Friday, May 21, 2010
still peeved at this r & b
IN AN OLDER POST I shared why I was peeved with contemporary rhythm and snooze. In that post I blamed Sean P. "Puffy Pops/Diddly Squat" Combs for helping kill off hip hop. I have now received confirmation of this fact, from no less an authority than Pu$$ycow.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Slop culture update
IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD, there's this fascinating new nature show called "Jersey Shore." It's quite educational.
I have watched several episodes so far. Fascinating! Watch the little round one right there. See it constantly displaying its hindparts? That must be a female in heat, looking for a mate. And look, there's a male showing off its mating colors, puffing up its chest, and utilizing "product" to make its fur stand on end in a bid to attract and penetrate more females. Wow! There go two of them, fighting for supremacy!
The best thing about these critters is, they look just like people and they're really quite clever. They even have rudimentary speech skills.
The best thing about these critters is, they look just like people and they're really quite clever. They even have rudimentary speech skills.
TOO BAD LADY GAGA's actual songs are as boring as her video concepts, costumery, choreogaphy and set design are creative. But wait -- that describes 95% of major-label music.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, August 30, 2009
How companies are going green
GREEN IS ALL THE RAGE. With mounting fears of global warming and the heightened popularity of planet-friendly products, even the biggest companies are racing to jump on the bandwagon. Here's how some businesses are "greening up" their products and images. STARBUCKS: coffee now grown with solar energy
MOTOROLA: : Employing only Third World workers, who consume vastly fewer resources than Americans
CHARMIN: Toilet paper 100% recycled
COCA-COLA: Now with real, natural cocaine
YOUR LOCAL USED CAR DEALER: Selling 100% used vehicles
PROCTER & GAMBLE: Removing up to 10% of the toxic, caustic chemicals from its personal-care products
POTBELLY SANDWICH WORKS: All employees crazy baked
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Introducing the "New Urbanist" shopping mall
JUST FOUND THIS while Ixquicking (that's my new term for Googling) "Faux New Urbanism."
But how about the "New Urbanist" suburban shopping mall? This one in Burr Ridge, Ill. (not far from where I live) is the reason I was Ixquicking "Faux New Urbanism" to begin with.
The nostalgically named Burr Ridge Village Center boasts a "vibrant main-street setting." (They don't mention it's built right next to an interstate highway.) And yes, the buildings do attempt to mimic the homes-over-storefront look of real classic town centers. But instead of the variety of a real town (like Homewood, IL* , a rail-centered south suburb of Chicago), where on a typical block you might have a gas station, a corner grocery store, local mom-and-pop coffee shops, taverns, pizzerias and ice cream parlors, local banks, civic buildings, and locally owned hardware stores, every store in these fake company towns is a shiny clone of a national chain.
Rather than living quarters for shopkeepers and other normal people, the "apartments" above the Banana Republic and Starbucks in the Burr Ridge Village Center are high-end condos. In short, it's a mall disguised as a small town.
No doubt a candidate for "localwashing": "Shop Local! All your favorite hometown shops here — from Starbucks to The Gap!"
*I couldn't find any good photos of downtown Homewood, but thanks to Google and the U.S. government's scary satellite technology, you can just go to Google Maps punch in "Ridge and Dixie, Homewood, IL" into the address bar, zoom all the way in, and you'll get the street view in downtown Homewood. You can zip up and down the streets to your heart''s delight.
Or try Hinsdale, Burr Ridge's neighbor to the south, also with the advantage of commuter rail. For Hinsdale, punch in "Garfield and Chicago, Hinsdale, IL."
In a misguided attempt to inject some classical urban charm into the North Conway, New Hampshire location of Lowe’s, someone thought is would be a good idea to build-in a pretty hilarious row of fake second-story windows on their otherwise completely suburban box-store.
But how about the "New Urbanist" suburban shopping mall? This one in Burr Ridge, Ill. (not far from where I live) is the reason I was Ixquicking "Faux New Urbanism" to begin with.
The nostalgically named Burr Ridge Village Center boasts a "vibrant main-street setting." (They don't mention it's built right next to an interstate highway.) And yes, the buildings do attempt to mimic the homes-over-storefront look of real classic town centers. But instead of the variety of a real town (like Homewood, IL* , a rail-centered south suburb of Chicago), where on a typical block you might have a gas station, a corner grocery store, local mom-and-pop coffee shops, taverns, pizzerias and ice cream parlors, local banks, civic buildings, and locally owned hardware stores, every store in these fake company towns is a shiny clone of a national chain.
Rather than living quarters for shopkeepers and other normal people, the "apartments" above the Banana Republic and Starbucks in the Burr Ridge Village Center are high-end condos. In short, it's a mall disguised as a small town.
No doubt a candidate for "localwashing": "Shop Local! All your favorite hometown shops here — from Starbucks to The Gap!"
