The Firing Pin (Guns and Madmen Parts I and II)

***The below ramble was originally written back in April, 2007, upon the heels of the Virginia Tech massacre. It has two parts, because I don't seem to know how to put things simply, or with any kind of brevity.***

The Firing Pin (Guns and Madmen Part I)

The Virginia Tech shooting this week simply reinforces some of my beliefs about the arrogant ignorance rampant in this country. The first is regarding gun control, and the other is the stigma regarding mental illness.
Our very worldview in this country supports these continued outbreaks of violence. The new people want to equate this sort of incident as equivalent to terrorism. How many people who climb to the top of towers, hide in the trunks of their cars, break in to classrooms, schoolyards, places of businesses, and begin killing people at random are mentally stable people with a socio-political agenda? None. And a great deal of the time, they are people in agony who have been either overlooked or squeezed out of the system.

Last July we had a shooting at the Jewish Federation in downtown Seattle in which one woman was killed and six others severely wounded (one of whom is a member of the UUC). The shooter stated he hated Jews, and blamed them for all his ills. He'd been mentally ill for years, but authorities had always looked the other way. His mother had gone to the public heath services and requested help for years, but her requests had fallen on deaf ears. And he had access to guns.
There was a great deal to the solutions Michael Moore proposed in Bowling for Columbine. Sadly, his voice is one in which I can no longer place a great deal of trust. Moore has gotten to the point in his politics that I actually no longer trust his "liberal" moralizing. I don't think he is the progressive he believes himself to be...because he is not above using cheap tactics that I find to be beneath him. And I still have to admire someone who is so terribly successful at getting in people's faces.
I don't think enough has ever been done about gun control in this country, and the combination of blind persistence in upholding archaic ideals and the total lack of compassion and progressive care of the mentally ill will only continue to result in the continuation of these bloodbaths. They'll just keep happening and people will continue to be shocked and amazed and bewildered each time. And when the media storm passes, they go back to lowering their heads and muttering, "that'll never happen here."

Because we are unable to look at this problem as society, as a culture, it's always easiest to blame the shooter, call him an isolated freak incident and move on...until it happens again.
I believe that perhaps 90% of people in this country, who own guns, don't need them.
I believe that perhaps 90% of people in this country who are mentally ill receive no form of support, medication, therapy, or compassion.

Case in point. My downstairs neighbor, Dave, is a Vet from the First Gulf War. Five years ago he was working as a mailman, when he came across an apartment where the resident had committed suicide. He reported it to the authorities and they left the body to decompose for several days. He had to pass by the apartment every day. The decomp apparently triggered PTSD from his time in combat, and he started having anxiety attacks which resulted in a nervous breakdown. He's been unable to work since. He collects disability. But now the Veterans' Affairs administration has Outsourced out their Mental Health Evaluators and begun a process of cutting funding. The inference here has been that the Bush administration seeks to cut VA funding so cash can be funneled into his tidy little war in the Middle East…so he can make more Vets.

Dave tried to go back to school, but the state says they will not fund him because they cannot determine if he is mentally healthy enough to warrant investing in his education. ACT the organization that re-evaluates VA funding has just cut his benefits in half, because he has missed his mental health evaluations, because of depression. Now Dave is trying to subsist on half a disability income.

Catch-22?

I care about Dave, and I am not afraid of him or his angry rants. And trust me, he has plenty. But would I be surprised if he pulled a Columbine or a Virginia Tech? No. And though it may sound cold and harsh, and inhumane, I wouldn't blame him. Because he has asked for help time and time and time again, and been turned away. And when he does make an appointment, when he does get someone's attention, they give him the bum's rush and push him through the system.

I also wish to state that I am not against people bearing arms. I am not against hunting. After living in Wisconsin for 7 years, and working in theater companies in rural areas, I saw so many people destroy their vehicles, and nearly lose their lives, to accidents involving deer. There are too fucking many of them. Man has killed off all of their natural predators, and plowed further into their living spaces. Frankly, the hunter's in WI couldn't deplete the population sufficiently, so there was always a large percentage of deer dying in agony on the roads, dying of disease, and starving in the winter. Shoot 'em up. We've got plenty. Have a ball.

But who in hell NEEDS automatic rifles and armor piercing bullets to bring down a three-point?

I tried to make these points to a co-worker; I stated that this kid at VA Tech was mentally ill, and shouldn't have access to guns, as should few other people, her argument is "Well, there are plenty of people who drive cars, and they kill all the time--there are plenty of incidents where people drive through crowds and kill people." I couldn't even begin to discuss an issue with someone who totes the Republican sloganeering of the Fox "News" Network. I let another coworker deal with her. He knows how to "Banter Safe." I am too passionate; I was going to blow my top from the second she opened her mouth regarding the tired and clichéd gun-control counter arguments.

I also refuse to enter into combat with an unarmed person.

A person who's essential perspective in the majority; Guns don't kill people…and the mentally ill are evil and should be put down.

And they don't seem to understand why this keeps happening. Why the bodies continue to pile up.

What is wrong with saying, "This society is sick, and we need to work on a cure?"

Why is that so terrible, why is that so much like admitting to some kind of wrongdoing? Because before you seek a cure, you have to admit there is an illness.

Somebody tell me I am not alone.

I will follow up this blog with a LENGHTY piece I have written for my Coletrane entries at Steam.FM. I have yet to determine if posting the other piece in that venue is a wise plan or not.

-C


Firing Pin (Guns and Madmen, Part II)
Current mood: angry

Hey All,

With the events on Virginia Tech campus this week, many recollections have come up for me. Recollections and sensations I have not felt for a very long time. Why now? We've had school shooters crop up on a regular basis for the last twenty years or more. Perhaps it is because this most recent took place on a college campus, and because life on a college campus was such a vital and influential time in my life that this event seems almost blasphemous. Or maybe it is because these events are just so damn similar.

In the fall of 1984 I was staring my freshman year at the University of Oregon. My father was UO alum from the generation before. He went to school on the GI Bill after his stint with The Marines, and pledged Sigma Alpha Epsilon, I have the impression he had a terrific time.

If you know me well, you will be equally puzzled as to why I followed my father's advice and registered for Fraternity Rush. I am and was too, but I was entering a new world, with no real friends or support group to speak of, and Dad was just so damn convincing.

It was an uncomfortable time. Not simply because it became readily apparent that I was correct in my assumptions that the other males with whom I would be interacting in the process of "selling myself," to some elite and archaic order of masculinity shared little kinship with me, but because I'd had all four wisdom teeth pulled the week before. The hinges of my jaws felt stripped raw, a socket that had not been properly sutured was being slow to heal, and I was sporting a prominent black eye.

It was a long week. I slept on the sleeping porch of my old Fraternity house. Drank milkshakes, hung around campus, and visited bookstores during the day, and marched from Frat house to Frat house in the evenings. And I sat in the SAE house lounge and watched a lot of MTV.

Near the end of the week, and despondent over my housing prospects, I entered a house that seemed to stand out from the rest. For one thing, it was positioned just south of MacArthur Court, and not part of the dense cluster of houses that made up Frat Villa, to the west of the library. It was kind of isolated. The young men inside came across as genuine, warm and sincere. I discovered the house president had done theater in high school, and another young man, sporting the frosted swoop of many a new-wave band, pegged jeans, and ankle-high Beatle boots seemed to share my interest in music, movies and (maybe even) comics. His name was Michael Feher. I liked him, and I thought he was kind of cool.

When it came time to fill out the "bid cards," for the houses I wished to pledge. Delta Tau Delta was my A-Number-One.
In response to my bid, I received an obligatory offer from Sigma Alpha Epsilon, as I was what you call a "legacy," thanks to my father prior membership. I also received an offer from a house I do not even recall visiting, and a puzzling note from Delta Tau Delta; they couldn't take me in, but wanted me to sit tight, as they wanted to put my request to a second vote when the remaining balance of their members had returned from summer break. Puzzling.

The house president (we'll call him Bryan) suggested I take up residence in their sleeping porch, and hang out until another vote could be cast.

And my first day of college classes was coming up in a few days.

So, I hung out and partied with the fellows from DTD. They seemed a cool lot. And out of all the Fraternity boys I met over the last week, I seemed to share the most with them.

The weekend before classes were to start, they voted on me again, and the vote was against. I really didn't understand. It made no sense. I got along with all the fellows I met; I had things in common with the guys, what was the big deal? Was I not wealthy enough? Too short? Pursuing the wrong degree? I was fairly upset, and I was up against the wall. I'd put in a reservation for a room at the dorms simultaneous to putting my name on the docket for Fraternity Rush. To my knowledge, the window had closed for me to get my dorm-room deposit back. I assumed that to mean that there would no longer be a room available for me as well.

I picked up my belongings and went to the only other place I could think of…the Theta Chi house, the house of which I had no recollection of visiting that had offered me a membership. It was readily apparent that the Theta Chi's campaign to attract pledges had been fairly unsuccessful. Many rooms stood empty.

The house president put me in a rather large room, full of packing cartons and broken furniture. The door was twisted on its frame and wouldn't close. I put my suitcase against it in an effort to hold the door closed. That evening two fellows were wrestling in the hallway, and threw open the door. I asked them, politely, to take their homosexual courtship down the hall. One spied my earring and said, "Homo? Who's the fag with the earring?"

Yeah, I know. But it was 1984.

This was starting to reek of high school, and that smell was twisting my tummy.

The next morning, after a rather intimidating first day of class in a lecture hall full of over 200 students, I made my way to the UO Housing Department offices. Some small, and overlooked god-ling was smiling upon me. According to the leather-faced lady behind the counter, my deposit on a room was still good and, yes, there was a room available.

