Cleanliness is Next to ...

I don't know about that old adage, well, studying the teetotalers and temperance movement,I have a bit of understanding of the relationship between cleanliness and godliness.  And I know this is more about hygiene for the puritanical, but as I embarked on a top-to-bottom cleaning of my abode, this phrase came to mind and it is an easy title.

What originally was going to be my typical three hour cleaning session: vacuuming, dusting, surfaces, floors - worthwhile but a bit cosmetic - transformed itself into a monumental overhaul that was long over due.  But as I have begun to alter my perspective, my ethos on life, I decided it was time to check off one of the big items on my to do list, so I hunkered down for large chunks of Friday, Saturday and Sunday to clean and organize (and I still have a ways to go).  I have begun to gut the house - four buckets of paper and other recyclables so far, two very large trash cans of refuse, articles and teaching stuff organized and filed with tabs, library thinning (first batch of books donated to "Books to Prisoner") and so on.

For one of the first times in a long time, I tackled the hardest tasks first.  First stop: the office.  Generally a mash of books, music, stacks of paper (see below) - one of the two areas that are hit by my personal storm. But now, my office feels bigger, I found many things I forgot that I had and now know where they are (core articles in the field and essential for dissertation number one on the list of finds).  My dining / living area is now clear of clutter, new CD shelves installed so large piles of CDs that were in four different locations are now organized and in place.  The kitchen pantry is culled, some food expired and regrettably discarded (but recycled containers when possible and one box for the local food pantry).  My cooking area (prep area, cook books) still needs a bit of work.  My bedroom no longer has countless issues of Vanity Fair and NME that have slid down the side as I slept.  And my bed has new sheets, I love sleeping on new sheets.  Clothing has been folded, organized and put back in place so again I know what I have and know where it is (plus another box for the local men's shelter).  I have made a partial dent in the guest bedroom but that was the primary staging area for this clean out so it will come last.  The bathroom has yet to be touched but other than just regular use, this cleaning is classic bathroom cleaning.  I'm not including the basement (a copout, I know).

Much like this blog, these past three days have reinforced my recent efforts to alter, change, adapt my perspective on life, left me sore (I tore a part so much correspondence - junk mail, old mail, old bills, redundant financial crap from the mutual funds that have sucked over the last decade - that my left bicep and forearm a bit sore Monday, not so much today and produced the aforementioned recycling), produced many smiles and laughs (finding cool Holiday cards from kind friends lost at the bottom of the pile, old letters from girlfriends and other friends, postcards from countless spots in the world, photos of nephews and nieces and the dog, a few odd keepsakes from travels to England, Vancouver, Seattle, Panama, Mexico and such), a few cuss words as the overwhelming nature of this clean up took several momentary tolls on my mind, my patience (again see desk photo), a calm that comes from concentrating on a task and working toward completion, and just knowing where things are, what do I have, what do I need?*

How did it get this way?  Not really sure that question matters: living alone, limited motivation and energy, and a tragic complacency that clouded my past (both recent and longer).  But I am finally under the surface of this past, so while the work goes on, it feels good, not godly, just good.


*As I am in the middle of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, this long sentence makes total sense as well as the asterisk (this comparison is only regarding length of sentence and use of footnotes - nothing more - because that man can work a sentence, an idea, characters and dialogue, etc.).  One of his sentences lasted nearly two pages, I was exhausted wondering how it would end, would it actually end?

Revenge (Imagined)

Now that I have tried to make myself feel better through some favorite things, I thought I might indulge my darker side and consider a few practices that I would like to initiate.

Provide selected members of Congress with a personalized butt plug and a Wookalar to help them insert it sans lubricant. It’s the American Way!

Introduce my grumpy neighbor to the Feces of the Week Club courtesy of my dogs. There is nothing like throwing bags of dog poop onto someone’s roof to start the week off right.

Make the executives at major recording labels and movie studies sit through a marathon of their most insipid cultural products. Bathroom breaks are only given when they are begging for forgiveness from consumers.

Use my dormant magic powers to disable the engines of the cars that speed through stop signs near my house.

Make all presidential candidates have their speeches dissected by a qualified rhetorician so that the offending candidates must explain and correct the fallacies, tautologies, and empty promises from which their speeches are constructed.

Trying to Improve My Mood

I had planned on writing about something else today, but now I feel petulant and irked. Therefore, I am postponing my previous idea for a post and am just going to write about elements that bring me some happiness. In no particular order we have:

Speech to Text Errors: Have you ever tried to dictate the words "Darth Vader" to your cell phone?

Remaining calm when others drive erratically. Even though I used to live in Los Angeles where road rage can be deadly, I have only started to do this.

Really funny blog posts from Auditus. His impression of Jay was awesome, if not a bit offensive ;)

Wrestling with our youngest dog.

Improving my skills as a cook. Bison Bologonese anyone?

Writing with a fountain pen. Anachronisms can be attractive and useful, thank you very much.

Rocking out to Mike Doughty.

Playing and receiving a cleaver practical joke--thanks LBR staff.

Geeking out on my new mobile phone. Gingerbread for Android rocks!

Forcing myself to write this blog daily and finding the occasional response.

Checking out what the Oatmeal has on his website.

What Has Age to do with Food?

While the process of aging is hardly surprising, the changes in priorities and leisure preferences that accompany aging are what interest me of late. The particular preference under consideration today is food, or rather the greater emphasis I place on eating it. Now I am not one of those people who never valued the taste and cultural role of food, but eating as an activity simply had a lower priority than meeting attractive women, hanging out with friends, doing athletic activities like mountain biking, or going to a bar/dance club. In the years since leaving my birthplace food has grown in importance to me. Before progressing, I want to note that while enjoying what I ate might not have held the greatest importance to me, I was often a hungry young man. Moreover, even though I was slight of build I prided myself on the quantities of food I could consume. What could have been an educational time in my life, namely learning how to cook and appreciate food during my adolescence, was not to be. My stepmother was not a particularly impressive cook. Despite this, my father had a standing rule that his children (stepchildren were exempt) had to eat everything on their plates. So I learned to eat quickly and without tasting much. This was a necessity, as I had to eat quite a lot in order to balance out the calories my body consumed while swimming or playing water polo.

