A Captive Audience

When is the unbridled enthusiasm of one too much for another to take? At what point does a person’s chirpy pep become overwhelming, annoying and ultimately mood-souring?

This morning I boarded the city bus to the office. I was greeted by the eager young driver.

“All aboard! Let’s rock and roll! Bus is in motion!” he exclaimed.

Though I’m more accustomed to a somber, sighing driver, I shrugged and paid this excitable man no mind. But once I sat down, it was clear that this bus driver was unlike any other I’d ridden with before. He loudly announced his every turn, gleefully shouting out the colors of passing cars to no one in particular. Stop by stop, the bus filled up as the driver continued with his shtick.

“Whoa! Left turn! Bicycle on the right! Hang on, folks!”

I put in my headphones and pushed play on my iPod, noticing the rolling eyes and irritated exhalations of other passengers. Clearly, this perky bus driver’s commentary was not what 45 commuters wanted to hear at 7:30 on a Monday morning. Over a quiet moment or during a break between songs, I could still hear the driver.

“All right! Ready or not, here we go! Anyone need off at the hospital? Okay!”

With my music turned up, I wondered what the driver’s motivation could be. Was he simply a happy guy with no filter? Was he trying to cheer up people with a case of the Mondays? Did he misguidedly think that part of his job description was to entertain the passengers? Either way, his captive audience was anything but amused. People shot him dirty looks (which he either didn’t see or chose to ignore), ruffled their newspapers conspicuously and shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.

“Rose Quarter! Blazers look good this year! Watch your step! And we’re off again!”

Not wanting to subject myself to any more of the bus driver’s grating remarks, I turned up my iPod even louder and let my mind wander. Would somebody eventually tell him to shut up? Had someone already done so to no avail? I imagined how the conversation might have gone, the annoyed rider speaking in harsh tones to the ever-chipper driver.

“Would you please keep it down. There’s no need to yell.”
“Just trying to enjoy myself, sir! Trying to keep things fun and exciting in the otherwise monotonous task of bus-driving! My life sucks!”

On one hand, it’s hard to fault a guy for trying to make his day at work more pleasant. On the other hand, this bus driver probably got more people’s mornings off to a bad start than a cold pot of decaf. I, for one, was relieved to get off the bus, relieved for the first time to go to work on a Monday morning.

Brian Unger

Brian Unger writes:

The health care debate is toxic, revealing a lot about us as a nation. And it feels embarrassing — like the whole world can see our underpants. Or hear us fighting in the kitchen.

First, most of us can't describe accurately the details of the health care reform now under debate. That makes us look stupid or too busy to care.

Second, most of us can't describe accurately the health care or insurance we currently have, so that makes us look kind of stupid, too, or lazy.

Some of us don't care about people who don't have health insurance, so that makes us seem unsympathetic or super lucky.

Most of us don't understand that we're already paying for people who don't have health care — which makes us too busy to care, in denial or merely rich.

Some of us — a lot of us — already receive health care under some form of government plan, but don't believe in health care under some form of government plan. That makes us hypocritical or selfish. In some camps, I hear that makes us patriotic.

A lot of us are a combination of these things: too busy, lazy, a bit stupid perhaps, lucky, unsympathetic, in-denial, really rich, hypocritical, selfish ... and patriotic.

We're having an identity crisis when it comes to caring about the nation's health, which makes me think what we really need is psychotherapy. But, sadly, that's not covered under most health plans, if you have one at all.

To many, health care reform is scary, like someone's building a halfway house for criminals right at their doorstep. It's a N.I.M.B.Y. ("Not In My Backyard") issue evolved into a N.O.M.B.O. ("Not On My Back, Obama") issue.

People never change. But policy can, so our health care reformers must get more creative and visionary.

How about a Cash for Clunkers Program? Not for cars, but for older, beat-up people whose bodies have wear and tear, and can't go long distances when they're filled with gas?

Our government is offering us $4,500 to buy a new car. Can it also offer humans incentives — say, a tax break — to join a gym? To quit smoking? Or to buy produce from local farmers? Reward schools that teach kids how to eat right and exercise? You know, kind of like that class we used to offer kids called "gym."