I moved my suitcase and books into the tiny room in Bean Complex. My new roommate was nowhere to be seen. I went to the cafeteria and ate lunch. I later met a girl who lived the floor above me, Christine. She had her sister in tow. I already knew her sister, I'd met her at one the DTD parties, and she was Mike Feher's girlfriend. We chatted a little about how my life had been in flux, and how I was sad and disappointed that I didn't get accepted into the fraternity. The sister didn't really say much, just looked into the distance, or found the brick wall behind me far more interesting than my disappointment.
I met my roommate, a husky African American man from LA named Warner. Warner was a philosophy and economics major. But he liked SF and comic books or, at least, tolerated them. He claimed that he had received so many head injuries while playing football in high school that his heart beat was slower than that of a normal person. He also claimed that he had had several operations on his knees and ankles from torn ligaments and shattered bones that left him listing to the left as he walked. I liked him a great deal.

And my father had to admit he was in error, for the first time in my recollection. He said, "I'm really sorry son, but the Fraternity System has really changed since my day."

Not really, Dad. They're still a fraternal order, based on elitism and secrecy.

I started to do something I never imagined I would accomplish at college; I began to fall into a routine.

Early in the morning, a week and a half later, the Resident Assistant stopped several of us in the hall, she said their was a sniper at Autzen Stadium, and we were to steer clear. I doubt even a stray bullet could reach us from Autzen Stadium, it was over a mile away, on the other side of the McKenzie River.

By noon we'd learned from the local news that the sniper was dead, as was one other man, an exchange student from Africa attending UO on a track scholarship, in training for the Olympic track team. He was a married father of one. Wounded was a member of the UO Wrestling team, a young man named Rick O'Shea. Yes, that was his name. Don't ask me how I remembered it.

Dead by his own hand was Mike Faire. The young man, from Delta Tau Delta, I'd met during Rush Week, the young man sporting the frosted swoop of many a new-wave band, pegged jeans, and ankle-high Beatle boots, who seemed to share my interest in music, movies and (maybe even) comics.

According to the local news, Mike owned an AK-47 semi automatic rifle. He kept the weapon at the fraternity house. But the house president (Bryan) demanded he keep the weapon's firing pin in the house safe. On Friday, the day before the shooting began, Mike said he was going hunting, and requested the return of the firing pin. Mike didn't go hunting, not for Deer, at least. He stole a car, drove to a local sporting goods store, broke in through a back window and stole another automatic rifle, several rounds of ammunition, and a SWAT officer's midnight blue nylon jumpsuit. Michael then swathed his face in camouflage paint.

He then drove to Autzen Stadium, hurdled the fence, and waited for dawn.

At dawn he killed Chris Braithwaite with a single shot through the heart as he ran the jogging trail that lead to the stadium.
Mike then fired several rounds at the arriving wrestling team, and kept them at bay in the weight room through the entire siege. When he got bored, Mike shot out the scoreboards and the windows in the stadium.

As we watched the information unfold on the television set of a hall-mate, Christine arrived. I asked her if she knew the name of the shooter. Sure, she said, "Mike Feher…"

"Yes, but isn't he your sister's boyfriend?"

She paled and ran for the pay phone.

I was correct. Though the realization made me feel dizzy and my vision stuttered. Christine hung up the hall phone and ran out the door for her sister's sorority house.

Campus shut down for several days. The local authorities attempted to hold the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity accountable for Feher's actions and voiced their disdain and indignation over allowing the young man to keep a lethal weapon in the house.

I recall viewing a television a press conference where I watched my erstwhile Fraternity Brothers parade past the cameras. It was the first time in my life I actually moaned in disdain. One of the women in the room put her arms around me. I couldn't help it; the tears began to run. I can only draw up an overall sentiment of those moments; that none of those young men felt any accountability for Feher's actions or their ill attention to his problems. Ah, Brotherhood.

Several weeks later, a personal ad appeared in the campus newspaper, The Emerald. I never saw it, I only heard. It went something like,
"To Our Brother, Michael. We miss you. May you be at peace."
And so it goes…

Please Fast Forward The Tape.

It is 1990. I am working on a second BA at the UO. That degree in Film and Television just doesn't seem to be opening the career doors my father thought it would when he suggested it at my Major field of study six years before. I've come back to complete a theater degree. Yes, laugh, please. It's really all I can do as well at this point.

What I was doing at "Rod's," one of the only Gay Bars Eugene, really isn't important. I was there with a friend, and what kind of relationship he and I had really isn't important either. Suffice it to say that I liked the music they played, I liked the atmosphere, the drinks were strong, but I seldom encountered someone of my particular preference. Its not that girls were scarce at Rods, its simply that the female clientele were far from my type. Perhaps it had something do do with the corse facial hair and cork books, I dunno...But the person I did encounter that evening drew up some old and contorted feelings. As I bellied up to the bar, a young Asian man immediately recognized me. Tu had rushed the Delta Tau Delta house the same week as I. I'd lost touch with him long ago. I did know he had been accepted to the house. I wondered if their was some racial quota they were expected to make. I'm pretty damn Arian, after all.

Tu was Vietnamese, and had come to this country as a teenager. He was a pleasant guy, but spoke in a rocky and sometimes broken dialect…and his speech was terribly sibilant.

After a brief hug he said, "Do you remember Mike Feher?"
"Sure."
"That guy was really messed up."
"Well, obviously."
"No. Not only did they let him keep his guns in the house, after he did all those things, they found all kinds of child pornography in his room. And lots of cocaine…They said he was snorting cocaine that whole time he was shooting up the stadium."
"That must have been terrible for you guys—that whole experience."
"Not too bad for me, I didn't really know those people that well yet. I mean, I could tell you who was gay and who wasn't…"
"Really?"
"Yeah, you know the house president at the time? He was the only one really in the closet."
"He told me he had a girlfriend. He showed me pictures of her."
"Oh, sweetheart, like that ever matters…"
"It really upset me that they wouldn't let me join the house."
"Why? You're straight, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Most of the guys on the board knew that—they were trying to keep you away from Bryan. He was a very manipulative person. He was also into younger guys. They wanted to spare you."
And a canvas that had been blank for several years began to fill in with detail. But my next question was, did the conflicts of social mores, sexual politics, and subterfuge contribute to Mike Feher's outbreak of violence and madness? As I mulled this, Tu was bustled away by some colorful compatriots. I never saw him again.
Strange to learn you were oblivious to total strangers acting in your interest, stranger still to wonder why, they were so concerned about me becoming a Cabin Boy for the DTD house president, how they could possibly overlook their own compatriot, who was so lost, so angry, so troubled as to shoot up Autzen Stadium, and then chew on their own bullets.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone even remembers the incident. Early on, I kept expecting someone to dramatize the events as a made-for-television movie. Now, comparatively speaking, Mike Feher's story hardly warrants a short film for You Tube. I mean, look at it--the body count was SO LOW by today's comparison.

We all want to say we were present at some relevant turning point in history,
"I saw Buddy Holly play the night before his plane crashed…"
"I marched with Dr. King…"
"I fought for my country in Vietnam…"
"I saw the first tower fall…"
But who wants to say they were present for the inception of a dark and violent societal trend?


What is that trend, you ask? Campus Mass Murder/Suicide? School Bloodbaths?
These things don't just happen spontaneously. People don't act on their mental fears and anxieties solely because they are "sick in the head." And if I were to admit I believe in genuine evil, this would not be it.
These massacres have become commonplace, and I am amazed at the state of denial in which our culture persists in existing. These events are happening for a reason, people. The shooters cannot be written off as simply mad, bad, and unloved. They are sick. Why? And why now with such regularity? We need to start asking these questions, and asking them out loud. And when we get the answers, we cannot turn from them. There is a sickness in our society, and it must be cured or the bodies will continue to pile up.

Think about it.
More later,
C

When Dulls the Edge

Hey All,
Something intrinsic to the nature of creativity is its limitation as a marketable resource. I don't know how some artists do it, how you avoid burnout. I love it when an actor piques in the media's eyes and is dubbed, "The hardest working actor in show business!" The clowns are on top with two, three hit films running simultaneous in the multiplex and they are fireballs. And then the inevitable crash, the fall from grace, rehab...that climb to the top and slow fade to black. Mostly, they survive.

You see it in every episode plot of E!, True Hollywood Story. And if that poor soul doesn't fit the traditional arc of rags-to-riches-to-crash-to-redemption-and-renewal, their story is seldom told due to risk of falling ratings. I loved the actor, Roddy McDowell. I grew up with him playing apes in movies and television, Flicka movies, Fright Night. But I once watched his bio through tears of boredom. There were no scandals, no disasters, and no epic tragedies. He was a brilliant child actor, who grew into a brilliant mature actor. He was constant, steadfast and true. He was a good person and a good actor, and when the producers of E! tried to plug some scandal into his story, it was forced and lame. He didn't burn out. He was no king; I loved Roddy, but he was no Rock King.

But musicians? Musicians are worse than actors, it seems. Because it is the nature of rock culture to "Burn out," rather than "Fade away," (As Mr. Young once put it so well). Axel Rose sits in his mansion on the hill as we await his solo album promised years and years ago. Is he struggling with drugs, self-destruction, or is he gearing up to reign fire upon the heavens like we hate to admit we expect?

I have often equated (and I am far from alone in this) the fiery apogee of rock stars to the equivalent of ancient King Sacrifice. What's that, you ask? Believe it or not, many an ancient culture, prior to our current rise to a state of "civilization," appointed a king for a duration of time (usually a diurnal year) through a lottery or divination, and at the end of his appointed rule, he got the axe, or the spikes, or the flame pit, or what have you, to ensure prosperity for the community in the coming year. God. Can you imagine THAT LEVEL OF COMMITMENT in leadership?