The habit that changed my orientation toward eating was the weekly trip my freshman dorm floor would take to various restaurants. Embarrassed as I am to say this, none of our choices were particularly refined. Frequented establishments included the Olive Garden and a chain sushi restaurant called Todai. Even though the food we ate was only of middling quality, I began to relish the pleasures of a decently prepared meal and the sharing of this activity with others. What really pushed me toward the appreciation of food culture was studying in Italy. There, surrounded by restaurateurs who took great pride and pains for their dishes, I learned that a good meal could be memorable and even transcendent (of language, of expectation, and even sensation).

After college I became more invested in certain foods, sushi primary amongst them. My exploration of sushi grew so that not only was I eating copious amounts of the stuff (we are talking whole serving trays for one person here) but I was eating the more adventurous varieties: ankimo, sea urchin, barracuda. I also began to frequent other restaurants that specialized in nouveau California cuisine, country French cuisine, and local produce.

At this point I am still no expert, but the importance of food continues to grow; just this morning I was reading about a biking tour in Quebec focused on La Route des Saveurs. This is the sort of change to which I have been inferring; instead of placing physical activity first, eating has become the primary activity with the physical activity serving as a means of transport and exercise. I make no claims to this post offering enlightenment about the human condition. What I will say is that by changing my orientation toward food I believe I have altered my frenetic pace, learned to consider culture from the palette as well as the eye & ear, and have turned what used to be a mundane action into a necessary yet potentially transformative activity.

Damn straight it was a good [hair] day

While I bemoan, decry and self-loathe many of my physical attributes, I must thank my gene pool for a thick head of hair.  It is curly and robust, was once blonde thanks to Swedish ancestry and 10 summers of competitive swimming, but quickly went brown in my later teenage years.  I used to play around with color but have been natural for a decade now.  Yes, it is starting to grey, very slowly though.  I had a friend during these teen years whose mom was a professional hair stylist, so I was somewhat adventurous with my hair cuts.  No, never a Mohawk, but never a rat’s tail either (popular among boys and some girls for way too long in the Midwest during the Eighties).  I shaved it and went punk for a while, grew it out and put on penny loafers, a cardigan and brow line glasses for a mod look, and tried desperately for several years to grow it long.  But this was its one drawback, the longer it got, the more uncontrollable the curls became (I am looking for this picture, no luck yet).  I made it to my neck once, and not as a mullet, it was the same length all around.  But when it thoroughly dried it was no longer at my neck as the curls swung into action, puffed itself out, and I ended up looking like Carrot Top (pre-steroid era – that’s an odd statement) or a much cooler comparison would be Slash (but sadly the Top is most accurate).  In the humidity of Midwestern summers, even with short hair, I have my own kind of afro.  So, my haircut has basically been the same for the last fifteen years (minus a couple of bright blonde dye jobs in my mid-twenties that I do miss some days). 

As such, I do try to take good care of my hair as well as manage it.  This means product, I have tried many over the years and finally have a nice rotation of tools that work.  But I do not let it work to its fullest extent because I do not blow dry my hair.  I put the product in, sometimes when my hair is fully dry (which is best for me) but mostly when my hair is at varying stages of wet.  And then walk away.   This is a result of habit and perpetually rushing out the door responding to the deadline of the moment.   So I often have kind of wet-look throughout my day, which I do not love per se, but do not mind enough to do something about it (What is said when you do the same thing over and over?).  Not wet like a jheri curl though.   I have the best control of my hair, with a few intractable issues, in the morning.  I have yet to shower, the product is still in there but it has been elevated by sleep into a glorious mess that I quite enjoy and can do some funky things with.  I can twist it, pull it, make it stand on end.  The downside, of course, is that it has a greasy look that can be a turn off and can be a bit smelly from the sweat of the previous day and sometimes from the crappy night of sleep that is far too common.  So I wash away the mess in the morning, I sometimes take a shower without touching the hair, but vary rarely does this occur.  Friends told me I can dry wash my hair with baking soda, but I have never tried it.  But today was a day to let it do its thing, I think I like it mostly because it makes me feel like a musician and the contrarian spirit behind it.  I have freaked out parents, some friends, even some students once in a while with the messy mop on top of my head.  So with all deference to Cube, damn straight it was a good day.    

          

Thesaurus' Kryptonite

Folks, I have witnessed it first hand.  For our first few years of friendship, I was under the belief that there was nothing that could slow down let alone consume Thesaurus (other than a cute girl that passed before his eyes, he is a descendant of the master after all, and loves his wife completely).  But in a hotel room between conference panels, he exposed his true weakness.  He was entranced, "glued to the tv," hypnotized, enraptured, transported, spellbound by the bulbs and tubes flashing before him (I know this has not been the case for quite some time kiddies, but the box used to be a lot different).  I am not sure what he was watching, I think the Ghost Whisperer, but it did not matter.  If I changed the channel, there was no clear reaction.  I called out his name over and over, nothing.  I could not stop laughing at this sight.  The energizer bunny brought to his knees.  So if you ever cross his path, he does have a weakness.

