Garage Rockin’

The Fringe Takes Gold @ The Grammies

— from daniel arnold!

Okay, so I did get a bit choked up when I watched Herbie Hancock get “Album of the Year” last night, but I gotta say, watching Amy Winehouse twitch her way through two songs while doing her best to move that gangly, booze and dope ravaged body of hers to find the rhythm that her voice seemed born to lock onto, followed by her genuine shock and dismay at having to gather up a handful of words for a live acknowledgement was the highlight of my Grammy evening at home. They say she’s “troubled”. I sit here trying to imagine what they’d say if half the studied and hyper-rehearsed pop stars of our insanely polished entertainment industry were suddenly replaced by the careening mayhem that littered the celebrity landscape of the United States a mere 50 years ago when the Grammies were born.

Women like Judy Garland and men like Errol Flynn and Peter O’Toole, ricocheting wildly through lives that could probably teach Ms. Winehouse a thing or two about pacing a bender for maximum buzz while keeping only one foot in detox for the most part.

“Kids these days,” they’d say, in reference to all the celebrity meltdowns of late. “No stamina for the good stuff of life.”

Of course, AOL’s clever take on Amy’s victories last night suggests a decidedly different viewpoint that is widespread in an industry accused of being completely out of control.  One that reflects just how stodgy this nation of decadence has actually become.

‘Rehab’ Works for Winehouse

Troubled Singer, Hancock Win Big

Yes, I do realize that this headline is in reference to her song, but after checking out her YouTube video of ‘Rehab’ and reading the dozens of comments left there this morning by every ‘healthy’ person who saw fit to lend their ‘advice’ to this woman - who cleaned up last night as an artist – to clean up to their standard of clean, I came away with the impression that her lifestyle really IS the business of everyone that listens to her art, in spite of how ridiculous that statement actually sounds when you try to push it past your lips.

I guess you can’t be a successful artist unless you allow the co-dependent mothers and fathers of America to take control of the influence you might have on their little princes and princesses as you make your way through the only life you’ll ever have on this planet.  Then again, pop stars have no one but themselves to blame for that. Under the strict administration of PR firms, corporate handlers, and advertising endorsement contracts, these poor souls can’t sweat through a white, linen button-down without taking a financial haymaker to finish off their 15 minutes of “Damn, that seemed like 15 seconds”.  To keep that brief moment alive, they workout like boxers, eat like models, live like Quakers, and praise the living Jesus to the point of sending a tent revival preachers to woodshedding their chops for fear of eternal damnation through a lack of conviction. Short of kissing babies, these cursed bastards are stranded in a perpetual hell of running for small town mayor until it all finally crashes around them for good.

‘You only live once, and the way I live, once is enough.’ – Frank Sinatra

I try to imagine young folks back 50 years ago condemning Frank Sinatra for smoking and drinking onstage.  Or suggesting that Dean Martin need an intervention over that kinda-drunk persona he nursed for decades – even as a beloved, and widely influential, TV variety show icon during the 60s.  Hell, even Dick Van Dyke made a beeline for the bottle as soon as he picked himself up from that ottoman pratfall he took every week on our televisions.  What executive didn’t have a cocktail hour to help relax for dinner? Now days, you’re an alcoholic if you need that belt to take the edge off before your transition to house and home can take affect.

If you think that, in the quote above, Sinatra was referring to his habit of going all out to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat each day, as he pushed himself to be the very best he could be – physically, intellectually and spiritually – then you don’t know much about the man.  He also once said, “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” - although some sources attribute that one to his running buddy Deano.  Still, it says a lot about what he meant by “once is enough“.  Frank wouldn’t have wasted his life surviving the rigors of stardom in this society we have here today.  Not a chance.  Not when the only time he ever thought to evoke the name of the risen Christ was when he stubbed his toe in the dark.  I mean, what kind of celebrity would he have been?  Think of the children.  Will someone please think of the children?

So, I was happy to see Amy Winehouse get all disoriented when her name was called for the “Best Song” Grammy.  Drug induced or not, it was still refreshing to see. I didn’t get to see her reaction to the other 4 that she won, but that moment of honest bewilderment, followed by her sudden realization that she’d have to say a few words, followed by her excruciating ”What do I do now?” moment with her pal before reluctantly stepping to the microphone, followed by her slow start – building inanely to a manic shout out to her husband in jail before being yanked from the mic, was – for me – a delightful shift from the canned “Who? Me?” moments that we’ve all come to expect from our uber-professional award-winning celebrities and their handler teams. 