I mean dalliances with the interns would be a little more tolerable when your term is terminal.

But if rock music is ultimately a theatrical ritual, a celebration of life, then what is the rock artist's ultimate goal? Why to make lots of money, because money and fame? That is what all human beings crave. Really? Then why are so many of these people so freaking miserable, why is their fiery rise so often fueled by their own very personal agony? Is it because they fulfill a vital role in the persistent rejuvenation of our culture? Hmm. That was the whole point of King Sacrifice, to be sure.

But here is a question: do Rock Kings make the choice to survive, or drive themselves fiery acts of self destruction.

Granted, I doubt it's a conscious thing.

It's something kind of hard to peg down. Clearly not all musical artists die the sacrificial death. Some, just as I said, sort of fade away, or fade into the background. Others waste away, while we hope they'll just get it over with (Can you say Courtney Love?) so we can all move on.

I bring this notion to you after an email exchange with Friend R'Chaard. We were talking about how we lost our forward momentum and passion for certain artists after a certain point in their careers (and our lives). R'Chaard bemoans the fact that he didn't even know one of his favorite bands broke up years ago, (had a "Farewell Concert," and everything) or that another favorite band leader had committed suicide in 2001 until very recently.

And I thought about how I have watched one of my favorite bands, REM, fade, fade, fade, fade into (what I consider) a pale version of themselves. I've seen them in concert twice--a big deal for me--following a band with such devotion especially when they ascended to a pricier ticket range (and weren't of the "promising local" variety). But through the years I've purchased their records solely out of inertia, through some sense of forward momentum because from 1983 to 1987, Murmur to Document, this band spoke to me on a level unlike any other. So, like clockwork, each time they released a subsequent album I made my way to the record store and bought it. I didn't read reviews, I didn't wait for interviews or videos, I was a record producer's favorite dog--one of the Pavlovian Breed.

It wasn't until REM's 2004 release, Around the Sun, that I realized I couldn't distinguish one song from the other-on their last three albums! I guess it begs the question, who was really burnt out, them or me? Perhaps that is beside the point when you are talking about Rock Kings. I like the guys from REM, they're good people, they put their money into good causes, they ask their listeners to be proactive in politics, world economy, and the environment. Michael Stype is a really non-threatening and pleasant gay man. Your Grandma would really like him. But did they choose to be beings that abstain from a sacrificial domination of the airwaves, or did they lack a certain cosmic quality vital to being a Rock King? Is there a death wish that somehow propels one's creative passions? And if you, as an artist, burn out, does the death wish?

I'm not sure. But I listen to Document and hear stuff that makes my brain vibrate and my heart thrum, and I hear stuff from Reveal, UP, and Around the Sun and the resonance doesn't even begin to rise above a mumble. It makes me sad, and it makes me feel old, some days it makes me feel burnt out.

More later,
Coletrane

Timecapsule

Timecapsule

Physicists recently went public with the statement that time travel, the literal transportation of a physical body, in this four-dimensional space-time, is impossible. As corporeal beings we will only be able to move forward in time.

Check it out here, and then come back for coffee and grumbles.

What do I say to that? Bastards-sure, go ahead and poop on the parade, we don't mind. Obtained any more grant money to kill any more dreams and imaginations of low-brow public? How about space travel? Uh-huh...Lightsabers? Great. Well, keep it up, before long you'll have destroyed each and every hope of the Basement Dwelling Nerdoid Masses out there.

Yeah, have fun with that.

But, the above discussion doesn't seem to rule out some sort of ephemeral, psychic, or disembodied time-traveling, now does it? Hey, that may be safer anyway. If a time traveler is not made up of solid, crude matter while he/she is on Chronal Walkabout, the less likelihood of somebody stepping on a butterfly and irreversibly altering the future, yeah?

See, I time travel all the time. I seem to do much more of it as I now that I ever have before. Alas, I usually only do my time traveling from a seated position and seldom do I see the sun make a million passes in the blink of an eye, nor do I witness oceans rise and fall as I pass through each subsequent corridor. I travel back as an ephemeral creature, of thought and emotional, and more than just a smidgeon of gas.

At this point I fear I must also amend some statements I made regarding The Road Tape. I was pretty bald-faced in my determination that there were only two reasons for the genesis of the Road Tape-to either snare or share the affection of another. I must recant and amend. The Road Tape is also a time capsule. A time capsule of this nature can be given to you by anyone, anywhere, but preferably from a friend, and a dear one at that.

I was reminded of this shortly after I completed the previously mentioned blog.

I used to drive a well-maintained, 1985, Chevrolet Luv Pick Up Truck. The radio was shot, but the tape deck worked. I dreamed of installing a CD Player...but I dream on many things...

I seldom throw things away, especially compilation tapes of The Road and Mixed variety. I would actually look forward long drives in my Luv because it meant I could do a little time-traveling with my little shoebox of old cassette tapes. Tragedy struck when, while working the night shift at a certain hellish not-for-profit student loan guarantor some crack-baby-son-of-a-whore broke into my beloved toy truck and went for a joy ride, the police eventually recovered my ride my precious shoebox of ancient cassettes was missing, replaced by packet after packet of ephedrine-related cold remedies. I imagine that each of those precious cassettes had been chucked out the driver's window in a meth-addled frenzy, spreading them up and down the interstate.

Fortunately, I didn't leave a handful of my faves in the Luv at the time of the left. So, my time traveling became limited, but not put to an end.

Sorry, back to my point...

I have a Mixed Tape in my possession, entitled Moments of Male Bonding. Trust me, the title was nothing short of tongue-firmly-implanted-in-cheek. My dear friend, R'Chaard, compiled the tape. We'll call him thus due to his unending love of all things Trek or Trek-Related. R'Chaard--it sounds Trek-like, don't you think? I mean, it could be a Vulcan name or Romulan, yeah?

Bite me, who's telling the story, anyway?

I first met R'Chaard somewhere around 1985 (if memory serves). He is one of those most intuitive and intelligent people in my close circle. Yes, we bonded, and no, there was no drumming, chanting, or blooding. R'Chaard and I are still in touch; he's now a proud ex-pat, living with his male-companion-for-life-or-longer in the frozen wilds of Canada. I see him at holidays...the ones we celebrate in the states, at least.

The tracks found on Moments of Male Bonding are significant more due to their re-inscription of personal myth than anything else. The tracks are as follows...

Side A
-Language Is a Virus - Laurie Anderson
-Wildlife - The Talking Heads
-Don't Stand So Close To Me (1986 ReMix)
-Big Sky - Kate Bush
-The Boy In The Bubble - Paul Simon
-Don't Pay the Ferryman-Chris de Burgh
-Sledgehammer-Peter Gabriel
-Red, Red Wine-
-Tinseltown In the Rain - The Blue Nile
-The Flat Earth - Thomas Dolby

Side B
-Independence Day - CS Angels (AKA Comsat Angels)
-Tonight - David Bowie
-The Ghost In You - Psychedelic Furs
-Lovers In A Dangerous Time - Bruce Cockburn
-Burning Airlines Give You So Much More - Brian Eno
-Begin the Begin --REM
-Don't Fall On Me - REM
-In God's Country - U2
-We'll Be Together - Sting

The word eclectic does not describe...
Or, maybe it does.
To go into grand detail as to the personal significance of each song, and the spark of joy and recognition felt upon hearing each selection for the first time and why such feelings surfaced would take pages and pages and probably foil your patience with me for all time. Suffice it to say there are some definite favorites here, but that is not why this compilation is so precious.

R'Chaard, his room mate (a close friend of mine, going back to Junior High), myself and another mutual friend would spend many a night drinking beer, chain smoking, and yabbering on about everything and nothing. R'Chaard sat in lotus-position upon the floor, bulbous headphones clapped to his ears, a sward of vinyl spread about him in a wreath. He played DJ, and when R'Chaard played DJ, there were few beings in the universe more content. The rest of us would play board games like Trivial Pursuit, or haul out a massive collection of Lego bricks to see if we could construct some monument that included each and every piece found in that tattered box. Those were good times. The subject of the conversations are lost on the ether, but I can still go back to those moments and hear

"Que Es Mas Macho...Banana or Knife?" And chuckle.

Moments Of Male Bonding is comprised of tunes I would request during those long, smoky nights. Only a small portion of these tracks are of the tunes I consider as part of the aforementioned personal theme song canon. No, this collection is more of a time travel platform in and of itself. I listen to them as a whole, and I am spirited back to that claustrophobic apartment, the posters of Bogie and Bacall on the walls, the grotesque copper-burnished ceramic lamps, the clink of beer bottles, the haze of smoke, the sound of laughter that was high and long and so very free.

No, you can never go home again. But there moments, brief they may be, when you can at least stand on the threshold and call into the foyer. And, sometimes, if you are very, very, and you've booked your passage back through the right channels, someone will answer...

More Later,
Coletrane

Themes And Memes...

Hey All,
Have you ever heard a song of such passion and complexity, verve and poetry that it just fit every aspect of your being? To me, that is a song of Great Brilliance--when the writer of said song so utterly taps the univerisality of an experience that you feel as though that piece was written about you, to you and only for you. That is a great song. But not necessarily a great song to everybody.

What we're talking about here is a theme song. Perhaps we need to contrive a more appropriate descriptive term, as Theme Song has some cultural baggage that may very well foil your efforts to express your personal experience through the music of others...
...Lets face it, when you hear the phrase Theme Song you inevitably hear audio snatches like

"Where everybody knows you na-a-a-ame..."
or
" I'll be there for yo-o-o-u..."
or
"People let me tell you 'bout my best friend..."

