spring schedule:
fri - march 11th - brother's | jacksonville, al w/ long story short
fri - march 25th - the nick | bham, al w/ the californias & cordova
wed - april 20th - performance on fox tv 6 (good day alabama) | bham, al
wed - april 20th - workplay | birmingham, al
looking back on my entries thus far this month, all but one mention death, dying, in either a lyric, album title, jest or reality. hunter s. was of course the icing on the cake. there's people who die here and there that barely affect me. in private life i never blink. people just go away.
as for public figures, johnny cash was a big loss, but he was pretty old. buckley was a tragedy, and i couldn't listen to some of his music for a while. with hunter s. thompson finishing a conversation about having a great funeral and then - pow!... that's just too much.
i can hear the last gasps of the progressive movement of the 60's and 70's. it seems like every man is an island now. spooky. there's this vibe as each cultural icon passes, that it has truly all been done. visually nothing has changed in a decade. musically nothing in 15 years. politically we are still stuck in reaganomics. we know it as voo-doo.
the last big idea, the big denominator was the proliferation in the use of the internet. it is the only vehicle left with which to kick up some dust. tv is over. it has puked up it's own guts, eaten itself and is know a gross mirror of our fascist, money hungry materialistic reality. anyone ever watch the swan? life transformation like something out of terry gilliam's brazil.
that happens to be my favorite movie.
radio is long over. sometimes i forget it exists except for when i listen to npr. then there's literature. good books still fly off of the shelves, as do good movies, or great albums. there are some seriously gifted artists out there today doing what is right. wilco last week was a prime example. it was like watching the band thirty years later. but who is listening? in any other era, wilco would be climbing the charts or at least be in consideration for best album. not that the grammies even remotely represent music. but no. we were elated when they got best alternative rock album. rock is over. not that it isn't being made by great artists, there's just too much of a splintered listening audience for anything to ever "cohesify" again.
this is the trade off of a bulging consumerist culture where everyone is in easy contact with everyone else. eventually we will fall into a state of social-entropy. everyone going in all different directions. and surely too vapid extremes, is that good or bad? i dunno, i'm just a peasant. it just is. i'm merely concerned that now, under the most right-wing administration in memory - nixon, the second coming... there is no momentum. sure we continue to develop social justice, but without momentum - you stop.
that is what i think is happening. we are stopping.
fri - march 11th - brother's | jacksonville, al w/ long story short
fri - march 25th - the nick | bham, al w/ the californias & cordova
wed - april 20th - performance on fox tv 6 (good day alabama) | bham, al
wed - april 20th - workplay | birmingham, al
looking back on my entries thus far this month, all but one mention death, dying, in either a lyric, album title, jest or reality. hunter s. was of course the icing on the cake. there's people who die here and there that barely affect me. in private life i never blink. people just go away.
as for public figures, johnny cash was a big loss, but he was pretty old. buckley was a tragedy, and i couldn't listen to some of his music for a while. with hunter s. thompson finishing a conversation about having a great funeral and then - pow!... that's just too much.
i can hear the last gasps of the progressive movement of the 60's and 70's. it seems like every man is an island now. spooky. there's this vibe as each cultural icon passes, that it has truly all been done. visually nothing has changed in a decade. musically nothing in 15 years. politically we are still stuck in reaganomics. we know it as voo-doo.
the last big idea, the big denominator was the proliferation in the use of the internet. it is the only vehicle left with which to kick up some dust. tv is over. it has puked up it's own guts, eaten itself and is know a gross mirror of our fascist, money hungry materialistic reality. anyone ever watch the swan? life transformation like something out of terry gilliam's brazil.
that happens to be my favorite movie.
radio is long over. sometimes i forget it exists except for when i listen to npr. then there's literature. good books still fly off of the shelves, as do good movies, or great albums. there are some seriously gifted artists out there today doing what is right. wilco last week was a prime example. it was like watching the band thirty years later. but who is listening? in any other era, wilco would be climbing the charts or at least be in consideration for best album. not that the grammies even remotely represent music. but no. we were elated when they got best alternative rock album. rock is over. not that it isn't being made by great artists, there's just too much of a splintered listening audience for anything to ever "cohesify" again.
this is the trade off of a bulging consumerist culture where everyone is in easy contact with everyone else. eventually we will fall into a state of social-entropy. everyone going in all different directions. and surely too vapid extremes, is that good or bad? i dunno, i'm just a peasant. it just is. i'm merely concerned that now, under the most right-wing administration in memory - nixon, the second coming... there is no momentum. sure we continue to develop social justice, but without momentum - you stop.
that is what i think is happening. we are stopping.