A Daddy Yankee Folo Tale ...

Could it be that Daddy Yankee got dissed by Obama before he endorsed John McCain? Can't believe someone hasn't already popped a cap in someone's ass, yo. As Politico.com blogger Ben Smith reports this morning:

Dem: Obama rebuffed Daddy Yankee

There's some amusement today about John McCain's endorsement by the Puerto Rican performer Daddy Yankee, who has an assault charge and some some seriously racy lyrics.

There's a bit more backstory, though. A Democratic Party source tells me a representative for Daddy Yankee approached Obama's Latino outreach staffers earlier this year about possibly endorsing Obama.

But he didn't pass the vetting, and Obama's aides said they weren't interested in his support. So, apparently, he moved over to McCain.

A spokeswoman for the performer didn't return a call seeking comment on the claim.

UPDATE: Still no word from Daddy Yankee, but McCain spokesman Michael Golfarb emails: "That’s a 'Ludacris' suggestion, and given the number of shady characters and organizations that have endorsed Barack Obama, we find it hard to believe the Obama campaign has turned down any endorsements at all. After all, you can’t vet the vetters.

Another non-campaign source, however, tells me there are a few other prominent entertainers Obama's turned down for somewhat similar reasons.

It's Post Time, kids!

Here's a tip for you: There's only one truly great weekly radio show detailing everything you've ever wanted to know about greyhound racing. How can I be so sure of that?

Because there's only one weekly radio show about greyhound racing total.

It's called Post Time and it's on XTRA 910AM here in the Valley. You can listen to perhaps the most motley crew in broadcasting (me, track handicapper Ansel Styles Jr., track announcer Rick Gomez and trainer/barbershop quartet genius Clifton Gray) every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Arizona time. All you have to do is click here.

Come on -- you know you want to.

Such Pleasure, So Guilty ...

My column for next month's Times involves "true confession time" at Chez Leibowitz. The subject: Guilty pleasures. More specifically, my sudden affinity for a certain group of falsetto-singing Australian brothers.

Yep. The Bee Gees.

I know. How horrible is that to admit?

If you feel like this bizarre love requires an explanation, let me just go ahead and let you read the column:

We begin this month with a confession. Trusted friends have advised me to keep this information to myself, to guard it with the sort of vigilance usually reserved for grand jury testimony, the final episode of "The Sopranos," and the Arizona Cardinals' five-year rebuilding plan. I just can't do that.

Why not, you ask? Mainly it's the shame, is what it is. I've been carrying an enormous burden around for weeks, and lately the weight has been stone-heavy, a gravity so thick it's immobilizing. Confession seems like the only the option. Just tell all and pray that Pascal, the 17th century French mathematical genius, was correct.

"The only shame," he wrote, "is to have none."

Of course, Pascal died in 1662 at age 39 and spent most of his life studying geometry and physics, so he might not be the best guide on the subject of guilt.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Okay, here goes.

I love the Bee Gees.

Wow, that's gonna leave a mark. Seriously, did I just type that out loud? Ah … you know what I mean.

Having now emasculated myself both in terms of gender and intellect, let me clarify. One, I didn't know I loved the Bee Gees until a few weeks ago. And, two, I only love really, really old Bee Gees, before the whole unfortunate "Saturday Night Fever" thing happened.

Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are by this revelation. It started when I caught a snippet of a song on the radio, a tune full of high harmonies and Australian accents that immediately took me back 40 years to growing up in Queens, to my parents' old Kenwood turntable and to the click of an LP dropping into the play position. The lyrics bored their way through me:

In the event of something happening to me,
there is something I would like you all to see.
It's just a photograph of someone that I knew.

That song from 1967 – "New York Mining Disaster 1941," by the way – stayed in my head for a week, until I tracked it down using a combination of Google and iTunes. Thirty-odd bucks later, me and the Brothers Gibb have reunited. "Massachusetts," "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart," "Lonely Days" – suddenly my iPod looks like the soundtrack to a bad acid trip circa 1972.

If it makes you feel any better about me, I swear I also love Radiohead, the White Stripes, improvisational jazz, and Beethoven's "Pathetique" sonata. Think of the Bee Gees as a guilty pleasure. That's what I've started to do and it's made me realize something (besides the fact that I don't have a heckuva lot of taste):

Guilty pleasures just might be the best pleasures of all.

