Do The Right Thing. Health Care Now.

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No more politics. Affordable health care for all now.

Cut The Crap--Get Us Health Care We Can Afford

Because I have the often mentioned, little understood "pre-existing condition," having had leukemia and a successful bone marrow transplant, I can only get health insurance through one insurer, Blue Cross. I cannot be a part of my family's policy, which would save us nearly $5000 a year in premiums, nor can I add them to my policy. My wife and children have a separate policy with American Community, who today doubled our premiums after a "review" of our policy. Translation: Either my wife or my kids went to the doctor last year, and may even had a prescription or two. Consequently we have what amounts an additional monthly mortgage payment to pay for health care. Even at that the co-pays are usurious. I-we-us--can't afford it. Period. Who can?


Now, because of the results of a special election in a distant state from mine, we're being told that the Obama health care plan is dead. I won't bore with you with the odious facts surrounding this country and our lack of a national health care plan; let's just say that we can't get out of our own way because of a ridiculous ideology.

The Massachusetts Senate race and its consequences crystallizes the problem: Debate is only about personality and the insipid left/right extremes of ideology; ideology wins, the media calls it "voter reaction to the present situation," and health care dies. Again and again, nothing gets done--we're the losers, time and again. Ideology is pointless; change the system.

The Republican candidate in Massachusetts, Scott Brown, wooed the Teabag/Libertarian crowd with the standard talk about "getting government off our backs." To what end? So these insurance companies can crawl further up our ass? I mean, where's ANY upside for us, the people in all of this pointless rhetoric?

Apologies for the scatological vocabulary, but I'm very angry, and feel insignificant and used. The mood of these times. I'll entertain electing anyone who can get something done. Probably what the Italians said before electing Mussolini, but here we are.

The populist refrain of "Throw the bums out and get new blood" holds no water these days. We see with the Kennedy seat that it's either continued status quo or the other extreme. So as an electorate we just bounce from pole to pole depending upon results, and nothing gets done.

Don't like the left? Vote the right in, with predictable results. Don't like the right, vote the left in. There's only an eyelash difference between them anyway, and the result is no results for us. They personally become enriched or empowered, as do the coterie of people who funded their election, who are usually already wealthy.

But we get stuck holding the bag. Health insurance, mortgages, credit, property insurance...it's getting very difficult to survive in this system. All of these libertarian tax zealots vote the likes of Scott Brown into the Senate because they're worried about taxes...that's the least of our worries. They never consider living with the alternative, which is not easy. For industrialized countries, we're among the least taxed, with the most services.

At least when I pay my taxes, I'm getting something for my dollars, or my fellow brothers & sisters are getting assistance, social programs or educations. Same cannot be said of my interactions with insurance companies, mortgage companies, phone companies, ad nauseum.

All the people in Congress are worried about media portrayal, so they posture. Mostly they're worried about maintaining power and influence, which they use in a frivolous game of Congressional pecking order. Stay in office, stay connected, keep the gravy train rollin'.

The health care question and process is surely complex, detailed, difficult and politically (and socially) combustible. But it's also very simple if we act from a philosophical--not ideological--point of view. And that begins with health care as an earned right upon birth.

After that, it's just about political will. Period. The Obama administration has thus far shown little political will outside of getting elected. Bring that same understanding of the time, place and people to the job. Just cut the crap and get it done. We're all dyin' on the vine out here. We need a simple, affordable health care plan. We can afford wars, both covert and semi-declared. We can afford bailouts for enormous and enormously corrupt corporations. Cut the ideological crap and give us a health care plan we can afford.

Comes A Time: Jill Jack's Songwriter Sessions

Jill Jack is one of my longest held and best friendships in music. She sang with me in the early 90s, when both of us were taking the first broad, uncertain steps toward solo careers. Since then we’ve worked together not infrequently, been proud parents of kids at the same school (not parents of the same child, but hey it’s all a blur), and been friends and fans of each other’s work. We essentially have the same job—principal songwriter in a large band bearing our own name, which makes you de facto bandleader, conceptual visionary, reluctant employer, and automatic arbiter of musician’s complaints and frets. So we’ve had a lot of vocational issues to talk through and laugh about through the years.

If you’re reading this anywhere in Michigan, you’re likely aware that Jill needs no further explanation. She’s won, like two thousand Detroit Music Awards (actually 24 and counting), and has built an audience based on eclectic, intense and genuine live performances. Genuine is the defining term here. I’ve known few performers with less conflict between who they are on stage and off than Jill Jack. You get all of her in a performance, and then some.