(You earned yourself a sweet little a cyber-cookie if you are of an age to identify that last one.)

The above are theme songs. They're written and marketed to identify a particular program. The tune helps the audience identify the characters, plot, and themes of the program.

What I'm talking about is a song that (in the serialization of your own life) would befit your very own personal experience.
...and a song of which you cannot get enough.

I've had more than a few Theme Songs throughout my life. At times I've heavily identified with a particular song because of its overall context, at others I was drawn to it because of one. single. phrase...

"...the bitch took all my money and went to Chicago..."

"She closed the blinds and drew the curtains, with knots I have yet to untie..."

see what i mean?

I once thought that it would be a rare treat for myself (and another of great patience of heart and soul to be sure) to compile a passal of these covetted theme tunes into a string, almost a biographical narrative; a musical mosaic of my life story.

I'd really like to believe we slough off conceit with age as we do skin cells, but I fear this may not be the case...

I actually did this on occassion, when I felt the audience receptive to it, but I seldom pointed out to the victim of my efforts just what kind of compilation they held in their hands. I think I wanted them to guess. **chuh** I doubt they ever did.

A prime of example of this sort of practice is found in Nick Hornby's novel, HIGH FIDELITY. The film starring John Cusack and Jack Black deviates little from the film, save moving the setting from London to Chicago. The characters in both narratives find great joy in combing through their exhaustive record collections to formulate such thematic compilations. I could relate to those moments in either version of the story, only too well.

Personal Theme Music, like so many silly things we human beings practice, is an excercise in which we homo sapiens, in an effort to apply order to our reality, package, compartmentalize, and parcel out a given experience-get a firm grip on it in order to hold it up, turn it over, and better understand it. If we are not gifted enough as poets, ourselves, we look to the works of others. We take a theme and call it a meme; "any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." (see Wiktionary entry.)

Think about this next time you're making a road tape for that certain sweetie. As you cue up one track after another--think about it--you're taking the artistic expression of another and organizing it to fit your own. Nothing wrong with that, as a matter of fact, I would argue that's what it's there for.

I often wonder if the genuine poet is driven to create his/or work when the work of others just. doesn't. quite. cut. it. That is to say, the poet relishes the works of others, but when he/she encounters a vacuum, just on an apportunity to fill it?

**meh** I think I just opened up a whole big can of stinky worms there...best leave that topic for another day...

And what tunes would go on my list?
What songs twist the key to the dark reaches of my soul?
um...You may have to look up about a half dozen you women for whom pined during those romanitic and desperately horny years of my youth...as that was my most fertile period of theme-"ing." But we both know that time moves on, and boyish crushes are moist and flimsy things, apt to dry, flake, and drift off on the cool breeze.

Let's do this, tit for tat, Quid Pro Quo. You make up a ten-song list, with footnotes if you wish, briefly discussing the significance of the tune, and I will do the same.

Ready.
Go!


More Later


Coletrane

Them Kids And Their Rock and Roll...

Hey All,

If I had kids, I'd want to protect them. The bizarre thing is, I'd want to protect them from the things I like; ultra violent zombie flicks, those filthy late-night cartoons on Adult Swim, and that devil music-Rock And Roll...well, most of it.

I like reading articles on those rock musicians who bridge the gap from angst-ridden-youthful-artist to angst-ridden-stay-at-home-dad with a modicum of success. But few artists seem able to reconcile their art with child rearing. I cannot imagine. Think about its, its struggle enough to be a cultural rebel, but can you imagine trying to be a cultural rebel while your child sits, enrapt, singing along with a big simpering purple dinosaur?

Somewhere in our cultural development, someone established that children's entertainment had to be childish. Not childlike, not innocent fun, but childish...that is to say, insulting on any level of intelligence.

Yet every once in a while mainstream pop, indie, and alternate pop artists team up to produce albums of children's works that roll out to a remarkable degree of success, appealing to the child in both kids and adults alike. Let me say up front that I in no way wish to appear to snub those artists who've made their career at being dedicated, sincere, and remarkably creative children's songwriters. I'm talking about those folks who (as rule) cater to big people.

Play, a new anthology featuring the work of such artists as Channels, The Supersuckers, and Mudhoney follows an all too brief line of contemporary alternate and indie artists who have contributed to children's albums with works of sincere fun and innocent frivolity.

Play is the sort of album that will drop under the radar of my adult indie listeners unless fate has dictated they initiate procreation a bit earlier than their peers....

But play is not the first of its kind by any means. When you have a moment, I urge you to check out the tracks on For The Kids (2002) and For The Kids Too (2004) released on Nettwerk Records. Each anthology features works by known artists from Tom Waits and Barenaked Ladies to Ivy and Matthew Sweet. Frankly, I was disappointed to find several artists covered older standards, than writing new songs, but in many cases (Ivy's version of Sing, for example) the artist has treated the standard to such an original arrangement, I cannot complain.

And then there are those bands that have capitalized are their capacity for childlike wonder all along, but weren't inspired to cater to a much, much, much younger audience until they began stocking their own, like, The Might Be Giants and their albums No! and Spine, but frankly? I've been buying TMBG's albums for my niece and nephew (not to mention myself) for years. They are fun, they are quirky, their words and rhythms spark a young person's imagination, and do it all with a G-Rating.

Genuine creativity requires the artist to draw their creativity from a very child-like place of innocence and vulnerability. Yet, to me, it has always been a little surprising that so few adults can successfully create for children themselves?

I'm not afraid to admit I own a majority of the albums listed above, and will recommend them to those who have children or not. Please bare in mind, if my recommendations are rejected, jeered upon, or giggled and pointed at I'll most likely sit in the corner and cry.

More later,
Coletrane

The Road Tape Mystique

The Road Tape.

There was once a time if I were to hear the phrase, "Hey, I made a road tape for you..." I would feel either extreme excitement or extreme trepidation. See, back in the day, you either hoped for or feared The Road Tape.

The Road Tape was a token of affection, and frequently a very loaded token. Yet, The Road Tape frequently came from two sources, those for whom you felt reciprocal affection and those for whom you did not.

The Road Tape was a risky token. As I've previously mentioned, song choices in a particular context become highly personal things-snippets of the music collector's soul made manifest in a theme, ballad, or anthem. When someone compiles a collection for a fresh object of affection, they are giving over a gift of their heart, both red and raw.

You say you cannot appreciate the significance of which I speak? What fresh faced little kittens and pups you are...Clearly you have not lived, you have not loved, and you have never had to truly disappoint. That being said, I strongly suggest you locate a copy of Nick Hornby's HIGH FIDELITY: A NOVEL. Find a coffee shop or park bench, bus depot or mossy hillock and give yourself over to it. It's a quick read. If reading isn't your thing, I pity you-but at least do yourself the courtesy of sitting down to watch the film starring John Cusack. It's a more than adequate adaptation. But do it on your own time, I need to keep moving here...

Each and every time I plunged head-first into the swirling pools of romance, a new Road Tape for the party in question was seldom far from inception. I spend hours making up The Playlist; which songs best act as an Entre Act, Act One, Act Two...and so forth. And, yes, I did try to design the content like a theatrical production (by this time I WAS a student of the theatre, after all). Oh, I could write my own poems for that other party, draw them a picture, sing them a song (and in many cases I would do it in all eventuality) but The Road Tape was Def-Con One, it was the First Deployment, it was the beach head-With your Road Tape you dipped your toes in the water to test the temp and current, before leaping in.

Which made it all the more painful if you had one ounce of empathy and were in receipt of The Road Tape from a party for whose affection you did NOT share.

...because you couldn't simply GIVE IT BACK. You had to take it home, you had to listen to it, and you had to do your ever best to stuff the sensations of guilt you experienced as you heard those tunes (so lovingly assembled) that gave you a peek into that other person's very tender, very vulnerable soul.


I need not remind you it is 2007, and recordings made on magnetic tape are becoming as common as snail darters. They are becoming artifacts of courtships past like ornamental fans, root beer lip-gloss, and bundling boards. But I have a few still in my possession. I have a few that represent both sides of the relationship equation. I cannot tell you how many I made for other people, but I have no doubt they are legion.

Why I haven't thrown many of these out years ago I not know. But like I said, they are artifacts of times past and I have a love of history, the more personal the better. I have one sitting on the desk next to me. I am fairly certain it was the last such tape made for me by another person, compiled by a woman in 1989 or 1990, somewhere in there-on the cusp of an era's end in more ways than one.

I am not going to name any names, but I will say that it was indeed one of those tapes. When she gave it to me, I felt a twinge of guilt, because I knew exactly what it meant. And it meant something I knew I would ultimately be unable to reciprocate. Maybe that is WHY I have held on to it for so long. I felt obliged to treat it with a certain amount of respect. It is an artifact, after all.

Oh, I suppose you want to know what is on the tape don't you--you inquisitive little imps? Since it has been a dog's life since I spoke with this woman at any length, and she didn't feel too keen on playing Catherine-Zeta Jones to my John Cusack when last I emailed her-perhaps I'll spill...