*I couldn't find any good photos of downtown Homewood, but thanks to Google and the U.S. government's scary satellite technology, you can just go to Google Maps punch in "Ridge and Dixie, Homewood, IL" into the address bar, zoom all the way in, and you'll get the street view in downtown Homewood. You can zip up and down the streets to your heart''s delight.
Or try Hinsdale, Burr Ridge's neighbor to the south, also with the advantage of commuter rail. For Hinsdale, punch in "Garfield and Chicago, Hinsdale, IL."
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Michael Jackson died for our sins
WAS I A FAN of Michael Jackson? For a child of the late '70s and '80s -- and an African-American to boot -- that's like asking: "Are you a fan of the sun?" "Are you a fan of the earth's rotation?" C'mon. But some distinctions are in order.
There was Michael Jackson the man: flawed, weak, vulnerable -- the one who danced with death, and stumbled.
Then there was Michael Jackson the natural talent, the consummate professional, the phenomenal songwriter, singer, dancer and all-round flawless perfomer.
And there was Michael Jackson the public persona, the mystery, the symbol, the "icon" -- the idol.
I felt for the first MJ and I hugely respected and enjoyed the work of the second. I don't care much for the third MJ since, as a believer in God, I don't really do idols.
Folks who don't worship a higher power, find lower powers to venerate instead. It's unavoidable, part of our makeup. In practical reality this makes for messy situations. A god here, a god there, a god everywhere. Thousands of gods, endless ladders and hierarchies and taxonomies of deities, often in conflict -- is it any wonder their worshipers are forever in conflict, with each other, with themselves? For example, people whose God or ultimate authority is the state are have maimed and killed others in the hundreds of millions in the last century, simply because their respective state-gods commanded them to do so. It's the same mechanism that leads people to believe Michael Jackson was superhuman.
But it's evident that like many idols, Jackson himself had a complex, tortured relationship with his status. Arguably, it's the idolatry that killed him.
The ancient Incas had a tradition of taking a servant and elevating him to deity for one day.
Then they sacrificed him.
In exchange for his a brief time as a god, Michael Jackson went to his Maker long before his proper time. Yet like the slave-king -- or perhaps, like most kings down through history -- he wasn't really in charge. His status as god-for-a-day was cynically milked by those who surrounded him: the industry, white-coated drug pushers and other assorted hangers-on and enablers who profited from him as long as they were able. They rode him until finally the ride was over.
What a tragedy for the man sacrificed to provide others not only with entertainment, but for meaning for their otherwise hollow existences. What a tragedy for a family. And what a trauma for a culture. Will this serve to jar us awake, close a chapter in American history, break the spell of celebrity silliness and allow us to be grown-ups again? Will it help us shut down this out-of-control star machine that chews people up and spits them out -- often, into a waiting grave?
Will it help nail shut the coffin of celebrolatry, at least for a few of us-- allow us to go back to letting God do his job, and entertainers theirs?
Or will we remain a Michael Jackson nation, alternately stroked and traumatized, so at the mercy of forces beyond our control we feel the need to retreat into a cocoon of magic kingdom make-believe?
LEFTOVER THOUGHTS: About the pedophilia rap, I still don't know what to think. We know the guy was warped. We know he had an interesting porn collection but porn -- or, let's say, a nude and partially-nude art collection -- but contrary to popular rumor, it was not kiddie porn, according to the evidence released by police.* We know he loved children, but it's not clear that he loved children that way. Part of me wants to believe that his thing about children owed to the fact he was in a very real way a child inside -- for better and for worse -- and in that sense, was only preferring the company of his peers.
I HOPE ALL aspiring and working young singers will avail themselves of the selection of live Jackson footage going back to the Jackson Five, and watch their flawless, professional performances. That's what performers are supposed to do.
* Update Aug. 2010: This site runs down all the "porn" found in Jackson's collection that police bothered to make public. The general finding was that none of the images constituted child pornography or anything else illegal.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Google + ADD = ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
THIS IS HOW IT WORKS. You start out searching for info on the heart chakra -- which takes you to someone's MySpace, which triggers another Google search, and you end up watching "Young Cheezy: The Fred Fredburger Remix."
Sunday, December 21, 2008
THE CINNAMON BEAR
YOU WILL GET hooked on this Wizard-of-Oz-like, wonderfully whacked-out Christmas-themed radio series from 1937. Enjoy the acid-trip-like adventures of Paddy O'Cinnamon and his foes such as Crazy Quilt Dragon, the Candy Pirates, the Wintergreen Witch, the Ikaboos, the Scissor Soldiers, and the Bad Dolls. And, oh yeah, Santa is involved somehow, too. I happened to hear a part of one episode when I stumbled upon WCSF 88.7 FM (St. Francis College of Joliet) while dial-surfing as I sat in my car, warming up my freezing feet during a break from work. Take a listen.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
America's Circus Maximus
THIS MORNING I HEARD sportswriter Sal Paolantonio on the Dennis Miller show (yeah, I know, I listen to that glib, snickering-at-his-own--jokes Republican shill so you people won't have to) plugging his book How Football Explains America. The biggest revelations in that interview are no secrets to any thinking person conversant with history and with the ways of the power elite; but what knocked off my socks was that they exposed it on national radio for the masses to hear: America's preeminent national sport, football, is the "Circus Maximus" (Miller's words) of the American Empire; according to Paolantonio, it is about "violence," about "religion," about "manifest destiny," about war and conquest.
