The Black Adder

Have you ever browsed the DVD selection at Costco recently?  In addition to recent US releases, they feature quite a few obscure British shows.  I’ve yet to see this one there, but it certainly belongs.  I can’t say I recall seeing this on UK TV, as the last time I was there was in 1985, which would have allowed me to see (should I have been inclined to do so) season 1.  This was a British comedy series from 1983 to 1989, featuring Rowan Atkinson as the title role.  All four seasons are only six episodes long, 30 minutes each.  The DVD has no subtitles.   I can’t recall WHY I rented these from Netflix, but for some reason I did. 

Season 1 (1983).   Richard III era, England 1485.   Adder plays a dimwit, Edmund, who accidentally kills Richard III, which puts Edmund’s father Richard IV (Brian Blessed) on the throne.  Harry, Prince of Wales (Robert East) is Richard IV’s more favored (and more intelligent) older son.  Lots of medieval humor and some Shakespeare references.  

Season 2 (1986).  Queen Elizabeth I.  Miranda Richardson plays the Queen, and Stephen Fry her courtier.  She summons BA several times solely to the sake of her amusement when he arrives promptly only to find no particular meaning or purpose behind the summons.   This time around he’s a Tudor courtier, and now of normal intelligence and so begins his acidic insulting wit.  Baldrick is his servant. Rik Mayall makes a brief appearance.

Season 3 (1987).  Napoleonic Era.  Hugh Laurie is here, as the Prince Regent (George IV) – the typical clueless upper class twit, though not insane like his father.  BA is his butler, and Baldrick his turnip-obsessed servant.  Nigel Planer has a brief role as the Scarlet Pimpernel.   Pitt the Younger is here as Prime Minister – they make him seem like a college student who became PM.   Quite a few Napoleon references plus an entire episode on the French Revolution. 

Season 4 (1989).  World War I.  Ah, here is my favorite.  “Edmund Black Adder” is an English officer (captain) unhappily serving in the trenches with Private Baldrick and a (yet again) dimwitted officer Lt. George (Laurie).  Fry is here as the Lord Kichener type General Melchett – the kind who blithely orders men to their deaths in unimaginative offensives.  McInnerny returns as Melchett’s ADC, Captain Darling, a name which causes much confusion.  The general idea is that the war is a colossal mistake but everyone is too stupid to stop it.

House & Hugh Laurie fans rejoice:  he has minor roles in season 2 (last two episodes) but is a main character on all 12 episodes of 3 & 4, although playing a dimwit on all of them. 

The Young Ones.   If you liked this show, Rik, Nigel and Vivyan have roles here.  Not big ones, mind you, but you can certainly recognize them.  Rik Mayall is back – as a flamboyant RFC (WWI version of RAF) pilot, while Ade Edmonson is the Red Baron. 

Supporting Actors.

Baldrick (Tony Robinson).   In season 1 he’s fairly smart, but in the subsequent series he devolves into being stupid, but in a humorous way – and perpetually the butt of BA’s jokes and contempt.  Or he has a “marvelous plan” that’s either bewilderingly stupid or impossible to effectively execute. 

Tim McInnerny typically takes irregular supporting roles.  S1 & S2 saw him as a regular, but only one episode in S3.  His best was Captain Darling in Season 4.  Apparently he was trying to avoid being yet another Baldrick. 

Miranda Richardson stars as Queen Elizabeth (S2), a would-be bride to Prince George (season 3) (and another mystery role!) and returns in Season 4 as a nurse who helps the injured Lt. George write letters and offers physical affection to Captain Blackadder. 

Stephen Fry mainly acts as Queen Elizabeth’s chamberlain (S2) and General Melchett (S4).

Generally the humor varies from classic slapstick to Black Adder making verbose insults, e.g. “I’d sooner [do something extraordinarily painful or unpleasant rather than] [proferred suggestion] or implausible insults of Baldrick and other characters, especially those such as a Laurie’s who are not bright enough to recognize them as insults.  I have a difficult time avoiding the affectation of talking like him for some hours after watching the show.

The Prince

Nope, not the Diamond Head song, and I’ve already covered the popular musician.  This is about the famous book by Niccolo Machiavelli and published in the early sixteenth century.   It’s phrased as political advice to a would-be prince on how to behave and remain among the living. 

It’s actually not all that long.  Consider it the equivalent of a long short story.  Moreover, the language is fairly easy to understand.  Remarkably, much more so than Shakespeare, which is actually in English – what passes for English, anyhow.  This means the original Italian must have been fairly casual and informal. 

Some feel that it was actually meant as satire, not to be taken seriously; others disagree.  To me the advice is sensible enough, and not that outrageous, that it could well be useful.