I mean, how else do you explain the fact that a truly crappy TV show like "America's Got Talent" hauls in 13 million viewers on an average night, or about nine times what the average PBS prime-time show draws? Or check out the hourly sales rankings on Amazon.com. Four of the first nine spots belong to the vampire novels of Arizona's own Stephenie Meyer. That whirring sound you hear? That's Bram Stoker, the guy who wrote "Dracula," spinning in his grave. Meanwhile, how are sales going for 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Doris Lessing?

She's in spot 5,725 for her most recent work, "Alfred & Emily."

If it's in good taste or it's good for you, it seems we in America pretty much want no part of it. This explains why there's a "Hotel Erotica Cabo 34: Skin Deep" on Cinemax tonight, but no Francis Ford Coppola-directed sequel called "Apocalypse Now 2: Apocalypse After." A great chef like Chris Bianco, he's got two restaurants. Olive Garden has 643 locations and nearly $3 billion in sales around the world.

Who would have imagined mankind had that much love for an $8.95 "Never Ending Pasta Bowl™," huh?

As for me, Big Chief Little Taste here is working hard to get more comfortable and purge all that guilt I've been toting around. Clearly I'm not the only one who's ever invested $16.99 in "The Essential Neil Diamond." And I'm going to stop apologizing right now for the night a few weeks ago when I clicked past "Citizen Kane" on AMC to watch "Sunset Tan" on E!

For a long time, I've lived in mortal fear that some provost from back East would show up and rescind my Master's degree in English upon discovering that I religiously read the detective novels of Michael Connelly. No more fear; no more apologizing; no more living in the cultural closet.

Laugh if you want, but I like US Weekly more than U.S. News and World Report. I fall asleep whenever I read anything that involves the words "thou" or "methinks" – sorry Shakespeare – and given the choice, I'd choose a Quarter Pounder with cheese over some French epicurean's blanquette de veau.

And yes, lately I've become more than a little obsessed with the falsetto-voiced soundtrack from my childhood. I'm not beating myself up any more for this stuff. Laugh if you want; give me hell if we meet on the street. There will be no weeping here. Instead, I choose to believe in the genius and wisdom of the Brothers Gibb, who famously wrote in their 1968 Top 10 smash, "I Started A Joke."

I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing, Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me.

Truer words, people. Truer words have never, ever been written.

"New York Mining Disaster 1941" really is a pretty good song, I swear. Listen for yourself here.

Pouring La Gasolina on the McCain Campaign

Figuring out which guy to vote for for President has been bugging me for the past few weeks. The more I pay attention to the race, the more confused I get. Fortunately, now that Daddy Yankee has weighed in, I feel like my mind is made up:

Daddy Yankee endorses McCain at Central High

Aug. 25, 2008 10:14 AM
Associated Press

PHOENIX - Reggaeton artist Daddy Yankee endorsed Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Monday, citing the senator's support of Hispanics and his immigration efforts.

The endorsement was announced at a 10-minute event at an ethnically diverse high school in Phoenix where McCain's wife, Cindy, graduated in 1972.

Some of the 120 students in the room gasped loudly and yelled when McCain introduced the Puerto Rican singer, who became a world celebrity with his song "La Gasolina."

Daddy Yankee, who hugged girls and shook hands with boys, says he believes McCain is the best person to lead the nation.

The singer is considered an innovator in reggaeton, the catchy form of music from the Caribbean that combines different genres including hip-hop.

I'm really hoping to see Daddy Yankee recut the "Gangsta Zone" video, with Senator McCain rapping the Snoop Dogg part. The lyrics:

1 for the money, and
2 for the gangstas,
3 hot shots that pop for the wankstas,
Top Dogg, S and douple O, P
The gangsta mac, a G
From the L.B.C
I'm on the go,
I get the doe,
I let em know I bust a hoe,
I'm shakin' up a shivero,
That every where a n*gga go,
This will be,
The day we will always "G"
Turn around get em' up,
Put em down (I Fall back)
Take my hand,
We could have a little fun in the van,
I'm the man with gun in his hand,
I don't plan,
On stayin' around,
I'm just playin' around,
I'm all about layin' you down,
Now g-get up, (get up)
Before i'm a have you hit up, (hit up)
And if you say the wrong set i'm get you you f**ked up, (f**ked up)
The deal?
You know the drill,
Kick rocks muthaf**ka,
And tell ya b*tch to come here, foreal.