Let's pay people to stay healthy, instead of only paying for them when they get sick. Then maybe our nation will find its compassion, the one true antidote for its health care identity crisis.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111736487

Brian Unger is a writer, satirist and actor. He helped launch The Daily Show and he is a regular contributor to NPR. I heard him read the above on my way home from work yesterday. Like him, I’m embarrassed that so many people are up in arms about an issue and policies they know so little about. The people disrupting town halls across the country are just making things worse. If you’re upset, by all means be heard by your elected legislator--just don’t shout them down without listening. A town hall meeting is your chance to speak your mind or ask a question of your legislator and to get a direct response. Why bother showing up to the meeting if you’re unwilling to hear them out?

Josh Keyes

As a kid, I was always fascinated with atlases and geography books. It wasn’t just the maps and their inherent sense of possibility and mystery; it was the detailed diagrams exhibiting earth science and the natural landscape that excited me.

Looking at a monochromatic continent littered with dots, stars and foreign names that was edged by an equally dull blue mass certainly inspired a sense of wonder. But the visual image was still so bland--lifeless and insipid. Tracing lines with my finger, surveying borders and imagining physical features, never set my mind reeling quite like a cross-section of our incomprehensibly giant planet, split down the middle like a halved apple. Or a slice of the rainforest, cut cleanly from the wilds of Brazil and illustrated with detail and clarity. Here, I could see the layers of the earth, the mantle confining the molten core. I could examine the strata of a jungle, the canopy teeming with just as much drawn fauna as the floor. There were solid blocks of ocean (surface to bottom), the water, sediment and sea life contained by invisible walls, where I could consider the levels and depth of the Pacific and how the change in temperature and light affected its ecosystem. Diagrams like these weren’t just visually stimulating; they helped me contextualize a map. The scale and scope of the dioramic graphics, often given a quarter-turn to show more dimension, could be applied to the featureless surfaces of the maps, making them more lively.

And so it was with great pleasure that I stumbled upon Josh Keyes’ work in an art magazine. He is an Oakland-based artist who paints almost exclusively in acrylics. His pieces recall those same vintage-science-book diagrams, hyper-realistic but with a mysterious and sometimes unsettling juxtaposition between the natural world and the man-made landscape. Conclude what you will.

The Efficacy of Complaining About Things One Cannot Control...

...specifically the weather.

The people of Portland (and most of the great state of Oregon) are in the thick of a heat wave. This particular heat wave is not unlike the heat waves we experience every summer, yet something’s different this time. Yes, it is certainly hot outside. No, it is no hotter than the hottest days we had last summer or even the summer before. Still, what’s strange is the amount of complaints I’m seeing and hearing.

I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m assuming you have some understanding of both of these social networking platforms. Both sites have a homepage that lets you see what all your ‘friends’ want you to see in the form of ‘status updates’ on Facebook and ‘tweets’ on Twitter. These can range from details as mundane and pointless as “my dog just farted” or “I have smelly feet” to earth-shattering news like “I cast my vote for Mousavi but Ahmadinejad’s goons didn’t count it” and “holy shit, I just saw Lindsey Lohan leaving a club.” In addition, users can share photos, videos and links that they think their ‘friends’ might find interesting (I’m using interesting in the loosest sense of the word).

This week, instead of the usual ‘updates’ and ‘tweets’ regarding current events and happenings, vacation photos and remarkable videos, I’ve been bombarded with a deluge of gripes. A solid 90% of my homepage is composed of folks whining about the heat. Granted, it’s pretty damn hot out, even at night. But complaining about the weather solves nothing. It doesn’t make one cooler. It just makes one a crybaby.

To clarify, updating or tweeting something along the lines of “I’m hella hot” or “it’s hella hot” cannot be considered a complaint as much as an observation, albeit an arguably trivial one, whereas posting something like “I’m melting in this heat; I hate it--kill me now” or “this is hell--someone should either nuke the sun or kill me now” is nothing more than an ineffective protest, a futile grouse with no hope of resolution. Humanity has been, is, and (to a certain degree) will always be at the mercy of the weather and mother nature at large. Grumbling does not beget relief.

