( 1:25 PM )
Monday, 2PM, Music Currently Playing: Deathcab for Cutie (again)
Hmmm. A shooting in Tucson. Unlike everyone around me, I am not hit by the survivor's mentality, I'm not feeling nervous or scared or grieving. In fact, I think the whole thing is getting more attention in the media than it deserves--not to belittle the deaths of those involved, just that, well... I worked at the county jail for two years so I know with absolute certainty that this sort of violence is not abnormal for my city... just that usually the victims are prostitutes, addicts, or illegal immigrants. So when white, middle-class professors are shot it makes national news? Is it just the general paranoia about terrorism and/or snipers that gave this story momentum? I can tell you (since I have access to local news you do not) that it was not a terrorist shooting but some disgruntled student barred from taking his mid-term (and really, talk about a loss of perspective.) But national news conglomerates like CNN don't bother checking their details before barking off the sensational facts. That's the problem with news as a private, for-profit enterprise. They are interested in making money, not in providing factual, non-biased information. Anyone who has studied journalism knows the word for this: "YELLOW."
On a completely unrelated note: my latest gripe are these fucking indie bands that are posting their mp3's to filesharing servers renamed as the products of legitimate bands. Yes, I download MP3's--yes I respect that artists should make money for their work, so I use it as a way of sampling something to decide if it's worth the purchase. If I like what I hear, I buy it. If I don't I generally lack the storage space to keep a bunch of stuff I would otherwise not listen to, so the MP3's get deleted anyhow. But another thing I do, and I consider this no different than trading mix-tapes with friends, is download rare, b-side, and hard to find tracks of bands that I am really into. For example: Radiohead. I got online this weekend and went searching for rare Radiohead tracks (found some too--in one case an acoustic version of Subterranean Homesick Alien they did on KRCW Los Angeles back before OK Computer was even released). But I guarantee, if you were to get on WinMX or Kazaa and search for "Radiohead, rare" about half of the hits you get will be these garage bands who have renamed their junk as a way of spreading it across the net. You'll open Winamp and the song will say "Radiohead - Dark New York (rare, b-side)" but you'll click play and it will be some idiot screeching over out-of-tune guitars (no, I am not merely mistaking this as a track from Amnesiac, ahem). If you right-click and chose file info, the ID3 tag clarifies that the actual band is something like "Dog Rapists - Buttery Death Monkey" and if you have dialup (which I am forced to use since I am out of the service area for both DSL AND cable) you have justed wasted 45 minutes downloading junk. Note to indie bands doing this: Not only is your misrepresentation probably illegal, I find it irritating enough that even if what I download is decent you have lost my ear as a potential listener because of your lack of integrity.
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( 8:40 AM )
Friday (Thank Elvis!), Music Currently Playing: Death Cab For Cutie.
Ok, as many of you may know, I sometimes go by the monniker Biff Diggerence, (which, to give credit where credit is due, was lifted from a minor character in the David Foster Wallace novel The Broom of the System.) It's a 100% totally fictional name, and obviously a play on the phrase "Big Difference," so it was to my great and pleasureable surprise that the following email from ANCESTRY.COM should arrive in my inbox:
Dear Biff,
Ancestry.com is expanding! We now have new databases with Diggerence family names. We add new databases each business day. Begin your FREE trial now, and you can access them for FREE!
Just how many Diggerence names do we have? To date, Ancestry.com has (last name) names in over 3000 databases.
This includes:
Diggerence names in our new 1850 Federal Census Index
Diggerence names in our American Civil War Soldiers database
Diggerence names in our Gene Pool Database
Diggerence names in our Biography & Genealogy Master Index (BGMI)
Diggerence names in our Social Security Death Index
I am alone no more! 3000 Diggerence Members WORLDWIDE?!?!?!? Diggerence family Civil War veterans?!?!? Diggerence family members living during the 1850 Federal Census Index?!?!?
Diggerence Family UNITE! Together we will use our secret mutant powers to spread love and kindness and grammatical kung-fu across the globe!
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( 8:49 AM )
Thursday Morn. Music? Nada... some corporate schmuck bigwig is wandering the cube farm and I have been asked to keep the speakers off so they can smooch his ass more effectively. Poor abercrombie fitch tie-wearing fool could probably use some good music in his life...
Hey Get this!!! Jonathan Lethem, a writer I consider the inheritor of the Philip K. Dick legacy, just released a collection (that he edited) of the best rock-music writing of 2002. This is the same guy who edited the collection of stories on amnesia I just got a week or so back and the author of the very excellent Motherless Brooklyn and Gun, With Occasional Music. I will definitely have to put this on my list.
Meanwhile, they announce the capture of the sniper. I have this weird paranoid delusion that the whole thing ended as the result of some sort of Manchurian Candidate mind control government conspiracy code phrase. Turns out the guy is former military and after authorities make the statement publically: "'We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose," (which just REEKS of code phrase), the whole case comes to an end and they capture the guy and his cohort at some rest stop. But then, Lot 49 may be infecting my brain and the whole thing could be the subconscious spawn of Silent Tristero's Empire (which won't make sense to you unless you've read the book.)