Why I Still Like Netflix

Confession time dear readers: I have an addiction problem. This is not a run-of-the-mill addiction like alcohol, overeating, or any such like. Rather, I am addicted to the moving image. Put more simply, I am easily entranced by television shows and movies. Lest you think I have lost my sense of taste, I will say in my own defense that I will not watch just anything; sports commentaries, vapid sitcoms, Fox News broadcasts, much reality television, and children’s programming are all unappealing to me. Still, many of the currently produced dramatic, adult animation, or mystery shows will suck me in if I let them. As a result, Casa de Thesaurus has no cable or local television, but I do have Netflix. Now I know that many Netflix customers have fled this service with the recent change in the company’s rate plans, but I am not one of them. In fact, I still feel that their service is convenient, cost effective, and pretty darn cool. Back before the rate split between streaming and DVD mailings, I would stream all manner of things and then watch selected DVDs. However, my addiction would sometimes get the better of me and I would stream hours of shows each evening, which is why I opted to go with the DVD service only. I know this makes me old school, but at least it keeps my viewing to more reasonable levels. Also, many of the foreign shows and films that I like are only available on DVD, or at least they were (who knows now that I cannot see what is available to stream). Moreover, I still possess a childlike glee thinking that something that I want is coming in the mail. What is not to like? I have a huge backlog of titles that I want to see, my plan gives me two of them at a time, and I can keep my addiction in check. Netflix is also far cheaper than cable, some fifty or more dollars a month cheaper. Finally, I don’t have to deal with commercials. All said, I am rather content with Netflix, so a word of thanks to them. Dearest Netflix, I will not be abandoning you.

Return of the Jay

Sixteen states, man.  Sixteen muthafuckin’ states are fuckin’ my shit up.  Even my own Jersey, fuck!  Medical marijuana crippled my employment opportunities, I had franchises in place, Holy Smokes cumming to a town near you.  I’m that genius dude Steve Hawk and shit.  My business plan was solid, P Diddy solid.  This muthafuckin’ shit ain’t fair, my hetero-lifemate Silent Bob and I can’t catch a fuckin’ break.  First John Hughes lets us down by dying and shit, after pulling off the greatest cocksuckin’ hoax in the world: lying to us about nirvana here on earth in the form of Shermers, Illinoise.   All that fine pussy but no bitches in sight cause that cock stain city don’t even exist.  Were back to looking for loose women at abortion clinics, and maybe that woman who has like eighteen kids.  Obama has fucked up this fuckin’ economy, were left peddling mediocre weed to nerds that don’t know better.  Excuse me, can I have a Kennedy half-dollar bag?  Get the fuck outta here Norberg.   But my man has figured some shit out, yo.  Electronics wizard, master craftsman, botanist, engineer, philosophizer, jedi knight, and mad lady killa, no way you tubby bitch.  Silent Bob’s been watching all these cracker-ass, crazy ass white boys arguing on the telly about who wants to be the next Pres A Dent.  Talking about colonies on Mars, men of the people, fuck them bitches who get raped – mad crazy.  We hit the road, we following these crazy white dudes everywhere, selling our wares, smoke some fatty-boom-batty blunts with old ladies talkin’ about a Muslim president, dudes with phat ice on their wrists and some young bitch on his jock complainin’ about how they are losing, it is crazy mass hysteria.  But nuthing accompanies such frenzy better than good ole Mista Mohasty.  Plus all those Waffle Houses down there, munchies galore.  Bizness is back!  So you can try and take away our weed, but you can never take … Hey, yum, where you goin’ Trish, when you gonna let me get a crack at that pussy.  Shit, I’d fuck me.

A Little Advice from Billy Mack (of Love Actually)

Since the sales of my last album have fallen off, I have decided to write my memoires. No ghostwriter hack will be telling my story; besides, my bastard publisher could not find me a cute scribe who wanted to hear my anecdotes, write everything down, and then shag me senseless at the end of each day. But before I settle into the difficulty of trying to recollect thirty years of pills, booze, hash, heroin, coke, and god knows what else, my ever faithful manager suggested I try blogging to get a feel for this writing thing. So gather 'round and listen to a few pieces of advice from your Uncle Billy. Let’s start with the basics, shall we? For instance, a little self-loathing is good in the morning. Something has to push you past the hospitality tray, over the passed out groupie, and toward the needle, and I found self-hatred usually got the job done. Never underestimate the value of a good roadie. These are the folk who can finish your guitar solos hiding behind a speaker tower when you are just too coked out to hit the right strings. Underwear and leather trousers never go together. Always have your manager buy your drugs because they know how much you need them and will pay for quality stuff. If the waif looks underage then assume she is; there are always more birds lacking self-respect in the queue outside the dressing room. Spend just enough time in the studio to get a track polished, but not so much that the song looses its rawness. Remember that if you make it through two or more decades in this business then some of your fan base might also be your illegitimate children. (I picked up that tidbit from my mates in Aerosmith.) Never call anything a comeback. I find the words “hiatus”, “vacation”, and “rehab” all have the same explanatory effect, yet do not exude that stench of failure that the a comeback record does. Let people bootleg everything, but only authorize the best and most heavily circulated recordings. This way your music stays out there and you can get a cut of the profits if something becomes popular enough. Don’t let cameras of any kind into dressing rooms, recording sessions, or rehearsals; photos and videos destroy the kind of long-term salacious and unattributed gossip that keeps one’s name in the press. Never marry anyone as famous as you want to be; too much ego management destroys bands, kills sex appeal, and just bores the public. And lastly, only take advice from rock stars when it is offered freely. All that shite they put in books is there to get someone to buy copy. My offering, however, will have no advice. Instead, I am going to fill it with juicy stories about some the best moments in my life that I cannot remember. Happily, court records, paternity tests, exposés, and the like furnish all the material one needs to fabricate a past that I wish I could have lived through instead of nearly dying from.

