Six degrees of synchronicity

WHO IS THIS MAN and what is my connection to him?

Where to start?

1981: Hall and Oates release a song called “Private Eyes.” (Am I working Hall and Oates into every other post lately? I guess so, but only because they are tremendously important.)

This #1 single is the first Hall and Oates song I recall from childhood and would begin a lifetime of H&O addiction for me. One of the few non-original tunes the duo recorded, its writer was Warren Pash.

early '90s at Columbia College Chicago: I study music, one of my instructors being the acclaimed jazz musician and composer Bill Russo.

A couple years later as I became more politically aware, I hear of author, tax protestor, artist and musician Tupper Saussy. Eventually Saussy puts up a web site and I manage to get hold of his last book Rulers of Evil. (I still need to get Miracle on Main Street, although I've read later books along the same theme such as Edward Griffin's The Creature From Jekyll Island.)

I contact him by email, and in our correspondence, not only find I have many similarities with this person twice my age, but that he had studied under the same Bill Russo (years ago, at th School of Jazz in Massachussetts).

Last week: Saussy dies, just before the scheduled party for his new CD The Chocolate Orchid Piano Bar.

The producer?

Warren Pash.


IT'S THOSE KINDS OF  things that give me a kick. You know there are like souls out there, people whose existence seems to parallel your own, and it's always a thrill to run across one of them.

The important thing to say about Saussy, however, is that he was that rarest of individuals in our time: a true Renaissance man, a true talent, a true philosopher (which is different from one who merely academically studies philosophy), a true independent thinker and actor, a true member of "the Remnant" and -- if his own and others' testimony about him are honest -- a true follower of Christ.

I was sad to hear of his passing, because I wanted more Tupper Saussy books -- such as the one he was working on, Gods For the Godless, about the hidden deep-political and spiritual underpinnings of 9/11. At least there's plenty of his music around to enjoy.

Asexuality?

I saw a fascinating Montel show about couples who are romantic, yet asexual. This is cool, since I go through some quite asexual periods myself (and in any case, even when feeling especially sexual, I usually can keep a leash on it). In addition, it's just my luck that I find myself attracted to women with similar, or even lower, drives. That's nice, because without the disorienting fog of sex looming omnipresently over every interaction, it's a lot easier to get to know and enjoy a person in depth. Maybe that's the way real soulmates get to know each other. In a culture that positions sex as the be-all and end-all, how many soulmates have found each other but prematurely ejected (pun intended) because the sex wasn't immediately there? How many couples have met, have clicked perfectly, have conversed for hours on end and had wonderful times together and felt undeniable bonds -- yet have ended up splitting because they weren't constantly wanting to rip each others' clothes off, and so became convinced that "something's wrong"? I've sort of made an informal study of creatives and the creative temperament lately, and I've noticed that while artists have a great reputation for libertinism, in reality I believe it's largely an attempt to live up to a stereotype. In practice, many of the artists and creative types I've known -- particularly the more solitary ones -- learn more toward "asexual" than "voracious satyr." That may be one of the reasons they drink and consume drugs more than the average population: to help unleash their normally dormant libidos. Coincidentally, just before clicking on the TV and coming across that Montell show, I had been thinking; How nice it'd be to not have to eat. There are so many other things to do .....

Artist vs "Bohemian"

MY FIRST POST to The Conversation, the discussion forum at the online home of the Chicago alt-media/art/activism collective, Lumpen, encapsulates my whole philosophy about art -- and the difference between making art and fitting into some kind of real or imagined art-tribe or art-lifestyle.

By way of context, the thread was about the perceived overcommercialization of the Around the Coyote art festival -- a mainstay of Chicago's Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood, but also a perceived driving force in the gentrification that had eventually driven all the poor artists out. If you're at all interested in, or involved in, the arts in Chicago,you've probably read all about it, heard all about it, and talked all about it too. Ironically enough, Lumpen itself had been part of the force inexorably driving the very gentrification being deplored. Eventually, it got around to a question of  some imagined clash between the forces of "real art" versus "commercialized art" and I had finally had enough. I wrote:

hey kids
This is my first post in the conversayshun, but I never like to get bogged down with introductions and shit like that.

