Attentive long-time listeners will recognize today’s song—more recent and less attentive listeners will hopefully be pleased by this new-to-you recording.  We’re having an unofficial holiday today, at the office, and so I felt it would be prudent to dust off an oldie rather than leave you wanting for content.

And so, a look back—it is March, and the President of the United States is taking a trip to the subcontinent.  And what were we doing, here at The Aural Times?  We were taking a trip to the dance-pop continent.

Enjoy, and expect a brand new composition on Wednesday.  Happy listenening.

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Don’t blame me—NewsBot 3000 dropped the ball on this one. I was looking for a low-cost alternative to flesh-and-blood Interns, and I have to admit the sales folks at LogiSong LLC painted a compelling portrait. No tardiness. No clogged toilets. No incense burners. And the NewsBot 3000 would analyze input text and automatically compose music and lyrics based thereupon!

Heaven. Until I heard the output, anyway: trite lyrics, questionable meter, nearly indecipherable annunciation—and the damned thing couldn’t even come up with a reasonable summary of the current Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah mess.

So while I did not get the same sense of satisfaction from canning the NewsBot as I used to when doing the same to an Intern—computers, after all, do not wince, or cry, or offer money—you may be assured that it is nonetheless extremely fired.

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Diplomacy says un-huh—Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi and President Bush visit Graceland. The world press has reacted with a series of strained, wince-inducing puns.

I met Elvis once—this was years ago, he was neither fat nor dead yet. We shared a bus, he a young, cocksure musician, I a budding journalist with an ear for music. I told him about an idea: a singing newspaper. And, goddam him, he just laughed. Laughed and laughed. We didn’t speak for the rest of the bus ride, and the next time I saw him he was on national television.

But that was a long time gone. And these days, as I sit in the office of the finest musical news outlet in the nation, I reflect on the fact that I am neither fat nor dead. So you can eat your heart out, Presley.

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Damn that Geneva Convention—US Supreme Court rules 5-3 against legality of military tribunals in prosecution of Guantanamo prisoners. Critics of President Bush’s policies on Gitmo have been outspoken in their praise for the decision.

That the Interns have lately taken to calling the staff restroom “little Gitmo” does not please me; as it happens, our janitorial service has recently abandoned its contract after one too many unpleasant messes (about which the less details the better). That this lapse in sanitary upkeep coincided—by chance, and through no intervention on my part—with Ronaldo getting locked in for several hours earlier this week, has inspired a degree of humanitarian outrage from the Interns that I have not seen since the local minimart stopped stocking Nutty Bars.

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Not-so-straight still great—US Senate rejects gay marriage amendment. No word yet on followup legislation regarding the bi-curious.

Things are certainly gay around the office, today—gearing up for the weekend one and all, the Interns are, by my reckoning, more rambunctious and distracted than I think I have seen them all year. There is something about the Spring. There is, I reckon, something in the air. And while these rolicking idiot gods of youth culture I call my staff are not exactly what I would think of as marriage material, I admit that, on a personal level, it pleases me to know that any ill-considered matrimony that might occur to them is not utterly out of the question, regardless of gender.

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These are some sweaty, nervous, stonewalling shoes to fill—Scott McClellan is stepping down as White House Press Secretary.  I am almost afraid to contemplate the next data a point on a line descending from Ari Fleischer through McClellan.  Time will tell.

As for the song—we have several Irish Interns, or at the very least Interns who habitually patronize a nearby Irish Pub.  The seem to have got it into their heads that standing on a table and singing their assignment to local alcoholics is an acceptable use of company time.

And it’ll have to do; the entire staff seems to be in that rare state that goes beyond what could be decently described as hungover or even malaise.  I believe I will never see humans who more closely resemble the living dead.

Exciting things happening behind the scenes—more news next week.  The Marketing Director keeps high-fiving his assistant, but as his assistant is a life-size cardboard cutout of The Fonz, I do not want to unduly raise your hopes.

