Sensationalism!

Say it with me: senSATIONalism! Really emphasize it.

[1.]

We live in a period of sensationalism. I don't want to say if that's good or bad, I just want to be in control of it, not the other way around.

But I'm discovering the limits of my mind and my memory, running up against too many walls. I have to write everything down, or I'll forget to do it. Sometimes, I take on a third persona (besides me and I) and almost treat my mind like a child. It's hard to explain, but maybe you know what I mean.

Why am I always so busy? Why have I started fast-forwarding to the best parts of everything? Why do I never have time to watch movies? Why is it, if I'm doing something, I immediately want to be doing something else? And why does nothing bring me happiness like it used to?

I can barely find the time to write these days. I only read on the toilet. I never take little museful walks like I used to. I'm always tired.

I really want to disconnect myself from the world. I guess I'm blaming the internet for my poor time management skills. But what else is there that's causing this? School may be part of it. But I know I will still be forever stuck like this even if I had a 9-5 job.

Whatever it is, I want answers to these questions. Many of my friends are probably going through this, but they don't have the time to even read this. As they say, TLDR. Good for them.

Like most of my solutions to problems, I want to take the drastic way out. I want to smash my cellphone, delete (deactivate) Facebook, Twitter and MySpace and uninstall Firefox. I'd be free! And it would feel excellent!

But I can't. This is possibly the only way I communicate with most of my friends these days -- through a motherfucking screen. As much as I loathe screeangers, I've become one.

It's a choice between mental health and freedom or friendship. I really can't decide. Finding a balance has been difficult and distracting.

I'm being pessimistic, exaggerating a little and it's possible no one cares. But I'm doing that to really put the problem in focus. These are sensationalist times we live in.

I want out.

[2.]

I have 40gbs of music. For some people, that's nothing. They have libraries of music bigger than entire generations created. That's cool. I'm happy with my 40gbs and every week, it increases, little by little.

The problem is, my mind could never, ever contemplate this entire library. I'm always forgetting bands or songs that I used to listen to for weeks. Whenever I go on trips, I try not to bring along an iPod and "fast" from music awhile. During that time, songs play in my head that I never recognize. It's agonizing, yet refreshing.

So what's the point of having all this music? It's not to show some kind of muscle. Most of it was paid for, so I'm not just taking it just to take it. I hate digital downloads because if my computer crashes, I will lose everything. Why am I afraid of losing something I can't fully understand or fully use?

I can never give equal attention to a band or album as I usually do, so when friends tell me a band I haven't heard is good, I usually just agree. Minus the Bear is a perfect example. I have all their albums, I've listened to three songs once and I went to their show two weeks ago. I told everyone how excited I was and talked up the band and when Minus came onstage, I was disappointed. All of Minus's songs sound the same, emo and kind of boring.

Does this make me a poser? I hope not. I can't stand the idea of being inauthentic, which is why I'm being so honest here. I think I'm just overwhelmed.

I would have to listen to my entire library for 22.8 days in order to hear every single song I own. This is (personally) impossible -- I've tried so many times. My computer is not a radio station and I am not a computer. I don't want to be either.

So what's the point?

[3.]

When a Bookman's first opened in my neighborhood, I was 14 and overwhelmed by the size and variety and volume of their used books, music, movies and video games. I actually became depressed for a day, because I was 14 and I became depressed about anything and everything. Moreover, I realized I would never be able to read all the great books in the world, never be able to hear all the great albums and never be able to see all the great movies.

Even if I live to 70, there isn't enough time.

So I immediately resolved to ONLY enjoy quality things. Yes, Bookman's turned me into a hipster. I became volatile about my opinions. They were the best! You can't argue!

If something was wasting my time, I would reject it. Which explains why I have about 25 books on my shelf that are half-read, probably 100 albums I've listened to once (if at all) and dozens of DVD's on a list that I will never, ever see.

Lately, since the spring, I've just been indulging in stupid things on purpose. B-movies and vintage comic books and shit like that. Trying to sabotage myself. I want to break away from this idea I gave myself that being properly entertained was the best way to live.