So anyway, my take on ATC and Chicago art in general, from one who is not a Wick/town scenester. I like what the guy said about "artists" making speeches. I'd just rather that artists would make art and leave the speechifying to others.

I am a born creative, and spent the first half of my life as an obsessive, self-taught visual artist (before veering over into writing and music). Most of the art I drew or painted could not be classed as underground/revolutionary/subversive/anarchist or what have you. However, that doesn't make it "not art" any more than the CSO are "not musicians" simply because they play classical music. To call stuff that people have put their heart and soul and time into "not real art" IMO is, to incredibly elitist and narrow and perhaps shows that one has done too much time in art school and not enough time actually making stuff. People who make art are artists.

There are all kinds of art for all kinds of people. That's one of the nice things about living in a sorta-free country. You have choice. There is lowbrow and highbrow and everything in between. Steven Spielberg is an artist, whatever you might think of his choices and his money. However unfortunate this may be in your opinion, Thomas Kincade is also an artist. Charles M. Schulz (who was my first art teacher, via dozens of Peanuts books) was an artist. Mariah Carey is a musical artist, despite her poor choices of songs to record. Etc.

Artist and bohemian are not one and the same. There are lots of artists who live semi-normal lives and lots of bohemians calling themselves "artists" who have never developed any sort of craft, except maybe going to openings and parties.

That said, I generally can't afford ATC except for the smattering of free shows. (I've seen some interesting performance art there but that's it) Last year during ATC I was actually at an alternative space, the Glamour of War 9/11 show at Ken Hirte's Gallery Chicago, a couple miles down Milwaukee from the Coyote. GC sorta had their own mini-festival, I invited some friends (including Sharkula), and as far as I'm concerned, it kicked all forms of @$$.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like blandness either (though blandness is impossible to define -- one man's blandness is another's bliss). But I like hipper-than-thouness even less. Live and let live.

Revenge of the happy baby pigs

I'm intrigued by the idea of hipster parenting. (Like "alternadad" Neal Pollack, for example.) I wrote the following a couple of years ago, on an old blog that I never publicized. Here it is, only two years late.


MOMS RAWK. If you're not aware of the burgeoning "mommy rock" phenomenon, it encompasses groups such as the Motherlode Trio, the Mydols, Housewives on Prozac (well, it's rock 'n' roll -- you gotta have drugs), and of course, a festival called Momapalooza.

Not long ago Housewives and Momapalooza founder Joy Rose read an essay on NPR wherein she related her overnight transformation from SoHo punk rock queen with a gold record to . . . "happy baby pig" (her words, with emphasis on "baby" -- implying that making babies turns a woman into a pig). As the reality of motherhood set in, she quickly tired of the artist's life. Navigating the walk up four flights of stairs with kids, baby bag and toys in tow proved too challenging. So she and her "partner" (alternaterm for "husband") opted for -- gasp --

THE SUBURBS -- !!!

Denizens of insular urban bohemias think differently, to say the least. In some ways, for the better. But in that hothouse environment, there's also that contempt, even terror, for anything and everything perceived as bourgeois: a notion that the traditional family is for the dull, the bland, the conforming -- the people who go to megachurches and shop at Wal-Mart. Marriage ("partnership," whatever) is a transmitter of the patriarchal oppression virus. Children are not only unhip; they are a burden, a disease to be cured by the abortionist. In some circles these beliefs are held quite literally. Traces of these memes are evident in the self-punishing language Rose employs when relating her journey from moshing to mommying. She sounds sheepish and apologetic, as if to say: I'm really sorry ... I know I'm not supposed to enjoy this exploitative subjugation to an artificial gender role forced upon me by the Oppressive Rapist Patriarchy ... but dammit, I'm lovin' it!

It makes me sad that Rose spent so long steeped in a milieu where doing what nature made you to do makes you a "baby pig," but rejecting motherhood to satisfy ambitions often externally imposed by your subculture, and spending your time and money on yourself, makes you not an "anti-baby pig," but strong and progressive.