Perhaps the intention of the malcontents is not just moaning about the heat. Maybe they are seeking sympathy. Maybe they are reaching out to their online network of ‘friends’ for some sense of communal misery, some indication that they aren’t alone in being hot. I suppose this is one of the many functions of social networking, to connect like-minded and temperature-affected individuals. Whatever my friends’ aim, they won’t find sympathy from me. I’m hot too. We’re all hot. But really, what good can come out of complaining about something we can’t hope to change? Let’s just deal with it. Together. On Facebook. With less bellyaching.

goodies

The goods are over at gimdang.tumblr.

An Argument Against The Fadeout

Songs are like stories. Not inasmuch as they necessarily tell a tale or contain a narrative but because they have a beginning and an end. This cannot be refuted; a song starts and, with the passage of time, it reaches an end. Also like stories, some are good and some are bad. This judgment can sometimes be made on the strength of the song’s (or story’s) ending. For me, an ending doesn’t necessarily make the song. By that token, neither does the beginning. I’ve always judged a song’s merit on the sum of its parts rather than the coolness (or uncoolness) of one particular part. A good song always seems to be more about the journey than the destination anyway—the means to the end and not the end in and of itself. Still, a discernible ending is absolutely necessary. It’s the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the curtains. Without it, listeners can be left wondering whether something is amiss or whether or not the song has in fact ended. The sense of finality provided by an actual ending completes the composition and effectively wraps up the entire package (sometimes with a pretty little bow, sometimes with a smoldering bag and shit on your shoe). That’s why the fadeout, a commonly heard ‘ending’ in recorded music, is a total copout.

Now when I say fadeout, I mean the gradual decrease in volume until sound can no longer be heard. To be clear, the fading out of a single note or chord is natural and thus acceptable (a perfect example: the singular ringing chord at the end of The Beatles’ “A Day in The Life”) but the fading out of instruments at play is not (example: the full band’s playing and singing of the chorus that closes “Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds”). I’m sure there exist exceptions to my rule, but I don’t feel like getting that specific.

I see the fadeout as the easy way out of a song, the lazy songwriter’s ending. Why go to all the trouble to write an ending when you can just slowly dial down the master volume? It’s as if a simple coordinated stop at a certain point in a song is too much for a band to handle.

I should clarify something: just because you let a song fade out doesn’t mean you suck or that your song sucks. Hell, all the greats have done it. Capable bands like The Band have used the fadeout. “When You Awake” from 1969 inexplicably fades out in the middle of a verse before Rick Danko even stops playing (let alone singing). The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” arguably the greatest rock song ever (I don’t think so), fades out before satisfactorily ending. Steely Dan even goes so far as to fade out “Kid Charlemagne” while Larry Carlton solos. That’s like turning the lights out on Picasso, making him finish painting in the dark and never letting anyone see the finished product. In odd instances like these, my guess is that the fadeout wasn’t the songwriter’s original intention. Maybe the tape was damaged beyond repair and the band decided to do a fadeout instead of re-recording the song for whatever legitimate reason. Perhaps too, the fadeout was part of the plan all along.

Some argue that the fadeout is as artistic a statement as a well-written ending, making the end of the song less abrupt and lending to a tacit sense of continuation that might be best summarized by country supergroup The Highwaymen when they sing “the road goes on forever and the party never ends.” I concede that some songs with fadeouts are so great that an actual ending would be too climactic or almost sad in a way. The journey’s so extraordinary that the destination can only be a letdown. It’s like when the Griswolds finally make it to Wally World just to find it closed for business. “Sweet Jane” by The Velvet Underground, David Bowie’s “Drive-In Saturday,” Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in The Sand” and “Mambo Sun” by T.Rex would all sound strangely interrupted with an actual ending in place of their slow, almost unnoticeable fadeouts. However, when these songs were performed live, they had to have some kind of explicit ending. Otherwise nobody would know when to clap and go “whooo.”

The way I see it, it’s better to burn out than to fade away (in music, not life).

Michael Jackson, 1958-2009

He was a certified nut, burned by the limelight, the product of an abnormal upbringing, an object of intense scrutiny and understandably, a total freaky weirdo. But dude could dance, dude could sing--his talent and contribution to pop music and culture will continue to be undeniable.

Doctor Murdered in Kansas

The senseless murder of a doctor in Wichita, Kansas has highlighted the fanaticism of anti-abortion activists and effectively weakened their argument for the preservation of life.

