Proving that thirteen need not always be an unlucky number ... and good things come in pairs ... two extraordinary announcements were made on 13, August, 2007. At the beginning ot the day, Karl Rove, the man who helped George W. Bush steal two Presidential elections and destroy the world, announced that he would be leaving his post as Deputy Chief of Staff to “spend more time with (his) family” (currently the most popular euphemism among troubled politicians for “I’m guilty as hell and I’m going undercover”). Several hours later, Eddie Van Halen, of the legendary band that takes his name, announced that he, too, would be spending more time with his family, by embarking on a world tour with brother Alex, as always on drums, and son Wolfgang on bass, along with the lead singer fans have been waiting twenty-three years to see him work with again, David Lee Roth.
While both these bulletins stir up plenty of excitement in my guts, a little bit of the edge is taken off by recent history. In the case of Van Halen, their “reunion” is not exactly legitimate, thanks to original bassist Michael Anthony’s absence over some dustup he’s been having with Eddie the past couple of years. And Rove’s departure, though more than welcome, is not going to undo the damage the Chief Executive he has been having phantom “reading contests” with has wreaked upon this country, and the world at large - particularly in Iraq, where, for all intents and purposes, 3,000-plus potential audience members for the Van Halen tour have been prevented permanently from attending that show or any other in the future.
Still, it was nothing less than gratifying to see Rove, whose ego, when he strutted into the White House in 2001, rivaled that of David Lee Roth’s when he left and/or was kicked out of Van Halen in 1985, announce his intention to leave Washington at the end of the month in an uncharacteristically shaky voice. That he still may be indicted by Congress for his role in the illegitimate firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys sweetens the deal - though, let’s face it, the whole point of his leaving town now is to make it even easier for him to avoid subpoenas when the two houses are back in session in September. In the realm of the rock senses, satisfaction should also be guaranteed by seeing David Lee Roth, a rock showman with no peer, and Eddie Van Halen, one of the ten greatest guitarists in music history, bust their chops on stage together - especially for those of us who were too young, too dumb or too poor to see them in their days together (I belonged, at different points, in all three categories). Despite the fact that, over the past twenty years, Diamond Dave degenerated from blueprint for metal gods to rock’s answer to Ernest Borgnine, I have to say the one solo show by him and his backup band that I did see, at a mid-sized, down-home bar, had more punch and excitement than the two gigs I saw Sammy Hagar and Van Halen lumbering through at two arenas filled to capacity (and the reasons I went to a second Sam Halen show after disliking the first one are the same as those behind my going to my one and only Don Henley gig - free tickets and having nothing better to do).
Big questions remain, though, with both of this feature’s subjects. Will Top Karl still be a source of advice and, more importantly, dirty tricks for whomever is the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008? The smear campaigns for which Rankin’ Rove is most infamous were sleazy enough and sick enough to provide grist for “Women and Children First” and “Fair Warning”, the darkest albums in the DLR/VH canon. Highlights among these were: the rumors he spread about Bush’s first gubernatorial opponent, sitting, and very heterosexual, Governor Ann Richards, being a muff-diving lesbo; the unsuccessful but vicious whisper campaign he initiated against Alabama District Court candidate Mark Kennedy, an advocate for abused children who was the leading opponent of the Rove-backed Harold See, and whom Karl portrayed in one of his many direct mail campaigns as a trench-coat-wearing pedophile; and the phone surveys he masterminded in South Carolina against John McCain, Bush’s preeminent rival for the 2000 Republican nomination, which asked citizens if they felt comfortable about McCain’s having sired a black child out of wedlock. In the last case, the rednecks who got this call were just lazy enough not to be bothered finding out that not only was McCain’s “black child” an adoptee from Bangladesh, but that their beloved, then-98-year-old Senator and segregationist hero, Strom Thurmond, had fathered at least one African-American baby by a woman not his wife.
Even if he is sought out for advice by whoever gets the elephant ‘s nod, Karl’s star status in Republican politics is, currently, about the same as that of Diamond Dave’s in the music world when he released “Your Filthy Little Mouth.” And as awesome as it will be to see Dave back on the arena circuit, cranking it out with his best ax man (all due respect to the almost-as-spectacular Steve “Eat ‘Em and Smile” Vai ) I and millions of other fans have to wonder if this tour will go up in flames like so many other attempted alliances between him and Eddie. Who could forget the hoopla at the beginning of Summer of ‘96 when the music world crackled with the news that Sammy Hagar got his Republican self booted off the Van Halen truck and the fabulous Dave was back on, complete with two new songs led by him on the band’s first greatest hits collection? Who could forget the resounding thud heard round the world three months later, after Dave acted like a prom queen on coke in front of the band at the MTV music awards (and wearing a shirt tied at the bottom and showing midriff like a 1970’s girl groupie) and the Van Halen brothers publicly declared, in menacing tones, that a reunion tour with Dave “would be an insult to the fans”?
And, as followers of the VH soap opera well know, this past year had enough drama coursing amongst the many parties involved in this combo (if you include the short-lived frontman Gary Cherone, it has seven individuals who can claim membership at one time or another) to fill whole band careers. After reports in January that Dave would be touring with the three Van Halens, and would be appearing with Sammy Hagar and the whole band at their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March, the tour was called off, Eddie entered rehab (again), neither Dave nor the Van Halens showed up at the Hall of Fame, and everybody yawned.