They must be very worried over at Obama headquarters this morning. Forreal, dawg.

My Tongue Turns To Dust

Music means a lot to me: It shifts my mood as much as any antidepressant could; it helps me understand myself and the world around me; it makes me feel less lonely. And music has an uncanny way of pinning itself to a moment, of being in exactly the right place at the right time.

What do I mean? Only that I believe in a sort of musical karma. Songs find us at the moment we need them, like this Wilco song did for me this morning while I was riding my bicycle:

"Please Be Patient With Me"

I should warn you
When I'm not well
I can't tell
Oh, there's nothing I can do
To make this easier for you

You're gonna need to be patient with me

I'm this apple, this happening stone
When I'm alone
Oh, but my blessings get so blurred
At the sound of your words

I'm gonna need you to be patient with me

How can I warn you when my tongue turns to dust
Like we've discussed
It doesn't mean that I don't care
It means I'm partially there

You're gonna need to be patient with me

Well said, Jeff Tweedy. Well said. And in case you're wondering what the song sounds like, here's an acoustic version that looks like it was shot at Tweedy's house. Haunting. And so very true.

A Day In The Life ...

All the time people ask me, "So what's it like working for an advertising agency? Moses Anshell must be a ton of fun." I figured no one would believe my answer without proof, so here's a short video.

Early Morning of the Soul

Often lately I find myself preoccupied by what feels like an odd question: Who am I?

You'd think that wouldn't be one of life's true toughies to answer, not when you're 43 years old and a reasonably sentient human being. The thing is, it's one of those questions you can answer from about 62 different directions, from the most basic level to the seriously, geez-you-overthought-that, super-complex.

I could answer the question in marketing terms, for example, situating myself just past the middle of the 25-54 male demographic. Toss in a few other data points (Arizona resident, white-collar worker, post-graduate degrees, registered Independent, divorced, no children, dog owner, subscriber to Sports Illustrated, the New Yorker, Wired, owner of an iPhone) and you might have enough top-line information to begin roughing out my identity. Of course, if there's one thing making ads for a living has taught me, it's that all the demographic data in the world won't tell you much about any one person – with the exception of the person interpreting the data.

There's plenty of other answers I could throw out there. My name is David Leibowitz. That's an answer. I also could give you my Social Security number and my birthday. Then you could run my credit, delve into my financial past and get a sense of what I'm about. That would no doubt appeal to private detectives, journalists, ad agency strategists and political operatives, anyone whose guiding principle is the idea that we are the things we seek to keep hidden.

Another possible answer might come in the form of a narrative. That's a favorite of mine, because I love stories, love telling them and teasing them apart. Stories take a while to unfurl, though, especially something as ambitious as an autobiography. Beyond the investment of time, my story could end up boring the hell out of you, particularly because I'm by nature a private person likely to leave out the really juicy parts (since they're none of your business, dammit).

So what's the answer du jour then, the official August 21, 2008 version of who I am?

In his essay "The Evolution of the Shadow," Jungian analyst Edward C. Whitmont writes:

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics – a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.

Lately I've been gripped by the implications of that statement, what it says about our dislikes and aversions and how our projections of those negative attitudes function as a window into one's identity. Who am I, you ask? Whitmont answers, "At least in part, at least unconsciously, you are what you most dislike in others."

If that sounds like a pretty nutty hypothesis, I guess I could hold up as proof some very public examples from the worlds of politics and religion, moral crusaders like Elliot Spitzer, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. Whitmont (if he hadn't been dead for 10 years) might tell us that each of these men fought so hard to be perceived as "good" and to point out the "evil" in others precisely because they couldn't face their own shadow self. The harder they struggled, the more aggressively they projected onto their fellow man, the more they pressurized these internal dark forces, until their shells could no longer contain their inner roilings. Then, crash.

So what does that mean for me, or for any of us?

