Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa at Three in the Morning

It’s a lazy argument to make, one born of cynicism and perhaps too much exposure to Top Forty radio these days: there is no good music being made anymore, nothing that will stand the test of time quite as well as whatever we remember from our youths (and that music depends on your particular youth. For my mother, it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd; for me, it’s Weezer, Radiohead, and R.E.M.). Sure, there’s always a surplus of indie rock bands plying their trade, you might say, but none of them will reach the heights of whoever it is that you remember as being examples of “good” music when you were first becoming aware of the distinction between good and bad music.

I have been guilty of that fallacy myself, and I know from experience how wrong it is, and how wrongheaded it is too. Vampire Weekend probably won’t merit a multi-hour documentary about their artistic legacy when all is said and done, but for the purposes of giving me something to listen to other than whatever’s on the radio, they’ll do quite nicely.

And while I’m snidely dismissing the radio in the previous sentence, allow me to fold a little and admit that, yes, there is good music on the radio now, but it’s played to death by programmers and disc jockeys too lazy to try and mix it up. Thanks to the fact that most radio stations are owned by a few corporations, what’s good for the bottom line isn’t always good for the listener. Adele is fantastic, I love her voice, but if I have to hear “Someone Like You” every hour on the hour for much longer I might just storm the nearest clock tower and hurl verbal abuse upon all below (violence never solves anything, and I don’t know how to shoot a gun nor do I want to learn how to anyway. People I’ve known who collect guns are a little out there, even for me).

So, good new music; it exists. Vampire Weekend is proof of that, even if they never follow up their first two albums with anything substantial. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” has a shout-out to Peter Gabriel, the immortal line “do you wanna fuck/like you know I do,” and a video that manages to remind me of “Teen Wolf” and just about any mid-Eighties movie “party scene” (in the horror movies, the parties end in multiple decapitations; in the comedies, misunderstood advances and crossed signals, which can be almost as painful as decapitations). I saw the video one night at a buddy’s apartment on campus, where I was in the midst of a drunken tear through pop culture (I believe I had quite an amount of verbal abuse to heap upon the hapless makers of “Beerfest,” though I think drunk or sober it’s an unwatchable train wreck of a film). MTV2, which sold itself as “the alternative to MTV”  in the sense that it showed videos instead of reality shows, was running the “Cape Cod” video, and I was stopped in my tracks from mocking it. I liked it, I really really liked it.

I’m prone to bouts of cynicism, indeed full-on meanness, and when it comes to popular culture I tend to be really cynical. In a world where three-fourths of the original Ramones line-up is dead and gone yet the Eagles remain alive and well, a world where the Kardashians are celebrities simply for being celebrities (or for being related to a sex-video star), a world where Howie Mandel can have a say in whether someone’s dreams of Vegas stardom can come true, I don’t think you can blame me too much for being cynical about good stuff being out there. Music has always been my passion, especially as I’m one of those lucky many who have no business trying to make it; karaoke night is the closet I’ll ever get to starring at Carnegie Hall, and I’m pretty sure that idea I had about a rock opera set during the Battle of Britain (but involving aliens who teach us all to love one another, before luring us to our collective doom) is best left on the drawing board of my mind.

I’m envious of musicians; I’m envious of the guys in Vampire Weekend, envious of their Members Only jackets in the video, envious of the cool guitar that the lead guy (who has the non-rock star name Ezra, of all things; Ezra is great for a poet, as the mother of Ezra Pound could concur) plays in the video and onstage the few times I’ve seen them live on TV (or pre-taped performing live on TV). I grew up not with MTV but with “Friday Night Videos” (I think it was Friday nights, I could be mistaken), which was when NBC would devote a whole hour (or half-hour) to music videos in the early Nineties (or maybe the late Eighties…whatever). The important thing is, when I thought of musicians, I couldn’t separate the visual presentation from the actual music. When I thought of R.E.M., I saw Michael Stipe pacing the floor in the “Losing My Religion” video, for instance. Gradually, I developed an admiration for artists whose videos might not get regular rotation if they made videos at all, but part of me still loves a clever or at least well-executed music video, and “Cape Cod,” drunk as I was, was clever the first time I saw it, and each time it subsequently aired that night, in between drunken rants at “Beerfest” (I have it on good authority that I threw an actual beer towards the TV during the movie, though I don’t recall if such a thing occurred). Perhaps it doesn’t hold up whenever I’m sober now (and rest assured, when I watch anything on TV now I do so sober; it’s been a while since I had a drink and I’d like to keep it that way). But I still like Vampire Weekend, and I still think (however passing their artistry may be) they’re a pretty good example to cite when people who are too young to be cynical say there’s no good music anymore.