So, no, I really don't give a fuck anymore what the greatest movie is. Is it Citizen Kane or Citizen I-Have-Better-Things-To-Think-About? I haven't seen it. I won't see it. And so I haven't seen a lot of excellent films. Maybe I wasn't born having already seen every fucking thing Robert Ebert gave two thumbs up.

And are The Beatles the greatest band in history? I don't care. Half of them are dead anyway, so it does them no good. It does no one any good. I don't care if I only own the White Album. As Scroobius Pip said, "Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals, no matter how great they are, or were. The Beatles were just a band. Led Zeppelin, just a band . . ." etc.

I'm over all the hype we give artists. Over it, over it, over it.

Don't even get me started on books.

Anyway, NPR, Spin and hundreds of other publications are riding on the last wave this decade has, really dragging it out and making all kinds of lists. The Best This of the '00s or The Best That of The New Millenium.

I was going to do my own list, but really? Does it matter? Furthermore, isn't it a little early to tell? A best of the '60s TODAY is a hundred times more practical than one that was released in '69. Or maybe it's the other way around, but I think it depends on what people are STILL listening to.

I've noticed something else. Some bands like Radiohead, The Velvet Underground and tons of others market their music by saying (literally or figuratively, it doesn't matter) "If you don't understand this album, you are stupid." But then, almost everyone instantly likes their album (honestly or dishonestly, it doesn't matter). Some people just don't want to seem stupid.

Well, fuck that. It's worse than being pretentious or wrong or whatever. It's inauthentic for an artist to have that kind of attitude. It means your fans don't give a shit about you, they just show up to your shows to look intelligent. But now I still don't understand Minus the Bear and I also don't care.

Unfortunately, nearly every band is inauthentic for one reason or another, isn't it? Besides, that's the point. Music, movies and books give you false hope. And false hope is very, very entertaining.

So unfortunately nothing in section [3.] really changes what I like or how I interpret art.
I know what I like, I don't care if you disagree (but I appreciate it) and I'm not ashamed and so there you go.

[4.]

Have you noticed, that whichever band's album you listen to first tends to be your favorite? This is the case with myself and at least three other people I know, even if it's not technically the band's greatest cut.

For example, I adore The Mars Volta's 2006 release Amputechure way more than Frances the Mute. I know a lot of fans were disappointed with Amputechure and everyone raves about Frances, but that's how I feel and that's how I'll probably always feel. Obviously, I heard them in that order.

Personally, I can't think of any real exceptions to this rule except Nirvana, Muse and Franz Ferdinand. That's not the point.

The point is, this is the power of precedence. That first album sets the precedent for how you think that particular band should act. This is why you will nearly always hate a band's latest album. Or at least be disappointed.

The power of precedence is sensational. It carries over to everything. I hate it.

For your father, it sets the precedence for what a man should be. And most people know what happens to people who don't have fathers.
For your mother, it sets the precedence for what a woman should be.
For the first person you fall in love with, it sets the precedence of love and that's why every single one of your relationships are gonna be the same. Different face, but not a different person, same problems.
Etc.

I feel trapped by these precedents and I want to break free, but I don't know how. I don't even know if I should. I just don't want to seem wrong.

That's it. That's the whole thing. The whole point of this ranting, disorientated, too honest writing.

I feel very, very wrong.

Finger Crossed (A Depressing Look at the End)

I hope the economy collapses. Flatlines. Nothing left.
I think we could use it. We can rebuild from the rubble.
A new start? A new dawn? Sure.

Let's hope those 2012 predictions pan out as well.
The sun scorches the earth and earthquakes split the ground, eat us alive. California launches into the ocean and the magnetic poles turn upside down.

And I don't care for them, but those environmental scare tactics about climate change? Mine as well pray for mass extinction and melting ice caps. The new El Niño.A new ice age. A new dawn.

Remember that Russian professor who predicted the downfall of America by the end of this year?
He forecasted inevitable civil war and even estimated how the states would be divided. I wrote a New Year's blog about how to make this next year, 2009, the best ever because it could be America's last.