Dr. George Tiller, 67, ran one of the nation’s few women’s clinics that performed late-term abortions. He was shot and killed while serving as an usher during morning services Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church. The gunman fired one shot at Tiller before threatening bystanders who attempted to stop him.

The suspected killer, 51-year-old Scott Roeder, was arrested three hours later. Roeder was a fierce opponent of abortion, posting passionate diatribes on sympathetic websites. One post read: “Bless everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp.”

Another of the few remaining late-term abortion clinics is in Boulder, Colorado, where Dr. Warren Hern denounced Tiller's killing as the "inevitable and predictable consequence of decades of anti-abortion" rhetoric and violence. "Dr. Tiller's assassination is not the lone and inexplicable action of one deranged killer," Hern said Sunday. "This was a political assassination in a historic pattern of anti-abortion political violence."

How upsetting that the group that condemns a woman’s right to choose and demonizes the doctors who help them feels the need to resort to violence. How painfully ironic that the group whose views are based on the sanctity of life and whose opinions are often informed by religion includes a man who took a life in a house of God.

As profoundly different as people’s opinions are in regard to abortion, expecting them to be resolved through violence, even murder, is terribly unrealistic and short-sighted. I just hope incidents like this hobble the pro-life movement instead of galvanizing its most ardent supporters.

King Khan & The Shrines storm Portland

Following his blistering set at Sasquatch last weekend, King Khan brought his Shrines to Dante’s last night for a feverish evening of blood, sweat and beers.

A Canadian by way of India, KK got his start playing with Montreal’s The Spaceshits before pairing up with Mark Sultan, aka BBQ (who incidentally opened the show and later joined KK for a song during the Shrines’ set), as The King Khan & BBQ Show.

In 1999, KK found himself in Berlin, where he ended up planting the seeds of the Shrines. Collecting players who shared his manic passion for ass-kickin,’ the band grew from humble roots into the ultra-tight monstrosity it is today. Along with nine other musicians and a go-go cheerleader, it would come to include Ron Streeter, an experienced percussionist who has played with everyone from Ike and Tina Turner to Curtis Mayfield, and Fredovitch, whose wrath-of-God church organ colors much of the group’s material.

Their garage-y sound fits somewhere between the freakbeat of Sun Ra and the empowering funk of James Brown with a bit of self-deprecating humor thrown in for good measure. They were in fine form last night. Though the weather outside the venue was mild, inside could be found a storm of mayhem with soul-power lightning as the band stewed a heady brew of psychedelic soul complete with reverb-soaked guitar, punchy horn blasts and gut-rumbling bass.

Regarded by some as the hardest working man in go business and sometimes named as the rightful heir to THE James Brown’s throne, King Khan has made a name for himself as a soul-stirring, half-naked wild-child with a penchant for theatrical showmanship. Taking the stage in a get-up that could only be described as tribal-chieftain-jungle-chic and launching into “Land of The Freak,” it became apparent that nothing could be more true.

The group ran through some familiar cuts, working the crowd into a frenzy with “Outta Harm’s Way” and “I Wanna Be A Girl,” which got more guys singing and dancing than expected. “Welfare Bread,” a smoothie-groovy tune about government aid, found Bamboorella (the Go-Go Queen of the Underworld) shaking gold glitter onto those closest to the stage.

As good as the band was, KK was still the main attraction: throwing furtive glances into the audience, laughing menacingly through an echoing microphone during “Shivers Down My Spine” and pausing at one point to command everyone to “freak the fuck out.” Obediently, all but the staunchest of too-cool kids complied.

He cut short “Burnin’ Inside,” interrupting the band for a super-South soul-sermon centered around the tale of him climbing inside his woman (taking off his shoes, of course) before crawling out like a “mucky watermelon.” Prowling the stage like a possessed pastor, KK converted the non-believers while reaffirming the faith of his followers. Indeed, if this show were a religious service, it’d be safe to consider the entire room saved.

But then things got weird during the encore. After leaving the stage to thunderous applause, he and the band returned. He had traded his cheetah print sport coat and tribal headdress for little more than a gold cape and a Darth-Vader-Death-Race helmet/mask. Awkward girls made their way to the stage too, dancing halfheartedly as if they were more concerned with being seen than enjoying the music. As if their presence wasn’t already a distraction, they began throwing handfuls of cake into the crowd and shoving it into the faces of band members. It didn’t quite add up. Then again, much of King Khan & The Shrines’ act doesn’t make much sense. Their appeal though, is undeniable.