You might have to be drunk at three in the morning to find it, but it’s there.

“Billie Jean” and the Michael Jackson Freak Show

When I was a kid, Michael Jackson was big. Kids today just don’t understand that, prior to all the whispers about why he was spending so much time with little boys, Jacko was not whacko at all. He was bigger than the Beatles, who were bigger than Jesus. Therefore, Michael Jackson was bigger than Jesus. And in the end, that’s what destroyed him.

I can remember when people still had record players, because we had records, big black discs that scratched up when you placed the needle on them. Records had sleeves, into which you placed them when you were done or you held up to your face to look at as you listened to the record. When I went through my pretentious-music-snob phase (lots of Joy Division and Smiths vinyl that I found at used record stores and various other dives of ill-repute), I sought out the post-punk that I had become entranced with during my brief stint at that school with the chicken for a mascot, but back when I was a kid my album collection (which was really my grandparents’ record collection, which they bought for my uncle and aunt who were close in age to me) was whatever was popular on the radio, and we often opted for the singles rather than the whole album package (though we did have a very funny Bill Cosby comedy record from the early Eighties, because Cosby was king). It never occurred to me that there was such a thing as “alternative” music, and while R.E.M. was just a stone’s throw away down in Athens, I would never have known it prior to “Losing My Religion.”

Michael Jackson was already an old hand at being a star by the time I became conscious of him, thanks largely to Joe Jackson’s unbending desire to live his musical dreams through his kids (he was the forerunner to all those horrible parents on “Toddlers & Tiaras”). The Jackson Five were a distant memory, and Michael was on his own, dominating the charts and opening the door to MTV showing black artists on their channel (ironic when you consider the lengths to which he allegedly went to alter his appearance to not look black. Allegedly). Sure, he had Bubbles the chimp, and a weird desire to be Peter Pan, but when you were a kid in the Eighties, you wanted a pet monkey just as much and you were catered to with an ever-increasing number of sugar-powered cartoons promising that if you bought the tie-in products, you could buy happiness. Michael Jackson like to play with toys? I like to play with toys, too. Nevermind that Michael was in his twenties; he was living the dream, right?

Turns out he was living a nightmare; having survived Joe Jackson’s Gestapo-approved methods for turning your children into cash-cows, he ended up a frustrated adolescent, and if he wasn’t guilty of molesting kids, he was guilty of letting himself get into situations where parents who might have been just as opportunistic as his father take advantage of his generosity. In court, he was never found guilty, but in the public he was convicted before either of his trials, simply because of how odd he was. Part of it was the endless celebrity desire not to be forgotten, the Ozymandias Syndrome as I like to call it (“look upon my might works, and tremble”). But part of it was his genuine strangeness, his otherness because first of his fame, then because of his ever-changing appearance and bizarre coterie of celebrity friends (who hangs out with Elizabeth Taylor *and* Liza Minelli?), and the allegations against him for something as heinous as child molesting.

When “Glee” devoted an entire hour to his music, it was predictable but sad at the same time; the kids of today don’t know Michael the way that I know Michael, but I don’t know him the way that people who remember the cute baby-faced singer backed by his brothers know him, or think they know him. Michael was a wounded soul, whatever his misdeeds, and I guess that explains why he’s still held in reverence despite what we know, or think we know. True artistry is said to be born of suffering, and while Michael’s early solo work does betray some pain behind it, it’s hard to see much worth in anything he did after the first wave of allegations against him became public. When I think about him, I try not to think about the mugshot where he looks like Johnny Depp in “Edward Scissorhands,” or the marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, or the many noses and poor children born of a test-tube who have to grow up as “Michael’s heirs” (because I’m guessing Joe Jackson is already planning to exploit them somehow). I prefer to think of the young man in the “Billie Jean” video, the one who could light up whatever he stepped on (a trick that looks old now, but was revolutionary at the time). That was the Michael I knew, whenever we put the record on and his voice floated through the room.