I’ve come to accept the fact that in this country no one comes from nowhere to be someone.  When I learned recently that Nora Jones is the daughter of Ravi Shankar (imagine that one if you can), it only surprised me that it was a connection that was as far removed from her career trajectory as it was.  Then again, employing the degrees-of-separation principle, with Ravi’s Beatles connection, how far was he ever from where she ended up?  I’ve also come to accept the fact that corporate sponsorship rules our entertainment world in ways that it never did in the past, and for better or worse, what PepsiCo wants to be to our kids, PepsiCo wants Justin Timberlake to be to our kids.  Now, as far as what Justin Timberlake wants to be as an artist – or as a human being – well, he’ll have to consult his attorney, and see if there are any stipulations concerning said in the deep ends of the contract he signed.  I’ve come to accept this as 21st century America, but that doesn’t mean that I have to approve of it.

As for me, last night I reveled in the brief ascension of a star that will never show up in a Pepsi commercial, and who won’t miss a damn thing as a result.  It just made me feel good to see a seriously flawed artist get a nod from someone other than a circuit court judge for a change.  Don’t expect to see Amy thanking the Lord for her achievements, and try to get over it if she doesn’t. She’ll probably go on to be the same basket case that she’d been all along, and that’s something that you’ll have to try and get over as well. She’s a singer, and that’s all she is.  She’s not a role model for your kids, or for anyone else’s kids.  If you want a role model for your kids, try being that role model yourself, and leave the arts and entertainment to artists and entertainers.

Singers, dancers, actors and athletes are singers, dancers, actors and athletes.  They are what they are, and they do what they do.  They are also people who deserve to have lives – just like you – that reflect who they are as real people.  They don’t belong to you, and they don’t owe you anything.  They have no responsibility to help you the raise your children, and you have no right to demand it of them.  Or of anyone else.

I enjoyed last night’s Grammy Awards show for that one brief moment, and could’ve done without the rest of it.  Well, except for that last bit there, when Herbie Hancock got the gold for a jazz album.  That felt good too.  It’s been longer than I’ve noticed that a jazz album took the top honors, and he just looked like the cutest little poindexter guy up there with that trophy.  Good for him, and I hope it turns some folks on to his music as a result. 

Me, I’m not a jazz fan, or an Amy Winehouse fan.  I’m not really a fan of anyone out there, even though I do appreciate the Foo Fighters a lot.  That doesn’t prevent me from taking sides though. In an election, you’re allowed to vote FOR someone, and you’re also allowed to vote AGAINST someone.  Last night I emotionally voted against everyone except Herbie and Amy, and my candidates won.  Today’s a good day, and I’m going to enjoy that victory.  Lord knows it’ll be short-lived, and then it’ll be back to the cultural barricades again as the plugged asses of this society sweep through like Huns, killing off whatever it is that they don’t appreciate or don’t understand about life.  Sure, they’ll win in the end, but folks like me can sing and raise our flags today, because last night we won one. 

Well…two actually.  I mean, really.  A jazz album?  Album of the Year?  That’s getting right there next to heresy.  You can almost hear the Baby Jesus cry. 

Viva la Dissidence!!

 

The Real New World Order

I used to be a songwriter. Actually, I’m still a songwriter, but I’m a songwriter who’s not trying to sell my songs anymore. It’s not as if a song I’ve written has ever paid a bill over the last 4 decades, but in the definition of what I spent years working to achieve, I was a songwriter. I still keep in touch with the old gang of other failed songwriters, and we have our places where we check in to see what’s what and who we all hate now for being a success. I stopped by one of my favorite Internet hangouts this morning, and found this little notice posted in a thread on their Midwest rock forum.

“Comes with Music is a recognition that music has to be given away for free, or close to free, on the Internet,”

The music industry
From major to minor

I guess music is worthless now.

:~(

Go ahead and click the link above for whole depressing story, but I’ll see if I can encapsulate it all for you here. Apparently, the music industry is tanking to the point where they’ll be bundling thousands of songs into “Comes With Music” loss-leader offerings featured by Nokia and Motorola, and other giants of isolated hyper-connectivity battling it out for the shrinking dollars of our entitled youth culture. In essence, CDs will begin to fade out – along with “deep cuts” and “B-side” releases – and new singles will earn a living by being lumped in with Classic Hits and other formulaic dreck, as bulk offerings to kids who just want to be able to text all day long to other little fidgets tapping obsessively into tiny keypads as the real world flows by.

I guess Ryan Seacrest will have to find other work to fill that two hour lull on Sunday mornings now.