What does he advise?

Use the tools that are available.  Honesty?  Moral?  Sure – the extent these work.  His premise is to default to a fairly moral standard and only abandon such methods if necessary.  Look at Carter vs. Reagan.  Reagan wasn’t a dictator, he wasn’t a king, and he wasn’t a tyrant.  But no one thinks of him as naïve or foolish.  Carter, his immediate predecessor, sometimes comes off as too good for his own good.  Recall “The Enemy Within”, the ST/OS episode where Kirk is split into two, and the “good” Kirk proves practically useless as a starship captain, leading the (recombined) Kirk and Spock to conclude that even a basically good person needs a dark side to be effective.  No one thinks of Roddenberry as being evil, yet Machiavelli’s advice is close to the Star Trek thesis. 

Better to be feared than loved.   Love is fickle.   Fear that screwing with the wrong guy will get you killed?  Far more substantial.  Note that being feared is NOT necessarily the same as being hated.  Getting rid of your enemies ruthlessly gets them out of the way permanently.  Would-be avengers are as likely to be intimidated into inaction, or persuaded to go along, as to actually attempt to take revenge.  Dead rivals are in no position to do anything.

Don’t use mercenaries.  They truly suck.  Likewise with auxiliaries.

Examples.  He was well acquainted with the infamous Borgia family, in particular the patriarch Pope Alexander VI, and his son Cesare.  The Romans provide multiple examples to illustrate his lessons.  Of course, contemporary Italian politics was also a useful source of examples.  At this time Italy was fractured and disjointed, and the French were perpetually meddling in Italian politics.  It wasn’t until 1861, thanks to Garibaldi, that Italy was finally unified.  So no one in Machiavelli’s time was up to the task of getting the country together after the Romans. 

Modern Day Applicability.  Well, there’s nothing in here about winning elections.   Presumably princes in the 1500s weren’t being popularly elected.  However, there is some discussion of being thrown out or killed by mobs of unhappy subjects, so some degree of public accountability is at issue even with a non-elected sovereign.

He talks about killing off political rivals to gain or secure power, yet none of our 44 Presidents has had to rely upon such methods to gain office or remain there.  Neither have any UK Prime Ministers since Oliver Cromwell, or practically any other democratically elected sovereign for the past few centuries.  Not even the diabolical and ruthless Vladimir Putin had to kill anyone to get where he is (or did he?). Recent dictators such as Hitler and Stalin did resort to such methods, but we’re aware of their nature.  As such, this treatise is a reminder that – cynical protestations to the contrary notwithstanding – politics has changed substantially since the early 1500s. 

Frank Underwood.  More so than any real politician, the “House of Cards” protagonist appears to best match the type of leader we imagine Machiavelli as promoting.  Truly?  In We Can Build You (Philip K. Dick), the main characters create robot versions of Edwin Stanton and Abraham Lincoln, programming them with their historical counterparts’ memories, information, and also personalities.  It would be intriguing to recreate Machiavelli, give him access to contemporary data, including “House of Cards”, and ask him who he feels was the leader who most faithfully adhered to the advice of his book.  Mussolini or Stalin? (Both were fans).  Hitler?  Mao?  Reagan?  Or Frank Underwood?  And what would he think of Donald Trump?

Def Leppard

We saw them again in concert, on tour for their newest album, self-titled.  It sounds almost exactly like Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, the prior album.   I’ve addressed them in a paragraph in an earlier blog, New Wave of British Heavy Metal.  Here’s more than a paragraph, as the band deserves it.

The NWOBHM was a…new wave of heavy metal…from Britain.  The time period was the late 1970s and early 1980s.  I suppose the first wave was Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, with Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy and UFO as mid-70s additions.  The late 70s saw punk and new wave take a major role in British music.  Deep Purple had split up in 1976, Led Zeppelin were touring less and strung out in the late 70s, and Black Sabbath ended in 1978 with Ozzy’s departure.  These new bands, who finally broke out by sheer force of numbers, gave us three major survivors:  Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard.

Of the three, Def Leppard quickly switched to a more commercial style.  Unlike Diamond Head, who tried doing the same thing (only to crash and burn), DL pulled it off.  Good writing, catchy songs, excellent production, and photogenic band members could share the blame for this success.

Joe Elliott.   The singer.  He has a good voice and stage presence, enough wit and charm to impress the audience and possibly the ladies. 

Rick Savage.  The bassist.  Did he pull all the birds?  Well, given that the bassist is usually a band’s most homely and least charismatic memer – aside from exceptions like Paul McCartney and Gene Simmons – this guy made the band more attractive to females, a necessary ingredient if you’re going to go commercial.