That guy was pretty big when I was a kid. I don’t know what happened, I guess we all had to grow up at some point. Michael never did, though.  

Mr. Travolta Would Like a Discreet Massage Now...

After some three months now of no gallbladder attacks worth mentioning (most of the ones I've had have been fleeting enough to barely register, thanks to my new diet of food that doesn't taste good, or more likely indigestion from the few times...okay, the many times I've strayed from said diet), I had something of a relapse into pain territory Saturday night. The beef stew or whatever it was that was prepared in house and advertised to me as "probably not anything that would upset your stomach" did just that. It's my own damn fault for eating it, mind you, but still...someone's trying to kill me (melodramatic music).

Okay, no one's trying to kill me, but if they were they'd likely find me a pushover if they offered me pizza. I miss pizza like the dickens (though not like I miss Charles Dickens, whose Great Expectations is about the only novel of his I've read, and that was a "dumbed down for high-school English students" version, with I'm guessing all the sex and nudity and random gunplay edited out. Right?). I miss spaghetti too, and hamburgers...god, I'd sell my soul for a hamburger with ketchup, pickles, onions mustard, general all-around greasiness, if I didn't know for a fact that it would turn my stomach into the Atlantic Ocean mid-hurricane season, and myself into the Pequod (look, two literary references in one post! I'm getting the English major feeling back in my bones, perhaps).

Living with my gallbladder over the last few months (now that I know what the issue was, thankfully nothing like an alien living in my chest as I suspected) has proven to be both stressful and managable, and as I consider the fact that yes, I'll have to get the sumbitch yanked out sooner rather than later, I can honestly say that I won't jump right away back onto the junk-food bandwagon that has gotten me into this mess in the first place. I mean, sure, I want to eat me some hamburgers, but not immediately after surgery. And I hope I can scale back once I do start back on the junk, because too much of anything ain't good for you. People say I've lost weight since I started not eating crap.

This means I must have been something of a fat-ass before.

Anyhow, with the support of my felloe Scientologists and L.Ron's wisdom to guide me, I'm sure that I can conquer whatever alien-created issues come my way.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Jay-Z: "99 Problems"

On my iPod, I have many, many songs of the indie-rock or alternative genre, with some more classic rock (as opposed to "classic" rock, a genre tag I despise because it seems to celebrate groundbreaking music by tagging it as unworthy of a youngster's time unless they want a history lesson) and other such songs from other genres. Perhaps the least well-represented genre (other than "singer-songwriter," which is odd because a lot of the music I listen to was penned by singers and/or songwriters, but I guess it was meant more for the James Taylor/Cat Stevens style of troubador) is rap, or at least it was initially. Growing up with it, via the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and Public Enemy, I felt like the inventiveness of the genre's early days had become lost amid the B-boy posturing and any old excuse to drop an F-bomb into the mix when a simple "Goddam" would've sufficed.

In order to get my iTunes account active, in August of 2008 (the same month I graduated from college and got my heart broken for the umpteenth time, though not in that order), I had to set it up via my brother's account, and let's just say our taste in music did not coalesce. Where he had Fall-Out Boy, I had Death Cab for Cutie, and so on. My mom had given me the iPod as a Christmas gift the year before, and I'd been content to play the games on there for only so long before it occurred to me that hey, this was meant to hold music. And so it was on one gray August day that my sister helped me set up the account, and I proceeded to delete most everything from my brother's/my account (don't worry, he was able to keep his music somehow, though I'm not sure of the specifics and leave that to my more techincally-minded peeps to ascertain), except for one song.

That song was Jay-Z's immortal "99 Problems (But a Bitch Ain't One)."

I was bowled over by the tune, which I'd heard before but only in edited versions on the radio, and was always fond of it. I like a good rap song, especially a good dirty one, and you didn't get dirtier than bitching about the cops, getting into fights that landed both you and your opponent in jail, and rap magazines using your black ass to sell copy. To be sure, I could not relate to any of these experiences, as a white kid from Bumfucksburg, South Carolina, but I could identify in Jay's story a sense of anti-authority rebellion that had appealed to me for a long time, since I read Catch-22 and heard John Mellencamp's "Authority Song" (you may laugh, but remember two things: Mellencamp was big in the Eighties, and the song kicks ass. Springsteen wishes he wrote that one).