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( 4:31 PM )
Wednesday, Late Afternoon. Music Currently Playing: None
Ok so I wanted to not come blogging in here when I could spend my time doing something productive, but the two cd's I want to write a review for got left at home and anyhow, I finished reading Was last night and wanted to throw out some thoughts about it.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW---> IF you haven't read the book yet don't read this post.
Ok so the book was overall better than many, well balanced, emotional, but.... in the end, I don't think I needed to watch Dorothy get raped by Uncle Henry. It in no way increased my sympathy for her character, it did not effect the emotional impact of the Oz stuff later on... it was just gratuitous. As if Ryman felt like he had to make it happen so that the book would be marketable to the talk-show crowd (and you all know my beef about talk shows by now). I also felt like the whole Jonathan I'm-dying-of-AIDS thing was emotionally gratuitous. It's not as if I think incest and AIDS are topics that should be ignored, I just think that in this particular case, they were being used as devices to generate sympathy for these characters rather than doing the extra effort of characterization.
On to bigger and better things... I am now re-reading The Crying of Lot 49. I forgot how hysterically funny this book is. Oedipa's German shrink trying to get her to participate in the Housewives Doing LSD clinical trials... and Wendal with his job neurosis... good stuff...
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( 9:32 PM )
Monday Night, 9PM, Music Currently Playing: Telepopmusik, Genetic World
It's interesting to me how companies have accomplished creating this whole entire subculture with TV commercials thesde days, how they manage to capture in little two minute snippets the essence, the color, the torque of how I might feel about something and then twist it the littlest bit so I become aware of their product. There are a couple of commericals lately that really have this effect on me, which is weird since I hate commercials. And this isn't just the annoyed press mute or channel surf type dislike of commercials, this is the actual resentment toward companies shoveling their shit at me without relent any time I turn on a TV or a computer. So why is it when I see Thora Birch in a subway car having little fantasies about stepping into other people's lives when she uses a breath strip do I get that little stomach flutter of a crush? (and I do, you know, have a crush on her. It must of been Ghost World. That character Enid kills me..., if there were only more women out there like that character). And that Levi's commercial where that woman breaks into the chop shop and steals back her car and at the very end as she is swerving away she reaches under her seat and finds her little dashboard icon, a scowling, tough, dirty rabbit with his arms crossed. That commercial is amazing every time I see it. And the other Levi's commercial where the guy and the girl swerve away from the cops and ditch the car into the river and the guy dives back in to get his English-French dictionary and you peice it all together in time to hear her say, "Qu'est-ce que tu oublies? [What did you forget?]" And the music in these commericals, especially the scowling rabbit commercial is amazing (the song in that one, I believe, is Lush - Undertow, but I'm not positive.) Right now, the techno I am listening to, Telepopmusik, a group I have been into for a while, is featured in this Mitsubishi commercial. The one with the guy driving around, picking his family up in the SUV and the nightime city, in full Las Vegas neon flow, just blurs around him. The song in that commercial, in case you're interested, is called "Breathe" and you could probably download it on MP3 anywhere.
But all this bothers me. It's almost as if commericals are co-opting all the things I like, everything that is cool and hip and interesting about my age group and using it against me to sell me their crap. Even the name of the techno group smells of this, I hadn't noticed till now: "Telepopmusik"... were they writing their songs specifically to be used as marketing tools? Or is it just a good song so it got picked? It's the old chicken or an egg in a weird culturally mutative form.
Here's the thing I wish I could tell people in marketing and advertising. If the product is good enough, I don't need a commericial to buy it, so spend you time and money making your product better, not your advertising. And on the other side of this: the cool hipness of your commercial is still not going to get me to buy your product if your company has horrendous/unethical business practices [NIKE, Exxon, and Walmart are at the top of that shit list where I am concerned].
This woman my wife works with was in marketing. She lived in New York City on 9/1/01. She realized how shallow and horrible her career was at that time, creating a need in people for junk they don't need, and so she quit and joined Americorp and now is a social worker in an inner city high school here in Tucson, working with teenagers, and she has never been happier. Maybe this is totally unrelated, and maybe it's not.
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( 2:58 PM )
That's right, two posts in one day. But this is just too good not to share:
Like everyone else out there by now, I received today, the infamous scam email from Nigeria. Here it is (edited/truncated for brevity) posted for your enjoyment. My response to it follows!!!!
FROM: MR. MALENGE UWA
TEL: 234-8037202155
FAX:234-9-2721523
LAGOS - NIGERIA.
ATTN: President/Ceo.
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL FINANCIAL PROPOSAL
RE: TRANSFER OF US$21.5 MILLION (TWENTY ONE MILLION, FIVE
HUNDRED THOUSAND
US DOLLARS ONLY).
I am contacting you based on information and esteem
recommendation I received of you from a high ranking official in the commercial
section of the Nigerian Chambers of Commerce and Industry who guaranteed
your reliability and trustworthyness in business dealings. This business
proposal I wish to intimate you with is of mutual benefit and it's success
is entirely based on mutual trust, cooperation and a high level of
confidentiality as regard this transaction.
