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So, as I think I mentioned before, I've been reading this book about the electric guitar. One of the chapters towards the end of the book is about women and the electric guitar. It's written by a guy who was in a band with Juliana Hatfield -- Hatfield is well-known for once saying that women were basically worse at playing the guitar than men, and saying it during the 90s when feminism was on an upswing. The author of the chapter, while respectful of Hatfield's views, disagrees, and list numerous female guitar players he feels contributed to the canon of guitar music. About 90% of the guitar players he lists -- various 70s punk goddesses and riot grrls etc. -- are horrible, but I think he is right to include Liz Phair as perhaps the one female who has really contributed something to the vocabulary of rock guitar. She's primarily a rhythm player, but there's no doubt there is a distinct Liz Phair guitar style.
Reading the chapter prompted me to put on "Exile in Guyville," the album that broke Phair onto the national scene. It's as good as it always was, but as I listen to it now, in 2009, I can't help but be bothered by the full scope of her career. As you may know, after releasing what was a seminal alternative album, Phair spent most of her time trying to mold her career in the direction of something like an older Britney Spears -- a power pop goddess with hooky but ultimately trite top 40 hits. She was more than willing to cash in her indie cred for mainstream success.
The same could be said of Courtney Love. "Live Through This" was a great album. But it's almost as if Love didn't understand what made it great. She followed up with a forgettable collection of catchy but meaningless songwriting.
All of this, I think, proves that women are inferior to men.
Rather disturbingly, I just saw an ad for health insurance featuring Billy Mays.
Anyone following what's happening in Honduras?
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
It strikes me that one of the strangest forms of music known to man is this "smooth jazz." It's strange partly just because it's so awful, but I don't really even understand how it could have evolved. The idea behind smooth jazz is to remove any sense of dynamics --- one note should be played no louder or quieter than another and the general flow of the song should be without wild undulation. The end result is the removal of any meaningful emotional statement. But, in my book, emotional statement is at the core of traditional or real jazz. So how did the movement from good jazz to bad jazz get instigated? I really don't know. I can only presume that as jazz declined in the 70s, jazz musicians frantically tried various variations on their music to find some favor with the public, and for some reason smooth jazz caught on.
The interesting thing is that even the greats weren't immune from being infected by the smooth jazz bug. Kenny Burrell was a great guitar player from the 60s -- played with Coltrane etc. but I recently came across a Kenny Burrell album from the 80s that is largely garbage. It sounds like jazz if Madonna made jazz.
On the subject of jazz -- I've posted videos by Anita O'Day before, but I find the one below interesting because it really illustrates how good she was at visually performing a song. By this I mean, her face really reflects the lyrics she's singing --- she's acting as much as she's singing.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Last night, I was talking to a friend of mine who's into biology and science. She was explaining the difference between natural selection and sexual selection. Natural selection is as we generally understand it --- survival of the fittest. Creatures best suited to hunt or avoid being preyed upon survive and procreate, thus ensuring their genes continue. Sexual selection is the idea that creatures best able to attract a mate are able to carry forth their genes. And as this friend of mine was explaining, often natural and sexual selection are at odds with each other. You might have a Tiberian dodo lizard that uses his bright colors to attract a mate, but those colors also attract hawks that feast upon the lizard.
And it occurred to me we see this sort of thing within the human species. You have guys like Justin Timberlake who dress in flashy clothing and do all sorts of crazy dances which get the girls soggy. But manly man, such as myself, would kick the shit out of that guy if given the chance.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
What did Michael Jackson do?
This is a question that's been bouncing around in my head since before Jackson died. I mean, I get it, he sang and he danced. But a lot of people sing and dance and they don't turn into Michael Jackson. Did he sing particularly well? Did he dance particularly well?
To be honest, Jackson never really knocked me off my feet with his vocals -- sure, he seemed very competent, but again, a lot of people sing well and they don't turn into pop sensations. As for dancing, I'm largely naïve to the art form and find it hard to tell the mediocre from spectacular. Last night I was talking to a friend of mine who dances, and he voiced the opinion that Jackson was not only a phenomenal dancer, but a phenomenal choreographer --- an inventor of dance.
Okay... so he was a great dancer and a commendable singer... does that explain his pop superstar status?
I think not, my friends, I think not.
Then what?
During the conversation I had last night, I think we came up with a few insights to explain the phenomenon that was Michael Jackson. But before I get into them, I want to bring up another point -- a couple days ago I was reading some posts on Andrew Sullivan's blog, and the person being quoted, a Pakistani, mentioned how much Michael Jackson was loved in his country, to the degree that there was a rumor going around that Michael Jackson had converted to Islam. These people, Pakistani Moslems, wanted to believe Michael Jackson was one of them.
And what struck me last night is that Jackson could almost pass for Pakistani... or an Indian... or an Arab or Filipino etc. Even before he bleached his skin, his ethnicity was ethereal. He was black of course, but he wasn't black the way Wesley Snipes is black. And I think that explains part of Jackson's universal appeal --- people of many different races could believe he was one of them.
