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Day Six Intinerary:
Girls try to go to Versailles
Musee d’Orsay
Boys make it to Versailles

The boys were too tired to wake up — they’d been out until 6 am wandering around Paris looking for a nightclub that would admit a couple of scruffy 17-year-old American boys — so the girls and I ventured off to Versailles without them. There was a three-hour line to get tickets, so we decided not to wait.  We regrouped and headed off to the fabulous Musee d’Orsay. We had a plan to get an early start tomorrow and be the first people in line for the Versailles Palace when it opened.

The D’Orsay is a spiritual experience for me. I went around checking in with my favorite paintings and just feeling very grateful to be there. We met up with the boys for dinner and heard about their adventures. They’d taken the train to Versailles, had jumped the line for tickets because they’re under 18 and are admitted free, and explored the whole palace.

The structure is still breathtaking

WENT TO THE SYMPHONY last night at the Disney Hall with Garth. We heard an imaginative piece by Hadyn that was originally commissioned by a church in Spain for their Good Friday service. The performance alternated words that Jesus said from the cross with a corresponding piece of music. The whole thing too about an hour and was performed completely in the dark. I guess the church in Spain started the tradition by covering the windows with swaths of heavy fabric. I’m glad that the LA Phil is reaching out to do imaginative pieces of work. While I often criticize the audience-torturing modern commissions, a seldom-performed work like this Hadyn piece is a real gem.

This is a song entitled “Handlebars” that came out last year from a band called Flobots. I caught the tail end of the song on the radio yesterday and was reminded of this amazing video. If you haven’t seen it, take the next three minutes and treat yourself. Political metaphors abound.

The Sunday talk shows still lead the news cycle

BOTH MEN participated in the round table on “This Week,” George Stephanopolous’s show on the Sunday morning talk show curcuit. George Will presents the pure conservative position and Robert Reich the liberal. They were discussing what should be done about AIG specifically, and the banks in general that are being bailed out with TARP funds. Mr. Will said that AIG should submit to the discipline of the market by reorganizing under the appropriate chapter of bankruptcy. Mr. Reich said, “you’ll ge no disagreement from me there.” They both seemed surprised to find themselves in agreement.

TO ANYONE WHO WANTS to read one article and come away with a complete understanding of the financial meltdown, allow me to make a recommendation. It’s a piece by Matt Taibbi in the issue of Rolling Stone that just hit the stands yesterday [1075, April 2, 2009].

Using AIG as a case study, he lays out the the entire imbroglio in a story format explaining who the key players are and what terms like credit-debt swap actually mean. Sample excerpt:

… The Patient Zero of the global economic meltdown was one Joseph Cassano, the head of a tiny 400-person unit within the  company called AIG Financial Partners, or AIGFP. Cassano, a pudgy, balding Brooklyn College grad with beady eyes and way too much forehead, cut his teeth in the Eighties working for Mike Milken, the granddaddy of modern Wall Street debt alchemists…..Cassano, by contrast, was just a greedy little turd with a knack for selective accounting who ran his scam right out in the open, thanks for Washington’s deregulation of the Wall Street casino. ‘It’s all about the regulatory environment, says a government source involved with the AIG bailout. ‘These guys look for holes in the system, for ways they can do trades without government interference. What is unregulated, all the action is going to pile into that.’

For some reason this piece does not appear on the Rolling Stone website. It might be a chapter in a forthcoming book and Mr. Taibbi wished to retain online rights. Whatever the case, it’s worth tracking it down. If you email me I’ll fax or snail mail you a xerox. Or support print, and go buy a copy of the magazine.

I GOT SOME criticism yesterday regarding my comment on Brendan Flowers, lead singer for the Killers. Who am I to judge his level of commitment to the Mormon church? How can I say he’s not devout?

Well, people, a picture tells a thousand words. In the photo below, Brendan appears with his wife. Now, if you are a devout Mormon, you get married in the Temple and afterwards vow to wear “temple garments” which are always to be worn under your clothes. They go from knees to V-neck, with a capped sleeve. The goal is to remind oneself of the sacredness of the human body (created in God’s image) and to protect one’s chastity.

C’mon kids, is Mrs. Flowers wearing her temple garments under that sassy gold shift? Do you imagine Brendan is too? The answer is no. At most, my take is the BF is Mormon lite, which is fine, but that’s not the same as devout.

Also, Mormons are not exactly down with the eyeliner androgyny look. It’s a conservative faith that vehemently opposes gay marriage. They’re not cool with gender-bending makeup.

I just don't see this dude at a Priesthood Meeting

I HEARD Brendan Flowers, lead singer of The Killers, interviewewed on the radio and it went a little something like this: DJ: “What’s up with ‘are we human or are we dancer’?” Flowers: “It’s my band, I write the lyrics, and I can do what I want.”

Must admire his spunk. We gotta fight for the right to broadcast gibberish.

The curious thing about Mr. Flowers is not just his name or his odd use of syntax but the fact that he’s a practising Mormon. As someone raised in the faith, I gotta wonder: WTF. As with all other religions, Mormon followers land somewhere on a continuum of faithfulness. The truly devout eschew Coca Cola and shopping on Sundays, the merely devout don’t drink coffee and pay 10 percent of their gross income to the church. Sure there are heritage Mormons, like myself, who are proud of their pioneer ancestors who opened up the American West, but who don’t claim to practice the religion.

Hard to imagine a rocker like BF being a devout Mormon. After the show, is he going back to his trailer with some Postum and a copy of The Ensign, the Mormon magazine? Mormonism is an all or nothing committment, and let’s face it: he just doesn’t look a thing like Jesus.