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As in America, so in Italy—Silvio Berlusconi refuses to concede the election.  Crucial absentee votes, demands for recounts, questions about discarded ballots: it hits a bit close to home.  But the current results favor challenger Romano Prodi.  If you’ll forgive the allusion, smart money says that the center-right cannot hold.

And so, an Italian song for an Italian story.  Or at least, an Italian-y song.  The Interns made various hand-waving arguments for the authenticity of the composition, mentioning (more times than one ought to) the notion of gondolas and lasagna.  I suspect their credentials on the subject are largely restricted to interactions with a certain ubiquitous Italian plumber, but, well, what does one do?

Often, one drinks.

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Tom DeLay, we hardly knew you.

Voices have spoken loudly—shrilly—gallingly—from both sides of the American political structure, and so I find that, standing here in the middle, their opposed and yet congruent protests cancel one another out in what our Audio Engineer likes to call destructive interference.  The result is a sort of storm-eye here in the office; I sip my coffee and see to business in the calm and quiet of it all.

In fact, it’s rather too quiet.  God knows what the Interns are doing.

I have heard it on the wire that we may see a good number of Yahoo! readers today, and so I say welcome; leave us a comment; don’t break anything; and, for god’s sake, buy something.

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No more dawdling!  So said US Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, on Tuesday, to Iraqi politicians:  Senators push Iraq to form government.  Apparently, Iraqi leaders have been fighting the good infight since the formation of a permanent parliment in December of 2005, and the Senators—Levin, Warner, and four others—want to see something get done.

I am, frankly, confused:  are we not trying to help Iraq create a free democratic society in the very mold of the American vision?  And yet we want their politicians, of all people, to be efficient?

A wire has been crossed, somewhere.

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I don’t like this a damned bit.

Abortion has always been and will always be a difficult and contentious issue.  Few ideas are so immediately and so passionately divisive among Americans as is abortion, with all of the ethical and spiritual and social nuances it encompasses.  Agreement will not be forthcoming any time soon, if ever; fundamentally conflicting beliefs inform opposing viewpoints on the subject—and such views, in their variety and in our duty to allow and preserve them though their holders may vehemently disagree with one another, are in fact one of the key virtues of our national character.  It is an issue that cannot but polarize us because we are Americans.

But still—I don’t like this one god damned bit.

What the legislative body of South Dakota have made, what Governor Rounds is poised to make law, is a cynical, regressive play to lay foundation for an attack on a 33-year-old Supreme Court decision.  This is politics, and is, essentially, par for the course, and I can accept if not necessarily respect that aspect of the situation.

What I can’t accept is the message the lawmakers of South Dakota are willing to send to their own citizens in the course of their politicking:  that rape, incest, serious medical harm, even mere stark unpreparedness to raise a child are no excuse for an abortion.  The emotional and physical well-being of every woman in South Dakota has been made collatoral damage in a war of ideology.  No matter that the law will be challenged.  No matter that in fact abortion in South Dakota will likely become no more difficult than it already is, in the short term.  The principle stands:  South Dakota prefers its ideological hardlining to the health of its women.

It is evidence of my own strong feelings on the subject that today’s issue so ill-humored—for that, I apologize on behalf of The Aural Times, and pledge to return to a lighter touch next issue.  Until then, I wish you all the best of health, or, if fate has barred that door to you, the freedom to look after yourself as best you see fit.

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US Vice President Dick Cheney shoots 78-year-old Austin-based attorney Harold Whittington while hunting quail in Corpus Christi. VP Cheney was hunting quail without a properly stamped license. At press time, inquiries as to whether Cheney’s license was stamped for attorneys remain unanswered.

And with that, allow me to say hello and welcome to the inaugural edition of The Aural Times. It is my very great pleasure to introduce this fine new publication; and it is my great hope that you will find it a uniquely satisfying supplement to your standard news and/or musical diet.

Which is not to say I think you need to diet.

No, no, you look great. Really. I was—look, can we just forget—

Right. Anyway, welcome to The Aural Times. Read. Listen. Enjoy. And remember:

We Sing The News So You Don’t Have To.

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