Queen of Soul

It was a clear day. Steely Dan was playing “Hey Nineteen” in my head. I heard Donald Fagen deliver the eye-opening line to the song’s uninformed subject, the line that leads him to realize that he’s growing old and losing touch.

“She don’t remember the Queen of Soul.”

Thinking for a minute, something dawned on me: I don’t own any Aretha Franklin records. Though the generation gap between me and those who were around when She (that’s right, I’m capitalizing it) was releasing genre-defining records is large enough to excuse my negligence, I was embarrassed all the same.

Aretha Franklin is royalty. She is an institution. Her pipes are some of the most famous in music history, at once earth-shaking and spine-tingling, comforting and uplifting, able to leap naturally from breathy delicacy to gale-force power.

Her gift might be most evident on “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You).” The warm tone of Her voice nestles in producer Jerry Wexler’s arrangement, concealing the ticking time-bomb of soul power waiting to overheat and explode from Her chest.

“Call Me” features a somewhat meek, passive coo that slowly morphs into a pleading but controlled holler that demands a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Franklin’s command of Her range is exemplary. She has an uncanny ability to let Her robust voice seep in and connect to your subconscious, even when She’s really setting it loose. Just try and stave off the tingles around the three-minute mark of “Ain’t No Way;” there really er, ain’t no way.

Her version of “I Say A Little Prayer” is much more affecting than Dionne Warwick’s. The melisma that so often bogs down other singers’ attempts to prove their talent is used sparingly by Franklin, adding more texture and emphasis. Even when Her voice reaches the point where the power of other singers’ voices peak, you can tell She could go further, She’s got power to spare. What’s more, it all sounds natural. Nothing that comes out of Her mouth sounds forced or overly rehearsed.

She is truly a living legend, as Her track record makes clear: twenty number 1 singles over twenty years, seventeen Grammies and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. More than those quantifiable things are the lasting impressions She’s left on culture and music--an enduring legacy, bound to live on in the hearts, ears and voices of generations to come. Indeed, Fagen was on to something. Impossible to forget, I’ll always “remember the Queen of Soul.”

Time Life Music

Flipping through cable channels, often late at night, early in the morning or in the middle of the day, has yielded some highly entertaining paid programming over the years. From Vince and the ShamWow towel to Billy Mays and his miracle cleaning products; from Ron Popeil’s kitchen contraptions to George Foreman’s arsenal of grilling gadgets (sadly, I could go on), the litany of extended ads with their horrible hawking salesmen are ripe for ridicule. Still, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed the Time Life music commercials. Thoroughly.

For at least two minutes and sometimes as many as thirty, some wrinkled and washed-up forgotten star tells viewers about time and life and the songs that accompanied those memorable times and lives. Whether it was the folk music that tempered the turbulent ‘60s or the jukebox jams at the ‘50s soda shop; whether it’s Country Superstars or AM Gold, the good folks at Time Life music are banking on you finding a connection to one of their many wonderful compilations and picking up the phone to make that first of four easy payments.

The commercials always appealed to me because I was a music lover with a short attention span. In the interest of brevity, the ads played snippets of as many songs as they could, trimming the fat and playing the catchiest part of the tune before moving on to another. Where else in TV-land could I go to hear the best ten seconds of a great old song followed by the best ten seconds of another great old song?

Though I never accepted the offer of six CDs or cassettes containing all my ‘favorite songs together at last in one collection,’ I still really liked watching and listening to the infomercials. I even went so far as to take notes on songs and artists so I could find their work later on.

If anything, the advertisements exposed me to some musicians who enjoyed a little time in the limelight before retreating into obscurity. Now, with few outlets for bygone music aside from some oldies radio stations, these commercials and the compilations they push might be one of the last remaining means of exposure for some of the songs that time forgot. I’m just glad that Time Life remembered.

The Killers the band

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this band. When Hot Fuss came out in 2004 and slowly climbed the charts on the strength of its great singles, my faith in record-buyers was somewhat restored. Here was a band with talent, ambition and a sound that, while biting ‘80s synth-pop, was all their own at the time. To boot, they were selling enough records to rival the familiar pop, rap and country acts that tended to dominate the top spots.