Rick Allen.   The drummer.  After Pyromania went big, he bought a Corvette and flipped it over on the local roads near Sheffield, which cost him his arm.  Initially despondent – how can you drum with only one arm? – he found someone to rig a drumset which would allow him to hit drums with an extra foot pedal.  Voila, problem solved.  Good enough to get the job done, and an inspiration to the rest of us.

Phil Collen.   Guitarist #1.  Not to be confused with Phil Collins.  PC replaced prior guitarist Pete Willis, who apparently didn’t get along with the rest of the band.  He likes to play without a shirt, but hits the gym often enough to make it work for him.  He’s buffer than Vladimir Putin and well ahead of Randy from Trailer Park Boys (to my knowledge neither of them play guitar).  He prefers Strat-type guitars.  Flashy?  Sure.  But he’s good enough.

Vivian Campbell.  Guitarist #2.  From Northern Ireland.  He used to be in Sweet Savage, another NWOBHM band, and also played with Ronnie James Snake and WhiteDio.  He was already well known from those bands when he replaced Steve Clark, who drank himself to death.  VC has been fighting cancer recently but seems to be on top of it.  It looks like he’s taking 60% of the solos.

Honorable mention: Steve Clark.   Long blonde hair, low slung Les Paul or Firebird, almost like a guitar version of Duff McKagan.  He played well and was well-liked, but couldn’t avoid drinking himself to death (1991). 

Dishonorable mention:  Pete Willis.  Despite writing and playing on the first three albums, he pissed everyone off and got fired.  If it was just the band, he’d have resurfaced, but his musical career died when he was canned. 

Early material.   On Through The Night (1980) was the first album.  It’s not memorable enough to even merit a single tune in the set, and it’s hardly distinguishable from the other NWOBHM material out there dating from the same period.  The term “Rock Brigade” which appears on much of the band’s merchandise seems to be its only legacy.  It went platinum, but my guess is that most of those sales probably date from after Pyromania broke big and fans decided to buy the prior albums.

High’N’Dry (1981).   The second album.  Produced by John “Mutt” Lange, who gave us the killer trilogy of Highway to Hell, Back In Black, and For Those About To Rock (AC/DC).  Awesome from start to finish, including the duo of “Bringing On The Heartbreak” >> “Switch 625”.  Mandatory inclusion in every rock fan’s collection.  This went double platinum, possibly after Pyromania. 

Pyromania (1983).  The third album, which catapulted the band to stardom.  Phil Collen took over from Pete Willis.  Really this could be considered their finest moment, though I prefer the prior one.  Lange continued his work on this one, and the band really fine-tuned the sound.  10x platinum sales, or 5 times the sales of High’n’Dry.  While I consider it more commercial than High’N’Dry, it’s not nearly as commercial as Hysteria.

Hysteria (1987).  A big delay because of Rick Allen’s accident, but everyone was glad to see him back.  It’s also the last album with Steve Clark.  Lange produced this one too.  They made it a bit more commercial and slick, and got 12x platinum sales, the highest selling DL album.  This album essentially finalized the DL sound from here on out.

Subsequent albums:  Adrenalize (1992) (last album produced by Lange, also last album to sell at platinum level), Slang (1996), Euphoria (1999), X (2002), Songs From the Sparkle Lounge (2008), and Def Leppard (2015).   Of these, I only have the two most recent.  They both sound the same, and my impression is that they’re all somewhat substandard copies of Hysteria, a formula which they found works for them.  The more recent albums haven’t sold very well, probably because we already had Hysteria.

Retro-Active and Yeah!  The former is a collection of out-takes and b-sides, the latter is a covers album.  None of the covers are metal songs, or anything that Iron Maiden or Saxon would consider an influence.

Union Jack.  It’s funny that more British bands don’t use that, as the flag is distinctive.  For a while the band was waving it around and putting it on all the merchandise (they still do, but less prominently than before), and Joe Elliott was prancing around in Union Jack boxers.  They also make it a point to remind everyone they’re from Sheffield, basically the Pittsburgh of England.  And finally they are avid soccer fans, a trait shared with Iron Maiden.   I believe their team is Sheffield United, whereas the Irons (or at least, Steve Harris) are big West Ham fans. 

Notwithstanding the highly commercial sound, the band still has lots of energy and dynamism on stage, and Joe Elliott is an excellent frontman.   Like AC/DC, they’ve had a consistent run of mediocre albums long after their peak but still put on a good show live – plus they’re aware of what the fans want and give it to us: “Switch 625”.  