Only that one profitable starting way to answer the question "Who am I?" involves asking the question, "What is it that I can't stand in others?"

My answers:

I hate liars. Whether it's my insecurities, my deep skepticism or my inquisitive nature, I tend to tear into the statements made by those around me, looking for falsehoods, spin and signs of manipulation. When I ferret out bullshit statements, I'm generally quick to anger, quick to attack, quick to write the liar out of the story of my life.

I hate laziness. The sight of others' wasted potential pains me. Someone who makes a mistake out of lack of knowledge or out of well-meaning intent I'm usually quick to forgive; someone who fails out of negligence or for lack of motivation I'm usually fast to damn. Often, I find myself trying to judge the nature of someone's wrongs, attempting to decide whether they "deserve" forgiveness. The lazy rarely fare well.

I hate unjustifiable pride. What do I mean, what sort of pride goads me into a triple-digit pulse rate? Not the folks who feel good about hard work, a job done well or even an unsuccessful but valiant effort. More, I mean those whose sense of accomplishment reeks of being out of proportion to the task accomplished. You know who I mean: The guy who gets a client to approve something that was obviously good, yet brags like he's brought together the Arabs and the Jews, or the YMCA hoops player who hits a 12-foot jump shot but talks trash like he's Lebron knocking down a deep corner three with :02 left in overtime. Maybe that's just using tortured metaphors (the kind I like best!) to say that I dislike arrogance. Probably so, but in the same way that I often find myself looking to shine the light to a lie, I can typically be counted on to try to "take the piss" out of the overly prideful.

Wow. You see where this is going, don't you? Not a pretty picture.

If "the projection principle" is correct and we are what we most dislike, then I'm a lazy, arrogant liar.

Hmmm.

As much as my inclination is to say, "Nah, not me, nuh uh," I'm going to instead opt for broader disclosure.

Guilty as charged.

I'll take the easiest one to admit first: Arrogance. I've been told that enough times to know that so many different people can't all be wrong. What is it they're sensing? I imagine it's my tendency to try too hard – to appear smart, to keep my defenses up, to hide my emotions. That overbearing effort creates a distance others can find cold and unpleasant.

Lying is harder to cop to aloud. Still, it's true (and yes, I realize the irony of asking you to believe an admitted liar who is admitting to lying). Why do I lie? Sometimes it's to avoid conflict or to stay defended (see Leibowitz, David arrogance above). Other times I lie out of shame, or because I fear the truth will render me a pathetic, weak, hateful figure. Everyone, myself included (myself most of all, perhaps) has a shadow self, that mass of dark, churning urges and baseness. Lies are the cloak the shadow hides behind.

Am I lazy? I believe yes, I am. Not "couch potato" lazy – I tend to always be in motion – but a different sort of lazy, the kind that is satisfied with only living up to a fraction of its potential, the kind that fails to translate insight into action. I'm not saying I believe I should be perfect, or that there aren't other reasons for my failures beyond laziness, but it's there, sitting on my inner couch, eating cool ranch Doritos and watching the Olympics. Whitmont has a nice turn of phrase – "a lack of moral stamina" – that I believe applies here.

So yes, I'm a lazy, arrogant liar. It's not an admission I toss out there lightly. Putting it out there makes me supremely uncomfortable, so much so that it's taken me three days to write the above three paragraphs. But yes, those words do answer the question "Who am I?" and they're an answer as valid as my name or Social Security number.

Fortunately, that answer is not complete. While I am that person, that person isn't all I am. There's an asterisk beside my name (beside all our names), an "also" followed by other characteristics – generosity, protectiveness, playfulness – which I hope offsets the lesser self I've described.

"Who am I?" I guess you could say I am many things, some admirable, some not, some I'm happy to be and some that I would rather not face, things light and things dark. I'm like you and I am not.

And today I am long-winded. Take care.

There's A Cop When You Don't Need One

A few Saturdays ago, I ran into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Love the guy, even though I think he may be certifiable. The following ran in the Scottsdale Times as my August 2008 column:

Every so often, I bump into the old lawman with the big voice. He seems older each time we meet again, his face lined more deeply with crags, his hand smaller in mine. Maybe it's age, or maybe Sheriff Joe Arpaio's legend has grown so large in the press, the physical Joe inevitably feels small by comparison.