Jill has also released several lovely cds in the past that fall loosely in the alt-country category to a lot of fans, but were always rock records with country leanings to my own ears. Love Hotel was one such terrific record, built on poetic metaphors and Jill’s clear, fetching voice. Her band has been a wonderful group for many years—Billy Brandt, himself an established folk artist and archivist, on guitar, mandolin and vocals; the brightly talented producer Nolan Mendenhall on bass; Ron Pangborn on drums, probably the finest drummer for songwriters and the specific idiosyncrasies of their songs in the Motor City; and pianist Dale Grisa, who has the talent, wisdom and restraint to approach songs with a sparse, melodic certainty.

All that musical experience and accomplished dexterity would be attenuated, however, if there weren’t compelling songs to sing and play. With her brand new cd/dvd, Songwriter Sessions, Jill delivers on the promise she’s been making to her adoring audiences in clubs and theaters for 15 years. It’s a record as brave as it is enjoyable. Jill, her band, and an extended group of musicians recorded all new material over two nights at the Hartland Music Hall in Hartland, Michigan in front of fresh audiences both nights. I’ve always loved Jill’s natural rapport with audiences, but she has had the guts here to forgo all spoken introduction to her songs and let them live or die on their own merits—a wise choice, and it succeeds with a shining warmth anyway.

The cd package is completed by a full length DVD concert film of the performances. It concludes with two bonus studio tracks, one of them being “Live Like There’s No Tomorrow.” I’d say if you want to know who Jill is as a person and artist, listen to this last song first, then move through the concert songs. It’s very difficult to complete a picture of your self, your world, and your music, a picture that your band and audience can understand and relate to, and Jill makes it sound easy with “Live Like There’s No Tomorrow.”

Writing, rehearsing and recording all unheard material with a large band is an enormous task and immense leap of faith, and Jill and her enhanced 9 piece band make it sound like it’s a well worn set, full of swampy rhythms, bluegrass harmonies, brilliant guitar and pedal steel playing and smart arrangements. Jill knows how to cast a band: Some of our area’s finest musicians help with this recording. Drew Howard on pedal steel and dobro, Jason Dennie on mandolin, Colin Linden on shimmering guitar parts, and Jen Sygit, Mark Iannace and daughter Emma Jack on vocals. As beautifully as it’s all sung and played, the material is crisply recorded and mixed by Neil Sever, Linden, Jason Fisher and Jim Kissling. Jill and her band will celebrate the release of Songwriter Sessions with a couple concerts this month--the first being January 9 at Callahan's in Auburn Hills, followed by a show January 15 at the Black Crystal Cafe in Ann Arbor.

But it’s Jill’s show. Where in the past her singing was a tug of war between Emmy Lou Harris and Dusty Springfield, or between a sweet, knowing country tone and a heartier soul delivery, she’s now firmly in control of her own tone and style. Her vocal command is buoyed by an understanding of her own melodic phrasing and the harmonic construction of her songs. Her songwriting has grown to seemingly include classic country (think Harlan Howard’s simplicity), traditional singer-songwriter stylings that she and I both grew up with (Joni Mitchell, acoustic Bob Seger, Bob Dylan) and even the sophisticated chord changes of Broadway giants Richard Rodgers or Cole Porter. The full effect is an artist and band in full bloom—a complete, sweet statement of living, loving and learning.

Songwriter Sessions is largely a quiet affair—intimate in its sound, seating and message. Where the songs were once built around Jill’s under-rated acoustic guitar playing, the rhythm section now delivers its own internal feel, swaying and grooving with Jill’s lyrics and, ultimately, her singing.

All 15 songs are tender, written and sung as affirmative maxims or detailed narratives—little movies for the ears. By keeping her arrangements unadorned and clean, Jill relies on her lyrics to carry the brunt of each song’s emotional tone. This further confirms what I meant by this record being brave—the lyric needs to be very much a part of life, and living, with each emotional detail carrying a sensory reality, something we can touch and see. No small feat, and it works. “My Heart’ll Never Be The Same” and “Child Within” exemplify this lyrical discipline the best, with “Tumbleweed” carrying on in the continuum of folk sing-alongs.

Jill’s music has matured to the point where many of her songs now sound obvious, i.e. they had to exist at some point. Almost like found melodies, or when you first hear a song and swear it should’ve been a song long before. It’s called connecting, and it’s the sign of a real artist, open to her own defeats, victories, hopes dashed, dreams fulfilled, her muse, her loneliness, her misplaced love, and her romantic successes. The songs carry those things we can’t easily discuss, one of art’s higher purposes.

It’s thrilling to hear another musician realize any artistic dream; when it’s a friend, it’s as inspiring as it is thrilling. In any scene, in any era, in any part of the world, there’s a tendency to forever catalogue someone where they were when you first discovered them. We change and grow and develop and become more than we were, however. We are not what we were when. Not always, anyway. If you want living proof of this premise, live with Jill Jack and her Songwriter Sessions for a few days.