I even remember seeing the band’s video for “Somebody Told Me” late at night on MTV2 before their debut even made a ripple (let alone a wave) and thinking “this band is going to be big.” Sure enough, four years and two other albums later, they are among the best-selling American groups and one of the bigger concert draws, counting both hipster elitists and TRL junkies as fans.

It comes as no surprise to me. They are a band of gifted songwriters and fine musicians. The production on their records is top notch and they seem to hold themselves to a high standard.

However, their shtick is becoming tiresome. With Sam’s Town, their second album, the band relied heavily on the epic grandeur of Springsteen’s open-road ballad sound. Though the release took them from the club to the arena, its derivative material did little to set them apart and make an original statement.

Their new LP, Day and Age, is another cut-and-paste exercise in style-biting. Perhaps an homage to the cheesy adult-contemporary sound of another (dare I say) Day and Age, it’s layered with synthesized grooves, tacky saxophone accents and more overdubbed tracks than a bustling rail terminal. The result is an over-the-top album that, while populated with catchy tunes, recalls a sound that was left to die decades ago and makes another weak case for the band’s originality.

As if their music’s overt sentimentality (now beginning to feel contrived) wasn’t enough, frontman Brandon Flowers’ ego is inflating. In the press, he is often quoted saying things like ‘my band is the voice of a generation,’ ‘we’re awesome,’ and so on. This point though, is moot. I don’t want to judge a band’s music by the people who make it—I’d rather let it speak for itself.

Either way, it’s speaking loudly and it’s telling me that it’s drowning in self-indulgence.

MULCH

Whether or not anyone noticed my absence from GimmeDanger, I'll explain it. I've been working on a zine for a good while and I'm finally looking at a short stack of the finished product. After all the writing, laying out, photo-hunting and laboring over different designs and color palettes, I realized that it'd cost me nearly $7 to reproduce a full color copy. With that, I've decided to issue it in black and white. The content is what you may have come to expect, "a collection of moot musings and mumbo-jumbo, MULCH is just that: a mixed blend of matter."

You can find MULCH in Portland at the downtown Powell's on Burnside while supplies last. Or you can get in touch with me and I'll mail you one. And yes, that is my cat on the cover.

on animal farm

In a move guaranteed to rile wannabe zookeepers, the Oregon Senate has approved a measure banning private possession of certain exotic animals as pets.

The measure would prohibit ownership of lions, tigers and bears (oh my) as well as monkeys, apes, and alligators. Lawmakers contend that it would protect both human safety and animal welfare.

I couldn’t agree more.

Under current law, people get permits from the state Department of Agriculture to keep exotic pets. The Senate bill would not force people to give up those pets but it would prevent people from obtaining new ones.

Sponsors of the bill said that often the exotic pets grow too large and too difficult to handle and they either escape or are let loose by their owners.

Even though the Oregon legislature is poised to dash my hopes of stocking a menagerie with animals that are better suited to lives in the wild than in my backyard, I suppose I’ll get by with a little Beezer cat.

The bill, which now advances to the House, would not affect wildlife rehabilitators, wildlife sanctuaries, zoos, circuses or research or educational facilities.

THIS JUST IN

This just in: City of Albany to revitalize downtown area, refurbish crumbling schools and construct Oregon’s first legit Nascar track.

Well, probably not.

But, since the Albany City Council voted to sue a subsidiary of PepsiCo for more than $100 million over the company's decision not to build a Gatorade and Propel Fitness Water factory in the city, it stands to collect some loot.

The city council voted 4-0 Monday to authorize the lawsuit, which alleges breach of contract.

Under a 2006 agreement, a PepsiCo subsidiary said it would build a $165 million beverage plant and a separate $85 million bottle-making factory on 241 acres the company bought.

Last November the company notified the city that because of market changes it had changed its mind.

With the country’s every state and municipality in dire economic straits, one has to wonder if the Council’s unanimous decision to sue was motivated by the city’s own lack of money.

To be sure, this legal battle will be costly and hard fought. PepsiCo is a giant organization with a team of skilled attorneys on its side. If the City of Albany doesn’t win the sum for which it is suing, this lawsuit may cost it more than it can muster and further compound its financial predicament.