TITLE: I HOPE YOU GOT...FAT
Side A
˙ David Bowie-Changes
˙ Jevette Steele-Calling You (Theme from Bagdad CafÇ)
˙ Sting-Message In A Bottle (Live-Accoustic) The Secret Policeman's Other Ball
˙ Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton-- Cause We've Ended As Lovers (Instrumental) The Secret Policemen's Other Ball
˙ Van Morrison-Moondance
˙ Ivan Neville-Why Can't I Fall In Love?
˙ The SugarCubes-Birthday
˙ The Pixies-Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
˙ Tears For Fears-Everybody Wants To Rule The World
˙ Pink Floyd-Comfortably Numb
Side B
˙ David Bowie-Fame
˙ The Violent Femmes-Fat
˙ Sinead O'Connor-I Want Your Hands On Me
˙ The The-Armageddon Days (Are Here Again)
˙ The Sugarcubes-Deus
˙ The Violent Femmes-Mother Of A Girl
˙ Concrete Blonde-Everybody Knows
˙ The The-Kingdom of Rain
˙ Brian Ferry-Same Old Scene
˙ Loggins and Messina-House on Pooh Corner
˙ David Bowie-Changes (Live)


Without delving too deeply below the surface of this collection, its safe to say this is a really interesting mix. And, I wonder, if I had not prefaced this list by telling you the nature of my relationship with the maker, would you have been able to make a healthy inference as to ours?

I think it advisable to simply overlook the Loggins and Messina track--Fuck me, I have NO IDEA what that tune is saying-maybe I don't want to.

Clearly the maker of this tape was a seasoned Maker Of Road Tapes. There is a theme here, and herein we find tunes that represent acts and even scene changes. My analytical skills also have told me (over the years) that there was a very strong subtext dealing with this person's frustration in establishing long-term relationships (I could be wrong-God knows I would be the last person to even attempt some kind of objectivity here). Most of all, this tape has a Prologue and an Epilog in the Bowie song, "Changes," a song very dear to many people and a tune deeply rooted in our cultural core. I think the use of the Bowie tracks says something very positive and insightful about this person in that she opened and closed her tape with two different versions of the song. Sometimes I felt that with this tape she was telling me about her losses, struggles, frustrations, but also held onto a certain sense of optimism and openness to change.

I'll leave the rest of the analysis up to you.

I'm feeling unquestionably full of crap right now.

More Later,
Coletrane.

Scrobbling Along...

Hey All,

Recently while combing through several blogs on the state of music, entertainment, and giant squids, I found myself visiting a "competitor's" webcast site (BTW, this activity, I recently learned through the tutaledge of the Base Cyber Vulgar, is called "Slogging"). I figured the site was developed and managed by Brits as there were a great many odd spellings of things like "grey," "colour," "valour," and such. There were also a great deal terminology with which I was unfamiliar.

Right up front, I encountered a term with which I was unfamiliar: "Scrobbling." I assumed the term foreign to my eyes due to my yankee upbringing. I mean, it sounded so much like a quaint British Schoolboy euphemism for tongue-kissing (personally, I am uncertain if the Brits acutally use their tongues when kissing--they are British after all.)

No. Not really. A quick Wiki search later...

"Last.fm is an Internet radio station and music recommendation system that merged with sister site Audioscrobbler in August 2005. The system builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste, also recommending artists similar to their favorites, showing their favorite artists and songs on a customizable profile webpage, comprising the songs played on its stations selected via a collaborative filter, or optionally, recorded by a Last.fm plugin installed into its users' music playing application."

So, essentially, when you scrobble or, play the role of scrobbler, you can only do so on Last.fm. Perhaps that has changed since the above posting. Please feel free to enlighten me--Just, PLEASE--Do Not try to sell me a carnation while you're at it.

It appears as though life as a scrobbler has its benefits. As a scrobbler you have your very own private stash (or cache as the case may be) of your own mp3 collection. No more digging through cracked stacks of jewel cases, or those mylar sheaf binders made grimy by Mocha Latte Spillage, no more sifting through the passanger side footwell of your car while hitting the interstate onramp at 75 Plus. Nope, its all right there, in tidy, compressed files that will never see the slightest wink of a drifting dust mote.

...there was a time when my three heaviest possesions were my futon, my set of dresser drawers, and a 1'x4' orange crate made of cedar slats. That crate was packed tight with LPs. It weighed about fifty pounds. I carried it with me, back and forth from college, from this apartment to that. I carried that heap of pressed vinyl balast deep into the fastnesses of the 1990s. When I moved across the country, I opted to leave it with a pal who shared a great many of my tastes in music. I also hoped that when the time came for a much-needed fix by a certain band or artist, I could call upon him to make a tape for me (he was ALSO of the the few caucasions I knew at the time still in possession of a turntable and working needle). Within a year he claimed the crate had been lost.

That would never happen if you were a scrobbler.

Yet, there was something to be said for building that collection of crated vinyl. I spent many a long hour flipping through bins at rare and used record stores. I talked with a lot of dealers about bands and sounds and influences. I met some cool people. It was fun. When that orange crate was lost, I didn't mourn the vinyl so much as the passing of a passtime.

Ultimately I did my ever best to replace my beloved oddball and outre recordings on CD. It wasn't easy, and I'll wager there are still a few very, very, very limited press run vinyl EPs from Promissing Local Bands from up and down the west coast that I will never be able to replace. I wondered for a moment if those LPs could be worth anything. Probably not.

But, gee, that would never have happened if I was a scrobbler.

A few blogs ago I brought up the subject the recording industry's copyright infringement blitzkrieg regarding webasting. A concern that has yet to be dealt with is just how the industry is supposed to deal with those legions of scrobblers out there. They have a private stash of copyright music records of which they have never paid a dime. Will that litte stash soon be considered a single channel and fall under those edicts, or will it be considered a private stream, subject to another set of rules? Will all of those downloaded music files be returned to the buzzing ether, or will Billy and Bobby Sue Scrobbler have to pay a ransom to the recording publishers?

I really wonder if any of this is much of a threat to your average scrobbler. You can return your favorite tune to the buzzing ether with as much ease as you retrieved it in the first place. No skin lost.

In 2001 I got a call from my old pal. He said his older brother had found an old orange crate full of vinyle in the attic of his parents' garage. Did I still want it? All I could think was how heavy it was going to be to lug that down from the rafters, how hot and sweaty a job side-stepping down a rickety ladder to lug the crate to my car. And THEN, where the hell was I going to put that freaking crate?

That wouldn't happen if I was a scrobbler.

...maybe I should do something about that.

More Later,

Coletrane

Pigs and Pearls

Hey All,

My friend Kt recently sent me an article published last week in The Washington Post, entitled "Pearls Before Breakfast", written by Staff Reporter, Gene Weingarten.

In the article, Weingarten asks virtuoso Violinist, Joshua Bell to participate in a social experiment. Bell is asked to take up the role of busking street musician in a busy DC Metro station during rush hour. He'd play a classical concerto upon his Stradivari violin, handcrafted in 1713, with a value estimated in the millions. He would give an incognito public performance, a performance for which mere days before seats sold for $100 each.

If you have a moment, please read the article, its quite amazing and sparked ideas in me for several blog discussions.

The upshot was this, "How would busy pedestrians react to a virtuoso musician in their midst, playing some of the most beautiful music in the world?"

The results are really amazing, and a far cry from the speculations of several critics and analysts. Bell played for about 45 minutes, and earned roughly $43.00 (though earning pocket cash was not the overall intent). But, frankly, half of that was a contribution by a woman who actually recognized him. One person. And that was because she had seen Bell in concert very recently. Few people actually took the time to even linger over the beautiful sounds emanating from the plaza. Those few that did linger, had had some modicum of experience in actually playing the violin, so though they didn't recognize Bell, and his obvious genius, they knew his skill was worthy of recognition.

So, what did the article teach us? There is an immediate assumption that because Bell played before the random working class factions passing back and forth, that they did not have the intellectual capacity to appreciate what stood before them; Pearls Before Swine. I must admit this was my initial reaction as well. All of those flesh-wrapped-robots are too preoccupied with their schedules, buying lottery tickets, their bottom line, their perspective so narrow that they are incapable of appreciating the beauty in their midst.

It seems the only kind of person sincerely and unanimously drawn to Bell's performance were children, very young children, who were quickly tugged away by their parent.

Me? I told myself, Why, I know damn well I'd be stalled out right there on the tiles, I'd pause in mid-stride by the sound, I just know I would.

Or would I?

What Weingarten and his associates discovered was that the pedestrian's oblivion of Bell's performance was not a question of connoisseurship, but of context. The environment the researchers had chosen to conduct the experiment was the nexus of a bustling, lower to upper middle class people. It was determined that any one of the several hundred people who overlooked Bell could very well have appreciated the music he was making, but they simply didn't have the time, and neither was such beauty expected in such a place. And who could blame them, when you're in a hurry to make a n appointment, a meeting, a delivery, a deadline, your return from a break, when you are preoccupied with answering to someone of higher authority, you seldom have time to stop and appreciate a simple miracle before you.

But had Bell set up camp on the steps before the Kennedy Center, The Met, you know damn well a crowd would have gathered the same way they did when The Beatles began performing Let It Be on the roof top, and when U2 attempted to reprise the experiment twenty years later. Successful artistic efforts, it seems, rely a great deal on context and environment. And timing, let us not forget timing.

I'll continue this discussion in my next blog.
More later,
Please stand by.

Oh! You are SO Alternative

Hey All,
You'd think a person so bent on defying labels would spend less time pondering them...

I was doing a little "slogging" last week, and came across an older discussion on a Live365 forum regarding the definition of Alternative music .

Some good points were made by several individuals, but I must give credit to one entity by the handle of Rhyslud, who said some inredibly poignent things. I am going to cut and paste this person's comment because it resonates so deeply for me..

"In the early 80s I spent most of my driving time with my left hand on the wheel and my right on the radio dial -- searching for something interesting to listen to. Despite the recommendations of a few friends, I had closed my mind to the punk movement (my loss).