Yet even punk rock chicks like Rose continue to apostacize from the cult to obey the call of nature to do what they -- perhaps too obviously to need to point out -- are uniquely equipped to do. Rose had to give up her "me"-centered lifestyle, but didn't give up her love of rock 'n' roll -- at least not forever. She continues to rawk, even in the suburbs. (While moving to the burbs is a tradeoff, not all suburbs fit the stereotypes of blandness, homogeneity and cultural barrenness. And as things are today, a good suburb is a helluva lot better environment in which to raise kids than the big city.)

While I don't know all the details of Rose's rock career, I admire her tremendously for simply desiring to be a real mother. And I'm glad to see the new wave of mommy rock. It refutes the notion of a huge conflict of rock and roll vs. home and hearth, of fun vs. family, of art vs. adulthood. It shows that artistic expression is not exclusively the province of nihilistic, solipsistic singles in their teens or twentysomethings. The movement may inject some much-needed perspective into a scene that needs to be reminded from time to time that it actually is not the center of the universe. Definitely, it will inspire creativity, since rockers who are mommies automatically have a whole new world of material to draw from. And with little ones depending on them, they have even more reasons to change the world.

Knockered out

IN THE FEBRUARY 8 love-'n'-sex-themed issue of NewCity, “Marcy K” bared her soul and shared her small problem -- or rather, her two small problems, which must seem ever smaller compared to the pumped-up monstrosities being paraded around town.

Marcy writes of a recent experience at a club:

I was spending a good portion of the time wedged on a too-tight-to-move lounge space, getting knocked around by big breasts. … It seems to me that they are everywhere these days – and that single (and not-so-single) men in this city have it much too good … How did they spawn? How come all of a sudden it’s
become the industry standard to have glammed-up boobs in this city?

I began to notice the same phenomenon several years ago on the first warm day of spring. I was in the yuppie center of Chicago, Lincoln Park -- my first visit to that area in a couple of years probably -- and I marveled at the new epidemic. It was as if an “Instant Inflate” button had been pressed and everyone in the area had magically gained two sizes. They were bouncing around -- or more accurately, sort of gliding around -- everywhere, especially on a certain species of skinny twentysomething blonde commonly found jogging along the lakeshore or walking around the park toting their hamster-sized dogs. Sure, they catch your eye for a second. But then you realize you're looking at plastic, and you look away, in search of something real.

They're really impostors

I'M PROBABLY THE biggest fan of Hall and Oates on this planet (Oates especially), and I know they’re old-old-school, but -- c’mon. How do professional entertainers, who presumably have managers and PR people, let a couple of clowns such as this one and this one steal what oughta be their MySpace pages?

I gotta admit though, the second one is funny. And the first guy, when I first visited a few weeks ago, has this wacked out hip-hop-swing-marching-band song from these Brooklynite goofsters. But now he's got this redickulous remix of the Muppets' "Movin' Right Along" ... (Haven't heard this song in about 25 years, but I'll be diddly-dong danged if I didn't recognize it after about the first four bars.)

* POSTSCRIPT: Somehow, since I wrote this post, it seems that the real Hall and Oates have managed to claim this myspace page for themselves. Now that's good news.

Stop the Catbox?

EVERYBODY LAUGHS AT THAT commercial . And that's because it poses the question that has perplexed young and old alike for over 24 years:

What the hell were the Clash singing?

I was eight when that song came out. I only knew the word "Casbah" because my big sister told me that was the word. (She couldn't say what a casbah was, though.) I knew "kosher" because I had Jewish friends, and I could make out a few other really obvious parts, like "on the radiator grill" or "degenerate the faithful." But as for the rest, between Mick's mush-mouthy, British-accented delivery and my unsophisticated grasp of Middle East politics, I was pretty lost.

So what did I think they were saying?