American elites wanted to form a national sport to replace the European sports of soccer and rugby, which most Americans hated. The "Founding Fathers of American sport" got together in two meetings in 1880 and 1882, at Harvard and Penn State respectively, to "fix" the game of soccer. Their first innovation was to add the first down, which enables the team to "capture territory, hold it and defend it" -- an allegory for the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. The next innovation was to add a general called the quarterback, the "cowboy outlaw figure" and "main protagonist" who "tells the story of the game as it marches across the field, just as we marched across the continent."
American elites wanted to form a national sport to replace the European sports of soccer and rugby, which most Americans hated. The "Founding Fathers of American sport" got together in two meetings in 1880 and 1882, at Harvard and Penn State respectively, to "fix" the game of soccer. Their first innovation was to add the first down, which enables the team to "capture territory, hold it and defend it" -- an allegory for the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. The next innovation was to add a general called the quarterback, the "cowboy outlaw figure" and "main protagonist" who "tells the story of the game as it marches across the field, just as we marched across the continent."
Thursday, September 25, 2008
$tarbucks: Your Community Coffee Store!
STARBUCKS HAS CHUTZPAH. Fashioning a warm-and-cozy, earth-toned, earth-friendly, feel-good glow around itself is a Starbucks specialty. Its use of art is a case in point. You go into one of their stores and you see art on the walls that fits in with the rootsy, funky, artsy vibe they fervently try to create (and then replicate exactly across nine kajillion locations). You look at it, or perhaps just unconsciously take it in via peripheral vision, and it feels nice, it feels warm, it feels soothing.It's also glibly self-promoting. As it turns out, the art is actually a subtle image ad for Starbucks itself. Take, for instance, the piece that pictures a tree of words -- words such as "coffee," "love," "passion," "place," "community," "people." And various inspirational sayings, or presumable comments from satisfied Starbucks customers. The piece is captioned: "The Deeper the ROOTS, the Higher the Reach." What is that supposed to mean? Nothing, really. Like an Obama campaign speech, it has no meaning; it's about how they'd like you to feel about the brand.
Generally, the faker and more uncaring and more remote a huge corporate business is, the more it has to advertise to us about how real and caring and community-focused it really is. While I don't know the hearts of the folks behind Starbucks, it's not really about their conscious intent; it's about the system, and system logic inevitably drives out diversity and individuality.
The irony is that one block away from the local Starbucks store where I first saw the "tree" piece was the former location of an actual community coffeehouse -- founded by a guy I went to high school with -- that this Starbucks had helped kill off. In a Starbucks world, "community" is marketing copy and corporate art emanating from a headquarters hundreds of miles away. The people you live with? Ha, screw 'em -- they're just a revenue stream.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
New old posts!
THESE ARE POSTS I meant to finish up and add long ago but just recently got around to doing so.
Actually, I prefer nonduality : (skeptical take on Eastern mysticism and "enlightenment")
"When we're not on, we're not watching either": not-really-that-juicy gossip on local TV news folk
Bringing stars back down to earth: the one redeeming thing about celebreality TV
Siamese Band Names: I've added some new ones.
Jen, Jane -- whatever: A synchronicitous meetup with a onetime date who actually may be my cousin.
Bright, happy, and deadly : selling birth control pills like candy
Actually, I prefer nonduality : (skeptical take on Eastern mysticism and "enlightenment")
"When we're not on, we're not watching either": not-really-that-juicy gossip on local TV news folk
Bringing stars back down to earth: the one redeeming thing about celebreality TV
Siamese Band Names: I've added some new ones.
Jen, Jane -- whatever: A synchronicitous meetup with a onetime date who actually may be my cousin.
Bright, happy, and deadly : selling birth control pills like candy
Top 10 worst pop music trends of the last 10 years
LAST TIME I POSTED about the MTV Video Music Awards. More than any other force, the music video is responsible for shrinking pop music from an art in its own right, into mere background material for dazzling imagery and fancy filmwork. Accordingly, the VMAs provide an annual snapshot of the decline of pop music, largely since the late '90s. Some of the worst trends in our video-driven pop culture, in my book:
10) Timbaland, Neptunes, and Lil Jon producing everything
9) Reggaeton
8) Simpering whiny-boy vocals in R & B
7) Female artists obliged to sing angry-bitch man-dissing songs
6) Every R &B single using the same drum sounds and synths borrowed from trance music
5) Hip-hop replaced by snap rap
4) Abandonment of chords and chord progressions (this was actually deteriorating in the mid-90s but has really hit rock bottom in the last 10 years)
3) Abandonment of melody (Covering a 2-or 3-note range in an entire song barely qualifies as melody.)