Technology & Moderation

Contrary to what one might think, I was not always an early adopter of technology. I can remember in high school (yes, I am that old) when pagers and brick cell phones were all the rage. I refused to get a pager because getting a message that someone wanted me to call him/her seemed silly. That same posture—avoiding particular material goods because everyone else was purchasing them—had been a consistent theme throughout my young life. You see, I am a contrarian. Tell me that Titanic is the best movie because of its box office success and you are sure to get me to avoid watching it. Suggest that I buy a certain pair of sunglasses because everyone else has them—well, I know what is no longer on my wish list. So, what changed for me? In a word, media did. Now I do not mean that I fell in love with media for its own sake, but rather the accessibility of certain media like digital music tracks and the ability to contact friends through communication media helped to change my mind. This transformation did not happen suddenly. Living in Southern California, I was one of the last people in my circle of friends to get a cell phone. However, once I did get a phone I quickly upgraded to one of the earliest Web phones. This was a terrible device, particularly as I could not read e-mail or do much of anything except reach a handful of websites selected by my carrier. Still, the idea of having a computer in my hand made the phone cool. The real transformation in my love of technology came when I bought a PDA. My purchase of this device was done to help me stay on top of my appointments for work, but once I saw how convenient it was I wanted to combine all of my favorite portable devices into one instrument. In my dream I would have something that combined my calendar, contact list, phone, music player, photos, and file storage in a device far smaller than a laptop. The first device that seemed to fit my needs was Google’s G1 phone.

Again, my contrary nature made me turn away from the iPhone. Well, that and its cost and requirement that I use AT&T. I was happy with this first Google phone for something like three years or more. Only recently did I upgrade to the new TMobile Gx2 phone, which is far better. All of this history is simply to defend my change from a contrarian of material culture to one who has learned to appreciate these goods when my desires and those qualities possessed by a particular device coincide. There are times when I miss the extreme postures of my youth, but then I think about listening to my favorite songs, checking e-mail, and sending text messages all while working out at the gym; sometimes, taking a moderate position can be the most pleasing.

Never go with a hippie to a second location

For my money, no one has better timing nor uses their voice, their body, their face better than Alec Baldwin.  The guy is a monster.  From his characters in the Departed, Glengarry Glen Ross, the Good Shepherd, Running with Scissors, the Cooler to name just a few film roles, even the narrator as the Royal Tenenbaums  to his legendary work as Stanley Kowalski on Broadway and other stage work, the man is an acting monster.  And with the brilliant mind (and not too shabby a performer in her own right) of Tina Fey, they have created one of the best satirical commentaries on class, capitalism, the mythology of our political parties, corporate culture, masculinity / femininity, consumerism, and entertainment via the character Jack Donaghy – it is devastating in its sharp wit, pointed criticism – and I am routinely amazed to find it via the usual crass, over-simplified and formulaic genre of the half-hour television situation comedy broadcast by a multi-national corporation.  Of course it would be better to have the audio/visual component, even on the page the humor and critique shines.  Here is a sample:


Liz: Cross-promotional... deal mechanics... revenue streams... jargon... synergy.
Jack: That's the best presentation I've ever heard.



Avery: I don't know why our daughter would be afraid of Reagan.
Jack: Are you accusing me of not doing enough Reagan time with her?



Jack: I'm tired of talking this much to a woman I'm not having sex with.



Jack: Ambition is the willingness to kill the things you love and eat them in order to stay alive. Haven't you ever read my throw pillow?



Jack: In my defense, every April 22nd I honor Richard Nixon's death by getting drunk and making some unpopular decisions.



Jack [about GE]: We brought good things to life. And bad things to Chinese rivers.



Jack: All you have to do as the writing staff of an NBC show is incorporate positive mentions, or 'POS-MENS' of GE products into your program. For example you could write an episode where one of your character purchases, and is satisfied with one of GE's direct current drilling motors for off-shore or land-based projects.



Liz: Why are you wearing a tux?
Jack: It's after six. What am I, a farmer?



Jack: Lesson number one: you don't need anyone. Sure, Josh tests well with female viewers 12 to 24, which is important to advertisers because young women will buy just about anything



Jack: I think Angie is right-handed so you have to work her clockwise.
Liz: Wait, you've already thought about fighting her?
Jack: Every time I meet a new person I figure out how I'll fight them. You have a gimpy right knee, right?



Jack: She needs to lose thirty pounds or gain sixty. Anything in between has no place on television.



Jack: All of my summer replacement shows were big hits - America's Next Top Pirate, Are You Stronger Than A Dog, MILF Island.
Liz: MILF Island?
Jack: 25 super hot moms, 50 eighth grade boys, no rules.
Liz: Oh yeah, didn't one of those women turn out to be a prostitute?
Jack: That doesn't mean she's not a wonderful, caring MILF.



Jack: She is my lover. That's right. She's my liberal, hippy-dippy mama; my groovy chick; my old lady. She was our chief adversary during the Sheinhardt Wig hearings. She wants to tax us all to death and make it legal for a man to marry his own dog. But I think what we have is special, and I'm proud of her. And I'm not going to hide it any longer. I'm Jack Donaghy, damn it! And this is my woman.



Jack: Look how Greenzo's testing! They love him in every demographic - colored people, broads, fairies, commies. Gosh we gotta update these forms.

Jack: Never go with a hippie to a second location.



Jack: Lemon, you may be witnessing history here. Making it through a full twenty four hours without a single misstep is called "Reaganing." The only other people who've ever done it: Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch, and -- no judement -- Saddam Hussein. So, what have you got for me?

This land is your land, this land is mine

This historical amnesia is certainly nothing new, it just seems that our memory gets shorter and shorter. Certainly the complexities, hypocrisy, injustice and inequality that existed at the founding of this country is at the heart of this amnesia. We had to "forget" in order to deny the natives we rhetorically turned into savages in order to justify stealing their land, the blacks we kidnapped and enslaved, the poor we gave indentured servitude, and the women we subjugated to child-rearing and home-making - all denied the rights set forth at our founding. Full speed ahead on the liberty and justice for all.