Now the kid he told the boogie bear
Ya got to let the robber drown
He oiled down the desert wind
Has 'im shakin’ to the town
He shaky drove his Cadillac
He went a cruisin’ down the real
The prison guard's a standin’
On the radiator grill

(YAAAAAA)

Cheri don’t like it
Rock the Casbah
Rock the Casbah
Cheri don’t like it
Rock the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

I ordered up the profit
You better prove your sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
They better when they brought out
The electric cattle drum
They look and get to thinkin’
that he’s goin’ ta break his thumb
Soon as the Cheri cleared the square
Babe began to wail

[chorus]

I'm over at the temple
Oh, they really packed the rim
Think I say it’s cool
To take this child teen thing
But as the wind changed direction
And the temple ground’s on fire
The ground got a will
Oh that crazy Casbah chiiiiiiiiild

[chorus]

The king called up his jet fighters
He said you’d better run your planes
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Now the Casbah way
As soon as the Cheri goes surfin’ outta there
The jet pilots tune to the captain radio blare
Soon as the Cheri gets outta their hair
The jet pilots wail

Cheri don’t like it
Rock the Casbah
He thinks it’s not kosher
From the mental retardation
You know he really hates it

(Now here are the real lyrics.) By the way ... A live version of this song featuring Mick Jones and someone named Rachid Taha, singing in Arabic. Cool.


FROM THE CLASH to ... America? Why the hell not?

America's “You Can Do Magic” is a perfectly crafted pop song in the smooth vein of late '70s/early ‘80s yacht rock.

Now, for some strange reason, something told me last week to record a “ghetto bounce” R&B version of this song, just for fun. Last Sunday I slapped together a demo, complete with six parts of vocal harmony. It actually doesn't sound that bad. I'm wondering why someone hasn't already thought of doing this. Maybe someone like that Usher-sounding kid -- what's his name? -- should try it. It's a hell of a lot better song than "She's Like the Wind."

And whaddya know? I go on YouTube and this song has been resurrected thanks to some Harry Potter fan who’s put this song to captured video of evil warlock Snape.

While we’re talking about great songs of 1982, how about F-Mac’s “Hold Me”?

I loved everything about this song: its dreamy otherworldliness, its piano tinkling, its driving beat, its plucky guitars and percussion, the echo that makes the guitar solo sound like it was played in a canyon, the five-note scale (which is Oriental, but at the time actually made me think of American Indians), and the way McVie, Buckingham, Nicks et al. came off like an unruly, unpolished children’s choir rather than a precision-engineered pop group. I love musicians who are obviously having a lot of fun, and FM were certainly having fun in this song, or at least made it sound so.

But for me, the videos tend to spoil these images -- especially America's original video for "Magic." I'm kinda like Jade, one of the kids I work with in an after-school program, who prefers books without pictures. Just like Jade, I would rather make the pictures in my head.

two fridays of art

"DO YOU LIKE REALISM?” the guy said to me when I poked my head through the door of the tiny but plushly appointed art studio.

The man was Steve, husband of artist Alice McMahon White; the studio was one of many in Chicago's fine Fine Arts Building: a stately, storied old edifice that originally served as a Studebaker carriage and wagon factory and now houses a variety of artists and related organizations. (For a few months during college I had worked at the art-house theater that formerly occupied the first floor; when not busy I was always snooping around in the building's nooks and crannies.)

Still clutching a half-drunk glass of red wine from the last gallery, I gazed appreciatively about the small studio, crammed with intricate wall- and easel-mounted works, mostly portraits in pencil and pastel. I told Steve I thought it was about time for realism to stage a comeback.
He let me know that a comeback, of sorts, is happening right now.

Reality, fiction and football

SEEING THAT TRUTH is stranger than fiction, I tend not to spend much time on the latter any more. But in its own way fiction still can be powerful. Right now I'm starting Bukowski's Factotum, which I should've read long ago. (Partner in grime Annabelle dumps books on me as if I had nothing to do but read books -- which would be nice.)

Bukowski wastes no time in this novel. By the time you get to the bottom of page one -- and it's only a half-page -- you've already got great descriptive writing, you've got man vs. the elements, you've got poverty and down-at-the-heelness, you've got a bit of mystery about who's this protagonist and where's he going and why he's in this situation -- and most intriguing, you've already got sexual tension. Interracial sexual tension, at that.

If you're gonna write a story, you may as well start with a bang, I mused while reading.

The Bears started out with a bang last night. It turns out, though, that they only had a couple of rounds in the chamber.