Either way, it's a Sunday morning in the Coffee Plantation on Shea Boulevard and here comes America's self-proclaimed toughest cop, 76 years old, bearing a jowly grin and a cup of java, dressed casual, his wife Ava at his side. It's not quite 9:30 on a weekend morning. Regardless, our sheriff has plans aplenty.

That Joe Arpaio has an agenda should come as no surprise – our sheriff is nothing if not busy. It's his plan that stuns me.

No, he's not headed to a press conference. No, he's not planning another round-up of illegal immigrants in Mesa. No, it's not a dust-up with Shaquille O'Neal or a book signing or a chain gang appearance.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is taking his wife to the movies. To see Hancock starring Will Smith.

"It looks pretty good," Arpaio confides. "And we like going early in the morning. Then no one comes up to me to talk."

His wife picks up where the sheriff leaves off, which feels natural – they've been married for 51 years now. "Sunday's the one day a week where I get to have him," Ava explains. "We just got done with church."

And then after a few minutes of kibitzing, they're off. Except the old man sort of stays in my mind for days afterward. Maybe it's that I'm both fascinated by Arpaio and conflicted by him – by his policies and by his bluster, by the personable side of him I've glimpsed and the public side of him that seems like so much hot air. Or maybe it's just his choice of flick.

Hancock.

I don't think I'm spoiling much by saying that Smith's latest summer blockbuster concerns a superhero whose crime-fighting deeds make him the object of media heat and light and an abundance of public scorn. There's a few hundred lawsuits, huge tabs to pay for the damage left in our hero's wake, and razzing whenever Hancock shows up at a crime scene.

In short, the flick plays like Arpaio's autobiography written large, with the addition of the ability to fly and a few other superpowers our sheriff hasn't yet gotten around to claiming.
Hancock, like Arpaio, looms larger than life. And both men have a flair for the dramatic: Hancock after he saves the life of a do-gooder public relations man who decides to repay him with an image makeover and Arpaio with, well, you know. You've seen the headlines.

The more I think about it – Arpaio's khaki uniform and collar stars vs. Hancock's snug leather costume; Arpaio's past undercover life with the DEA versus Hancock's unknown back story, obscured by amnesia – the more the parallels arise. In the end, the comparison amounts to a question raised by the movie's plot:

What will we think about Arpaio once he's gone?

That's how Hancock makes himself over, you see – the PR flack, Embrey, advises him to go to jail, to create a void where bad guys flourish, to let Los Angeles feel his absence. What happens to the valley when Arpaio does the same, when he finally retires or, as is far less likely, loses an election and fades away?

Will we miss Sheriff Joe?

Me, I think the answer can be had in two words: Yes. Desperately.

We'll miss the man because, for every Arpaio grandstand play that disappoints, there's a basic cop philosophy that's impossible to deny. I agreed with it the first time he said it aloud, and the next hundred after that. It's what accounts for his stratospheric approval ratings, the re-election landslides, all of it.

"You should never live better in jail than you live on the street."

Then there's the other quality Arpaio shares with Hancock, their action hero side. I could explain it to you, but better to let Teddy Roosevelt do the talking. He nailed it:

"It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger."

That, too, is what I respect mightily about Arpaio: That he and his officers do it while their critics, myself included, merely talk about it. Agree, disagree, protest, sue, threaten; no matter what, Arpaio still does what he does.

Hancock, too, even if Sheriff Joe didn't think much of the film.

"It was all right," he tells me on the phone a few days later. "Just all right. I give it two and a half stars. It wasn't even R rated. Not like Rambo."

Our sheriff prefers blood with his popcorn. Or the occasional romance.

"I like some good love stories," Arpaio claims between laughs. "You know, where you cry and all that. What was that one? The Letter They Found In The Bottle?"

Somehow, I didn't see that one. Just like Sheriff Joe doesn't see any comparison between him and Hancock, incidentally. Arpaio laughs at the premise, laughs at the idea that public wrath bothers him, laughs at the thought of a legacy.

A legacy is for people who leave, you see. "Like Hancock, I'll live forever," says the old lawman and you hope he's right.