I am the Chairman of the contract Award/Advisory Committee
(CAAC) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). I am seeking
your assistance to enable me transfer the sum of US$21,500,000.00
(Twenty Million,Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) into your
private/company account. The fund came about as a result of a contract awarded and
executed on behalf of my Ministry the Nigeria National Petroleum
Corporation. The contract was supposed to be awarded to two foreign contractors
to the tune of US$65,000,000.00 (Sixty Four Million United States Dollars).
But in the course of negotiation, the contract was awarded to a Bulgarian
contractor at the cost of US$43,500,000.00 (Forty-Three Million, Five
Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) to my benefit unknown to the
contractor.
As a civil servant still in active government service, I am
forbidden by law to operate an account outside the shores of Nigeria. Hence
this message to you seeking your assistance so as to enable me
present your private/company account details as a beneficiary of contractual
claims alongside that of the Bulgarian contractor, to enable me
transfer the difference of US$21,500,000.00 (Twenty One Million, Five Hundred Thousand
United States Dollars) into your provided account.
On actualisation, the fund will be disbursed as stated below.
1. 30% of the fund will be for you as beneficiary
2. 5% for reimbursement to both parties for incidental expenses
that may be incurred during the course of the transaction.
3. 65% of the fund will be for me and my colleagues which we
intend to invest in your country with you as my partner.
When the business is successfully concluded we shall through our same connections
withdraw all documents used from all the concerned Government
Ministries for 100% security. I would require the following:-
1. Your company's name,address,telephone and fax numbers.
2. Your bank account and address where the money will be
remitted.
But where you are interested, send the required documents
aforementioned herein either through my above fax line as time is of the
essence in this business.
I wait in anticipation of your fullest co-operation.
Yours faithfully,
MR. MALENGE UWA.
In case you haven't heard this is a scam so effective that literally millions of US dollars flow into Nigeria in this manner. What a surprise when the promised monies never arrive!
For your edification and reading pleasure, here was my response:
Mr Uwa, my Nigerian brother!
How good it is to hear from you and be given the opportunity to conduct business with such a noble and well-resputed agency!
Well do I remember my time in the motherland. How is Nbuwe Mabouti? I will never forget how he and I got rather drunk that night in Port Harcourt and almost got arrested for urinating on that goat! If you see the old rascal, tell him that his friend says hello!
I heard a rumor recently from my business associates in Equatorial Guinea that President Obasanjo was planning some sort of revision of national law to allow those bastards in Cameroon to colonize land west of Yola, is this true? If so, quickly must I discuss this with my investor contacts in Lago since real estate on BOTH sides of the Benue river will soon be at a premium!
Unfortunately, at this time, my numerous other investments, (including rather promising financial opportunities in Hog Futures, as well as in this up-and-coming design company from Japan that is pioneering a Perpetual Motion Machine) preclude my ability to participate in what sounds like an excellent business endeavor.
My Warmest Regards to the Successes of Your Country,
Dr. Biff Q. Diggerence
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( 1:47 PM )
Friday, 1:10pm, Music Currently Playing: Cold Memory, Damage/No Damage
There are a couple of things I want to get down today.
First is, I finally picked up a copy of Geoff Ryman's Was that Chris recommended (here) and read the first two chapters last night. This book is warm and rich and bittersweet so far. The bits of Dorothy's arrival from St. Louis remind me of Willa Cather's books, that whole pioneer thing in My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop. I think so far the moment I appreciated the most was the dwarven Etta kissing Dorothy's forehead goodbye at the train station before Dorothy is taken to Aunt Emma and Uncle Henry's farm. Not only is this scene vividly depecited, but it resonates with this incredible ache. If I had brought the book with me to work today, I would type in the passage. Anyhow, Chris, thanks for the recommendation!
The second thing I want to do is respond to Glen's commentary about Gun Control/Gun Crime in his article Riding In Cars With Guns.
Glen makes some strong, valid points, and I agree with much of what he articulated, except for his interpretation of Ari Fleisher's statement about laws not preventing crime. I should give some background on myself so that my opinion is put into perspective, since I want to respond directly to Glen's interpretation of Fleischer's quote.