2) The loudness wars, -- leading to fatiguing all-loud-all-the-time recordings, lacking space and dynamic and emotional range. *
1) Autotune
* I mean, have you listened to anything on vinyl lately? Check out anything from the '60s, '70s, '80s, even '90s, and compare with stuff released in the last decade. This digitally laser-polished, glossy-finished, over-compressed, up-in-your face, all-loud-all-the-way-through sound that's been going on in pop and rock music for the last several years is nice as an occasional effect to signal "this is some extreme shit -- check it out." But any extreme effect used all the time becomes fatiguing. Especially when it's on every fricking song.
The other day I was listening to Frankie Valli's "Grease" and some '70s Hall & Oates stuff, like "Bigger Than Both of Us." What a reminder of how refreshing it was when recordings allowed space -- space for loud and quiet, for surprises. You remember how good the sizzle of a high hat sounds against a mellow background that's not all up in your face. You know. Percussion? Remember that?
10) Timbaland, Neptunes, and Lil Jon producing everything
9) Reggaeton
8) Simpering whiny-boy vocals in R & B
7) Female artists obliged to sing angry-bitch man-dissing songs
6) Every R &B single using the same drum sounds and synths borrowed from trance music
5) Hip-hop replaced by snap rap
4) Abandonment of chords and chord progressions (this was actually deteriorating in the mid-90s but has really hit rock bottom in the last 10 years)
3) Abandonment of melody (Covering a 2-or 3-note range in an entire song barely qualifies as melody.)
2) The loudness wars, -- leading to fatiguing all-loud-all-the-time recordings, lacking space and dynamic and emotional range. *
1) Autotune
* I mean, have you listened to anything on vinyl lately? Check out anything from the '60s, '70s, '80s, even '90s, and compare with stuff released in the last decade. This digitally laser-polished, glossy-finished, over-compressed, up-in-your face, all-loud-all-the-way-through sound that's been going on in pop and rock music for the last several years is nice as an occasional effect to signal "this is some extreme shit -- check it out." But any extreme effect used all the time becomes fatiguing. Especially when it's on every fricking song.
The other day I was listening to Frankie Valli's "Grease" and some '70s Hall & Oates stuff, like "Bigger Than Both of Us." What a reminder of how refreshing it was when recordings allowed space -- space for loud and quiet, for surprises. You remember how good the sizzle of a high hat sounds against a mellow background that's not all up in your face. You know. Percussion? Remember that?
Monday, September 08, 2008
VMAs: Very Much Annoying
WHAT CAN YOU SAY about the MTV Video Music Awards? It is what it is, and everybody (except, perhaps, its key target audience) knows what it is: a big-production parade of factory-made corporate music performed and produced by hard-working, expert performerbots and crack technical crews, with absolutely no soul or feeling. (Every once in a while, however, a genuine performance manages to slip in unnoticed.) Generally the VMAs induce a sense of despair and malaise in me -- I skipped the show last year -- but I watched it this year, figuring it'd at least be fun to ridicule.
* The only thing more disgusting than the Bush administration is some prancing, preening Brit mincing in on a high horse and telling Americans how they ought to feel about the Bush administration. We'll figure that out ourselves, thank you very much, Mr. Russell Brand. Also pretty disgusting: tasteless jokes about deflowering the Jonas Bros. and slamming them for their chastity pledges.
* The best way to view Rihanna doing "Disturbia" -- her zombies-with-lightsticks-"Thriller 2008"-filtered-through-"Dirty"-era-Christina-Aguilera number -- was with the volume down and, preferably, to avoid viewing her face. (She made that part easy, though, what with the thigh-high boots and fishnets.)
* Katy-come-lately Perry: "I Kissed a Girl"? Hey, nice original song title! And what a refreshingly subversive, "dangerous" concept: lite bisexual experimentation! Wow, we're really shocking the bourgiousie now.
* Pink is hard to categorize. She's clearly kinda punk in her origins and attitudes, so I wanna like her. Yet the vehicle she's chosen to ride to the top is pure glossy, gimmicky pop in the worst way. She lets just enough of her punky persona shine through -- in fact, she has to dial it up to overdrive just to overcome the sheer shiny plasticness of the music underneath it all. I've heard just about all of her hit singles, but I can't remember a single one, except the one that's out now -- again, disturbingly slick in its production, disturbingly like everything else out there, but at least I like the galloping beat (cribbed from Gary Glitter) and the Irish-jig "na na na" hook -- that's a little different.
* Kanye? Kanye, you out there? Look, you're from my hometown, I got mad respect for your story and your achievements an all ... but come on. Does the world really need another rapper trying to Auto-Tune himself into a singer?
For all you rappers who wants to sing, do like Kid Rock did and actually learn how. Drop some of that cash you're stackin' and get a respectable voice teacher. L.A. is crawling with them.
* Speaking of Kid Rock, he provided one of the best and realest performances of the night. (The rap by Lil Wayne: totally superfluous. And speaking of Lil Wayne: will someone please kill him already?)