I do have great fondness for the experiment laid out at the inception of this country and I have yet to come across a more brilliant government move than the First Amendment, but these aspirations are used over and over to obscure and deny this history. I guess I am just sad this is an image found on a college campus in the the United States in twenty-first century - pathetic!

ArtistS, Indeed

As usual, Thesaurus does a magnificent job of eloquently exploring the state of popular art in this modern world. I think my critique of Madonna was meant to be less about her individual production of art but rather the machine that props it up and validates it in the same sentence. But as I stated in my brief follow up, my post missed its intended mark. There is no doubt that Nigel Godrich contributed immensely to Radiohead's best records, Mario C. and the Dust Brothers were the architects that helped put together the Beastie Boys samples and sounds, Martin Scorcese relies heavily, and acknowledges such, on his DP, set designer(s), editors, and of course his actors. Art is always a collaborative process. And we cannot forget the audience and the meaning they make and add to its artistic creation. Ultimately, I think I am just annoyed by the disposable nature of everything. The historical amnesia is now faster than ever in this country, distracted by creations that cloud or distort issues so that we can live comfortable in our ignorance.

And We Are Public

Be forewarned--our blog is now live to the world.

Identity & Authorship

In light of what Auditus has to say about Madonna and popular culture, I feel some necessity in speaking of identity. More specifically, I want to discuss the related issues of sole authorship, individual creativity, and genius that are activated when one employs the term “artist” in its singular appellation. My contention here is that we as a society that lauds the work and success of the individual are plagued by an ideological disease that we might call the fetish of the lone creative genius. Taking Madonna as my example here as well, I think anyone who knows much of anything about the contemporary music business knows that Madonna is just one part of the machine. Auditus rightly notes that she does not play the instruments on her songs, does not produce the tracks, does not write the music, and can hardly be assumed to write the entirety of the lyrics. Yet despite our awareness of these facts, we still rage and moan that she is undeserving of any such honors because she is not a real artist. True, Madonna is not responsible for her own creations, but the same is true of many other artistic pursuits: sculpture, painting, filmmaking, etc. As a supporting piece of evidence I want you to consider Dale Chihuly. At one point this glass artist made his own pieces, but now he has a team of people who do it for him. I have heard the same is true of Matthew Barney. All this being said, my point is that we are deluding ourselves twofold. First we assume the term artist is appropriate for these times when nearly every consumer pursuit has become an industry dependent on the labor of dozens if not hundreds of others. Second, all of the old standards of artistic production that we believe are essential—singularity of vision, a direct link between the creator and the thing created, etc.—are simply untrue for many pursuits in popular mediums. I grant you that there are individuals who do all of their own work, but the old moniker is simply no longer accurate for a majority of the cases, particularly as regards popular culture. This is why I am proposing, and only slightly tongue in cheek, that we consider a category of artistic creation as indicative of the best assemblage of the output of others. Madonna, Chihuly, Warhol,

and numerous filmmakers would certainly fit better in this category. Such a shift is only fair for the myriad and unacknowledged others who make the sounds of our contemporary sirens so seductive. So yes, an end to ghost writers, second directors, and all of those faceless souls who receive far less credit than is deserved. Death to the singular notion of the creative, popular artist; long live popular artistS.

I missed my own point ...

After another night of shitty sleep, I realized my long diatribe would be better suited by simply stating: the confluence of branding, advertising, money, public relations, and a media beast that survives on perpetual urgency, manufactured drama, and warp speed news cycles creates a space where mediocrity is celebrated as artistic achievement. I have been watching the media rise of Newt Gingrich the last couple of weeks, my dad even said: "He looks presidential to me" and am flabbergasted by it: he is the ultimate narcissistic hypocrite. But this same machine that I bemoan contributed to the rise of Barack Obama as well, so I guess I am just saddened by the decay of real, honest, complicated, civil debate in this country. Madonna just a vehicle to blather on a bit about this state of un-reality. But I still don't understand how she receives writing credits? I guess she might claim to be a com-poser or conductor?

Just Let It Go

[PROLOGUE] I used to work at an independent record label / distributor / store in the late 90s, early 00s (sadly, the store and distribution portion of the business was essentially scraped last month as iTunes and the like continue their march). Anyway, to many that admission implies I am a music snob, which I guess is somewhat true. But not a music snob in the record store clerk asshole way (record store clerk – extinction, circa 2004 – you will be missed even though you were often an asshole), if someone bought a boy band CD or bad hair metal, I would always think: if they get some level of joy out of that music like I get out of mine, well, that is cool. Now, it did not stop me from mercilessly ripping apart the music at some point, but I tried to make a distinction between the consumer and the item consumed. Not always successful though. My simple point is that if people experience joy from music, I am mostly happy for them.

One day I was working at the label / store and was railing against commercial radio at the time (I have always had a strange love affair with radio, aha, a future post I see): “Britney Spears should go fuck herself, Christina Ag-whatever and her terrible vocal acrobatics, which of course means a desire for Mariah Carey and her voice to vanish forever.” So I am railing on and on, and everyone in the store is amused but did not share my frustration. I was also writing for the local independent newspaper at the time, so I announced my next piece would be on the state of popular, commercial music, etc. My friend Chris quietly said, “it’s not necessary, everyone knows they are shit, what they represent, how they got on the radio – why give it any attention, just let it go away.” His zen-like approach to popular entertainment and the mediums that cover it, support it, propagate it struck me. And so I did just let it go – at least externally. My internal screeds continued, mostly to myself, sometimes to others. This stuff is disposable; it does go away, replaced by the next over-sexualized female artist or wannabe fourteen year old playa talking about his junk and the lovin’ he gives out.

But last Monday the Google news page had some clever headline that sadly caught my eye about Elton John dissing Madonna. Short story: Madonna won an award over Elton. Elton basically said it was a joke, Madonna was a joke, and she is a desperate narcissist (go Elton). As we worship at the altar of media relations, publicists, and image management, of course Elton apologized a few days later. But this got me thinking about my friend Chris and what he said: just let it go away.