When I first got out of college I worked for two years at the Pima County Jail in Tucson here for Superior Court. My job was to interview all new arestees (for both Midemeanor and Felony crimes) and make release recommendations to judges which were used to set bond and/or release conditions at arraignments. So for two years of my life I met and had extensive conversations with suspected criminals (I use the word suspected since indeed, my contact with them was immediately after arrest and in most cases I never got to see the outcome of the arrests, the convictions and sentencings, they were all not-guilty until found otherwise at that point in the process when I met them). So, I met and spent time with not just drunks and crackheads, and not just homeless shoplifters. I met psychopaths that would come in stripped down to their boxers since their clothing was confiscated as evidence--it had the blood/fluids of a rape or shooting victim on it. I met poor old Yaqui women who had been hired by Mexican Nationals to smuggle pot in the trunk of their cars to stash-houses in town and had gotten caught because the smell of 200 pounds of freshly cut marijuana was an obvious giveaway as they sat in the drive thru in front of a patrol car at McDonalds. I met one guy who had given crystal methamphetamine to an 18 month old baby, just to see the child's reaction, and after waking from a coma that lasted three days, the child pulled out all of its own hair. I met a woman who had a ph.d in mathematics from Berkely but her severe heroin addiction lead her to steal computer and a/v equipment from the department at the community college she was working at. I met a man who was convinced the CIA was holding his daughter hostage in a hotel room downtown and had tried to set the hotel on fire. I could go on and on. But the point here is that all of these things are, by law, not legal, but not a single word of those laws, not a million legislators and lawmakers making a million laws, prevented these crimes, nor especially aided in the arrest of these people. What they did was make the processing of punishment for these people more effective. That's the only thing laws are capable of doing. Laws making an action illegal never prevent that crime from happening. Ari Fleisher is right on, laws are retributive, consequential, they are reactions to events, they cannot be proactive, they in no way have the power to prevent human action, and the legislated consequences/punishment for a crime are only effective psychological tools on people who would not otherwise commit crimes in the first place.
But let's address gun registration and fingerprinting more directly and with some logic. I agree, a husband who shoots his ex-wife in a fit of rage from a legally obtained and registered gun, there's a circumstance where ballistics data and registration fingerprinting will assist in his prosecution. But in what way will fingerprinting and databases of historical info on a gun and/or its previous owners assist police in tracking a criminal who is using an illegally obtained gun? A person who premeditates a gun crime is not going to submit to fingerprints, is not going to register with any government agency beforehand as a gun owner. Statistically, much of the violent gun crime in this country is committed by people who allready have felony convictions, felony convictions that exempt them from legally owning guns anyhow. This is basic supply and demand, if there is a buyer, there will be a seller, no matter the legality of the transaction. Glen notes, "But what's also true is that there are measures we can take right now when we actually MANUFACTURE THE GUNS that make their USE IN KILLING more traceable, and we don't bother." Again, I have to ask, in what way will the traceability of newly manufactured, legally obtained firearms prevent some convicted felon from illegally obtaining a gun made last year and using it to shoot a bunch of people?
Yes, you can purchase a gun at Sports Authority and Walmart and Jim's Gun Emporium and the Eighth Annual Shootin' & Killin' Convention and Gun Show Extravaganza, Two Days Only in the Downtown Community Convention Center Auditorium. But working in the jail taught me that you can also buy a gun cheaply and more discreetly behind the local convenience store, or the dog park, or the alleyway, or in the bathroom at the nightclub or bar, or even home delivered to your front door for the right price. It's hard to describe without sounding like Batman or some burned out cop, but there really is a world of crime out there, simmering with sicko secrets, crooked darkness, of opposition and stuggle on a nearly primal scale that underlies normal, law-abiding society, whether we ignore it, acknowledge it as a statistic, or are faced with it in the immediacy of becoming a victim of it. Every night as we sleep people are buying and smoking crack, burglarizing homes, stealing cars, holding up liquor stores, beating their wives and kids, paying hookers for sex, looking at internet kiddie porn. You see this underworld, the sub-culture alot on TV, and encounter it occasionally on the evening news, but I will tell you it's real, it's not glamorous, it's not grist for some screenplay or pulp crime novel, it just is what it is, and our entertainment-muddled denial as we sit in our suburban homes listening to our records and watching our sports does not mean it stops. Only in the face of danger or the result of victimization when we are forced to examine this side of our society (and also, therefore, indirectly, this side of our selves), do we start clamouring for it to be stopped, shut down, prevented, changed. Yeah, some guy driving around shooting innocent suburbanites is heinous, but if you think that's the worst thing going on in this country... there are some people you should meet. And short of putting video cameras and microphones in every public and private place in this country (including the bedroom where you sleep with your wife), there is not a single thing any government or law enforcement agency will be able to do to prevent some criminal acts from occurring. Call it entropy, call it the unpredictability of human behavior. We cannot control it, we can only control the sanity of our response to it.
The real question then is, how to we prevent whomever this sniper is from killing again, how to we catch him before he strikes again? The answer to this question is circumstantial, specific to particulars of this case, and blanket knee-jerk legislation that will ultimately not even be created, voted upon, and made into law for another two to three years, long after these shootings are stopped, will not do anything in the present to help us.