* And last but not least: I think I have watched about one episode of American Idol, total. So I had no idea who Jordin Sparks was until I saw her on Larry King Live a couple years ago. And I thought: Wow, she's an amazing singer (though she deserves better material) and she's gorgeous and she's intelligent. What? Seventeen?
She carried herself and spoke with a maturity and charisma far beyond most 17-year-old girls. I mean, I don't go ga-ga over stars and I generally haven't been attracted to teen-agers since I was one, okay? Yet I found myself getting a mini-crush on this girl. But then, "girl" is not the word. As I watched and listened to her, the only comparison I could make was to some Christian homeschooled young adults I've known: they stick out like neon signs, since they tend to act and speak more like, well, adults than like the typical silly kids their age. As it turns out, Sparks actually was homeschooled, for a few years at least. And from K-8 she attended a Christian school.
So it's no surprise she showed the courage to slap back at VMA host Brand for his desperate, leering jokes about sex with the Jonas Bros. and crude putdowns of their chastity pledges. Sparks, who has pledged herself to premarital chastity as well, stepped up and reminded the world that "not everybody ... wants to be a slut." Good for you, Jordin. Keep being beautiful and talented and mature beyond your years and non-slutty.
* The only thing more disgusting than the Bush administration is some prancing, preening Brit mincing in on a high horse and telling Americans how they ought to feel about the Bush administration. We'll figure that out ourselves, thank you very much, Mr. Russell Brand. Also pretty disgusting: tasteless jokes about deflowering the Jonas Bros. and slamming them for their chastity pledges.
* The best way to view Rihanna doing "Disturbia" -- her zombies-with-lightsticks-"Thriller 2008"-filtered-through-"Dirty"-era-Christina-Aguilera number -- was with the volume down and, preferably, to avoid viewing her face. (She made that part easy, though, what with the thigh-high boots and fishnets.)
* Katy-come-lately Perry: "I Kissed a Girl"? Hey, nice original song title! And what a refreshingly subversive, "dangerous" concept: lite bisexual experimentation! Wow, we're really shocking the bourgiousie now.
* Pink is hard to categorize. She's clearly kinda punk in her origins and attitudes, so I wanna like her. Yet the vehicle she's chosen to ride to the top is pure glossy, gimmicky pop in the worst way. She lets just enough of her punky persona shine through -- in fact, she has to dial it up to overdrive just to overcome the sheer shiny plasticness of the music underneath it all. I've heard just about all of her hit singles, but I can't remember a single one, except the one that's out now -- again, disturbingly slick in its production, disturbingly like everything else out there, but at least I like the galloping beat (cribbed from Gary Glitter) and the Irish-jig "na na na" hook -- that's a little different.
* Kanye? Kanye, you out there? Look, you're from my hometown, I got mad respect for your story and your achievements an all ... but come on. Does the world really need another rapper trying to Auto-Tune himself into a singer?
For all you rappers who wants to sing, do like Kid Rock did and actually learn how. Drop some of that cash you're stackin' and get a respectable voice teacher. L.A. is crawling with them.
* Speaking of Kid Rock, he provided one of the best and realest performances of the night. (The rap by Lil Wayne: totally superfluous. And speaking of Lil Wayne: will someone please kill him already?)
* And last but not least: I think I have watched about one episode of American Idol, total. So I had no idea who Jordin Sparks was until I saw her on Larry King Live a couple years ago. And I thought: Wow, she's an amazing singer (though she deserves better material) and she's gorgeous and she's intelligent. What? Seventeen?
She carried herself and spoke with a maturity and charisma far beyond most 17-year-old girls. I mean, I don't go ga-ga over stars and I generally haven't been attracted to teen-agers since I was one, okay? Yet I found myself getting a mini-crush on this girl. But then, "girl" is not the word. As I watched and listened to her, the only comparison I could make was to some Christian homeschooled young adults I've known: they stick out like neon signs, since they tend to act and speak more like, well, adults than like the typical silly kids their age. As it turns out, Sparks actually was homeschooled, for a few years at least. And from K-8 she attended a Christian school.
So it's no surprise she showed the courage to slap back at VMA host Brand for his desperate, leering jokes about sex with the Jonas Bros. and crude putdowns of their chastity pledges. Sparks, who has pledged herself to premarital chastity as well, stepped up and reminded the world that "not everybody ... wants to be a slut." Good for you, Jordin. Keep being beautiful and talented and mature beyond your years and non-slutty.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Hey, guess what
CHICKEN BUTT!
It's my longtime friend from the Internets - Heather Bradley. This chick is wacky crazy talented -- I think the name of her production company, "Country Breakdance Inc," says it all.
UPDATE JUNE '09: Aw, she's taken all but three of her songs down, as well as her "Chicken Butt" skits. I hear she's preparing some new stuff to put up, though.