THE AIR FORCE is aggressively hunting new bomb fodder with the help of commercials run during the Super Bowl and on MTV. They're all about action, speed, excitement, boys playing with cool toys and enjoying teamwork and manly camaraderie and the self-realization of belonging to something bigger than oneself. War as a kind of extreme sport.

Of course, these exciting, adrenaline- and testosterone-releasing images and messages are the stock-in-trade of military recruitment ads. And such techniques are common to advertising in general, which works on the emotions rather than logic and usually hypes the positive while omitting the negative. So is the USAF being an exceptional liar? By one standard, perhaps not.

But to bring a sense of perspective to it, one might argue that the higher the stakes involved, the less defensible the lie. Most ads, fundamentally dishonest though they may be, aren't selling you a product that inherently includes the risk of getting your arms, legs, face or man parts blown off, or getting turned into flame-broiled hamburger -- or having to do the same to other men, women and children you've never met and in most cases will never even see. Or perhaps taking part in "domestic surveillance" against fellow Americans. Seems to me that military recruitment ads ought to be required to provide, oh, I don't know, maybe just a smidgen of actual reality?

Even MTV has "The Real World." When are we going to see "The Real World: Iraq"?

Speaking of which, I salute this guy for exhibiting a kind of bravery they don't seem to teach in the military.

Where do ideas come from?

WHETHER THEY COME FROM the unconscious, the spirit realm, or both, or neither, it's an amazing process -- and all the more so for its mysterious opacity. You feel sometimes like a passive conduit, an inbox just sitting there minding its own business. And then, when you least expect it, you've got mail.

Some poetic licenses should probably be revoked

POETRY IS THE one form of entertainment loaded with hoards of mediocres completely unconscious of the fact that they are supposed to be entertaining. Lest "entertainment" evoke only fun and jokes, I don't mean it that way. Entertainment is diversion that can evoke the entire range of emotions. But it should evoke something more than tears of boredom.

An Enigmarie, wrapped in a riddle

ONCE UPON A TIME -- on May 26, 2000, to be precise--I received a most intriguing e-mail from an "E Aguilar."* The subject line read:    
 
TewlveTribes

And the message:

Ahoy there Fellow!

I be the homeless one w/ a Howard Hughs' story. - Now again;
w/ out a place to lay my head in a few short days.

Hughs' attention for his generosity -apparently didn't help attract an eye for diliverance.

I'd like to generate intrest in a group living siduation like the 12 Tribes, but the possibilities are weak. Please inform as to your caution.

Thank you,
Blessings

    What was I to make of this?

I replied:

Ahoy there matie! True to your e-mail address, your message was quite enigmatic. Could you explain yourself a little more? Who are you? Where are you from? Where'd you get my e-mail address? Are you associated with the Tribes? What does Howard Hughes have to do with your situation? And by the way, would you be related to one Minor Aguilar of Chicago?

This person wrote back. Marie Aguilar was the name given this time. She was of a certain age, which she wasn't eager to tell. She was from the Sarasota area. She had at least one daughter. She was somewhat of an artist (an "illistrator," as she put it), but also had experience as a personal trainer, but was hoping to find work as a doula. And she was in some sort of dire straits, the nature of which she was never at liberty to fully explain. And no, she didn't know anybody named Minor Aguilar.

But how had she obtained my e-mail, and why'd she write? Turns out she had seen an article authored by me in an online Christian newsletter. In that article I mentioned certain spiritually based intentional communities, and one of these was a quasi-Messianic-Jewish group called the Twelve Tribes. Marie had an interest in such groups, and she e-mailed me, perhaps thinking I was involved in one. She told me that she was of marrano Jewish ancestry and was searching for her Jewish roots in Messiah. Currently, she said, she worshipped with a "home fellowship" rather than a typical corporate church.

As for the homeless bit, I speculated she was fleeing some sort of abusive relationship. Since she was reticent to share many details, I didn't pry. But she was safe for the time being, she reassured me, and staying with friends. She was trying to get a deal on a mobile home for $8000.