I'm no NRA member (*shudder of horror*). I don't own a single gun. And In the end, I agree with 100% with Glen, his outrage and indignation is wholly justified. In this day and age gun ownership, especially ownership of handguns and assault rifles (which are designed specifically to shoot other human beings) is pointless, the cultural equivalent of owning a spear or a sword (and at least you have to be trained to become proficient with either of those weapons). What I object to is the continual encroachment of my civil liberties as a reactionary response to fear, especially since this encroachment will not prevent or deter any criminal acts. The only thing it will do is make a nervous public feel better, so they can go back to their normal lives. It will not prevent further acts of gun violence or terrorism from occurring. Indeed, this is the terrible consequence and ultimate goal of terrorism, whether the act of terrorism is bombing a building or sniping people at gas stations. To make us afraid. Furthermore, I agree with Glen that Bush and pals are nowhere doing enough. Personally I feel like they're too busy flinging thier war-mongering schlongs around about Iraq so that things like these sniper shootings have been inappropriately underprioritized.
So what's my solution? I really don't know. Would incorporating gun education and safety training into schools (maybe as a unit in phys-ed programs) help? I tend to take a utilitarian view toward guns because I have had that training myself as a cough cough, ahem.... Boy Scout (ok, so I really like backpacking and camping and it was a vehicle for lots of free trips to the Grand Canyon, I never progressed beyond first class, and I categorically disagree with the majority of their mind numing militaristic patriotism and conservativsm). Anyhow the gun training helped me see guns as tools, used only in specific circumstances and never otherwise (I mean, c'mon, should we outlaw screwdrivers if old ladies are stabbed to death with screwdrivers?) On the other hand, I don't think necessarily that a terrorist or psychopath, convinced of the twisted morality of his actions, will take his gun safety and training into consideration as he plans his act of violence... I think ultimately, the only way to prevent crime is to reshape the very fabric of society so that there is no need to commit a gun crime. That itself is matieral for another post entirely.
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( 1:44 PM )
Thursday. noonish. Music? Uh, no idea, it's a big cd of techno mp3's from a co-worker. Something trancy and technoesque.
Just realized in full forehead smacking stupidity that yesterday I was blathering on about Sonic Youth and mentioned their bass player, Kim as "Kim Deal." Ugh, maybe it's all the chick-rock my wife is always listening to that got me confused so I officially apologize. The Sonic Elderly member I was actually referring to is Kim GORDON. Kim Deal is in the Breeders.
But let's talk about chick-rock for a moment. So that we are all on the same page, here is my definition of chick rock: it's the riot grrls, stuff like Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, the Breeders, etc. And before everyone gets to assuming I am a sexist porkster, let me clarify: I absolutely agree with and support the desire to perpetuate gender equality, the desire to stop objectification of women as sex toys. Women should make the same salaries as men for the same work, their opinions are just as important, and their bodies are theirs to do with as they please. Futhermore, I understand that in a world with garbage like Britney Spears and J-Lo the backlash is inevitable, you are going to have female musicians that want to be the opposite. But if you're really desiring of being treated as a musical equal, than it should be about your MUSIC and not your gender. The majority of male musicians do not write songs about gender, nor really even about sex or sexuality. Those male bands (such as Rage Against the Machine) that bother with being political use their power to express political views that are universal, that effect BOTH genders. So yes, I cannot stand alot of the chick rock because it seems hypocritcal, redundant, and ultimately like these women are so concerned about their politics that it stops being about their music. My attitude is that, I agree with their politics allready, so they should shut up and play.
I should also mention that there are some "chick-rockers" I do respect. PJ Harvey especially, Tori Amos, that new metal group Kitty while very hardcore is impressive, folkster Ani DiFranco. Why do I respect them? Because their musical quality is independant of the poltical slant of their lyrics, and they have demonstrated diversity by being capable of writing songs about lot's of things, not just feminism and male oppressive dominance.
I would almost be tempted to say that politics and music shouldn't mix, but I think that even the lack of a political message is a political message, just like not bothering to vote on election day is itself a sort of vote. What I would instead offer is a suggestion that a minimum of responsibility needs to be inacted by musicians and performers, since they have the undivided attention of so many people, and the willingness of those people to accept and agree with whatever they are told. That's a lot of power, but music is a very very powerful thing. It should not be wasted, and it should not be abused.
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( 2:44 PM )
Wednesday, no idea what time it is because I don't wear a watch and I intentionally hid my taskbar in Windows. I want to be timeless. Music Currently Playing: None.
Watched this interesting show on the Sundance Channel yesterday evening called Sonic Cinema, which has apparently been around for a while, to my ignorance. Basically it's a show that highlights the relationships between rock bands and movies. It was an interesting show. Among the features where a section on Sonic Youth and the soundtracks to films they have done. Man those guys are getting old. Kim Deal looks all wrinkled and mummified. Not that Sonic Youth are about physical appearances, but just to witness the ravages of time on people, you know? The show also featured this wack-ass performance artist guy named Corey McCabe who plays the AUTOHARP (which I remember from first grade sunday school) in this band called the Billy Nayer Show. They showed this animated short he did (out of notebook paper and HOUSEPAINT) of this weird music/poetry recital thing. It was... bizarre. No other way to describe it. A good bizzarre, like the kind of bizzare you get from Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa, so I was intrigued. and being the hip young technophile I am, I hopped over to his website and downloaded some MP3's they have made available. Musically there is some exceptional stuff... reminiscent of a They Might Be Giants with weirder lyrics and no nasal singing. Apparently, McCabe wrote, directed, starred-in, and composed the music for this movie called American Astronaut, a musical space-western. I am going to see if I can dig in up at Casa Video (a hip, indie rental joint here that carries a nice selection of underground films) and will give a report.