Life throws you a lot of motherfucking curveballs; I've had jobs fall out from under me through no fault of my own, but I've lost jobs because I was a bit too loose with my views or eager to name names for my own amusement. In short, I've had more than 99 problems, and a lot of them have to do with things other than romance. Jay's swagger throughout the song is what I'd like to think I could feel like when dealing with all that life throws at me, though more often than not I've wanted to crawl into a fetal position and cry my eyes out. Rarely does this opportunity afford itself after you supposedly reach maturity, however, and the thing I've learned over the years is that no matter how many problems, or how often they seem insurmountable, life has a way of working itself out so that many times you wonder just what the hell it was you were bummed about that particular month or year or decade.

I kept "99 Problems" on my iPod, where it holds a revered status among my rap songs and indeed my entire collection. When "Empire State of Mind" came out, I got it too, and if I never buy another Jay-Z song it's not a big deal, I have the two best ones to listen to anytime life starts to give me hassles. I might not bust a grape in a fruit fight, but when the chips are down I like to think I could draw some strength from past problems and remember how these things too shall pass. For that, I owe Jay-Z some gratitude.

Ministry of Silly Walks

Just a quick one tonight, met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in forever to have dinner and catch up. Always nice to do that, I must say. I've been spending a lot of time with either co-workers or family, so to remember, however briefly, that I have a life beyond the demands of my family or the confines of my workspace is always welcome.

Anyway, HIMYM ended its season last night, and "New Girl" did so last week, as well as "The Office" (yeah, I still watch). That means that, with the finale of "Community" just around the corner, I'm all set for Rerun City when it comes to TV (i.e. lots of Travel channel or just spending more time with the TV off, reading).

I checked out a book about the Civil War recently, before remembering that I just finished Shelby Foote's massive trilogy and thus have no desire to read about the Civil War for the time being. Such is life...

Over and out

Where the Wild Things Be At

We lost another talented famous person (as opposed to just a famous person; don't expect me to mourn any of the Jersey Shore cast if and when they shake off this mortal coil, though I'll feel bad for their relatives). Maurice Sendak died this morning at 83.

What with Adam Yauch and George "Goober" Lindsay, it seems like a bad time to be a celebrity who has actual talent (My favorite thing about Lindsay was when he appeared on Newsradio to give testimony that a skull purporting to be his own was a fake. He handled the skull, paused to look at it, and answered "no"). It's the rule of three.

I only read Where the Wild Things Are a few years ago, when I was working at the local library, and I had ten minutes to kill. It's a quick read, from an adult perspective, but the real part of the book that sticks with you is the imagery, which is amazing. Having harbored aspirations of artistic talent (not really borne out by my drawings, though I think they're charming renderings of the Hindenburg in flames or a Sopwith Camel mid-pursuit of the Red Baron), I can appreciate good art. I love album covers that aren't just "this is the band, standing on a pier" or "hey, look, the band is making a pillow fort." My mom has a good eye for art, and underneath the picture I've seen of my dad, it says that he was an art major. Go figure.

Anyway, that's my view on the whole subject. Be sure to check out Paste Magazine online for my review of Levon Helm's book (I had a link to copy and paste, but I copy and pasted something else and I'm too lazy to go back and get it...or am I?)

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/05/this-wheels-on-fire-levon-helm-and-the-story-of-th.html

It turns out I am more industrious than I thought today.

To MCA, I wanna offer my love and respect to the end

I know it's unusual for me to write so much on here (I am not the most attendent blogger), but I feel like the passing of Adam Yauch merits a few words.

When I was a kid, rap music was the unknown, sounds emanating from an urban landscape that I and my friends in rural South Carolina couldn't begin to imagine. What's more, it was made by black people, and you didn't just listen to black people music in the South at that time, unless you did it while no one was paying attention, because it was odd.

(Of course, black music, be it jazz or R&B or blues or early rock and roll, was integral to any Southerners' soundtrack in the old days, but my perception of that time is that black music, especially rap, was not to be listened to).

The Beastie Boys were white, but playing rap. And they were good at it. And after all these years, my childhood enthusiasm for them remains. Paul's Boutique was my soundtrack when I went to work at Anderson at five in the morning, cooking food for tourists staying at a hotel who wanted breakfast. Yauch had been battling cancer for a few years now, but it was still a shock to learn that he passed today. He will be missed.