It's my longtime friend from the Internets - Heather Bradley. This chick is wacky crazy talented -- I think the name of her production company, "Country Breakdance Inc," says it all.
UPDATE JUNE '09: Aw, she's taken all but three of her songs down, as well as her "Chicken Butt" skits. I hear she's preparing some new stuff to put up, though.
How to lie without lying
IN THE WORLD OF ADVERTISING free speech and artistic license allow the wolf to dress as a sheep, and no law will stop him. It’s bad enough advertisers lie with words and are rarely caught, and by omission, and nobody notices; but the worst lies are implied lies told by cartoon mascots and actors playing fictitious characters acting out fantasy situations which, we are led to believe, are somehow connected to the how the advertised product actually works in the real world. These fictions transmit impressions intended to be received as fact – and yet more insidiously, to bypass our rationality by evoking desired emotions and linking them to the product, company or belief being sold. How do you accuse a fictitious character of lying?
Friday, July 04, 2008
This is not America
SINCE IT'S INDEPENDENCE DAY, I think it behooves me to wax political, something I don't usually do here. What I've been wondering is: Does anybody read the writings of the Founding Fathers any more? Common Sense? The Declaration of Independence? The Constitution for the united States of America, even? (I know lawyers and federal judges don’t read the Constitution, but what about the rest of us?)
Does anyone take seriously anymore the founding documents of the uSA and the antecedent philosophical manifestos, except as a source of empty slogans and selective prooftexts in support of a few “approved” causes here and there?
I guess not. If Americans were familiar with this country’s history we’d realize we have already become the tyrannical empire that we rebelled against in 1776. The difference is it’s not London, but Washington -– followed by its once-proud creators-turned-subsidiaries, the states – who crush us with taxes, regulations and indignities small and large. And they do this with an intensity the British Empire never could have imagined. Rather than redcoats, it’s black-pajama-clad, masked, body-armored FBI, BATF and SWAT teams and local cops stomping around like imperial stormtroopers, grabbing people left and right, demanding our papers, surveilling us everywhere we go, trampling our rights and our lives. Shooting first and asking questions later.
Rather than a King George overseas, we now have a would-be King George ensconced right here at home. Of course, the overgrowth of Washington government didn’t begin with Ridiculous George; the disease has been growing for decades.
I indict the so-called education system, particularly the government schools, which simply don’t teach American history, don’t teach civics, don’t teach us the meaning of those vague terms like “freedom” and “liberty.” As Orwell prophesied, such words have become Newspeak – their meaning surreptitiously replaced with meanings almost diametrically opposite. When George W. Bush talks about “freedom” today he means something very different from what George Washington meant.
Whereas freedom used to mean the right to pursue happiness unrestricted by coercion of any kind – above all, government coercion – now it means the right to a feeling of security. Whereas freedom once was understood to be a right inherent in man, now it is a privilege meted out by government as it pleases. Whereas freedom once was understood in explicitly political terms -- as noted above, it meant freedom from government coercion -- now it’s been conflated with consumer choice: since you can choose from millions of products to buy, you are therefore free. Where once upon a time everyone understood freedom could not be imposed and foreign militarism could not achieve it, now we drop it on other countries from B-52 bombers. Why don't we just drop all the pretenses and call ourselves the New British Empire?
Does anyone take seriously anymore the founding documents of the uSA and the antecedent philosophical manifestos, except as a source of empty slogans and selective prooftexts in support of a few “approved” causes here and there?
I guess not. If Americans were familiar with this country’s history we’d realize we have already become the tyrannical empire that we rebelled against in 1776. The difference is it’s not London, but Washington -– followed by its once-proud creators-turned-subsidiaries, the states – who crush us with taxes, regulations and indignities small and large. And they do this with an intensity the British Empire never could have imagined. Rather than redcoats, it’s black-pajama-clad, masked, body-armored FBI, BATF and SWAT teams and local cops stomping around like imperial stormtroopers, grabbing people left and right, demanding our papers, surveilling us everywhere we go, trampling our rights and our lives. Shooting first and asking questions later.
Rather than a King George overseas, we now have a would-be King George ensconced right here at home. Of course, the overgrowth of Washington government didn’t begin with Ridiculous George; the disease has been growing for decades.
I indict the so-called education system, particularly the government schools, which simply don’t teach American history, don’t teach civics, don’t teach us the meaning of those vague terms like “freedom” and “liberty.” As Orwell prophesied, such words have become Newspeak – their meaning surreptitiously replaced with meanings almost diametrically opposite. When George W. Bush talks about “freedom” today he means something very different from what George Washington meant.