She made quite an e-penpal. Her handle, enigmarie2000, proved apt. In subsequent emails, she continued with her quirky colors, formatting, punctuation, and colorful spelling ("inishally," "unfourtunatly," "uncertion," "perswations," "simmilor," etc.). She called e-mails "E-s." ("Guess I started looking forward to your E-s...")

Sometimes she'd sign her name:

mare

And sometime she'd use totally off-the-wall subject lines, such as:

Massa Massa

or

-1 + +1=*

I'd ask her to explain these, but she never did. I figured: okay, eccentric artist type, I get it. But as poor a speller as she was, she seemed a very joyful, optimistic person in the face of all her trials, and always had something to share: a Bible verse, an inspirational poem, a bit of advice.

In one e-mail I apologized for not writing for so long because I'd been overwhelmed and struggling with various projects, and also, with a female person in my life:

The more I get to know her, the more I'm convinced we are really twins who were separated at birth. We are so alike in so many things (including favorite brand and flavor of tea) it's scary. ... Yet, we've had a little falling out over a communication problem and her mood-swing problem, which sometimes gets in the way of having a normal conversation. But I still care for her and I'm praying for her. ...

Marie wrote back:

Hi ya, _____ :) good to hear you sounding well. The girl, however much your ditto, may be a type of distraction. Use caution. Seek first His Kingdom so you have a safe Haven. I'm sure of your wittness, but as humans our biggest drawback is the glove attached to our soul. You are accepted in The Beloved & greater is He in you then he that's in the world. Keep yourself clean in His Word & approach her as a lover of the goodness & faithfullness of God before direction your affections too hastilly.

Too much to say now. I'll have to give you a couple of E- forwards to catch you up w/ me.

I love you my brother. God is working mightily in you! I look forward to the wonderful things He has in store for you

We carried on occasional correspondence for over a year. I even called her a couple of times: she had expressed interest in a marketing business I was involved in at that time, so we talked biz as well as personal and spirichal stuff.

But then her messages became scarce, and when they did come they were abrupt and created more questions than they answered. She was again homeless, she said, writing from libraries. She was on the road. With Olivia. It sounded like a dire situation. She asked me to pray that her vehicle didn't break down. Where was she headed? I asked her. Was she running from the law? She couldn't say.

Soon the emails stopped coming, and mine no longer received replies. So I said prayers for her, and life went on.

But I couldn't help but care about the well-being of this touchingly zany lady. Every now and then I'd try to Google her, plus her email addresses, trying to find any tidbit of information. Nothing came up.

After several months, on Nov. 17, 2002, she sent a message out to a list of friends, including me, with subject line:


Famous"in his words, this man used his influence to abduct Olivia Salisbury


To the message, she had attached a Google search page full of page hits concerning Enrico Wallenda. Yep, that's right, of The Flying Wallendas, of circus highwire fame.

That's when it all started to come together. She had been Mrs. Wallenda. They divorced and he got custody of Olivia. I don't know the circumstances or the justice of this decision; it does appear that Wallenda is a "famous freemason," and by many accounts, a Mason in court has a much easier time getting his way if the judge is also a "brother Mason," as many are. Whatever the case, in January of that year Marie Aguilar, or rather Edith Salisbury, her real name, had whisked the 7-year-old Olivia off on a wacky cross-country caper that culminated in San Diego.

But as part of a national law enforcement program, Olivia's face was plastered on "Missing Children" cards sent out by a direct-mail marketing company. As a result, when she and her mom were spotted at a San Diego homeless shelter in September 2002. The law was notified and soon Olivia was back home in Florida.

The latest news is that Olivia's training to be part of the next generation of the Flying Wallendas. I haven't heard from her mom lately. I hope by now she's out of prison.

[* last name changed.....]

24/7 nostalgia

THE THING THAT'S so cool about growing old as a Gen-Xer is that for several years now, VH-1 has been replaying our entire youth for us.

This nostalgia barrage is a trap, yes -- but such a sweet sticky one. Who doesn't want to relive his formative years: the years when life was simpler, when everything -- especially music -- was just better?