I found myself more often than not on college radio stations. Artists like Elvis Costello, The Smiths and the Cure had been around for years and to my amazement were never played on mainstream radio.

Apparantly I was not the only one who could not stomach one more replaying of Bob Seager's Old Time Rock & Roll. Capitalizing on the college radio boom, commercial "Alternative" stations sprang up across the country offering an alternative to the closed-mindedness of standard commercial radio.

It seems though that the term "Alternative" has been co-opted to define a particular genre of music. And the so-called "Alternative" stations have become every bit as closed-minded to alternatives as their Fleetwood Mac-playing predecessors. From what I hear, in order for a song to be played on an "alternative" station it must either BE at least ten years old or SOUND at least ten years old."

No wonder this new stuff is making me feel pretty settled and comfy. And I thought I was adapting to that "shock of the new" so well...

This person is not alone in holding tightly to this loose fitting definition. Frankly, we are hitting a phase of Alternative and College music that I enjoy very, very much. I realized a few months ago that the reason I am enjoying it so much, is that in sentiment and harmony, orchestration and content, it reminds me of the music I dug so 20 years ago.

It is the nature of Popular Culture to recycle, reuse, and reflect. With Popular Cutlure, quite literally, what goes around, comes around--and that is not necessarily a bad thing. As I comb through the latest single tracks from bands like My Chemical Romance, Muse, and Cold War Kids, I hear traces of bands that I loved. This beat reminds me of The Cure, that lyric turn-phrase makes me thing of The Smiths...and so on.

I guess I was foolish to think that an iron curtain drops when popular musical trends shift gears and a style evolves out of something, and never looks back. That's really a wrong-headed attitude, but that's the notion of style and fashion and popular music--it all poaches from itself. I think that what I have found as significant in artist advancement is in the evolution of technology. One upon a time the David Bowie worked with a Moog Sythesizer and it was something ahead of its time, now its archaic, not to mention the electronica-centered Hair-Bands of 20 years ago...thank god that aspect of the era was left behind.

I may be a hard-core nostaligist...but not THAT nostalgic (or that hard-core).

Before it Smelled Like Teen Spirit, it smelled like Aqua Net and that, friends and neighbors, was the smell of future generations burning under an ozone free atmosphere...

...but I digress.

What was best about that era of music that I am so thrilled to find resonating over and over again? How about the highly personal metaphor, the subjective and unapologetic voices of rage, discontent, dissillusionment, awe, mystery, and...hope? Yeah, I hear a lot more hope than I did ten years ago.

Because once you work through the anger and the rage, you can look upon things with a clearer head. With a clearer head you are more apt to see an issue from more than one angle; you see options. With options comes a sense of hope. Hope is the best Alternative this life has ever given me.

How about you?


More later,
Coletrane

Minding the Generation Gap

Hey All,

Once upon a time, the notion of a Generation Gap was cause for social and political concern by the dominant generation. The Baby Boomers must have seemed such a hedonistic, amoral horde to the Greatest Generation, the survivors of WWII, as their progeny rioted in the streets, imbibed in free-love and mind-altering substances to their hearts' content, and threatened political upheaval while turning culture inside out.

As we the turned the corner of the last century, the oncoming generation has become more of a target for demographic analysis and potential profit than a threat to the status quo. This is the nature of a Capitalist System, to be sure, but was it so obvious in the generations before or was the generation preceding the Baby Boomers too fearful their progeny would put a lasting end to all they cherished as a culture?

Since the arrival of the Baby Boomers, preceding generations seem not so fearful of their replacements, there seems to be proportionally much less drastic change, much less that challenges The Establishment of the predecessor. Granted, each generation sees it as their duty to rebel against the prior, but one wonders whether the envelope has been stretched to its limits long, long ago.

Toward the late 1980s and early 90s I grew very excited by the growing trend of what many call Modern Primitivism--the body piercing, the tattoos, and surgical implantation. The beauty found in the grotesque these younger people relished astounded me. But I was a bit deflated to see so little challenge or opposition put forth by the elder age group. Parents didn't care that their sons were getting lanced through the scrotum or pronghorns implanted in their foreheads.

"Its his means of expressing himself."
"But he looks like something from a Circus Sideshow!"
"Yeah, there's good money in that..."

When I was a senior in high school a single earring (in the left ear, mind) was the extreme in youthful rebellion. My father wouldn't have it, "Not while you live under my roof," he'd blare out. He saw an earring as an anti-establishment statement. I also pondered whether it would publicly bring into question the sexual preferences of his only son. Talk about threatening The Establishment. So, two weeks before I left home for college, I pierced my ear and walked around with a tiny band-aid on my ear hopping my Dad would not notice. I even tried to remove the stud before the allotted period needed for the piercing to heal for fear I would be found out. My sister eventually spilled the beans, and I was made to suffer terrific guilt for my actions.

While scouting his alma mater (and my future), we visited his original fraternity house. Imagine my joy when we discovered each and every member of the frat house had his ear pierced with at least one small (and comparatively conservative) silver plate or diamond stud.

I was both elated and disappointed. Elated because my act of rebellion had found validation in a tier of my father's culture, and simultaneously disappointed because my act of rebellion had found validation in a tier of my father's culture. Rebellion, counter-culture, I discovered, quickly became a commodity.

I think Dad was just concerned people on the street would see me as a fag. I'm sure that he was confindant not ALL the fellows in the SAE house were queer... Just trendy. And trends are commodities in the modern marketplace. Damn. I'd sold out before I'd even stepped up the auction block. How much did that suck?

Steven Heller, editor of the Village Voice states, "When I was a teenager the term Generation Gap made it to the cover of Life magazine, and there seemed to be a truly profound schism between what the pre-World War II adults believed and practiced and how we baby boomers acted. Our aesthetics, tastes and styles were totally different and so foreign to our parents-indeed, downright alien. Now the generations seem to blend together. Our music is similar to the next generation's music; our tastes in film, literature, art and design are almost indistinguishable, save for the personalities behind them. Sure, there are codes and languages that are unique to this or that age group, but for the longest time I have not heard the term Generation Gap."

It has been argued that now, with the advancements of personal interface technology like iPods, Cell phones, and cyber enviroments like myspace and YouTube, a gap has begun to yawn once more.

John Carlin, president of cutting edge advertising firm, Funny Garbage, states, "I think this is why it's important to bandy around terms like Generation Gap. Not as a marketing tool but as a demarcation of how things are changing in the lives around us. It is hard for us freaky geezers to feel healthy and adjusted in the imperfectly fabricated world we live in. It is hard to find equilibrium in a constantly changing, perpetually accelerating environment made up more of information than feelings. So, if the younger generation sees patterns rather than things, hopefully they will use this new sense of reality to fashion new and exciting forms of expression. I can't wait."

So, with the advancements of technology as comes the speed of assimiliation as distinquishing characteristics of, say, Gen X vs Gen Y. Well, that's okay, some things you need to take your time with...

But when did the evolution of a species from one generation to the next become about selling products? Where is the intent to rebell, the drive to distinquish one era's trends and methods from another. Maybe it always was about comodification and I just wasn't paying attention, I was too busy trying to figure out how the hide my earring, enough AAA batteries in my pocket for the Walkman, and dye my hair without staining the sink.

More Later,
Coletrane

Sources
The New Generation Gap: An Exploratory Conversation with John Carlin , Steven Heller, Village Voice, May 22, 2007

Metal Odyssey

Hey All,

If you have not gathered so far, intellectual enthusiasts of popular culture always intrigue me, probably because I enjoy someone who can successfully articulate their perspective as an insider, but more than likely because I consider myself one of their ilk-and I exist if, for no other reason, to justify myself each and every day. Therefore it is a great pleasure to hear a well-articulated analysis of something even I have considered lowbrow at one point...Heavy Metal.

Granted, Sam Dunn and Scot McFayden the writer/director team of the 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey explore the cultural facets in close and academic manner, without losing touch with their subject matter. They cannot, Metal is in their blood. My personal change in viewpoint regarding the merits of Heavy Metal did not begin and end with the efforts of Messrs Dunn and McFayden, no, that began years ago in graduate school when I was stunned to find many an English Lit graduate student equally invested in Metal, but this documentary jelled many issues for me, and settled many more.

See, where I grew up, the handful of metalheads I encountered were more likely as not intoxicated thugs, more inclined to break windows at the high school, burn down playground equipment, and torture farm animals than grasp and wrestle their spiritual disillusionment through Metal. Perhaps I would have been better off growing up in Vancouver, BC with Dunn and McFayden.

Its sad, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey was released in 2005, and though I had several opportunities to view it on cable, I never got to see it from beginning to end. There was also the issue of prime-time cable censorship as well-too many distracting blips and beeps while artists and fans expressed themselves in their tradition vernacular-they cussed a lot, as many a metal head would be expected to do.

So praise for this film is a bit late in coming, to be sure.

Two things impressed me most about Metal; the filmmaker's efforts to create a Heavy Metal family tree, and the alacrity with which they consistently returned to this tree as they made progress through the roots and tenets of metal, the second impressive effort was the deeply articulate and insightful interviews with an array of metal artists. After listening to the likes of Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Ronnie James Dio (Dio, Black Sabbath), and Lemmy (Motorhead) (just to name a very small few) speak about their craft and careers I realized they are just as much artists as any other.

It's always frustrating to view a documentary on a subject with whom you are already familiar, you feel the film's efforts are redundant or simply preaching to the choir. A great deal of the time these failings are due to time and financial constraints placed up the filmmakers. Metal succeeds where so many other documentaries fail, because though its faced with the same constraints, it succeeds in enlightening its audience in unforeseen ways. Through some very direct interviews with both artists, media and cultural critics, I walked away no longer seeing metal heads as nothing but a bunch of screaming brutes, but a subculture in a sincere search for themselves and a community.