Till then, I leave you with the following link: The Mountain Dew Commercial You Will Never Get to See
As you can see I figured out hyperlinking on Blogger today. Viva the internet.
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( 2:02 PM )
Tuesday, 2pm, Music Currently Playing: Cold Memory, Damage/No Damage (Surprisingly good!)
Oh how tired I am of being treated like an idiot by dentists and doctors.
Picture me yesterday, zig-zagging through the construction zone of Tucson’s permanently destroyed streets, sitting alternately in a dentist’s then an optometrist’s waiting room with nothing to read but issues of Better Homes and Gardens from 1989, then going in and getting parts of my mouth or eyes prodded or scoped with sharp pokey things or infrared laser beams while being humiliated for what these sadists consider my bad health habits. And the thing is, I am horrifically hygienic. I brush my teeth obsessively. I like clean teeth. And can a person even have dirty eye balls? So, for some hairy-nostril’d flake with pit-stains and the full-on Muppet unibrow to tell me my hygiene needs upkeep… you can see where I’d be upset.
And it always goes like this:
Let’s Humiliate Matt
A Short Play of Morality in One Act
Cast:
Me – 26 year old male. Average height/weight
Healthcare Profession (HP) – in this case a dentist. See physical description above.
Setting: Medieval looking chair in a back room in HP’s office. Flourescent lights and motivational posters and etc. Sneaking a look in cabinets before HP arrives reveals lots and lots and lots of latex gloves.
HP: [prodding me with fondue fork] Hmmmm
Me: Ouch
HP: [prodding me even harder with fondue fork] Ah. Mmm. Hmmm.
Me: Ouch, that hurts, do you really need to do that?
HP: [turns and scrawls arcane and obscure medical type notes in a medical folder] Hmmmm. Ah. Hmmmm.
Me: Ok, so…? Uh… am I ok?
HP: I see you haven’t been brushing your teeth the minimum recommended 42 times per day… Hmmm
Me: 42? What? I brush twice a day! 42 is the minimum as recommended by who?
HP: The American Association of Dental Experts Who Are Smarter Than You. And I can tell that you are not using the recommended sphericaloid brushing motion. Hasn’t anyone ever shown you how to use the recommended sphericaloid motion when brushing?
Me: Sphericaloid? Is that even a word?
And etc. I mean really, do they tell these people, as they are handing them their dental diplomas to go out into the world and humiliate their patients?
And to be fair, I wonder if there is anyone who I treat like this…?
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( 12:25 PM )
Monday, 10ish. Music Currently Playing: Queens of the Stone Age, Songs For the Deaf
Lot's of stuff to talk about today.
For the first time since... hell since probably back in High School I watched 120 Minutes last night on MTV2. This show: I remember it from ten years ago as the only show on MTV worth watching, since it was the only place to see music videos for bands I might actually listen to.
My reactions this time were mixed. Some of the stuff I haven't been exposed to yet was fairly good, even impressive, and the stuff I recognized was interesting just to see videos for. In general, I am not a huge music video fan, for me music is about MUSIC, I am not a passive listener, and so little three minute movies that illustrate your song are redundant and probably just an inevitable marketing tool, they don't really elevate the art in any way. That isn't to say there aren't some amazing videos out there (see Thom Yorke's UNKLE video for Rabbit in Your Headlights, or Bjork's body piercing in Pagan Poetry or Aphex Twin's Windowlicker for examples). Anyhow: given that cash is tight I am going to need to stay out of the record store for a while or I'll blow a paycheck on a bunch of new stuff I want to get more of. Among the list of really excellent stuff I heard: Medeski Martin & Wood, The Walkmen, a Doves video I had never seen, this bizarre-ass troupe of wacko's in animal costumes called "The Mouldy Peaches," and, of course, Trail of Dead. Among the stuff I didn't like: the now endless stream of new punk. Strokes, Hives, Vines, The Pattern, The Liars, The Spoons, etc. The only exception I have found is the White Stripes who I somewhat like and who seem to be tapping into more of a Violent Femmes thing then the retro punk. But if I was the Rolling Stones or the Ramones I'd be pissed by now. At least when Puff Daddy rips someone else's music off he has the decency to credit the original author. The fact that these retro monkies are passing off somone else's musical ideas as original, AND the fact that everyone out there seems to think that this is the latest hippest new musical thing, just disgusts me. Several months ago when I heard the Stokes I thought, hey, not bad, acceptable as unique in the spectrum of bands out there, I beleive I wrote a praising review for the site here. But the fact that this spawned a whole sub-genre (and at least 60 of the 120 minutes was devoted to videos of it) is just really irritating.