Y’know, to be honest, I’m okay with it. I mean, I already came to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t need my music. In fact, I came to the conclusion that I don’t want the world to have my music. To hell with letting the sons and daughters of American sloth absentmindedly slobber on with their flaccid lives to the soundtrack of my sweat and devotion. I’ll give my songs to my daughter, and she can keep them to show her kids and their kids so on. At least they’ll know who I was. The rest of the world can live without them.

I sure as hell don’t feel like some Birkenstock pseudo-hippy having the ability to download anything I took my time with, so that he can add it to the 60,000 other worthless songs he’s got crammed in that telephone he stares at all friggin’ day. Screw him and all his other 25 yr old buds that still live in those little “apartments” in the basements of their mom’s houses in the chalk-white subdivisions of Middleclass America.

I’d suggest that all songwriters and musicians go on strike and let the selfish, entitled pricks listen to the dull drone in their heads until it drives them insane, but I know that there’d be plenty of little wannabe whores out there who’d jump on the opportunity to give their mundane crap away when the rest of us pulled back on the me-my-mine slugs and their i-pods. Most musicians are just cheap encyclopedia salesmen who figured out how to mimic artists in search of an easier job anyway.

It’s not like there’s ever been any integrity associated with any of this since rock spun off the blues snake-oil circuits back in the day. In fact, given the history of rock and pop music, with all its shadiness and its legendary back stabbing business tradition, I guess I’m not surprised that it would have such an embarrassing collapse in the end. It’s like a drunk who refuses to stop drinking behind the wheel. No one is surprised when he is found wrapped around a pole, finally done in by his own idiocy.

Still, it’s not like creativity is flourishing anywhere else in this society – well, beyond Wall Street and the high rent district of Washington DC. Writers have stooped to accepting pay-per-click on Google Ads posted on the web pages of their articles – but only the ads contained within the borders of their articles, and not the 20 ads on the same page but outside the borders of the article itself. Apparently, they realize that their writing has no value if it doesn’t force someone to click on an small banner ad for car insurance or mortgage refinancing.

Did you know that if the sister-in-law of the immortal suicide, Vincent Van Gogh, hadn’t been offered a couple francs for one of the artist’s paintings by a neighbor, she would have finished burning all of his 400 or so paintings to free up the storage space her recently deceased husband, Theo, had allowed his genius brother? Imagine the treasures the old hag destroyed before learning that she could make a buck off the brother-in-law that she despised so deeply. Kind of makes you wonder what other brilliance has been destroyed over the centuries due to the reign of free-market businessmen, and their ignorance concerning that which constitutes value. It can make you physically ill just letting it all have a moment of your busy and important day.

If the writhing mass that animates this garbage dump survives another 400 years, maybe Geico commercials will be their version of classical music and art. Frankly, it’s only that kind of junk that will be considered valuable enough to keep from tossing into the incinerator. Preserved mainly as legacy data in some marketing super vault, to ensure collateral process integrity and responsible workflow efficiency – per senior management directive. The chorus in this pop song is that

If it don’t make money,
then it ain’t worth crap,
’cause if I get it for free,
then I’m the one
who won this one
and you’re the clown
and that’s all that counts.

I was wondering why so many newly released pop songs are being launched through TV commercials lately. Now I know why. They aren’t being launched this way with the intent of giving them a leg up on retail sale. They’re being introduced to us in this way to gradually soften up our resistance to the idea of all new music as worthless ad jingles. Garnish to make the entree of commercial mainstream business less offensive to our collective cultural tastes. These i-pod, Scion and Target commercials, popping off our surround sound speakers with their fresh new soundtracks, are the new Top Ten chart, and these pathetic bits of sonic wallpaper are the hits.

It won’t be long before the only way you can get one of these songs as a stand-alone offering is by paying to download the TV commercial you heard it in. Think that’s ridiculous? Forty years ago, they’d have thought that people paying for the privilege to advertise companies on their clothing would have been ridiculous too. Now, you can’t find clothes that don’t turn you into a human billboard for one corporation or another.

Yep, we worried about invading Russians for decades, and now we’re all worked up over a relative handful of shoddy desert madmen with scraggly beards taking away our freedoms, and forcing us to capitulate to their insane religious and societal demands. Stripping us of what it means to be American. Free and self-determining. Meanwhile, huge corporations are quietly herding all of us into a cultural slaughterhouse as we pay for the train ride ourselves. They even have us driving the trains, operating the meat grinders and selling the vision of it all to our friends and neighbors. George Orwell could never have dreamed up this fantasy, and if he did, no one in their right mind would have published it. They would have deemed it too implausible to ever be accepted by the reading public. And yet, here we are.

Welcome to the real New World Order. It couldn’t happened to a nicer bunch of folks

Nor’Easter