Lou's gone, but I'm back

Blogging hiatus caused by rotator cuff surgery on my left shoulder (yes, I am left handed). I can type now, so look out!

Like so many people, the Velvet Underground totally transformed my idea of what music could be and what could qualify as "good". While I was more of a John Cale guy than a Lou Reed guy, Reed was a modern music colossus.

Here's a great Reed cover:






And here's a very Velvets inspired band that I love (check the words around the 1:10 mark):

Oklahoma: cradle of songwriters

Wow. JJ Cale passed away. Mostly known as a writer of hits for other performers, Mr. Cale was from Oklahoma.

Which for such a small state has a strong musical pantheon.

Start of course with Woody Guthrie.

Then consider that Lee Hazlewood was an Okie too. Who? You know, the "these boots were made for walkin'" guy.  His music was covered by Rowland S. Howard,  Vanilla Fudge, Lydia Lunch, Primal Scream,  Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Beck, The Tubes, Thin White Rope and Slowdive.

How 'bout if we hop over to Hoyt Axton next. Yep, he was an Okie. Wrote songs that were hits for Three dog night and Steppenwolf. "Jeremiah was a bullfrog Okie"!

Heck, Wallis Willis, who wrote "swing low sweet chariot" was an Okie.

Not impressed yet? OK, let's kick it up a notch

Jimmy Webb? Okie! You know, the "by the time i get to Phoenix" guy. His songs were covered by
Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M.,  Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, and Carly Simon among others.

Then there is the great Leon Russell. I love this guy.

St. Vincent (Annie Clark) is an Okie. I just assumed she was (gasp) Canadian!

So is Dwight Tilley!

Was disappointed to find out that Wayne Coyne, the frontman of the amazing Oklahoma band Flaming lips was born in Pittsburgh! We'll still count him as an honorary Okie though (just like me).

And people I'm not even getting into the slew of modern country "artists" from here (Vince Gill, Toby Keith, Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, et. al).

That is a very strong line up.

James Buchanan: a personal remembrance

I got hired as an assistant professor at GMU in 1984, right after the Public Choice Center moved there from Blacksburg. GMU interviewed me at the AEA meetings that year. It was a two-stage interview. I met in the living room with Phil Wiest and someone else who I can't recall. After having "passed" that initial interview, I was escorted into the bedroom where Jim was sitting on the bed in a shirt and tie and stocking feet (and pants too!).  He proceeded to grill me for about 20 minutes. I left the interview thinking it had not gone well.

But I got a flyout and, after surviving some serious hazing from Gordon Tullock at my job talk, got and accepted an offer.

Shortly thereafter Jim won the Nobel Memorial Prize. As an assistant professor, I would circulate working papers to several senior colleagues (Tollison, Tullock, Crain, Buchanan). Jim would respond with a typed letter giving comments and criticism. I was made an associate of the Public Choice Center and started getting summer money.

Then I wrote a paper (never published) testing whether surprise deficits raised interest rates (they didn't). Never got any comments from Jim. In fact, I don't think he ever spoke to me again.

But I didn't get kicked out of the Center, and he supported me for tenure (if he hadn't of, I wouldn't have gotten it).

Buchanan was both an intimidating and an inspirational figure to me as a young professor. I would not ever say we were friends or even friendly, but I learned a lot from him and his support was important for launching my career (such as it is).

Belated RIP for Escalade

Massive baller Troy "Escalade" Jackson died last week. He was a phenomenon to be sure:

I never knew that he was Mark Jackson's little brother. More here.

Hat tip to LeBron!

Wrath of Khan

Bob Frank takes the death of Al Kahn as an occasion to launch into bizarre attacks on macro theory and airline deregulation.

KAAAAAAHHHHHNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!

Apparently Al once said "if you can't explain what you are doing in plain English, you're probably doing something wrong", which I guess means the general theory of relativity is pure bullcrap.

Bob riffs off this to "If you can’t describe what your model says in plain English without provoking derisive laughter, it probably doesn’t say anything of value”, and says Macroeconomists should take heed.

KAAAAAHHHHHHNNNNNNNN!!!!

