The wrong artist; the Dylan movie; and Elena Rybakina’s troubling situation.

I’m All Lost In …

the 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.

#65

A word about Jimmy Carter, who was once an ongoing obsession of mine. This was mostly 30 years ago when he represented my handhold on the 1970s, a decade I cherished as an antidote to the reactionary Reagan 1980s and the confusing 1990s. In 1994, some friends and I had plans to start a magazine called 2 Magazine—the 2 would be a big Sesame Street 2. The conceit, as an excuse to have a forum for all of our bratty 20-something opinions, was that 2 would be a magazine of “second opinions,” shorthand for some contrarian hot takes. Well: We planned to put Jimmy Carter on the cover of the the debut issue, perhaps in his sweater during the eloquent “Crisis of Confidence” speech (the misnamed “malaise” speech), with the words, “America’s Best President” emblazoned next to his picture.

By the way, this was several months before the movie Pulp Fiction came out, and we had also planned some teaser cover text that said: “John Travolta, Most Underrated Actor.” Oh, and “Queen, World’s Second Best Band.”

Here’s another contrarian opinion—I felt it then, and believe it more today in the wake of Carter’s death and the predictable posthumous narrative: The whole “Carter-wasn’t-a-great-president, but-the-work-he-did-afterward-was-exceptional, and it-set-the-standard-for-post-presidential-careers” is a lazy backhanded compliment that vastly undersells his presidency. Certainly, the stagflation 1970s were a downcast drag and Carter was an elbow-y prick of a president who exuded some backhanded false modesty himself. But damn, his colloquial candor, emphasis on human rights, environmental consciousness (those solar panels!), and, of course, the Camp David Accords were an inspiring civic vibe that elevated the American experiment and American values.

RIP Jimmy Carter (and with him again now, Rosalyn Carter, who made this weekly list in December 2023).

And one more dispatch from this week’s headlines: Congestion Pricing, which is another ongoing obsession of mine. Attentive readers may remember that last June, I lamented NY Governor Hochul’s decision to torpedo Manhattan’s congestion pricing plan. And so, I’m encouraged, despite the lower charge, that the plan—the first in the U.S.—finally came online this week.

CG is a fair and legitimate offset fee for people who choose to live environmentally risky lifestyles. Here’s what I wrote in June:

Suburbanites want to eat their cake and have it too; otherwise they wouldn’t care about congestion pricing. But they want to live in GHG hot zones while flocking to cities—where, thanks to the underlying zoning for mixed-use and dense housing that’s forbidden in the suburbs, there’s a concentration of businesses, Bop Streets, services, restaurants, and exciting entertainment options. City cores should be compensated for maintaining and managing density. And more importantly, for making capacious (and voracious) suburban life possible.

But to make the charge actually address the problem at hand (and perhaps make it more popular), I’d recommend sending the money back to the people who are paying the fee. The catch (for them) is that the money would pay for transit upgrades and affordable housing in their neighborhoods, so they can achieve the density they seem to crave.

Rather than call it Congestion Pricing, I’d call this Sustainability Pricing. Share the density. I’d also levy the fee (in my Seattle version) on cars crossing into commercial hubs citywide, not just entering downtown. I explained all this in a 2023 PubliCola column where I pitched an Urban Discover Pass.

Okay. This week’s obsessions:

1) Actress the Rock Band, not Actress the U.K. Electronica Musician

My concert alert algorithm (mis)led me to the High Dive on Sunday night.

One of my favorite artists from my own Abstract R & B playlist is Actress, an Afro-British experimental electronic pop musician. And I thought I had tickets to see him conduct one of his atmospheric beats and computer seances at the High Dive, a small music club in Fremont, this week. My anticipation came with a lingering footnote, though: I was curious why he was opening for an unknown Sonic Youth adjacent rock act (who only seemed to have one song online). And why was the show scheduled for a lonely Sunday night in early January.

Upon entering the club, my nagging questions were quickly answered. There was a traditional guitars-and-drums rock band tuning up on stage. And they had a banner unfurled behind them that said in no uncertain terms, Actress. This was no avant-garde sine wave artist from the U.K. As I joked to my date (who I’d sold on a gummy-friendly ambient set): I think these are teenagers from Ballard High School. Their shaggy rock and roll haircuts certainly looked more teen set than computer scientist.

Thankfully, these glamorous vagabonds put on a wonderful show: A noisy, dual electric guitar attack over a parade of bangers that seemed playful and politically charged all at once. Their politics—at one point the front man, who wore his guitar hanging high on his chest over his heavy blue and white embroidered poncho, called on all the POC people to dance—seemed to be an exuberant mix of Chicano Power and queer identity.

Blazing a Chuck Berry/Ace Frehley electric guitar stance (or more accurately, a New York Dolls Johnny Thunders’ strut in plastic rain boots) the campy lead guitarist liked to blow kisses and wink at the small crowd as she played the role of a Tribeca starlet, leaning into meta rock god guitar solos and posing for a fan’s clicking camera at the lip of the stage.

Chicano Power and rock and roll, Fremont’s High Dive, 1/5/25

Actress’ retro glam rock set had the energy of a stadium concert and despite the misleading billing, I was the opposite of disappointed on this lit Sunday night.

2) The Dylan Movie

Enough Baby Boom stories. Enough regurgitating white male rock-god hagiography. And also, too on-the-nose for my I-was-a-Rolling-Stone-magazine-reading teenage life. The Dylan movie was definitely. not. on my list.