Whereas freedom used to mean the right to pursue happiness unrestricted by coercion of any kind – above all, government coercion – now it means the right to a feeling of security. Whereas freedom once was understood to be a right inherent in man, now it is a privilege meted out by government as it pleases. Whereas freedom once was understood in explicitly political terms -- as noted above, it meant freedom from government coercion -- now it’s been conflated with consumer choice: since you can choose from millions of products to buy, you are therefore free. Where once upon a time everyone understood freedom could not be imposed and foreign militarism could not achieve it, now we drop it on other countries from B-52 bombers. Why don't we just drop all the pretenses and call ourselves the New British Empire?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Bright, happy, and maybe even deadly
LOTS OF ADS ARE SILLY. Those aimed at young women in particular tend to be the silliest. I don't mean funny: I mean dumbed-down and mindless, heavy on manipulation and light on information. Especially with regard to nationally branded drugs and other personal products aimed at young women, the trend is to bathe the senses in bright, happy, sappy, silly fantasy imagery having nothing to do with the products. There's a lot of bright colors, a lot of young pretty women laughing and cavorting, a lot of surreal imagery seemingly intended more to delight and distract than to deliver information.
I'm thinking of that one for YAZ birth control pills. ("Yaz"? They did that song back in '83, "Move Out," right?) A bunch of girls being ebullient and smiley and happy, skipping around, having great times together, while all around them colored balloons are floating up into the sky. Apparently market research says the way to manipulate young women is not to talk sense -- show them smiles and balloons. Over all this, the bouncy rejection anthem "Goodbye to You" plays. It's just a big party! As oval balloons (eggs?) float away into the distance and these girls say goodbye to them, meanwhile some fine print flashes on the screen -- I didn't quite get what it said. Of course, that's what they want. Remember beautiful bouncy girls, smiles, carefree defiance; forget that it's a fricking synthetic hormone that screws with your every physiological process, may increase risk of breast cancer, and can even give you a stroke -- which happened to a friend of mine in her 20s. But that's the price of "liberation," I guess.
I'm thinking of that one for YAZ birth control pills. ("Yaz"? They did that song back in '83, "Move Out," right?) A bunch of girls being ebullient and smiley and happy, skipping around, having great times together, while all around them colored balloons are floating up into the sky. Apparently market research says the way to manipulate young women is not to talk sense -- show them smiles and balloons. Over all this, the bouncy rejection anthem "Goodbye to You" plays. It's just a big party! As oval balloons (eggs?) float away into the distance and these girls say goodbye to them, meanwhile some fine print flashes on the screen -- I didn't quite get what it said. Of course, that's what they want. Remember beautiful bouncy girls, smiles, carefree defiance; forget that it's a fricking synthetic hormone that screws with your every physiological process, may increase risk of breast cancer, and can even give you a stroke -- which happened to a friend of mine in her 20s. But that's the price of "liberation," I guess.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Rhythm & Snooze
I get peeved at this R & B
With its musical illiteracy
Just packed full of gimmicry
No originality
I'm goin' outta my mind ...
(To be sung to the tune of "Suffocate" by J. Holiday)
THERE'S THIS HORRIBLE R & B song, currently seeing endless radio rotation, that's emblematic of what's so wrong with the genre these days -- and its listening audience, assuming that this is the stuff they actually prefer. This purported love song, "Suffocate," suffers from many of the problems that plague most of its recent counterparts: the copycat beat and sound, the four-chord monotony, the plodding dreariness, the constricted melodic range. Most of the melody consists of a single note; in its more adventurous phrases the singer might actually cover three or even four notes).
The vocals present the annoying whiny-boy persona that has become cliche. And then, on top of the insipid tone are the inane lyrics:
I can’t breathe when you talk to me
I can’t breathe when you’re touching me
I suffocate when you’re away from me
So much love you take from me
I’m going outta my mind ...
I don't care how caught up you may be in the throes of teenage infatuation: If you are literally having problems breathing when your crush talks to you, you'd better either get yourself checked for asthma or allergies -- or give her a mint and tell her to get that halitosis looked at.
More than ever, R & B is dumbed down -- even if one accounts for the fact that its audience has been dumbed down as well. The bright spots, such as Keiysha Cole and old-timers like R. Kelly, are the exception to the rule. When I grew up in the '80s and '90s music was performed not always by adults, but at an adult level, in the sense that it was mature and well-crafted.
While cleaning and trying to organize my stuff recently, I rediscovered my cache of old music tapes. You know, the mix tapes of your favorite songs that you taped off the radio or from library-borrowed LPs back in the day. With the rare exception -- including some dance mixes from Q101 -- I stopped caring enough to tape stuff off the radio around 1998. Going through my eclectic collection (Tears for Fears here, the Gap Band there, Common, SOS Band, Led Zeppelin, and here's a little Mos Def!) was like a trip back in time. How strange and different were the radio stations of then and now, especially the urban formats such as WCGI. In just over 10 years, it's as if someone pulled a plug and let out all the soul -- not to mention the music -- out of the stuff that we still call rhythm and blues.
Listening to this stuff, I found myself wondering: Where have they locked up all the real artists, writers, arrangers, producers? The ones who came up in the '70s and '80s, even early '90s -- who knew their way around an instrument or two, maybe more? (In addition to singing, Stevie Wonder and Prince often played all of the parts on their records.) How did commercial R & B go, within the space of just a few years, from the sophisticated sounds of Angela Winbush, Quincy Jones, Jam & Lewis, Teddy Riley, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Bell Biv Devoe, Al B. Sure, early Puffy, early R. Kelly, to the faux-soul whining and hollow vocal acrobatics that dominate today?
