernie Sanders refer to an employee-owned company will be the first.  While employees of privately owned companies have little realistic option of ownership, employees of a publicly traded company can pick up the phone, call a broker, and buy stock in their own company.   Publix Supermarkets is the largest employee-owned company in the US.  I don’t recognize the rest of them, many are in the supermarket industry.  Some are actually 100% employee owned.

“At will” employment.  I was also surprised to learn that New York is an at-will employment state.  At will employment means your boss can fire you immediately for any reason.  Well, there are minor exceptions such as discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, or workers compensation protection.  Your boss can’t fire you because of your sex, race, age, or because you reported violations or filed a WC claim.   But these are very narrow restrictions.

At will employment also means you are free to leave at any time.  Bored?   Don’t like the boss?  Don’t like the job?  Got a better offer elsewhere?  You can leave immediately, but don’t expect your boss to welcome you back.  Since the employee generally needs the job more than the company needs the employee, I can’t say that at will employment is truly neutral between the two; in practice, it tends to favor the employer. 

“Two weeks notice”?  90 day trial period?  Both are usually customs, not laws.   Some firms will pay you the two weeks and just tell you to leave.  And making it past ninety days won’t prevent your boss from firing you - at any time.  

Unions.  If you are protected by a union, or are under a specific employment contract for a specified period of time, generally you can only be terminated for cause.  Absent a union, or possessing very important or unique skills, you usually lack the bargaining power to insist on a contract.  Absent a contract, you’re at-will.

$15/hour minimum wage.  I’m not sure I buy that.  Think about it: this is for unskilled workers with zero experience, an entry level wage that applies to everyone.   Are they worth $15/hour?  Acho que não.  However, whatever wage your boss is paying you, as high or low as it may be, you have a right to expect it.  If you are being cheated for the wages you're contracted for, you have every right to be upset.

Payroll taxes.  Another iniquity are payroll taxes.  The boss has to pay out $10 per hour to an employee.  The employee doesn’t get $10/hour – he gets more like $6/hour.  The missing $4/hour goes to Uncle Sam, the state, FICA, medicare, etc.  So the employee complains, “hey, I’m really only getting $6/hour.  I can’t live on that.”  Boss’ response: “I’m out $10/hour for you.  For you to get more than $6/hour, I have to pay you more than $10/hour.  I'm not convinced you're even worth $10/hour.”  Reduce the payroll taxes and the boss and employee are closer together. 

Having said all that, I do believe that most American companies don’t care about their workers.   Some do, and some pay well.  Some make a concerted effort to treat their employees fairly and well.  Unfortunately it seems they are the minority – the exception, not the rule.  I imagine some Wallys take advantage of them, but most workers in that company know they have it good and respond accordingly.  Wally exists because his company is conscientious about ripping off everyone who works there, no matter how hard they work.  Faced with that situation, mediocre performance is the best that company has any right to expect from its employees.

 I read somewhere that Henry Ford paid double the prevailing market rate for his workers not because he loved them and wanted to be generous, but because he hated unions and wanted to make sure a union never erupted at his company.   As capitalist and libertarian as I am, I do believe unions are a natural reaction to assholes running companies:  a company that treats its employees fairly has little to fear that they will unionize.  Job security may be some motivation, but again:  if the employer is motivated by good faith, conscientious employees have de facto, if not de juro, job security.  Then again, I might still prefer a contract and a union because I can’t account for 100% of the managers and supervisors above me in the corporate structure; at will employment leaves me vulnerable if the cool guy running the show is replaced by a major league asshole.  Protected by a union or a contract, I’m less likely to be arbitrarily canned.    I know someone who lost her job because her boss, who liked her immensely, valued her loyalty, and paid her accordingly, suddenly died, and his heirs took over the company and fired her.  So much for having a secure job simply because you do it well and have a decent boss.

Layoffs.  I’ve heard of some companies who cut wages pro rata rather than lay off employees.  While no one likes a pay cut, it certainly beats a pink slip.  While it’s true that companies are under no obligation to share profits with workers, I do agree it’s morally wrong to lay off employees if the company has more than enough money to keep them on.  Likewise, paying executives a bonus despite poor performance, also smacks of bad faith. 

Bottom line, whether you’re at the bottom, at the top, or anywhere in between, good faith should be a given.