Once, long ago, I made some very derisive comments about you and your rapping.
Im not saying you're the best ever, but considering how much I enjoy your newer music I have to say Im sorry i said that stuff. I think its possible that if you keep refining your skills, in a few years you could be legendary. I guess 72 albums is pretty amazing in itself, but despite the fact that you do show more talent than most other, much less musically prolific, rappers, your skills just aren't there yet.
Im not getting old. When I look in the mirror I hardly see an old man, or even a full grown man. I dont see a little boy, or a teenager anymore, but I hardly see an obsolete and out of touch hold out from days gone by. Music these days though is starting to make me feel that way.
"Why is that?" you ask? For the simple reason that I like so little of it. It makes me feel like a cranky old fart who's complaining about kids these days, or something like that. At the same time though, I feel like my anguish is justified and reasonable. What passes as avant garde music these days bores me to death, and I want to try and articulate this idea.
I spent some time today milling through the remainants of the grunge days that have been posted up on Youtube. I went further back as well, to angry punk from the 80's and some of the more experimental stuff I remember from days gone by. Why doesnt music from the present fill me with a feeling of magic like this stuff does, and did.
I remember when new music came out that filled me with wonder and permeated deep into my body and made me want to jump and move and shake and live and die and love. Instances of music like that have become few and far between these days.
I tune into current trends in music and what do I hear? First there's the sensitive verging on androgenous man singers, what are they called? Iron and Whine? I think I'll pass... Then there's all this Post-Emo-Jack-Ass-Metal that's passing around right now. Its got all the content and intellectual value of the Electro-clash that was being foisted on my ears when I left Austin 4 years ago, and agian I have to say, "No thanks"... Finally theres this dearth of melancholy radio-head inspired msuic that attempts to use their same minor, shoot-me-in-the-face-because-I-cant-take-this-anymore style and use it to talk about sentimental love or some kind of quiet-kitten-cute shit, and to that I raise my flagon of piss and shout "Have you lived at all? Or has the Fascist Utopia of your suburban upbringing whiped your life that clean of any kind of formative experience?
Where are the heroin addicts? The angry kids that no one understands, or the guy who comes from some kind of a shitty trailer park where his abusive father forced him onto the margins of society? There's angry music, there's sad music, but it seems like snobbery has become the sole stamp for acceptance into the cutting edge these days.
Of course, I am a music snob, and I always have been, but Ive never tilted my snobbitude to appriciating music that was made by snobs for snobs. I think the first major instance of this was the strokes, and then is all slowly started going more and more to shit after that.
I do like Radiohead. I dont know why Thom Yorke is so sad, but at this point I believe him when he says he is. Plus, they filled my teenage mind with wonder and depth with their first album so I guess they dont really count as new. I like the boards of Canada too, but they dont seem to be representative of any kind of vast movement or genre. Other bands who try to do what they do all seem to fail miserably and descend into the kitten-scented, faded photos of mom and dad's honey moon BS I was talking about before.
Ive come around to Atmosphere on the raps side of things. They're pretty cool, they're good at rapping and manage to circumambulate the poser-hood that all other white rappers seem to get mired in. Other than them though, there's nothing encouraging comming out of that genre.
In his protrayal of the Joker in the 1992 version of "Batman" Jack Nicholson delivered a line which has been reverberating around in my head for nearly a decade now. Of course he was talking about Gotham City, but in so many ways I feel it appropriate to alot of things these days... politics, literature, cinema, society at large, and, in the vein of this article's subject matter, music. He said, in so few words "My God, this town needs an enema!"
Im not a musician though, so what can do about any of this? Im a writer, and right now Im trying to get this sort of disposition and view out there as a aspect of a character. I think that's the best i can hope for. For sure though it would be encouraging to know there were others who were as wholly dissatisfied with the progression of the majority of the creaitve efforts going on in the world around us. Its nice enough to start your own revolution, but Im sick of being a loner, and I know Im more than a grump, Im just absolutely convinced that there has to be something better than this.
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One Last Splash o' Cheer
While we're talking about music and the way it used to be, here are some of my favorite Christmas songs... You'll notice they're all from the 80's. Im not big on christmas tunes, the classics generally make me want to puke, and christmas parody songs arent any better. However in the 80's, for some reasons, a bunch of bands released christmas songs that were serious enough to have staying power, and weren't too derivative that they brought to mind the schlock of ages.
Anyways, its well into January, but take a minute and go back to christmas with me for few blessed minutes.
Staying focused on writing a story is hard! Im so critical of my own thinking. I gnaw at every angle of the ideas I think up, find too much fault with them, and give up on them. Its like how I approach so many other things in my life.
I can do it though, its more about how I word things and the style with which I present things than it is about the sequence of events. I just have to make myself stick to it.
The other day, I read some of Kerouack's(sp?) "on the road". I found it over all a little nieve, but it did have a few good lines in it, especially when it came to commenting on the craft of writingr. My favorite came kind of early on when talked about the only real advice one can give about becoming a writer is to stay dedicated to to it.
Its up to me to stay focused and actually finish this one despite my doubts and if I do then I'll have, at the very least, improved my abilities..
So it may actually be happening. Ive got some notes together now that I could flesh out into a sentimental, introspective, and slightly uplifting story. Its pretty basic, its a love story if you want to get really reductionist about it. However, Im going to try and tie in criticism of stuff, and opinions about this and/or that. It will be set in Austin with trips to exotic locations like Luling, Seguin, or Killeen. I can't decide which. The travel book is a tempting idea because it seems like it would be so easy for me, but really I want to write something that will be pertainent understanding life or something like that, and its just more down to earth and sincere to do it here at home instead of way out in some god forsaken jungle.
The guys I work with are morons. Dont get me wrong, they're nice guys. I respect them for taking on the responsibilities of fatherhood as faithfully as they have, for their expertise in their craft, and as individuals in general. However, I dont really think there's another word you can use to describe guys who sit around and call everyone and everything gay, and talk about all the hot women in the room like they even had a shot?
My largest expense so far has been cell phones and gas money. Both of them stick in my craw. Its a fact of the modern age that we pretty much have to have cell phones. You cant not have a cell phone anymore, others will refuse to deal with your low-tech ass and your social life will wither and die. Everyone in Suriname pretty much had a cell phone too. Heck, I even like cell phones, but I dont think they're worth $45 bucks a month. I pay because I have to, not because I want to, and I think that sucks, and its a kind of implied have to of modern life wich freaks me out too in a way.
Gas? I dont know, I wish I didnt need it, but since I do need it, why did it's price have to increase like 350% in the last 8 years? Now its hard for me to hang out with my friends because the gas money driving around to people's places and restaurants all the time is cleaning me out.
According to the business pages for the last month or so, the US economy is going down in flames. It has to do with all this refinancing stuff people were doing ten years ago. It also has to do with the federal reserve. I swear there's some kind of behind the scenes diabolical planning that goes on in that place.
I like it here in Austin. More than I do in most of the other places Ive lived, but something tells me Im not long for this place. I think Im going to look for my next job in places like the Pacific North West, outlaying US territories like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Alaska. Im not going to work for the IRS or the Veterans Administration under any circumstances, UNLESS the position is ultra cool. The best will be if I can get into the state department.
I have a car dream now. Its kind of been the car Ive dreamed about for a while now, but I've got to drive a couple of them lately and Im all full of new excitement about them. Its funny to want something to me now. Its been so long since I can remember actually desiring a posession like this. Anyways, Volkswagen GTI, that's what I want:
