"I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play."
-Elvis Presley
"Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. "
-Frank Zappa
"Don't live another day unless you make it count
There's someone else that you're supposed to be
Something deep inside of you that still wants out
And shame on you if you don't set it free"
"A talk with George" -Jonathan Coulton
Hey Everyone!
It was high time that I update my journal, and honestly I'm not in the mood to do so.
Some of you who are close to me know I'm suffering a setback at the moment, and I'm surviving by the skin of my teeth. I don't have a lot of mental energy to devote to a journal entry, so I'll do my level best and try to keep this brief.
Honestly, I wanted to write a journal entry about the ethical implications of the Adult entertainment industry, specifically strip clubs, and compare and contrast the moral and ethical applications of said institution with the ethics of keeping wild animals in zoos.
Of course I quickly realized that expressing an opinion on anything sexual or anything that could be perceived as a women's rights issue has all the potential volatility of shooting up an anorexic rhesus monkey with Phencyclidine and locking it in a room full of crippled war orphans with a box of hand grenades.
So, you might see that entry someday when I'm more in a mood to deal with the trolls...
But for the moment, It's probably best if I focus on something else.
I had the idea for a journal entry for awhile about my discontent for the adamantine intractability most people's musical taste seems to be imbued with.
I would have titled the entry; "I HATE MUSIC" and I would have gone on to explain how it wasn't the music I hated, it was the intolerance of other people for genres, geographic origin and content of music that wasn't immediately familiar to them.
To a degree, this is still something that irks me just a little bit.
One of my more vivid memories from high school was hanging out at a record store one afternoon during my senior year (this was back in 2002 when a store that sold music was still viable financially) And some passing acquaintances happened to drop in and we ran into each other.
To my surprise, they regarded me with confusion and consternation when I revealed I was purchasing a CD of
Chinese bamboo flute music.The New York City public library has more books than you could read in 25 lifetimes.
Ever since the Edisonian advent of recording and storing the human voice and sound, the catalogue of music available for the industrialized world to has grown to an unimaginably exponential degree.
This is why i will never understand the mentality of people who would limit their phonic offerings to one genre of music and only one genre of music, or those who insist that the only worthwhile tunes are those which are newly-writeen, newly-recorded and newly-released.
One of the songs that resonates most with me and always, unfailingly lifts my spirits might well have been
written a hundred years before any of my grandparents were born. Of course in the grand scene of things, my indignation over the intractability of the musical taste of others and a stunning lack of broad-range curiosity as to what other phonic offerings are available to the general public really does seem to count for very little, if anything.
There is, after all, no arguing taste.
I've come to long ago accept that my carried taste in music won't be fully understood by everyone I meet, in all likelihood, no one I'll ever meet.
The thing no one tells you about dancing like no one else is watching is that it can be a pretty lonely endeavor.
But anyway, that's enough of that crap.
What really inspired this journal was when I was reading the latest literary offering of a man who I idolized as a teenager but who I now regard with more than a little dubiety, Penn Jillette; "God NO! sighs you may already be an atheist and other magical tales."
"A few years ago, Joe Roegan and Doug Stanhope had told me about their favorite performance artist. It was a whack-job who went by the stage name 'Extreme Elvis.' Extreme Elvis is a fat Elvis impersonator with a very small cock. We all know he has a cashew dick because he performs naked onstage and will often piss on the audience. He has the Elvis sideburns and the Elvis hair and a big pot belly and a little dick and he sings perfectly. Most Elvis impersonators fall flat on the voice. Elvis could sing his ass off, and Extreme Elvis can sing for real. Extreme Elvis doesn't do man shows because most people won't book a naked, needle-dicked fat guy who pisses in public, and if they do, the police often enter into the situation and stop the show. He can't really do a full show unless he's playing a private party, and what kind of asshole is going to hire a badly-hung, naked, pissing Elvis impersonator to do a show in his private home? I booked Extreme Elvis to do a show in my private home. I set up a huge stage, lights and a sound system and invited 150 people, of whom about 135% showed up. The party started at about noon and Extreme Elvis took the stage at about two the next morning. His show was wonderful.
'Every generation gets the Elvis they deserve,' he explained."
Reading that passage with all it's urologic intrigue and stark visuals did eventually get me to thinking about how Mr. Elvis Aron Presley has been the bellwether of musical entertainment ever since the idea of big-name pop music really began to work its way to the forefront of American cultural consciousness.
In a lot of ways, the Rat Pack were the forefathers of this particular phonic art form and it's resulting reception, but it was Elvis who raised the bar for performance, stage presence and public persona of musical figures where it is today.
My parents didn't listen to Elvis. He was before their time, so I had to discover the virtues of the king on my own.
Whether you regard The King as a thief who
Used Black music so selfishly and used it to get himself wealthy or as one of the strongest and most resonate cultural touchstones in living, American memory, you can't deny the impact he had on the culture and the fabric of America and, to a degree, the rest of the world. For better or worse.
Recalling the concept of each generation having their own Elvis, it reminded me of a quite from Simpson's creator Matt Groening.
"Frank Zappa was my Elvis."
If the concept of an Elvis, someone using music, a stage persona and distinct personality to create a vivid, lasting impact on a generation can be such a personal thing that everyone can have their own, individual King of Rock 'n Roll, who is my Elvis?
I was never one to look to contemporary offerings for my musical allotment. Either through some kind of cognitive or social impairment, up until late middle school, my favorite music came from the Walt Disney record label.
Some of it still does.From late middle school to early college, I fell pretty hard under the sway of the Beatles, due in no small part to my parent's influence and many a car ride with the radio on and my pops illuminating the various points of the fab four's respective careers.
Although, when you're in high school, it transpires, it's a pretty bad time to be enthralled with a band that split up before you were born. It's even worse to externalize your personal taste.
The hazings I got from some of my peers in conjunction with a particularly bad romantic relationship still leave something of a bad taste in my mouth as far as the Beatles are concerned. Oh, I still have plenty of their songs on my iTunes, but the bad memories still linger.
So who is MY Elvis? Who speaks to my generation or at the very least to me with the potent poetry of their mellifluous offerings?
Jonathan Coulton.
In case you're not familiar with Mr. Coulton, I'll give you a brief backstory.
Working as a computer programmer for Cluen, a New York City software company, Coulton decided to quit his job and become a musician when his wife announced she was pregnant.
What would strike most of us as a rash and dangerous move, Coulton did because he didn't want to raise his daughter while he worked at a job he hated. He wanted to raise his children and earn his living doing something he loved to put bread on the table.
That was nine years and eight studio albums ago.
Selling his own work on the internet under creative common license, Coulton has, in all practical terms, become a success.
As if his professional credentials weren't impressive enough, the sheer range and breadth of his musical catalogue ranges from the sublimely absurd to the transcendently agonizing depths of searing heartbreak.
While some of his
most famous work leans toward the more tongue-and-cheek, it only scratches the surface of the full range and capability already realized in the course of his career.
At his absolute best, Coulton transcends being a self-professed geek rocker and creates genuinely sublime art.
Take this little number from his latest album; "Artificial Heart"
[link]What is the song about exactly?
Coulton has never said.
The lyrics are vague enough to tell a story without any specifics. The song speaks of pain and heartache, but doesn't direct it toward anything specific.
The performance is chillingly personal and haunting. This is, in every way, the phonic equivalent of an abstract painting. The ultimate meaning is left to the listener's imagination.
If this isn't the perfect song, and of course it's not, it is at least a perfect song.
Of course, there's every chance you won't agree with my conclusion and you hate both Coulton and this song.
Given my experience in encountering people who's taste varies so widely and strikingly from my own, it's not only possible but highly likely.
Of course, none of that really matters.
It may have been out of college when I found him, but I got the Elvis I deserve.
And you can't take my Elvis from me.
Here at the bar who cares what I do
I'm all alone but I'm drinking for two
Drowning the man that I used to be
Nobody loves you like me
I won't sign a thing, or else if I do
I'll use a pencil and that will show you
How nothing lasts, how nothing is free
Nobody loves you like me
I shouldn't stay, I think you'll agree
It's no good for you, no better for me
In the morning I'll go to a place far away
Somewhere you'll never find me
I catch a look, a thing that you say
Out on the fire escape smoking all day
Missing someone, now who could it be
Nobody loves you like me
Noises outside, the trucks in the street
Will cover my flight, my hero's retreat
I'm supposed to feel bad but I don't anymore
Only when you remind me
Air in my lungs, a cough and a wheeze
Holes in the bellows and blood on the keys
You move along, there's nothing to see
Nobody loves you like me
Nobody loves you like me
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Theme
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.......... The design MUST HAVE ONLY 2 COLORS; BLACK AND WHITE
this journal 
But then again, if we really abided by that tenet we wouldn't be here talking about this right now.
A friend of mine once said that she noticed I highly dislike the fans of the musicians I listen to. And that much is very true, I will not deny it. There is something to be said about the intolerance of people who do not share the same music taste as you do (or, as yours truly confesses, some people who -do- share some of his music tastes.) Tunnel vision, I think, is to blame for a lot of the problem here. Of course, even those who suffer from tunnel vision might have plausible points to express: "A song is a combination of music and lyrics, how can you appreciate the whole song if you don't understand half of it?" There's some merit to that argument, but then again there is merit to almost any argument. Truth of the matter is that Extreme Elvis, aside from his self-abandon is a wise sociologist besotted with wine and urine, much like the illustrious personages from a modern-day Decameron. We deserve the Elvis we got; we got the Elvis we deserve.
Extreme Elvis wasn't alone. He is among one of the many who saw trends and celebrities for what they are - elevated symbols of idol-worship in a world that is always desperate for a new idol to worship. Be it a free-spirited Bacchus or a severe Allah, our gods and demons are created in our image and not the other way around. It is much as Dostoevsky said, "If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness". And that is exactly what we have done, in our musicians, our celebrities, even our angels and demons. Our collective consciousness had elevated certain personalities into the realm of great renown, not because these characters present themselves as leaders of men in terms of moral an ethical superiority, but that they have encapsulated some features of our collective obsession. If we rile about how degenerate our public figures are today, it is simply because, well, they are a mirror for us, the rest of the unnamed and faceless public. Literary critic and feminist Nina Auerbach wrote in "Our vampires, our selves" back in 1997 that our fascination of a cultural icon "springs not only from paranoia, xenophobia... but from generosity and shared enthusiasm. This strange taste cannot be separated from the expansive impulses that make us human." And no matter how much we descry our popularly and commercially successful tarts and pr*cks on the silver screen, their success is one of shared enthusiasm of many - and this many is just us.
That, of course, say very little about "individuals, with taste", or simply "individual taste". In any generation at any given time in any given place, there will always be people who seem to go against the grain. People who would rather listen to pan-pipes and bamboo flutes instead of the top 20 hits. Some of these people genuinely like what they are listening to - while others protest for protest's sake. Not a big difference between the so-called "hipsters" and wannabe "punks", really - both are people who want to set themselves apart and resort to deliberately shunning the mainstream ideals in order to reach that goal. Hard to tell them apart, really. But one thing is for sure, our motives drive us; our actions define us. And in a day and age where each person is slowly being erased of his or her personality by the sheer volume of information inundating him or her on a minute-to-minute basis, the basic human instinct is to revolt against conformation. We do what is in our knowledge to break away from the reality that we sense to exist around us by the ways we have available to us. We had our hippies in the late 60's, our punks in the 70's and our Goths in the 80's. You might say we got the counter-cultures we deserved, too.
What does that mean? It means the more stock we take in the intolerance of others, the more stock we take in our status as being different... the more we are simply following what is intrinsically human to us. No matter which side of the debate you are on we are still dealing with a sociological phenomenon - the flux that keeps the society as a whole balanced towards eventual change. Before we point our fingers towards any group in specific, be it our drunken Elvis impersonator with a cashew dick or our farcical politicians with idiotic smiles, be it our conspiracy theorists with tales of aliens or our youths who are overly-defensive with their insecurities to the point of mounting ad hominem attacks... the important thing to remember is that they are nothing but mirrors that show the truth about ourselves as a whole. We certainly got what we deserved.
Oh, before I forgot... I guess I did think about who my Elvis is. It took a while, but I am going to go for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in this case.
And if every generation gets the counter-culture it deserves, what does that say about the present?
And since we deserve the Elvis we have got, we also deserve the monsters we've got, too. What does that say about the present? It say that we have been true to ourselves in action but not true to ourselves in words and thoughts - we think of ourselves as holier than thou... but our actions confirms something else.
And we have no one to blame for the high status and income of celebrities but ourselves.
We fueled the Paparazzi because we wanted to know about the juicy details of lives of people that have no impact on our lives. We contributed the copyright infringements because we think the artists makes enough money off of us in the first place and one or two downloads won't hurt anyone. We created the "reality TV" genre because we like to watch (and tell ourselves that we are better than that). We supported the rise and fall of celebrities because... well, we love to point our fingers at people who slipped on a banana peel, as long as it's not us who slipped.
And that, my friend, is why Extreme Elvis had it right all those years ago.
I've never watched any reality TV that I can recall... I still need to see Extreme Elvis though.
You're not missing much by not watching reality television - heaven knows, there's very little reality in reality television. Better not to touch that at all. Extreme Elvis is a slightly different story.
And I figured that was the case.
I don't know what happened to life, but somehow I feel like I somehow slipped from being on top of everything to being far behind it. Just a few seconds ago (literally) I was watching "Foo Fighters Back and Forth" on hulu and it occurred to me that - with the exception of a few notable videos and a cameo in the Tenacious D movie - I wasn't aware they had done anything since The Color and the Shape.
The same thing with John Coulton. I know he's excellent, I just haven't gotten around to him. And he's put out how many albums? Statistically speaking, a CD of his should have been thrown out of somebody's car window and have hit me on the head by now.
Who is my Elvis? As much as I would like to have one, I can't think of anybody. Therefore, I decree that you Bill - you - are my Elvis!!!!!!!!!
Or possibly my Tortelvis depending on whether or not you keep centering the text alignment of your journals.
Wow, 'Foo Fighters.' ... What a tragically misnamed band. I have never once seen them fight a single Foo.
(They want a Foo to fight, they can come fight THIS Foo.)
Well, I think you've been saved from random, flying JoCo albums because the vast majority of what he's been sold has been digital. (my entire JoCo catalogue is digital)
You can listen to pretty much all his music for free on Youtube. Give him a try sometime and you'll see he really is a master of everything from the ridiculous [link] to the deep and visceral [link]
Aww!!
Well I'm going to have to name YOU my Elvis, in that your body of work is much more daunting and impressive than anything I'll ever create.