How did we go from masterfully melded rhythm and skillfully crafted, intricate melodies and harmonies, to hollow, mindless chants where entire songs get by on barely five notes and three, two or no chords? To high digital sheen but no emotional content? To subsonic bass, yet in every other respect, complete shallowness?
Why have even those who used to produce good music -- hello, Diddy? -- now selling bottom-of-the-barrel shlock? (Well I know the answer in P. Diddy's case -- "because he can" and because the music marketing machine as it exists today rewards image, hype and payola, not art.)
And I'm not even getting into the lyrics yet.
Nowadays, "producers" (are there any songwriters still working, let alone arrangers?) seem to think technology can do everything. Computers can do a lot, but they can't compose or arrange or emote; they can only help those who have those skills. There's more processing power and speed, more features, more plug-ins, more effects, vaster digital sound libraries than ever in the history of man; and less artistry.
Yeah, I'm getting old, but what's that got to do with it? I also like new music that's good and creative. It's just that you can't find it that easily any more.
With its musical illiteracy
Just packed full of gimmicry
No originality
I'm goin' outta my mind ...
(To be sung to the tune of "Suffocate" by J. Holiday)
THERE'S THIS HORRIBLE R & B song, currently seeing endless radio rotation, that's emblematic of what's so wrong with the genre these days -- and its listening audience, assuming that this is the stuff they actually prefer. This purported love song, "Suffocate," suffers from many of the problems that plague most of its recent counterparts: the copycat beat and sound, the four-chord monotony, the plodding dreariness, the constricted melodic range. Most of the melody consists of a single note; in its more adventurous phrases the singer might actually cover three or even four notes).
The vocals present the annoying whiny-boy persona that has become cliche. And then, on top of the insipid tone are the inane lyrics:
I can’t breathe when you talk to me
I can’t breathe when you’re touching me
I suffocate when you’re away from me
So much love you take from me
I’m going outta my mind ...
I don't care how caught up you may be in the throes of teenage infatuation: If you are literally having problems breathing when your crush talks to you, you'd better either get yourself checked for asthma or allergies -- or give her a mint and tell her to get that halitosis looked at.
More than ever, R & B is dumbed down -- even if one accounts for the fact that its audience has been dumbed down as well. The bright spots, such as Keiysha Cole and old-timers like R. Kelly, are the exception to the rule. When I grew up in the '80s and '90s music was performed not always by adults, but at an adult level, in the sense that it was mature and well-crafted.
While cleaning and trying to organize my stuff recently, I rediscovered my cache of old music tapes. You know, the mix tapes of your favorite songs that you taped off the radio or from library-borrowed LPs back in the day. With the rare exception -- including some dance mixes from Q101 -- I stopped caring enough to tape stuff off the radio around 1998. Going through my eclectic collection (Tears for Fears here, the Gap Band there, Common, SOS Band, Led Zeppelin, and here's a little Mos Def!) was like a trip back in time. How strange and different were the radio stations of then and now, especially the urban formats such as WCGI. In just over 10 years, it's as if someone pulled a plug and let out all the soul -- not to mention the music -- out of the stuff that we still call rhythm and blues.
Listening to this stuff, I found myself wondering: Where have they locked up all the real artists, writers, arrangers, producers? The ones who came up in the '70s and '80s, even early '90s -- who knew their way around an instrument or two, maybe more? (In addition to singing, Stevie Wonder and Prince often played all of the parts on their records.) How did commercial R & B go, within the space of just a few years, from the sophisticated sounds of Angela Winbush, Quincy Jones, Jam & Lewis, Teddy Riley, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Bell Biv Devoe, Al B. Sure, early Puffy, early R. Kelly, to the faux-soul whining and hollow vocal acrobatics that dominate today?
How did we go from masterfully melded rhythm and skillfully crafted, intricate melodies and harmonies, to hollow, mindless chants where entire songs get by on barely five notes and three, two or no chords? To high digital sheen but no emotional content? To subsonic bass, yet in every other respect, complete shallowness?
Why have even those who used to produce good music -- hello, Diddy? -- now selling bottom-of-the-barrel shlock? (Well I know the answer in P. Diddy's case -- "because he can" and because the music marketing machine as it exists today rewards image, hype and payola, not art.)
And I'm not even getting into the lyrics yet.
Nowadays, "producers" (are there any songwriters still working, let alone arrangers?) seem to think technology can do everything. Computers can do a lot, but they can't compose or arrange or emote; they can only help those who have those skills. There's more processing power and speed, more features, more plug-ins, more effects, vaster digital sound libraries than ever in the history of man; and less artistry.
Yeah, I'm getting old, but what's that got to do with it? I also like new music that's good and creative. It's just that you can't find it that easily any more.
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