In addition to transporting us back to carefree youth, the retro resurgence does us another favor by setting us up as guides -- elder statesmen of cool, you might say -- to all the MySpacing iPod kids who've never owned an analog sound recording and are just now discovering '70s and '80s music.

KID: Dude! R & B artists actually played real instruments back then? They had bands? Get out!

ME: Well, yeah. That was pretty much the norm until the mid-'80s.

KID: What's that thing their voices and instruments are doing? It's weird. But it makes me ... it makes me feel good!

ME: I believe you're referring to the melody and harmonies and chord progressions? Musicians used to know those, but they kinda went out of style in the '90s.

KID: Thanks to bands like the Killers (who I was into way before anyone had ever heard of them, by the way), I'm really discovering a lot of really cool, totally underground bands from the '80s who influenced them. Like New Order, the Cure, Duran Duran...

ME: [Erupts in peals of laughter.]

KID: What's so funny? Hey, do you like my ironic Hall and Oates t-shirt? [Glances around nervously, then whispers:] But just between you and me, I really like those guys!

ME: You know, some of their best songs were never even released as singles. You have to get the albums. Did you know they go all the way back to 1969? You know, Daryl Hall used to sing backup for all these Philly soul guys -- ever heard of the Delfonics? Anyway, he was with this band called Gulliver for a while. They put out this crazy album that sounded like the Beatles, with a little more soul. I might let you borrow my CD ...

KID: [Stares blankly.]

It's little perks like this that make growing old a little more tolerable.

I'm not here to start no trouble,

but I'm so tired of the Super Bowl Shuffle gettin all the play in the wake of the Bears victory, while the sweetest '85 Bears charity single of them all goes ignored!

Sadly, everyone hasforgotten Walter Payton's clearly superior song "Together As a Team."

Together as a team, we have a dream
Everyone can win together
If we hold hands in this great land
We can make life a whole lot better
‘Cause the people of the world, we are the ones,
Everyone should get involved,
If we hold together aloft our hands
Our problems can be solved!

By the way, what was that I heard about the '85 Bears returning to the studio to record a "darker" album?

Good art is the new "outsider art"

 

AND MUSIC BY MUSICIANS is the new punk rock.

Yes! So I have proclaimed it,  and so shall it be.

While googling the term "art about art" (because I got tired of encountering art about art ), I came upon this site.

"So long as most of humanity is permitted to compare and decide for themselves, Truth and Beauty, the twin sisters of the human soul projected through cyberspace into millions of homes, are certain to prevail," writes Art Renewal Center chairman Fred Ross.

Interesting. As I read those words, a journal is sitting my lap. I leaf back a few pages in that little book. There it is -- something I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

BEAUTY + TRUTH ... are 2 sides of a coin, created by the same Creator. Truth is his Word, and beauty his Work. But too often those given to Beauty neglect and scorn Truth, while those seeking after Truth give short shrift to Beauty.

I've not really kept up on cultural criticism about the fine arts, beyond perusing the conservative salvo Degenerate Moderns almost as soon as it debuted back in the mid-90s (and thinking: "You know, except for the homosexuality, those Bloomsbury folks actually sound like my people.") I know a lot about conspiracies, and undeniably there has been a general conspiracy (or if you don't like that "c"-word, call it a "consensus" or a "contagion") to dumb down the American public. It also seems that modern art was part of it. Some would say the movement was skillfully siezed and its import vastly magnified by the CIA, allegedly for Cold War purposes. Encountering some skilled realists, and stumbling upon the ARC site, got me thinking again about these matters. 

Cruise-ify him

TOM CRUISE IS a "Christlike figure" in Scientology? So says a high-ranking member of the celebrity-stalking cult.

At least, so says the British tabloid the Sun.

Or rather, so the Sun says of the Scientology source's saying so.

Ugh. I'm getting my typing fingers all tangled up.

Plus, I do not like to make fun of the mentally challenged.

I will stop here.

"When we're not on, we're not watching either"

ONE OF THE FUN THINGS about my career trajectory is that I'm probably one of few people to have both:

1) interviewed Daley as a reporter, and
2) nine years later, served him smoked salmon canapes as a server at the 410 Club.