I must say though, that I've never thought it was hard to say what DSGE models were saying in plain English without getting laughs. I did find it so hard to say what textbook Keynesian models were doing with a straight face that I had to quit teaching intermediate macro.

Bob then returns to his main theme, an appreciation of all things Kahn:

"Many disgruntled air travelers remember him unfavorably as the chief architect of commercial airline industry deregulation. But as he was quick to remind critics, planes now fly with many fewer empty seats than they used to, resulting in much lower average fares, after adjusting for the sharp increases in operating costs that have occurred in the interim."

KAAAAAHHHHHNNNN!!!!!

Um, I'm pretty sure there was a lot more to airline deregulation than decreasing the number of empty seats on flights. There was entry, there were new routes, there was the opening of air travel to the middle class. In short the industry was transformed in a way that massively benefitted consumers.

I'm not sure why Bob is so conflicted that here in his homage to Al, he feels the need to take shots at Al's crowning achievement.

Bob then ends with a heartwarming story about how kind and beloved Al was:

"A story circulating at the time described an English professor’s complaint to him about the high salaries of economics professors. “Perhaps you should consider starting an English consulting firm,” he is said to have responded."

If I didn't know better, I'd think Bob didn't actually like Al very much.

Don Van Vliet, RIP

Captain Beefheart has died. I still listen to his first two classic albums (safe as milk and trout mask replica) and he was an accomplished artist. He was 69 years old.

Mel Hinich, R.I.P

KPC friend Chateau emailed me this morning with the sad news that social scientist extraordinaire and frequent Mungowitz co-author Mel Hinich passed away last night. Mel was 71, and our thoughts go out to his family in this tough time.

Ben Keith, RIP

People, the man who made me like the pedal steel guitar has passed away at 73 years of age.

I never knew that Ben Keith was not his full real name, and I didn't know that he'd produced Jewel's big selling debut album.

But I do know that he played on and contributed to some fantastic music and will be missed.

Manute Bol: RIP

People, Manute Bol has died at the age of 47. In my earlier life (pre Mrs. A), Tyler and I were Bullets season ticket holders during the Manute era. We got to see this:

Yes, seven feet seven inches and five feet three inches on the court at the same time. Bill Veck had nothing on Abe Pollin.

On the court, Manute was a shooting guard trapped in overly tall body. His favorite thing in basketball clearly was taking three pointers (something that his coach, Wes Unseld, didn't think very highly of), though he was also a prolific shot blocker.

Off the court, Manute did not have an easy life either before or after basketball. The Washington post has an excellent story on him here.

Sad News

Angus Maddison has died.

Rowland S. Howard has died!

People it has been a very bad week for the music world. On the heels of Vic Chesnutt, Rowland Howard has died of liver cancer.

I am a huge Rowland S. Howard fan. He was a member of The Birthday Party, the incredible, seminal Aussie punk/garage/noise/grunge band.

Beyond that, I loved These Immortal Souls, which I took to mainly to be a solo project and his collaboration with another one of my now dead heros, Nikki Sudden.

Man, Nikki Sudden, Epic Soundtracks, and now Rowland Howard are all dead.

YIKES!!

Vic Chesnutt, R. I. P.

American poet/songwriter Vic Chesnutt is dead. 

Wow, this is very bad news. I was very late in arriving at an appreciation of Vic. It didn't happen until Mrs. Angus and I saw him play live in a bizzaro "super-group" called "The Undertow Orchestra" which was him, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), Will Johnson (Centro-matic), and Mark Eitzel (American Music Club). 

We went because of Bazan and Johnson, but Vic stole the show.

Check out his music if you haven't had a chance, starting perhaps with "West of Rome" or "Silver Lake". 

A bad week for Icons

First Paul Samuelson, then Arthur Goldberger and now Oral Roberts have died this week. Oral was 94 and apparently an Okie.

Paul Samuelson: RIP

Paul Samuelson died today at the age of 94. He won the Nobel prize in Economics in 1970. He had a huge influence on the profession both as a researcher and as a textbook author. 

However, given current circumstances, I wonder if he would like to retract this quote:

“I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws — or crafts its advanced treatises — if I can write its economics textbooks”