There's another way the Jackson persona seemed almost borderless. His androgyny. Was he straight? Maybe. Was he gay? Maybe. Was he a transsexual? Maybe. Frankly, if they did the autopsy and discovered that Michael Jackson had been a woman the whole time, I wouldn't be that surprised. Jackson crossed the boundaries of race, but he also crossed the boundaries of both sexuality and gender.
That said, had a less talented mulatto transsexual come to fruition in the 80s, I don't think they would have been nearly as successful. There's one other component of the Michael Jackson success story.
"Thriller."
You simply can't underestimate the impact of that album, that song, and more importantly the video.
Let me tell you a story.
Years ago --- whenever Thriller came out -- I was walking with my mom one evening through a rather quiet shopping center in Honolulu, Hawaii called Ward Warehouse. We had just had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and most of the stores were closed. We happen to walk past a television store, and, as we passed it, one of the televisions, as if sensing our presence, came to life. It immediately launched into the long version of the classic "Thriller" video. There was no television in my home, so neither me or my mom knew what a music video was. But we were transfixed, baffled and totally entertained by what we saw. My mom, who had little interest in popular music, bought the album within a week.
And as I think back on that video, I realize how bold it was. At the time, Jackson had no reason to believe MTV would play any of his videos, and yet that video completely stretched the boundaries of what a music video -- an art form then in its infancy --- could be. Remember: the music portion of the video is preceded by a long narrative section, then later in the video, the music comes to a halt to create space for Vincent Price's classic narrated segment. The music and the visual and the narrative are combined into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
And all those dancing zombies... what a trip.
We talk about "cultural moments" as rather vague, ethereal abstracts where a society and its art, prompted by some event or evolution, suddenly veers onto a new course. It's probably impossible to consolidate a cultural moment into one consumable product, but "Thriller" comes close. That was the moment when a black dude of largely deficient masculinity became the King of Pop.
You can ask, "but what did this actually change?" And that's a question that's almost impossible to answer. But on some subtle level it changed how black people interact with white people, how gay people relate to straights, how women relate to men, and how other countries viewed America. Not always for the better, but more for the better than worse. To give one concrete example -- I suspect that in high schools across the land, teenage thugs who were contemplating kicking the ass of some wispy kid in the theater program had to reorient their notions of "cool" and allow that maybe that kid was alright.
The truth is, I'm not even a very big fan of Jackson's music though I think "Thriller" is one of the great albums of the 20th century. And, within a few years of "Thriller's" release, he imploded on almost every conceivable level --- personally, physically, artistically. But I don't think you have to like the music or like the man to concede the impact he had on American culture. And that that impact dripped down to affect our day-to-day lives.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
So, I, like most people, had a chuckle upon hearing the news the Republican governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, had been caught in an affair mere weeks after Republican Senator John Ensign had. And that of course piles on top of Larry Craig and Mark Foley and the few other prominent Republicans touted as either homosexuals or cheaters. There's no doubt that the party's finger wagging lectures on morality are turning around to bite them in the ass. But I have to say, if you browse through Sandford's love letters, you can't deny that they are pretty well written and contain a surprising emotional essence. This passage has been making the rounds...
You have a level of sophistication that is so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light — but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner — and unlike you I would never do that!
Look, I'm not saying it's poetry, but it's better than anything I ever wrote to a chick.
And when you step back and look at the larger narrative --- eccentric overworked politician and rising star of his party finds libidinous love (and his political downfall) in the mysterious back alleys of South America -- hey, I could turn that into a movie.
Friday, June 26, 2009
This is the greatest thing ever: a website with a vast collection of TV theme songs, all downloadable!
And, yes, they've got the great "Simon and Simon" theme.
And one of the greatest TV themes of all time: "The Rockford Files"
I recommend downloading the ones you want since I'm dubious how long a site like this can stay active.
Man, I'm listening to this Rockford theme right now and am reminded what a weird song it is -- sort of a hodgepodge of country rock and jazz fusion.
By the way, do a search for "Family Guy" on the site and you'll see almost every parody song ever featured on that show.
Also true with "The Simpsons."
Years ago I had the idea to start a band that exclusively played TV theme songs. I actually learned a bunch of them but never got the band together.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Michael Jackson dead... man, that is a trip.
And while you probably won't read about this in the "mainstream" media, I heard that when the operating doctor had Jackson on the table, he reached into Jackson's chest, pulled out Jackson's heart and bit into it and then screamed "Now I have the power!"
Then he flew out the window.
I've been reading this book on the electric guitar --- called, conveniently enough, "The Electric Guitar," --- and was musing on an interesting passage where the author discusses how the development of cool guitar effects like reverb and echo -- brought to their fruition by the surf bands of the 60s --- really tied in with America's fascination and love affair with the power and promise of technology. And it struck me that it's a minor tragedy that the development of digital effects and the almost endless array of sonic mutation they provide muted that sense of wonder the initial guitar effects provided. There's no way a modern digital guitar effects board could ever have the effect on teenager a simple slap back echo could in 1968.