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

It’s Friday, time to party with a delicious, naughty topic sure to titillate all my readers and bump up the birth rate:  the TPP. 

I’m generally in favor of free trade and against protectionism.  So generally I support efforts to improve free trade and I oppose efforts at protectionism.  Then again, my own profession, law, is heavily protected.   You need a bar license to practice law, and the barriers to entry are significant.  Waiving in is best – though at the very least you would have to pass at least ONE bar exam.  Some states require an attorney exam, and others – such as New Jersey – have no provision at all for waiving in and require ALL applicants to take – and pass – their bar exam.  Anyhow.  I’m in the position of not having to worry about an influx of Japanese or Vietnamese lawyers competing against me.
 
Who is part of this?  First off, CHINA is not included.  The parties are: US, Japan, Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and Brunei.  Given that I already see tons of things from China all over the markets in the US, my guess – without further research or analysis – is that China is already happy with the current situation and the TPP would mean more US goods sold in China, which they don’t think is a good idea.  Too bad.

All four major candidates - Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein - oppose the TPP.  I can imagine two reasons.  First, a principled objection to free trade, per se (Type A).  I can see this with Trump and Stein; Hillary I'm not so sure about.  The second objection would be that the TPP claims to promote free trade, but in fact is simply more protectionism (Type B), or that it doesn't go far enough.  Of course, it's possible to voice the Type B objection when in fact you really dislike free trade.  My impression is that Gary Johnson opposes it for Type B reasons, as I can scarcely imagine that he truly opposes free trade.

To get to tho bottom of this, I consulted the CATO Institute, which published a helpful and concise 38 page report on this very issue: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/cato-trade-tpp-abstract-june-30-2016.pdf

The Cato People are pro-free-trade.  The report grades each area of the TPP on a scale of 1-10, 1 being protectionist and 10 being free trade.  Due to political realities, no area got a score of 10; 8 was the best, the worst were rated 3.  Several sections were neutral, neither pro-free trade nor protectionist. Much of it was discretionary and “recommended” without being binding, or full of loopholes and exceptions which either compromised its good points or reduced its bad points.  Anyhow. 

Results?   Neutral & Not Graded (NG): Initial Provisions and General Definitions (NG); Telecommunications (5), Competition (5), Cooperation and Capacity Building (NG), Competitiveness and Business Facilitation (NG), Development (NG), Small and Medium Enterprises (NG), Transparency and Anti-Corruption (NG), Administrative and Institutional Provisions (NG), Exceptions (NG).

Pro Free Trade (6-8): National Treatment and Market Access For Goods (8), Rules of Origin (6), Customs Administration and Trade Facilitation (8), Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (6), Technical Barriers to Trade (6), Investment (6), Cross Border Trade in Services (8), Financial Services (6), Temporary Entry for Business Purposes (6), Electronic Commerce (7), Government Procurement (6), State-Owned Enterprises (6), Regulatory Coherence (6), Dispute Settlement; and Final Provisions (8).

Protectionist (3-4): Textiles and Apparel (3), Trade Remedies (3), Intellectual Property (4), Labor (3), and Environment (4).  Sadly, the US was frequently responsible for most of the worst parts of this.

Plunder.  By the way, a French guy by the name of Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) – the same guy who gave us the Negative Railroad and the Candlemakers’ Petition - addressed this issue back in the early 1800s.  Generally people start from the premise that free trade is good and the government should take as little as possible from people.  Fine.  But one group asks for special favors, and gets them.  Soon everyone else is clamoring for their own favors, until – before you know it – each group gets its particular form of “plunder”.  He called that “universal plunder”.  Lest this be written off as something peculiar to France 150+ years ago, we see it today with our own segments of society, happy to give lip service to the free market and free trade, but unwilling to relinquish the particular nuggets of socialism that benefit their particular group.  So it is here with the TPP.

Anyhow.  Then CATO took a weighted average to determine whether the TPP was more free trade or more protectionist, and reached the conclusion that, it was “net liberalizing”, i.e. more free trade than protectionist, and gave a stamp of approval.  They acknowledged that it could have been much better, but nevertheless it was better than the prior free trade agreements applicable to the member countries.  For its part, the Brookings Institution, a modestly liberal thinktank, also argued in favor of the TPP.  Obviously, there are many industries which see competition as a threat and oppose any liberalization, which is why I sought out the CATO Institute’s opinion.  I don’t seek the opinion of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton on anything, much less something as important as the TPP, and as noted earlier they both oppose it anyway. 

Mark me down, then, as in SUPPORT of the TPP.   Too bad none of the major candidates agree with me, but November is still a few months down the road, long enough for Gary Johnson to change his mind… I hope.