The question this raises for me is the possibility that maybe we are culturally oversaturated by the styles, ideas, and efforts of our recent past and that as a consequence cannot help but continue to imitate old artistic, literary, and especially musical ideas and styles without innovating anything new. I don't want to come across as a Luddite (hell I work in the IT field) but my guess is that this is the result of the omnipresence of technology and media that continues to expose us to our cultural history without giving us pause to process any of it. The consequnce is the assimilation of the old into our own creative efforts, maybe some of which is intentional and some of which is unconscious. I think to some extent in the past, new musical ideas continued to develop and musicians innovated new styles since the musicians were operating in a relative bubble, their exposure to every great piece of music from the past hundred years was limited, there were not thirty different radio stations, eight channels of television devoted strictly to music programming, and giant-ass record stores that carried archives of musical data so extensive as to make librarians weep. My guess is that when Jimi Hendrix, for example, listened to the radio or went to a record store, what he heard was probably fairly limited. The consequence of this was a willingness to explore beyond the boundries that were set. Now when my son is with me, I might go from Led Zepplin to Aphex Twin in the course of fifteen minutes of listening, he is being exposed to such a wide array of musical possibilities, that I wonder if this might create an environment less conducive to experimentation, after all, there are so many old musical ideas to know and try, why innovate?
Related to this is an old sci-fi short story I read once, I think it was by Orson Scott Card, but I am not positive. In it, society had developed to the point where it could immediately identify child prodigies, especially musical prodigies, and after doing so would separate them from the rest of society, shutting them out from all access to music and culture so that their musical development was independant of anyone else's musical ideas. The consequence of this is that these children would develop musical ideas completely on their own, totally innovative and unrelated to any other musical concepts allready present in a culture, thus, the boundries of musical possibility were expanded in a way similar to medical science or space exploration, unhindered by the past. This was a unique idea, and while I personally think it's almost abusive to deny someone access to good music, the entire lives, I wonder if such a thing is actually possible...
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( 2:13 PM )
Thursday, Lunchtime, Music Currently Playing: Trail of Dead (Ok, so I keep forgetting my other CD's. Anyhow, it's GOOD)
Some days I wake up and my brain feels like it's shrouded in the smoke of a vast forest fire. My dreams from the night before, where they about burning? No, I don't know, days like this I don't remember my dreams, I just have this suspicious lurch in my belly and all my thoughts are fuzzy, buzzing, hissing. Like, that hissing snow on a TV tuned to a dead channel (though maybe that is a dated image. These days, with digital technology and such, if your TV tunes to a dead channel all you see is that blank, sane, neon blue). What I mean is, Some days I wake up and my brain feels like it's full of static and ash. Sometimes after a bit it clears and sometimes it doesn't and I walk around blinking at everything, waiting for it to focus. I came into work this morning and the grey flannel cubicle farm just sort of blurred together, and everyone was plugged into their phones, headsets on, typing on their computers, their features blurred, everyone looked faceless and their voices sounded muffled. Outside the window it was sunny, there are a lot of humming birds around here since someone has hung one of those feeders with the red liquid nectar in a tree. So I've been watching them, the way they hover and dart, little wings blurring. They're like tiny little machines, little engines of color and light. There is one, with green wings and a red belly that I have named Zippy. I get the sense that he's watching us all, inside our big glass box. Like he's waiting for something to happen and then he'll be ready.
All of the above strikes me as excessively weird and almost too personal when I read it back. Cubicle farms in glass boxes and engines of color and light. Well it can't all be unqualified opinions about pop-culture and politics.
Something small has been bothering me, everytime I logon here to post. I have no idea what the "B" in "BLOG" stands for. I suppose I could google it out, but research over the internet for such a small detail is always fruitless and tiring.
B
Pronunciation: 'bE.
Function: noun.
Inflected Form(s): plural b's or bs /'bEz/.
Usage: often capitalized, often attributive.
Date: before 12th century.
1 a : the 2d letter of the English alphabet b : a graphic representation of this letter c : a speech counterpart of orthographic b
2 : the 7th tone of a C-major scale.
3 : a graphic device for reproducing the letter b.
4 : one designated b especially as the 2d in order or class.
5 a : a grade rating a student's work as good but short of excellent b : one graded or rated with a B.
6 : something shaped like the letter B .
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( 9:07 AM )
Wednesday, 8AMish, Music Currently Playing: ...Trail of Dead, Source Tags & Codes (still)
Just finished reading Chris' review of Was and have bumped that to the top of my list of books to hunt for this weekend. Does anyone else have a revolving list of recommendations like this? Right now, in addition to this, I am searching for You Bright and Risen Angels by Vollman and The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers. As I get my lazy (busy) ass in gear in the next two or three days, I am planning on posting an Anti-Oprah Bookclub list article, which will include my own suggested required readings.
In the meantime, I have little else to comment on. This, I think is why I have never kept a regular journal before, the pressure to "perform" so to speak, to have something profound or interesting to say, is more of an irritation than a useful tool. Maybe this is because I am committed to putting down more than just a summary of the days events. Anyhow. Back to work.
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( 9:46 AM )
Tuesday, 9am. Music Currently Playing: Trail of Dead, Source Tags & Codes (Good Stuff!)