And perhaps there's a larger metaphor here. The 20th century was a century of hope powered by the possibility of technology --- you can see this in science fiction promises of Utopia, the moon landing etc. But those promises never fully panned out, and we've also been introduced to the dark side of technology -- the atomic bomb for example. Perhaps the 21st-century will involve a more mature application of technology --- our sense of wonder replaced with a cautious optimism.
Unless someone invents a really cool guitar effect.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
So you got to wonder what kind of trim these Jonas Brothers are getting on their various tours. My suspicion is none -- there's probably some handler from Disney there to make sure there's no scandals around teenage pregnancies or incestuous orgies. Which pretty much makes clear that rock 'n roll is dead. It's bad enough that the biggest rock band in the world is producing saccharine pop --- if they're not taking advantage of their superstar status to sexually degrade and humiliate underaged girls it's time to call the whole thing off.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
A while back I heard about the film "JCVD." It sounded like a strange cinematic curiosity --- a Jean-Claude Van Damme film where the action star plays himself as a washed up action star. I picked it up a couple nights ago and it's not bad -- not perfect, but not bad. The dialogue is almost entirely in French and the look of the film is vintage 1970s drama --- think, "Serpico," or "Mean Streets." While my expectation was that the movie would be more of a reality television tight piece, it is an actual action flick in which the fictional Van Damme stumbles into a bank robbery. But there is a great scene when the fourth wall breaks down and Van Damme has a heart to heart about his career and foibles with the audience. It's not flawlessly rendered, but brilliantly uncomfortable and largely unlike anything I've ever seen on film.
Anyway, I enclose the trailer below though it contains scenes that didn't end up in the cut I saw.
Monday, June 22, 2009
So my latest cooking experiment has been homemade potato chips. I over baked the first batch, but I think my second one is coming along all right. It's worth noting that those blue potatoes cook a lot faster than regular potatoes.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
So I was riding on the train coming back from San Diego and had an interesting thought. I've never really bought all this intelligent design nonsense, and I think the reason is partly that, frankly, the world doesn't seem that intelligently designed. I mean it seems like if you were going to design a world with various creatures and Man and plants etc. etc. you could do a much better job. A perfect example of this is the fact that so many mothers and children die during childbirth. Our world is about as well-designed as those crummy clock radios that are made in Hong Kong.
But I thought of a Christian rebuttal to this: God purposely designed the world poorly. Why? The same reason so many manufacturers poorly implement their products: to make you want an upgrade. If the world was designed perfectly --- if there was no pain, disease etc. -- nobody would vie for heaven. God had to give a taste of what life was about to his creatures, and then taunt them with the promise of something better. If we had heaven on earth, we would never want to go to heaven.
As an atheist, I, of course, don't believe any of this, but it strikes me as being the good basis for a Christian comedy bit, or one of those Christian fiction novels like "Left Behind."
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I'm down in San Diego without voice dictation so blogging will be light to the weekend. There's a lot of homeless here but the girls are exceptionally beautiful.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Jeff Foxworthy defends Letterman. Letterman joked last Tuesday that Palin's "daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez" at a recent Yankees game, stirring up an angry reaction from the Palin family. Letterman has since apologized twice for what he called "inappropriate" humor.
And Foxworthy agreed: "I don't think any kind of joke about someone having sex with a teenage girl is funny."
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know what this country is about anymore.
Monday, June 15, 2009
So a rather curious thing happened today. I was walking up the street to the grocery store and stumbled across a mother duck with eight or nine ducklings. She looked like she was headed out into the main street of my neighborhood, which, of course would result in a duck massacre, so myself and this Mexican guy tried to herd them back to the sidewalk. It worked, basically, but she still seemed pretty intent on leading the family into danger. I wasn't really sure what to do. Part of me considered just moving on and putting it out of my mind, but I decided to walk into the office of the apartment building we were in front of and inform them of the situation. I did so, they seemed generally unimpressed, and I figured, fuck it, I'll just keep walking up to the store. But, as I was walking back to where the ducks were, I heard two of the women from the apartment building call me, asking where the ducks were. I told them, and we started walking there and came across a group of two or three people, watching the ducks who were now hiding under a car. One of the people there, an older guy on a bicycle, recommended someone call 911. Someone else did so, and was put in touch with animal control. With the situation seemingly in hand I walked up and got groceries. When I walked back down, the ducklings were in a cardboard box, and people were trying to capture the mother and put her in the same. A police officer was there and animal control was coming.
The whole incident illuminates in my mind the question of what kind of responsibility we have to look out for the welfare of members of other species. The thought was not lost on me that I've eaten plenty of duck -- it's absolutely delicious meat*--- so what should I care if an entire family of ducks gets run over in the middle of the street? But those ducklings were pretty cute.
* On a completely unrelated note, I was eating salmon today, and thinking about how tasty it was, and thought that God really damned creatures whom he made so delicious.
I just stumbled across this page about The Vigilante, a DC comics hero. He was a pretty provocative creation for the era -- the 80s -- and his stories were often used to hash out the controversies of the Reagan era --- gang violence, drugs, the role of poverty in crime etc.
Just thought I'd share.
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