Jump to 2012 and it did not go away – it has simply metastasized into a 50 plus year old woman who is still considered by far too many people to be (a) an artist and (b) culturally significant. So, what if it is doesn’t just go away? What if it is considered as important to our history, our culture? What if it is given stature and respectability? And by the “it” in this post I mean Madonna.

First things first – acknowledgments to Madonna. I thought about burying this information in the middle of this post or excluding it altogether, but it is important to the story, I am not simply a hater. I own her Like a Prayer album, the song “Oh Father” is amazing, plus Like a Prayer, Express Yourself, Cherish, Love Song, Keep it Together are great pop songs. I also bought a completely bootlegged greatest hits album on the streets of Cuernavaca, Mexico because it had Beautiful Stranger and Ray of Light, two more great pop songs that I still play to this day when the mood strikes me.

I just pulled my copy of the Like a Prayer album and found an insert regarding AIDS that was included. So, this brings me to my next acknowledgment. This album came out in 1989 while a lot of this country was still using tragic phrases like the gay-plague and gay-cancer in reference to AIDS. I know Madonna has a huge following in the glbt community, and I applaud her efforts to advance issues and challenge stereotypes and bigotry. Likewise, I have heard from many a female friend that Madonna was empowering during their teen years. Madonna challenged the old-boys network and often found great success. As women were still struggling to find role models of powerful women, women succeeding at business, women leading organizations and institutions, I do not disregard this importance. And of course Madonna challenged the puritanical nature of our society when it came to s-e-x; she said sex is good, put it in our face and said deal with it – again I applaud her (but I need to return to this later and potentially problematize the rhetorical significance of her symbolism). Lastly, she has remained in the game for nearly thirty years, that type of longevity in the entertainment business means something, although I am not entirely sure what that is or how significant it is.

So, as I said, I am not a hater. To be honest, I had not given Madonna much thought until I saw that headline on Monday and since I had begun blogging over the past few weeks, light bulb went off. I had of course thought about the state of image management, persona, pop music and such for quite some time and Madonna gives me a vehicle to explore here below.

So, first things first: what is she? She calls her self an artist, a musician. I would say more like a performer, dancer. But, looking through these liner notes, she is given a writing credit for many of her songs, often the lead credit. Many of her other hits were written by others, and this is nothing new as the Brill Building churned out hit after hit, same thing with Motown, Memphis, Nashville, and so on. Back to her getting credit for writing these songs. How exactly does she do this? Part of mythology is that she played drums in a NYC punk band, well, that is complete shit. She began “learning” the guitar a few years ago and I remember seeing her play, it was pretty sad. She started learning her first instrument twenty-plus years into her career. So how does she write songs? Hum to musicians. There has been many a claim to plagiarism of others music and lyrics that have followed her as well, not sure if or how many of these claims were ever adjudicated? So, again, why does she receive credit for writing any of her songs? Yes, she has written lyrics, but often she changes a line or two in the song brought to her by collaborators and professional song writers. Some of the lyrics she has acknowledge writing from beginning to end are so inane and pedantic, it is no wonder she recently said she cannot listen to a lot of her songs. And I know the work she has done with William Orbit lately was done by William Orbit. No, I was not in the studio, but Madonna is a life sucker, she figures out what is hip and happening at the time, co-opts it as her own creation, packages it, and sells it under the label Madonna.

Two quick asides: (1) how in the world she still gets away with the English accent transformation she experienced is beyond me. She should be mocked, laughed at, ridiculed any time she opens her fucking mouth. (2) She is a terrible actor, she has been given countless acting opportunities with serious directors and respectable actors, and other than the time she played herself essentially (League of Their Own), she has been an unbelievable, inauthentic performer on the movie screen.

Now back to the biggest issue. As far as I can tell, Madonna’s best talent is creating media spectacles. But is not the business of celebrity just a different but brilliant and nefarious and diabolical revenue stream for media conglomerates. The same folks that put up the money for the business of Madonna also sell the magazines that keep us interested. Media relations people, brand managers, advertising executives, publicists are the true guardians of the gate these days. Perception is reality, and they make it so and repeat it ad nausea. But really how hard is it to create a media spectacle these days when it is all done under the same roof? The monster needs to be fed, and Madonna has the meat it wants. But this is applauded, rewarded; this is what passes for artistic achievement? So, if I frame Madonna as a performance artist, maybe I could go a bit easier. But she claims to be an artist, musician and gets away with it from too many people. And does this manipulation raise concerns about the intent behind her advocacy; was it all just good business. Maybe the intention does not matter as I would say on whole the positives out weigh her motivations regardless.

And Elton was right, she is a narcissist. Check out this letter she wrote in 2004, endorsing Wesley Clark (really?) for president (I used this letter in my persuasion class, the students had great fun ripping her apart):

I've never done this before. But life is about taking risks is it not?

I know that people seem to pay attention to everything I do. Big or Small. Ridiculous or Sublime. So I am hoping they pay attention to this:

I am supporting General Wesley Clark for President.

Not only as a "celebrity" but as an American citizen and as a mother. I want my children to grow up with the same opportunities that I had – to know and understand what's going on in the world and to travel that world safely and with pride.

Now I'm asking you to join me.

I am writing to you because the future I wish for my children is at risk.

I now remember watching her commercial, I mean documentary, Truth or Dare many years ago and Warren Beatty asking her: why are you doing this, why are you letting cameras follow you. Madonna had some stupid, vapid response. Warren finally said, you are not capable of living off camera, there is no reason to. And that probably sums it up, she is a media personality at best and her work is simply about maintaining that. I guess it might be said that Madonna is aware that others are watching her and as such works to control and manipulate the gaze, I will await Thesaurus’ take on that.