Around this same time, over in Washington, Karl Rove was called to testify before Congress in the case against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It should be noted that the eight U.S. Attorneys that Gonzales fired were let go because they didn’t aggressively pursue certain Democratic Congressional candidates over allegations of voter fraud. The fact that Atomic Karl, himself, wrote the book on modern-day vote theft no doubt was in the back of his mind when he repeatedly refused to answer Congress’ calls, and also drove him to pay the ultimate tribute to Rosemary Woods by deleting several thousand e-mails related to the firings and who-knows-how-many other issues. Though it would be proper and just for the Democrats to haul him before their tribunal and publicly tear him to shreds over his role in this latest example of Republican hypocrisy, and as fun as it would be to see him sweat, sputter and experience massive memory loss, as Al and other members of the White House staff did during their hearings, this toxic butterfly will more than likely find ways to avoid their nets until they get distracted by other things.
Though even the most arrogant politicos who are driven from office, including Tom DeLay, express some remorse over how they led their careers, Rove has not shown even the pretense of regret about his approach to politics, which was comparable to that of Michael Vick’s technique for pet care. In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal, that was a kind of teaser to his resignation announcement the next day, he was asked for his assessment of arch-nemesis Hillary Clinton’s chances in the Presidential race. Though he praised Hillary as a “forceful campaigner’ and the most likely Democratic nominee, he sneered that she would lose the 2008 contest because she is “fatally flawed.” A couple of days later on Rush Limbaugh’s morning drive-by, he added to this by crowing that she was “too divisive” to have a chance at getting elected and that, currently, she had “the lowest polls numbers imaginable.” Then again, these blatant falsehoods - the last of which is completely contradicted by the entire media, whose polls show Clinton not only leading the Democrats but way ahead of the most popular Republican, Rudy Guiliani - are practically compliments compared with the statement he made when he moved into what was once her office at the White House in 2001. Giggling like the Pillsbury Doughboy he resembles, Rove announced that he had to have the room “exorcised” before moving in.
As for Rove’s powers of prediction, they are far weaker than his skills at casting out demons or ruining adversaries’ lives. Following the Republican Congressional victories of 2002, he declared that Social Security would be a thing of the past, illegal immigrants would be quickly naturalized (the one goal of this Prince of Darkness I was on board with), and Washington would be honored with a permanent Republican majority. Within a few years it would become clear that Social Security would remain firmly in place, illegal - and even legal - immigrants would still be regarded as a threat to our country on the level of terrorists, despite the fact that they perform most of the menial jobs we citizens depend on, and the Democrats would regain their majority, albeit after twelve long years, in 2006. On this last issue, just weeks before that midterm election, when even the most conservative news sources were predicting a donkey sweep, Rove insisted to the Washington Post that the GOP would maintain their firm grip on the country’s scrotum, and cited exceedingly high and completely fictitious poll numbers favoring his party’s candidates. When the reporter suggested that his math might be off, Rove responded, with all the gusto Diamond Dave displayed when he sported buttless pants in the “Yankee Rose” video and many gigs with Van Halen (yeah, maybe it wasn’t so bad that I missed those early tours), “You have your math, and I have THE math!”
As for THE Van Halen frontman, and any mellowing on his part after years of suffering terminal Prima Donnism, not only is he, thankfully, too old to show his sagging cheeks to the world, but maybe - just maybe - he has at long last realized that he has to stop acting like the King Tush when he’s around Eddie or anybody else he wants backing him up. The last ten years, busy as they were, definitely should have humbled him. Following his rumble with the brothers in ‘96, he put out an incomprehensible autobiography, released three more albums nobody bought (including one full of bluegrass covers of Halen tunes) and took over Howard Stern’s perch when Stern left for SIRIUS satellite radio, holding that post for four boring, bottom-rated months. Aside from his admirable return to his old day job as an Emergency Medical Technician, the one thing of note King Diamond partook in during this time was the inspired 2002 tour with Red Rocker Hagar.
In all fairness, the frequent, small-venue solo junkets Dave led during these years got mostly good reviews from whatever media outlets covered them, and the one stint I saw had Roth giving it his all like he was working a crowd the size of the one featured on the back cover of the “Diver Down” album and not a beer joint full of aging Mullet heads. Likewise, I’m confident that Rockin’ Rove’s expected absence from the Beltway - and if he’s going to actually be spending time with his family, it will either have to be at home with his wife Darby or at the dorm room of his son Andrew, his only, very adult, child - will be one more roadblock in the next Republican Presidential nominee’s run for office. On top of all the scandals plaguing the party, and the plane loads of American bodies returning from Iraq, no manipulation of voting machines can be carried out with the same devastating results as those the architect maneuvered for King George. No doubt there are lots of Little Karls hatching plots to rob Democratic voters of opportunities to cast ballots, and some of them will no doubt work. But the Master Kingmaker and Vote Scammer Extraordinaire is gone, and more eyes in the once-sleepy news world are awake and watching his greasy little protégés.
So, winding things up and taking one more ride through the Land of Van Halen, despite my pretty rough treatment of good ol’ Dave and my concerns that this reunion with the family may turn into a lump of coal like so many others, I am looking forward to seeing Van Halen IV, as this line up is being called thanks to sixteen-year-old Wolf’s presence (did Ed and ex-wife Valerie give his teachers a note?) when they hit my town. And despite my hopes that Karl Rove will dry up and blow away - or, better yet, get indicted, convicted and thrown into jail - I have to assume he will rise up from the Texas crude and try to lend a hand in his party’s efforts to prevent minorities and other likely Democrats from voting next year, and using his filthy little mouth to help spew new kinds of slime against whoever is opposing Rudy, Fred or Mitt. Thanks to his uninspired and unfunny rap number as “M.C. Rove” at the National Press Club dinner this year, it’s not hard to imagine Diamond Karl at a future Republican fundraiser, strutting around in buttless pants before an appreciative audience and singing the closing words from Van Halen’s fantastic debut album: “I’m your ice cream man, watch me as I’m passin’ by/All my flavors are guaranteed to satisfy!” God help us if any candidates amongst them takes a lick.
