Friday, September 12, 2003

1.) the poses of hipsterism have obviously been insufficient. else i should not be living in a fu manchu novel. we're gonna have to get more radical. 1.a.) everywhere is the victory of 'pop' culture. everywhere is proclaimed the ethos of the counter-culture. nohow does it stop the fucking madness. 2.) 'folk music' was a stalinist myth (pete seeger being in large part the stalinist in question. check out pete's roots sometime. folk music related to reality exactly as minstrel shows. minstrel shows are not without interest because while they are fundamentally aimed at insulting the intelligence of the subjects in doing so they are allowed to skirt the edge of desire.) 3.) the "folk"/ "anti-folk" dialectic was mostly the fruition of the work of the violent femmes. injections of jazz throughout the nineties never really took. it foundered upon the shoals of endless relationship analysis and therapeutic expressivity. 4.) what happens when the lights go out? 3.a.) "anti-folk" stayed stuck in the black boxes of the sound system. it was punk ala cafe. lach was our tiny plastic music box elvis costello. but it was always a microphone performance and generally aimed at displaying linguistic capability through poetic composition. 3.b.) "anti-folk" was always directed at english speakers. meanwhile look at town. 3.c.) most of the 'singer-songwiter' thing directed at english speakers. meanwhile look at town. 4. again.) what happens when the lights go out? 4.a.) i have proposed elsewhere we replace the 'folk' with 'fuck', as in: robert johnson was a fuck singer. he played fuck muic. jelly roll morton was a fuck piano player. he played fuck music. etc. i think this more clearly defines the role of the itinerant musician in american society. but i should not press the point. no, what i wanted to say was: 'folk' music doesn't interest me. 'out of copyright' music interests me. the 'out of copyright' world beckons to me. 5.) i hate fucking popstars because all this new junk is cut to shit. i get no buzz... i am forced to theorize the "anti-pop"... 10:04:52 PM    comment []

amy hills and jon berger, i've been yelling at my poor family whose unlucky co-sanguination is surely no fault of theirs in this life, except maybe in momma's instance, though arguably the fruition of some damnably cursed past existence. i have been doing so expressly for the purpose of demonstrating to chinese babies that respect for family is un-american. in that when you've lived in america long enough you will find that respect for family goes hand in hand with murdering conspiratorial craziness. i don't know why. i was not employing a therapeutic paradigm. art as therapy is a sorry-ass paradigm. it leads people to the wrong-headed conclusion that writing love songs will fix their love life. point to me an historical instance of this working out. besides maybe paul mccartney, and that the exception proving the rule in my eyes. romance is an obssession that ends in michael jackson carving off his face. twain's analysis of the role of walter scott's romances in the development of the southern ideology that resulted in the civil war is absolutely the beginning in my mind of the argument of why cultural theory might actually matter. i think art works better when you hold it your head as voodoo. when you conceptualize it magic. of course i realize that 'spiritual' people do this all the time. it's different for me because i am faithless. ( i'm not suggesting this voodoo/art thing originates with me. i'm just riffing sun-ra out of fluxus out of dada. the thing is: i'm sort of surprised how ill-worked the concept is in precisely the venues that most need it.) amy hills and jon berger, grifting for the yuppie dollar was always unattractive, the flyers, the shows, the head shots, the press releases...it's the world of yucksville. it's nasty and now that yuppie dollar is significantly downsized. it's time we morph to new markets. katya ann is the market. amy, you should bone up on your childe ballads. jon, you should buy a yo-yo. MORE TOMORROW (or the next day...) 3:10:19 PM    comment []