I stumbled across this quote just now from her one-time brother-in-law, the musician Joe Henry, who said:

"I've known her since I was 15 and she was 17, longer than I've known my wife. We have had a great relationship, and part of that was because I never needed anything from her. I recognised that we were in two different occupations. Not to disparage one ounce of her musicality, I was always of the belief that her persona was her career. Whether she was making a movie or writing a song or punching a photographer, it was all pushing a persona forward, and that was the real body of work. I was never tempted to slip a song to her at thanksgiving."

If I would have found this quote earlier, probably would have saved some time, but I had fun just letting it go.

Clean Shaven

I am not the most masculine of men, and this admission should shock absolutely no one who has met me. Yet my feminine aspects do not detract from my appreciation of male grooming rituals and today I want to discuss my razor. As a teenager with little in the way of facial hair I used an old safety razor, which led to cuts and disappointment. My failings were due to a lack of teaching on proper shaving techniques, but my father has never been one for easing his children’s passage into adulthood with patient tutoring. From sharp steel I moved on to an electric razor, which served me well past college. At some point in graduate school I decided to try a modern multi-bladed razor, which worked tolerably but left my neck red and was costly when one added up the expense of the blades over time. Then, just over a year ago, my wife gave me the incredibly cool and functional Feather Stainless Steel Razor.

Admittedly, there is a steep learning curve with this razor, but once one gets the routine down and is patient with the shaving process the results are lovely. This razor only accepts Feather’s own blades, which are very sharp and hold an edge for about two shaves if the person has a beard like mine and only shaves every second day. This week I let my beard grow for three days and I was looking scruffy. Fifteen minutes with the Feather and I feel clean and smooth. This razor has brought some joy back to the ritual of shaving and makes me feel like a proper gentleman, which is a high compliment to any device in these days of cheap materials, emphasis on a reduction in manufacturing costs, and a move away from time-intensive grooming regimens. I, for one, am a fan of this sort of older design coupled with high quality production (and cost). My fondness for this object is also based on the requirement that one master the technique of shaving, meaning that materialism is wed to a skilled practice and consumption becomes more than simple commodity fetish.

Damn, guess which new release at the box office received these notices?

"This film is so spectacularly bad that the bar for pretentious, deep-thoughts movies has been lowered roughly the length of my middle finger."

"This is a film so thoroughly rotten to its smarmy and diseased little core that tearing into it here hardly seems an adequate method of dealing with it -- going after the negative with battery acid and a sledgehammer might be closer to what it deserves."

"The production's penchant for contrivance is insufferable —- not a single spontaneous moment from start to finish."

"This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies — [Auditus edit here to maintain the suspense, if only for a moment] — and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling. And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage."

"It’s Oscar-mongering of the most blunt and reprehensible sort."

Voices, on the page and in my ear

Doughty’s voice is perfect, his lyrics divine. Both playful and critical, dealing with the everyday, the otherworldly, and in-your-face criticism of the Western world, often all at the same time. Anyone that can write lyrics like these will always have a special place in my soul:

Slap myself to wake but now it's too late
Cause I spelled your name out on my license plate, Janine

Born to be a God among Salesmen.
Working the skinny tie.
Slugging down fruit juice.
Extra tall extra wide.

And the radio man says women were a curse
so men built Paramount studios
and men built Columbia studios
and men built Los Angeles

[ ]

and the radio man laughs because the radio man fucks a model too
gone savage for teenagers with automatic weapons and boundless love
gone savage for teenagers who are aesthetically pleasing,
in other words, fly
Los Angeles beckons the teenagers to come to her on buses
Los Angeles loves love

I've seen the Kansas of your sweet little myth
You've never seem to know
I'm half sick on the drinks you mixed

Has there ever been a better critique of Hollywood, consumer entertainment than Screenwriter's Blues? No book or critical essay has ever so perfectly nailed the underbelly of this institution for me (although I am sure they are out there). And I know it is about LA too, but the Hollywood smackdown always makes me smile. The way he hits "studio" or "listening" blows me away. And I must admit, it took be a couple of times to figure Soul Coughing out with Ruby Vroom. " Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago" did not resonate. It took "Down to This" for me to get it and get into it. I hope a song about killing does not symbolize something else. You cannot give this post to the prosecution!

I have been listening to a lot of Joy Division lately and thus Ian Curtis’s voice. His writing was filled with imagery of emotional isolation, death, and alienation, not uplifting stuff per se. I am certainly not depressed at the moment, but I find myself grooving on his voice lately. The bass-baritone thing, howling at times, sounding like a drunk uncle – I love it. Dance, dance, dance to the radio.

Why We Love & Despise Hank

"Hell-A Magazine blog number one: Hank hates you all. A few things I’ve learned in my travels through this crazy little thing called life. One: a morning of awkwardness is far better than a night of loneliness. Two: I probably won’t go down in history, but I will go down on your sister. And three: while I’m down there, it might be nice to see a hint of pubis. I’m not talking about a huge’70s Playboy bush or anything, just something that reminds me that I’m performing cunnilingus on an adult. But I guess the larger question is, why is the city of angels so hell-bent on destroying its female population?"

The Sound and the Hush

I have been debating the subject of this post since earlier this morning. My original thought was to discuss my crushes on celebrities of various sorts, however I think I am going back to another favorite subject—the voice. Yesterday I expounded on the virtues of the Kelly Jones’s vocal stylings. Today I want to consider Mike Doughty, or M. Doughty as he was known in the Soul Coughing days. I could discuss Mr. Doughty’s tenor, but what I really want to consider is his phrasing and his creativity. Though I am not a consistent fan of jazz, I give Mike Doughty props for taking elements of jazz vocal delivery and fusing them to rock. His delivery has a way of exploring every nuance of a word and the idea with which it is associated. If you doubt me then have a listen to “Screenwriter’s Blues” or BT’s “Never Gonna Come Back Down.” There is also his creativity to consider. Mike Doughty is simply downright clever. He makes all sorts of mundane activities sound intriguing. Consider the verbal poetry of his “Down on the River by the Sugar Plant.” I especially like the line, “All of the waves that crash upon the shore, fruitless shushing the world. I pledge allegiance to my displacement, my flag of doubt is unfurled.” And there, pushed forward by a hip hop beat and twangs of an acoustic guitar, is the skeptic’s credo.