The only point of contention I had with the film was its persistent belief in the resilience of metal in a metalhead's life, not too unlike the all-purveying attitude of a Marine, "Once a Marine always a Marine." Similar statements are made about metal in the film, there appeared to be an all or nothing belief in commitment to the culture; you couldn't ride the fence regarding metal, it was all or nothing.

I listened to metal for a while in my youth, and much later as an adult during a really, really angry time. Since I was raised to vent verbally and not physically, I had no recourse but to drive straight for the record store, pick up copies of Metallica, Rob Zombie, and Iron Maiden and go for one long, long drive with the tape deck volume cranked to eleven.

It helped. It helped a lot. It was a method of therapy I have used on more than one occasion since. But, I'm sorry, I am no metalhead, nor will I ever be at this late date. You won't find me tossing in the pit and I cut my hair off ten years ago. I'm not going to be setting up my pup tent at OzFest and subsisting on beer and corndogs for a weekend. That won't be happening. But I wonder, had I made the metal commitment when younger, would I be a more grounded person now? Its a stretch, I know, but lets play with the notion for just a moment...
--Okay moment over!

Regardless, have no doubt, I'll support you when you scream and shout at the devil. No problem.

And I highly recommend Metal: A Headbanger's Journey to those highbrow, lowbrow, and the creatures in between.

More Later,
Coletrane

Just Because I Thought It Funny...

I just don't get The Advertising Media sometimes. I mean, isn't there such a thing as glutting your Own Market? Over-saturation of you own product? I always thought so, but maybe I've missed something, somewhere in my ten-plus-odd years of higher freaking education pertaining to media and entertainment-I must have missed something pertaining to how they run the freaking machine!

Trust me, this won't be the first time I contemplate demanding a refund for said education.

But I digress...

If are anything like me (and I pity you to the bottom of my lonely heart if you are...) you actually sit and watch television commercials. You appreciate how they are produced, performed, directed and orchestrated. But, you are equally puzzled when you see a multi-million dollar corporation, already indelibly marked upon the frontal lobes of our popular conscious, like McDonalds, Sony, or Geico, seemingly overload the airwaves with several different ad campaigns for their same product.

Geico is the best example; we have our ever evolving "Geico Gecko" series, the "Joe Average Customer Testimonial/Celebrity Translator" series, and the omnipresent "So Easy A Caveman Can Do It" series. There may be even more threads to Geico's current ad campaign tapestry, but I think three is sufficient mention for the purposes of this blog.

I have little pride, I'll admit that I find myself laughing at these ads, they work on me, and-yes-I even recall the product names hours, maybe even days or weeks after viewing the commercial. (Something ad agencies don't always figure into their media-savvy alchemy when concocting an ad campaign-it has been found that people have a tendency to recall the clever elements of an individual advertisement, but will often forget the name of the actual product name.)

But Geico-Geico seems more than hell-bent to saturate the Car Insurance Market. Don't they know that you can over stimulate your audience and run the risk of driving them away? Apparently this is not an issue. Or, they are bugging to core over the old-school traditionalist who chose an insurance company based not on a current and clever ad campaign but more due to a family tradition. Gramps used it, Dad uses it, and so I might as well use it...

"Sir, do you and your wife have Mutual Climax?"
"No, I think its State Farm, isn't it, dear?"

Its just not something I care to think about or shift my hairy kiwis over, I just don't care that much, whether I live under the barrage of a half a dozen clever ad campaigns or not. But, mayhap, it matters to them...

Good God! It just dawned on me; this whole ad glut--maybe its all my fault. Geico keeps rallying against the great unwashed and uninsured because of complacent dinks like me...

**chuh** too freaking bad.


When our Creative Director, Prison Dwigt, told me of the Variety Article I thought he was joking, and an uncharacteristically lame joke at that. But, no, it is as much truth as can be uttered from beyond the barriers of the Hollywood Dream Machine. That's right, those fey, Young Upwardly-mobile, Urban Professional Neanderthal types are getting their own freaking sitcom called Cavemen.

Lame, does not describe.

Yes, this is the point where you may mutter, "There is no God." But I don't think it quite that extreme. Nor is such a thing unprecedented. Do you recall that obnoxious talking baby, with the harsh voice like Jimmy Kimmel, featured in Quiznos ads? He had his own short-lived TV series, following an earlier dint as an ad persona. So, no, it's an obnoxious way to churn cash, but its not unheard of, the question is, how long will our Cavemen be able to run over the hardpan of the entertainment marketplace before dying their more than timely deaths by advertisement attrition? I'm curious.

Which begs the question...will the narrative of this program deal at all with Geico car insurance or will these characters be their own, stand-alone entities? My goodness, I think I am actually building up a modicum of anticipation for this lame-ass show.

Honestly, I'm looking forward to Cavemen; I may even set my VCR in order to trap them on magnetic tape. Why? It's just my nature, I suppose. I never once taped an episode of Cop Rock and to this day I regret it...why? Because when I tell people about that damn show, no one will believe me.

But the bottom line, which I did actually learn during those ten-plus-odd years, is even bad press is good press. As long as the name is afloat, the product flies and money changes hands. Lame or no.

I hate that.

and don't blame me, I wasn't the only one who laughed...

More Later,
Coletrane

Jumping the Shark, or Humping the Guppy?

Hey All,

Jumping the Shark- a term used to denote the point at which a popular television program has passed its prime. This point is usually evident when writers introduce absurd or extreme plot twists that are illogical in terms of the program's original context. These moments usually cue the program's death knell, inidicating a program is essentially killing time until its ratings drop and it reaches cancellation. The term directly refers to the episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie jumps over a shark on water skies. This is the point, according to its fans, in which the program reached an all time low. A Jumping the Shark moment can not only be an absurd storyline but the introduction of an extremely outrageous or incongruous character to replace an original cast member(think Scrappy Doo, Cousin Oliver, Agents Reyes and Doggett?).

Having consumed as much television in my life as oxygen and complex carbohydrates, I have seen sharks jumped time and again. As usage of the term pervaded popular consciousness, people attempted to apply it to other facets of the entertainment medium, but to limited to success in my mind.

"So, when did your favorite band Jump The Shark?"

I am reluctant to say the notion is equally applicable to popular music. I say this because music and television production are two very different art forms. For one, a television show dictates a particular vision of reality with setting, archetypes, and iconography. Music doesn't fall under the same precepts because you are dealing with more specific genres and styles, and the work of an artist and his or her collaborators. If an artist pulls a Neil Young, and does a total one-hundred-and-eighty degree turnaround with their style choices from album to album, that's more like jumping ship than jumping shark.

There are hordes of bands and artists out there who have made drastic moves to either reach a larger audience (and bring in more cash) or stretch and refresh themselves artistically. Some artists make a career of constantly re-evaluating his or her stage personas, which, in turn, becomes a trademark...can anyone say David Bowie?

One of the more common transitions seen in pop music is the evolution of teen pop star to rock and roll slut. We see it most recently with Joss Stone. When she arrived on the scene as a sixteen-year-old moppet with her straight blonde hair and fleshy apple cheeks, signing her autographs with smiley-faces, dressed in thrift store skirts and baggy peasant blouses, she was sweet, innocent, and cute as a little bug's butt. Now she's a grown-up 20-year old with her deep crimson tresses, frosted eye shadow and skin-tight mini skirts paired with spike heel boots, she scares grandmothers into aneurisms and makes grown men cry.

Has Joss Jumped the Shark, or has she simply grown up?
...Or is she Humping the Guppy? We've seen it happen before, the cute, early-adolescent songstress turned super-slutty rock star and candidate for rehab. Are these performers encouraged to mutate so by their agents and publicists? Or is it because there is a darker, more daring being struggling to escape into the world? Or is it simply that sex sells?

I wouldn't know without biting, go ask Mr. Owl...

More Later,
Coletrane

Guilt By Association

Hey All,

Music is a powerful recall device. Statistically it is supposedly not as intense as your sense of smell, but it must run a close second, no? Music can have the power to draw up strong positive or negative associations for all of us. The music may very well have been something you once adored, but thanks to a lengthy courtship between yourself and a bottle of mescal, you can no longer stomach Synchronicity, or thanks to that little girl who crushed your heart into pÉtÇ, you cannot bear to hear, say; I'll Stop The World And Melt With You, Roxanne, The Ghost In You, Hello, Broken Arrow, Tunnel of Love, Jeepster, Once in a Lifetime, Norwegian Wood, Hey Jude, Stormy Weather, Pennies from Heaven, Barracuda, Suffragette City, She Blinded Me With Science, Georgia On My Mind, Rhapsody In Blue, Drive, or Penny Lane...

Perhaps I am too free in revealing my interior life.

Those who know me and my musical tastes, know full well why I despise certain bands and artists, its seldom due to lack of talent or the hallow catchiness of a song. It is usually because I have a deeply negative association with said artist or performer.

For example...I hate Tori Amos.

Granted, many a male of fragile ego and deeply steeped machismo finds something threatening about Tori Amos. Perhaps it is the casual freedom with which she writes about her history of sexual abuse, perhaps it is the wave of female spiritual empowerment that crested with her popularity, or how she became popular music's spokesperson for the female disenfranchised, or perhaps it was that image in the liner notes of Boys For Pele in which she suckles that cute little piglet with such puckish glee. Perhaps. But, none are solid reasons for my hating the music of Tori Amos. In fact, I will honestly say that I really don't dislike her work due to anything she has done, personally.