A few things to mention today. First: I heard Tim O'Brien on NPR the other day. For the unlettered, he's the author of several decent novels about the Vietnam war, esp. Going After Cacciato and The Things The Carried. I don't know why this is, but I am always irritated when I hear an author read their work or do interviews. In the writing, O'brien comes across as masculine and grim and rough edged. There's a sensitivity present, and a lot of his stuff exudes greif and loss, but overall the tone is one of strength. But on NPR he had a lisp, and everything he said seemed almost rehearsed, almost too articulate, like he was trying to *sound* like a writer instead of just being himself. Suddenly all my respect for him and interest in his writing drained away. The only exceptions to this rule that I have found are Kurt Vonnegut, who is actually really funny in person, and David Foster Wallace, who sounds exactly as neurotic and apologetic and self-aware as his writing.
Also, I just finished reading Martin Amis' novel The Information. It doesn't really deserve the energy of a full book review, but I wanted to put down some of my thoughts about it. Much of it was bitter-sweet, but the overall flavor of the book is just bitter and snide and angry and just plain sorrowful. Furthermore, Amis is excessively British in his narrative voice, and so the whole thing sounded like it was being read aloud by a BBC newscaster. This really irritated me. The thing that kept me reading it is that it was continually presenting some absolutely beautiful passages. The one that is currently buzzing through my mind is this scene on an airplane, where the central character, Richard Tull, observes several women crying and he realizes that the only reason women cry on planes is because someone they know has either just died or is about to, so that all these women are on their ways to funerals. Then the whole thing zooms out and there is this description of all these plains in the air across the world, filled with weeping women, hurtling toward death.
On the plus side, I was just given a copy of The Vintage Book of Amnesia which appears to be a collection of short stories and essays and etc by Kafka and Philip K. Dick and Murakami and Nabokov and Thomas Disch about memory and memory loss. Tasty stuff.
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( 11:48 AM )
Thursday, before Lunch. Music Currently Playing: Nirvana, In Utero
Ok so I finally got to hear the "new" Nirvana song. I was, as it seems I always am, in the car when it came on. I was flipping through stations for one small bite of audio goodness just as I pulled up into the driveway and I actually sat there with the engine idling and the window up until it completed.
My assessment: I like it. But I can't figure out if this is because the song is genuinely good or if I am just nostalgic for the old Seattle sound. In fact, I am listening to Nirvana now here at work, and waves of memory are flooding back.
In general, I should clarify that my opinion of Nirvana is low... they were the least talented of the bands of that era, the least musically creative. Yet they have my respect as the breakthrough group and etc. And my attachment to them is emotional, linked in my memory to my own innocence; For me Nirvana is the anecdote music of adolescence--I can tell you where I was the first time I heard Teen Spirit or Come as You Are. So the new song? It's good. And sort of sad in that it's almost retro.
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( 2:49 PM )
Sometime Wed. Afternoon. Music Currently Playing: Tom Waits, (bunch of mp3's)
Have been gnawing on symbolism alot, having just re-read Brautigan's Watermelon Sugar for the umpteenth time, my skull is thick with all those intimate, stange images of his. Wanted to put down a memory from last night's dream: towers at a distance, pulsing in sunlight. I am walking, it's late afternoon, the wind is blowing hot and clean. The towers become billboards plastered with words in cyrillic I can't decode. I come across my wife sleeping on a blanket that is spread on the ground. On her chest, rising and falling as she breathes, is a small, brown, desert rabbit. It's ears are back and it's black nose is twitching. It leaps away as I approach. My wife rolls over onto her side and sighs.
That's all I can remember. Just seemed like something I should write down.
On an unrelated note... Have spent some time reading blogs now at blogger as well as other sites. There seems to be an overwhelming sense of... frustration and anger and etc underlying alot of them. Lot's of rants. I wonder why that is?
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( 9:43 AM )
Sometime Tuesday Morning. Music Currently Playing: They Might Be Giants, NO!
I listen to NPR alot, mainly since there is no local radio station that plays music compliant with my peculiar taste, and with grad school tuition and etc, we can hardly afford the luxury of a CD player and etc, but also because I really like the news on NPR, and something about the voices of the newscasters has this calming, prozac-ian effect on my driving.
And my seven year old son is in the car with me alot, of course. Smearing up my windows with his greasy fingers. Getting cracker crumbs everywhere. Telling me knock knock jokes where every punch line is about poop. He's a really great human being, I'm proud of him. He draws me pictures of ninjas and monsters on a little notepad that I tear off and keep in my wallet. But until yesterday it really never registered to me how much of NPR, or really any of my politics and culture, he has absorbed.
We're listening to yet another speech by the President, and this time it was the seven year old boy who corrected the president's dysfunctional pronunciation.
"No, Daddy," he said to me. "It's not nooclar, it's nu-cle-ar. That man is saying it wrong."
And that about sums up for me the confidence I have in my son compared to the confidence I have in my president.
As an optimist, I need only look to the future.
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