I've also had the great pleasure of serving canapes to some of the same media people I used to compete with or rub shoulders with in professional groups. For instance, the NBC5 holiday party. Hey, there's Warner, who may or may not recognize me in the dim light as one of the supposedly smart up-and-comers from NABJ Chicago in the mid-90s. There's Carol, who exclaims "hi!" as if she recognizes me, though I don't think we ever met; maybe she's just all full of holiday cheer and her cougar instinct is coming out. There's Anna, whom I used to run into sometimes when I was editor/reporter of a community newspaper and she a newly minted reporter at Channel 5. We'd exchange a flirtatious smile and a "hi," but we were so busy. Not long thereafter I managed to piss off one of the paper's advertisers, got myself relieved from the job, and I was out of the biz for a good while.

Later, as I'm lugging HiBoy chairs upstairs up to the balcony, there's a nice-lookin blonde sitting by the now-closed balcony bar. She wants to know if it's still open -- or can I open it back up? I say sorry, it's closed and I can't bartend -- they haven't trained me on that yet.

"I always wanted to be a bartender," she remarks. She was a server once too, she tells me. The irony: when she finally got into her "real job" it only paid her half as much. But since that time she's worked her way up the pay scale.

I ask what's her job. She's an on-air reporter. I recognize her name only vaguely, because, as I let her know, I don't really watch local TV news.

"The nation mourns President Ford,"

THEY INTONED GRAVELY on every national newscast.

1) Is "national mourning" mandatory? Is there a law?

2) If not, then I'll let it be known that no, I'm not mourning. I really didn't know the guy personally. He was one of the least distinguished presidents of the last century, and he got his job by accident. Seriously, why would I be all broken up?

3) If the Voices of Authority on our evening news were to find that most Americans actually were getting on with our lives just fine, would they bother saying so? Or are they too into their perceived role as court scribes and hagiographers of power?

4) Why isn't "the nation mourning" James Brown, who arguably had more impact culturally and even politically?

5) Why do so many worship power? Why are some so hellbent on making the cult of the already imperious Imperial Presidency even more so with each passing day? 

The Ford death was attended by the same sort of imperialism orgasm that attended the death and corpse tour of Reagan a few years back. Why all this attention showered on a carcass?

Did we really need the nationwide tour, the honor guards, the pageantry, the fanfare, the lionization, the damn-near deification? Where does this stop? When the title is changed to Caesar and he is declared God in the flesh?

Since they are dead, dead presidents are not helped by the worship of their remains, nor by the monuments built to them, nor by the monumental sums of taxpayer-contributed paper dead presidents consumed in the process.

But for the the still-living who stand to inherit the power, exploitation of the dead for propaganda purposes -- as spellbinding talismans and ritual props for the power structure -- is essential. The modern United States of America is restoring this ancient superstition to a high art. 

Bringing the "stars" back down to earth

MTV AND VH-1 have perfected the art of serving up pop culture offal you're ashamed to be caught watching, with just enough snark to distance themselves from the stink. When we finally get fed up with this stuff, they'll be able to say, "Ho ho, we were laughing at it all along."

But there is one redeeming value in our glut of "reality" and celebrity, and this is revealed in VH-1's "Celebreality" brand. Although at first glance this programming block appears to be more of the same disgusting celebsession we're already sick of, it's actually doing us a great service: deconstructing and lampooning celebrity; putting celebs -- more accurately, former celebs -- back in their rightful place. These has-beens get "stripped of all their A-list privileges -- and their self-esteem" (words taken from the actual Robin Leach intro). It's actually refreshing to see the formerly famous now groveling for money and recognition by cramming into houses together and enacting stupid scripts and playing dumb games for a nationwide audience. They're back to entertaining -- which is, after all, the whole reason why they became famous in the first place.

The world needs another blog,

so here goes. This one will feature opinions and information about the arts (perhaps with a slight bias toward my hometown, Chicago), as you might've guessed from the name Live Active Culture.

What, you thought it was about yogurt?

Of course, being a writer and musician and artist of sorts, I will find the time to promote my own work here, when the time comes. I don't want to too tightly define or confine the content right now. Just read and enjoy and I'll figure it out as I go along.