We're talking association here.

In the spring of 1990 I moved to the bustling "liberal academic" environment of Madison, Wisconsin to attend graduate school. Before leaving the Pacific Northwest, I stocked up on some new music. One album I picked up with a certain degree of anticipation was Amos' Little Earthquakes. I liked her sound. Her lyrics had a particular bite. I loved her voice, she reminded me of Kate Bush, and I'd been pining for new work from Kate Bush something awful. When I arrived in the muggy climes of Madison, I heard Little Earthquakes everywhere-in bars, restaurants and markets. I felt that twinge I usually feel when I have unknowingly bought into a fad, but didn't let it bother me.

I didn't let it bother me that my two new housemates would play the album simultaneously from their respective bedrooms, frequently oblivious to their waves of dueling female angst that seemed to form a cataract around me. Yes, I said angst.

No, I didn't let any those assaults of the spring of 1990 perturb me. But the negative association did begin with that particular housing situation. Not only did I share a house with these people, but all of my graduate classes as well. I could never escape them (nor they me for that matter). The worse of the pair was a troll-like little man from Boston who suffered from an advanced case of Adult Onset ADD and progressive acne. He prided himself on being an open minded and progressive liberal, carried on and on about the rights of women and the marginalized, but when he saw the mini skirt our housemate chose to wear for that evening's party, advised her to go and change out of it is as it was so revealing she would simply be "asking" for trouble.

He also muttered to me in confidence how relieved he was to discover I was heterosexual, as I had given him the opposite impression during our first telephone conversation. This didn't surprise me much at all, as I well recalled the tone of our first conversation. He said to me, "I think we're going to have a good time in Madison, I hear there are a lot of cute chicks there..."

"Uh. Yeah."

He couldn't have been more obvious in his homophobia if he'd spritzed himself from an atomizer of testosterone.

Within several weeks, he advised us all with great pride he had joined a campus interest group called MSR: Men Stopping Rape.

God, that name still makes me flinch.

MSR's mission statement reads thus: "Men join MSR for a variety of reasons: many of us have known someone in our lives who has been assaulted; some of us have come to question our own behavior and the role violence has played in our 'initiation' into modern masculine culture, and we desire to learn how to avoid perpetrating assault; all of us benefit from an atmosphere of support and understanding."

All well and good, beautiful, in fact, I say.

Yet when asked about his reasoning for joining this particular organization he told us he did so in order to meet people, i.e., women. To my knowledge, and that of my colleagues, he did not join because of an association with a rape survivor or victim of violence.

From there on my desire to pith this smarmy, self-important twerp only grew as he made it more than clear on several occasions that he genuinely believed women were objects meant for pedestals, artifacts, pieces of property to be coveted and protected. And the only suitable protector for the modern woman was an enlightened man like himself.

But the deepest negative association came when Mr. MSR believed himself to hold the wherewithal to direct Timberlake Wertenbaker's play Love Of the Nightingale, a feminist deconstruction of the greek myth of the Rape of Philomela.

The set was minimalist and simple, a black box playing space with benches and black blocks. The actors dressed simply. But it was the walls and floors of the set that made me anxious; they were papered with enlarged newspaper headlines screaming about rape, rape statistics, and male violence against women. To say the set dressing was heavy-handed would be an understatement. And what should come jangling out of the air about the dimly lit space but Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes. My gorge rose. Something in my head snapped though I could not articulate it at the time, there was murder in my heart.

Graduate school taught me few things that I could use outside its ivory towers. But one valuable lesson learned was to never speak with any authority for the marginalized unless you are one. It's just going to get you kicked in the kiwis...or, it should, in this case.

In embellishing his production of Love of the Nightingale, with Amos' signature song, he simply demonstrated his own ignorance of what it means to be marginalized. He knew nothing of the issues presented within the play-- female empowerment, lesbianism, feminism, female spirituality, or bonding. Amos' song was a pop-totem signifying his own ignorance. But told himself he did and not only that, was an authority on the subject.

The Clue Phone was ringing off the hook, but Mr. MSR just refused to answer. You see, he understood women, he understood the marginalized, and he had the authority to speak on the subject through this play. The problem was, this play was not solely about rape. It was about a lot of things, but not just rape. Rape was a vital element of the story, but not the entirety of the story.

This poor clown couldn't grasp this, and further demonstrated his own ignorance by using that fucking Tori Amos song.

After three years of graduate school and a lengthy relationship with a feminist academic, I learned several key things about feminist culture.

A) They have no sense of humor.
Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That's not funny.

B)If you have a penis, its best not to make yourself out to be an authority on things feminist, see, frequently a feminist will take this as being a tad oppressive.

C)When in doubt, refer to letter A.

Ignorant and self-important people are frequently well meaning, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions to be sure. But this clown had his cruise control set, and Tori Amos on the FM.

And that's why I hate Tori Amos. As I said, really isn't her fault, it's just a nasty association

Goodbye Blue Monday

Hey All,

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died yesterday. He evidently bumped his head very badly, and died from subsequent complications. If you've read much of his work, or simply flipped through copy of Breakfast of Champions you'll get the above reference, why it is significant, and why I used to doodle the phrase on notebook covers, journal leaves, scrawl it in wet sand, and on the occasional men's room stall.

If you don't get it, I want you to go get a library card.

I think I have read every piece of Mr. Vonnegut's fiction, save his most famous, Slaughterhouse 5. Why? Because I saw the movie too damn many times, and wanted to wait until those images in the film--someone else's interpretation of Mr. Vonnegut's imagination--were plowed under by time. I wanted my reading of the book to be as fresh as possible.

I started reading Kurt Vonnegut at the behest of Rob Harriman when I was about 20 years old. I am now 41. I still have never read Slaughterhouse 5. But. I haven't seen the film version for almost 20 years as well, so, the imagery (the brief and teasing glances of Valerie Perrine's boobage) is finally beginning to fade. I'll try to get around to reading it before the curtain gets drawn.

I hope.

Many people banned Mr. Vonnegut's books. Sometimes they were banned because of the sex, but mostly because of the Humanist stuff; the skepticism. Mr. Vonnegut frequently questioned the purpose and/or existence of a supreme being. That propensity for such great questioning can happen to you when you are huddled with fellow prisoners of war in a makeshift prison called Slaughterhouse 5 as bombs fall overhead. Bombs dropped by your own countrymen. That sort of experience will fill you with a certain taste for cosmic irony, if you survive. It'll also get your books banned and burned.

But Mr. Vonnegut stated in one of his last biographical works, Fates Worse Than Death (1991), "The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am." Be that as it may, it clearly informed his worldview, his vision of reality. And, besides, now that he is dead, along with his literary, "Author's Voice," I can speculate as to the nature of his writing until all of them lonely monkeys in a room full of typewriters hack out the complete works of Stephen King.

I loved Kurt Vonnegut's books. I frequently gave them to people who were not "readers," because they were insidious and deceitful works. His were always rather short books and appeared to be an "easy read," and frequently less than 200 pages with larger size type. But if the recipient of my gift had one iota of intellect, they realized they had been asked to think about a great, great many challenging things before they were through.

heh.

Mr. Vonnegut also liked to doodle, and in one of his many doodles he advised his readers to learn to distinguish an asterisk (*) from a certain delicate bodily orifice of one's "lower 48."

Translation: Know the difference between an asterisk and your asshole.

In an interview this morning, Gore Vidal made comments as to how Mr. Vonnegut more times than not hid his social commentary behind the veil of Science Fiction. A tactic, he stated, found more frequently in writers from the Post WWII era as it made their satirical efforts more accessible or palatable to the general public, teaching through deception, which is always the benefit of a good satire, correct?

I don't think I've ever read anything by Vidal of any length, I don't think I share enough with him. He turned me off with his comment. He knew Mr. Vonngegut, and knew his work for a long time. Mr. Vonnegut never wrote a dram of SF, he wrote Speculative Fiction. Speculative Fiction (a term I am quite certain Harlan Ellison coined to describe his own work) is something far more dangerous, far more insidious, and far closer to the bone. Science Fiction can look at a great many things, but there are always rules to the stories woven, many of them technological. Speculative Fiction has fewer rules, and deals more with the knotty alchemy of human nature, the chemistry of the soul.

I was surprised to hear that Mr. Vonnegut attempted suicide at just the about the time I was introduced to his work. His attempt failed. He later stated, "My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children."

I'm glad he didn't succeed. His work brought me a great deal of insight and, frankly, joy, thereafter. As he and I both matured, his writing became...softer...not dull, per se, but definitely not so sharp. Sure, there was still a bitter taste to the steely jabs, but the bite was not so deep. I made this realization when I correctly guessed the identity of the narrator of one of his later novels, Galapagos. Perhaps it was easy to guess the narrator's identity because I had been so deeply mired in Mr. Vonnegut's work for so very long and was well entrenched in what passed for a "shared universe," within his works. Perhaps for that reason putting the pieces together wasn't so difficult. The narrator closes his story with a backhanded sense of optimism. The human race has finally destroyed itself, but they left behind the seeds of a simpler, gentler race of beings, and that was just fine with him. He felt he'd never done much with the life given him anyway, but now he could watch the progress of this new race of beings, better than Homo sapiens, he opined, and do something genuinely productive, for all eternity.

If you haven't read Galapagos, you should, it was one of Mr. Vonnegut's better final works. You should especially read it if you aren't a "reader," per se. It's a very short book; it won't take much of your time...

I'll talk about music next time.

God Bless You Mr. Rosewater.

And So It Goes,
Coletrane