Seen at the gym

If you cannot make out the last entry on the left-hand side it says "lovin"

Jones - ing Again

Good lord, Kelly Jones has some pipes and the easy comparison that most music journalism would reach for is Rod Stewart. But first off, Kelly would never utter the words "do you think I am sexy" let alone sing them. Second, Rod Stewart is a douche bag. My first thoughts for comparison were Johnny Rzeznik or Kim Carnes, singing from their guts but filtered through the daggers and chains that protect the esophagus. No, this is not Tom Waits, but there is some Stevie Nicks and Neko Case in there as well.

When I saw the name Jones in Thesaurus' post title, I thought, well, I fell in love with another Jones in the last two days, so I guess that means I should pen a quick ode. Her name is Sarah Jones and I stumbled across her while folding about a month's worth of clean laundry (man, I had gotten way behind again). She is an actress on this tv show from the people who made Lost (which I was a one time fan) called Alcatraz. While the plot is of course unique to this show, the similarities to Lost are overwhelming, from music, characters, etc. that I am not too interested in following this story again. But, I kept watching for one reason and one reason only - Ms. Jones. Maybe it was the Carrie Mulligan haircut, man I love this haircut on a woman. Or maybe it was because I thought her fashion sense was unique in the sense that every female cop on tv or in the movies are way too stylish. Or maybe it was the fact that as far as I could tell there was little to no make up on her face or it is one of the best, most natural make up artists at work. Or maybe because of her boobs (like, Jerry, I am a boob man too). Or maybe because of this image I just came across while writing this post of Ms. Jones standing in front of a Shelby Mustang. Regardless, for one night in front of a mountain of laundry, I had a crush. It was a feeling not had for a while, and it was nice to feel that pang in my heart.

Hanks Says

Auditus, going to make this fairly short and fairly simple. You want to live vicariously through me but then have the fucking nerve to criticize me. You are a limp-wristed, no pussy eating waste that I fly over and over and over again. And as I have already said: "Don't tell me what to feel. All my fuckin' life people have been telling me I do things wrong, I'm always the fucking asshole, and I look around and I see everyone else is infinitely more fucked- up than I am." And Thesaurus, your nautical language made me throw up.

The Voice of Kelly Jones

The sirens that inhabit the seas around the ship of my consciousness are not all women. Just recently I found a live recording of Kelly Jones, the lead singer of Stereophonics. His voice threatens to pull me from the mast and into the cold waters of dreaming, and I want to tell you why. First off, I will acknowledge and then banish the similarity between the vocal stylings of Kelly Jones and Rod Stewart. Yes they sound alike at times, but where Rod struts and preens Kelly rocks and wails. Having gotten the obvious out of the way, allow me to detail what I hear in Jones’s voice. The first thing is the rough, edgy sound of it. He sounds as if he is about to cough or cry, but the notes are caught on this ragged precipice eternally, right at the edge of comfort and distress. Another element of his voice that deserves mention is that it does not seem to break or fade when he pushes it harder. Some singers have sweet sounding voices, but if they try to put more energy into belting out a lyric then what at first sounded nice becomes pitiable. Then there is the way that his voice seems to abide somewhere between intellect and emotion, as if he knew exactly what he wanted to say but still could not hold back his feelings. Mostly when I hear him I want to be able to make those same sounds; alas, this is a gift of which I was not graced. If you want to hear exactly what I have been writing about then go to this link. Kelly starts singing at 2:15 into the interview, and mind you this is a live performance: http://youtu.be/wklvFaBSnc8

Sorry Hank

I too am an admirer and friendly with Hank Moody. Unfortunately, Hank charges money for his friends to visit and in this economy, well, that seems a bit indulgent. He gave us all a free weekend a few weeks ago, but I was busy. My admiration is also rooted in a fantastical alter ego that occupies and haunts my imagination. My admiration is based on similar desires: to be raunchy, to fuck all kinds of women, and say shit like (HANK): “It could we worse, instead of finding out your husband was gay, you could have found out he was a scientologist.” (WOMAN): “I am a scientologist Hank.” (HANK): “Or a nazi, or al qaeda.” Conditioned as we are as upper middle class folks, we are sold a bill of goods that your late teens, early twenties is the time to be bold and brave, to meet all kinds of people, to have good and bad and awkward and a lot of sex, to experiment (for some it might be drugs, or ideas, or a bowl of jello – or all of the above), to travel the world, to be free before the crushing confines of capitalism weigh us down for the next forty years. For a variety of internal and external reasons I missed a lot of this time and as such I often waste far too much time thinking back and asking what if. So when I met Hank several years ago, I was initially awed, inspired by Hank. As Thesaurus noted, he was also a writer (the only thing I have ever really wanted “to be”). I had a man crush. But as Thesaurus slept on his first conversation with Hank, he examined quite eloquently the many reasons Hank and I wandered away from each other. There is only so much self destruction one can watch without re-examining their crush. And of course your view of women is problematic on so many levels (plus you have this amazing wife / ex-wife who kept giving you chances and you kept fucking up, to me almost unforgivable or at least incomprehensible). And I get that there might be a some kind of nobility in how up front you are with your conquests and your cock, and you live “with what is in front of you” but that is too easy (and you have a daughter, help me understand). But Hank’s skepticism still resonates and stays with me and I hope continues to guide me through this fucked up world. So indeed, raise a toast with some regularity and “meet everything with a raised eye brow.”