I saw it anyway, and I loved it. It’s certainly told in shorthand Hollywood strokes and lazy signifying images rather than through patient character development and nuanced story telling. But it’s an utter joy to hang out in Jane Jacobs-era Greenwich Village with its street vendors, basement clubs, poets, SNCC and CORE kids, and swirling precursor 1960s counterculture, i.e., thrift store bohemians as opposed to grungy hippies. There’s also a breathtaking quick trip to Joan Baez’s chic California lair. The mod sports car in the driveway perfectly matches the indigenous art and throw rugs of the rooms inside.

Timothée Chalamet has Dylan’s remote, acid-tongued contrarian shtick down to a shtick—kind of an easy assignment, to be honest. But it is a ton of fun to watch wry Dylan irk the righteous liberal folk set. And really, it’s Ed Norton as the increasingly wounded Pete Seeger, who steals the show. Norton’s ability to capture Seeger’s ricocheting DNA as a canned white liberal do-gooder and a quietly egotistical musician—gives the movie its arc and tension. The critique about Seeger’s in-real-life folk scene powerhouse wife, Toshi, being relegated here to a sideline character is definitely true. Having been given very few lines, Toshi, played by Eriko Hatsune, is stuck making faces—adoring, pensive, put upon. I do think, though, the skilled Hatsune transcends the racist scripting by actually upstaging Chalamet in the big scene when Dylan goes electric at Newport.

I think I know the answer, but it was curious that Chalamet—who also nails Dylan’s signature vocals and angry guitar playing—performs The Times They are a Changin’ in full while excising one important verse of the original five.

I imagine singing it would have awkwardly recast the Baby Boom target audience’s sense of their own progressive legacy. Chalamet skips right over the suddenly-problematic third verse:

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

On the other hand, I do think the movie missed a chance to accurately show how folk-era lefties were on point. While Woody Guthrie’s So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh definitely worked as a theme for Scoot McNairy’s well played turn as Dylan’s folk singing idol, there’s a more germane (“This machine kills fascists”) Guthrie song for 2024: Guthrie’s anti-America First song, Lindbergh, which ends:

And I'm gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks
They say "America First," but they mean "America Next!"
In Washington, Washington

3) Worried about Elena

This week’s final obsession comes with the Quote of the Week. Courtesy of current WTA coach Goran Ivanisevic, who was only recently hired by World No. 6 Elena Rybakina as her new coach, but suddenly found his status in limbo this week. When tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg asked Ivanisevic if he was still on Rybakina’s team after she made a startling announcement on social media that she was bringing back her former, controversial coach Stefan Vukov, the perhaps-ousted Ivanisevic said: “I am, for the moment, here. It's today, Tuesday. Let's stay in Tuesday.”

In my 2025 WTA predictions, I had forecast big things for Rybakina; I said the 25-year-old Kazakhstani star would rise a ranking notch to No. 5 and win Wimbledon. (If I could re-do that, I’d more likely go with red hot World No. 3 Coco Gauff today.) But more important, I’m now worried about Rybakina herself.

The dramatic news that she’s re-hiring Vukov, certainly shed some light on the mystery surrounding her somewhat erratic 2024 season (including withdrawals from several tournaments): Reporting on her 180 led to a revelation in the NYT this week: ”Vukov has been provisionally suspended by the WTA Tour while under a confidential and private investigation for a breach of the tour’s Code of Conduct” since last year.

When Rybakina announced last year that she was parting ways with Vukov, the tennis world reacted with a collective sigh of relief; many people on the tour had noted with alarm over the years that he was abusive toward her. Understandably, Rybakina’s new announcement, which “blindsided” her new coach, according to the explosive report in the NYT, is shaking up the tennis world, from serious tennis blogger and reporter Ben Rothenberg’s sensitive report laying out the details of the worrisome story, to former WTA star and current women’s tour coach Pam Shriver’s alarmed reaction on social media, who wrote: "It’s time for our entire sport to finally stand up to known abuse and cult like manipulations of players. This is a very sad situation and my prayers are with ER.”

Elena Rybakina has long denied that Vukov has mistreated her, and has now denounced Shriver’s comments and denounced the WTA investigation. And she says she plans to bring Vukov back for this week’s Australian Open, a defiant stance that’s complicated by the fact that Vukov isn’t allowed to attend matches as a coach. According to the NYT, Rybakina has threatened that she may acquire tickets so that he can watch matches inside the stadium and perhaps even boycott the Australian Open and other events on the WTA Tour.

In addition to doing an interview with Ivanisevic (the one that prompted the above quote of the week), Rothenberg co-wrote a second post on the news with fellow blogger Lindsay Biggs (who writes about sexism in sports). Their piece creatively pairs the troubling Rybakina/Vukov story with a review of tennis movie Julie Keeps Quiet, a Belgian film set to be released in the U.S. this year, that focuses on a female tennis player and her abusive male coach. Shy of the hard details of Rybakina’s relationship with Vukov, this conceit allowed Rothenberg and Biggs to think out loud more freely about abusive coaches. It also allows readers to understand how scary Rybankina’s situation might be.

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Closing note. This week’s Recommended Listening: Abstract electronica artist, Actress, as opposed to the noisy Chicano power rock band, Actress. I’m currently all lost in the sparse piano and moody beats on his 2023 release LXXXVIII.