Wonder if we'd still be killing random Arabs then. Wonder if we'd still torture. Wonder if.

But back to that prof. -- I don't feel I've really made my life all that much better by now. It's only been a month and a half, and January always blows. I'm not exactly behind am I?
But now I'm worried. So worried that I just want my worries to come true.
I still haven't found a way to deal with any of this. I don't have a World War Z plan. I don't have a metaphorical bomb shelter. Nothing.
All I have is my camera, my pen and a package of cigarettes to protect me.

Oh, and today I learned that Wal-Mart and Walgreens are completely becoming dry labs by March. Target will likely follow suit. No more film developing, except for send-out, but that's a little more expensive, I believe. I don't have the money, but that's OK; I have the debt.

Everything is going digital much faster now because it's cheaper. In this economy, no one can afford to spend $10 just for 24 pictures. Soon CDs and Vinyl records will be gone too. I hope print newspapers and books will last another decade, or at least that, but I don't have my fingers crossed.

Here I am, shivering with my soon-to-be-obsolete technology. It's comfortable, isn't it?

Maybe the solution is to curl up in a ball and listen to sad songs.
I recommend The Bad Plus' cover of Wilco's "Radio Cure".
Arcade Fire's "Windowsill".
Elbow's "Grace Under Pressure".
Radiohead's "No Surprises" or "Lucky" or maybe just all of OK Computer.
Maybe I should just make an apocalypse playlist and then I'll sit on a mountain and play it while writing what I see, those atom bombs blossoming in the sunset, and the whole event will mean something.

As Bright Eyes said once, "I just can't work it out, but for memory and clarity, I had better write it down."

When I was a kid, I used to read those Bailey School Kids books, about the four friends who always assumed their teachers were vampires, werewolves or leprechauns. Sometimes they were close to right, sometimes they were dead wrong, but it usually had this open-ended, cop-out finish. That one girl, Liza, whenever she freaked out and worried her teacher was a goblin, her nose would start bleeding. This fascinated me, and sometimes I wished it happened to me. I like bloody noses. They make me feel important.

I got sick of the Kids and started reading Goosebumps. Both series of books had terrible cookie-cutter plots with cliché bullshit endings. They were supposed to be scary, but never really disturbed me. Except the aliens. I was never afraid of ghosts or witches cause I knew for certain they didn't exist. But aliens? No one could disprove that. The aliens books gave me nightmares of having the life sucked out of me, of being dissected, of being kidnapped.

I also read those worse than terrible Left Behind books, but the whole "the sky is falling" storyline scared the hell out of me. I musta been ten and I cried and cried that The End was Nigh. That I would die at age 11 and never live a full life and I would never experience all the wonderful life promised me once I reached 21. Or at least once my balls dropped.

I was never, not really, worried about Y2K. As grocery store shelves emptied of water and canned goods, I just went to school and drew comic strips. I played Nintendo and used AOL. When the big night finally came, when the ball dropped, I was sitting in the living room, playing Donkey Kong 64 with my brother. My alarm went off and that meant it was my turn to play. The power didn't even flicker.
I heard the next day some casinos lost memory, but the rest of the world was safe. Airplanes didn't nosedive out of the sky, gas tanks didn't explode. In the morning, the pacemakers and credit cards still worked and the rest of the planet was still on life support.

Those things, those worries, seem silly now. Adorable, if you think neurotic children are adorable. There's got to be a way to face these current problems differently.

I could ram a truck into a gas tanker like this woman, only do it the right way.
http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2009/02/14/news/20090214_front_190872.txt?rating=true

I could listen to the advice of Interpol: "Pace is the Trick / and to all the destruction in man. . .and to all the corruption in my hand."

What I'm most likely to do is keep worrying, petty and stupid and helpless. But like I said, I'm so worried I just want my worries to come true.

But perhaps this is the best advice of all from Robert Anton Wilson:
"All of us should treasure (John Dillinger's) Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm.""

Keane Review

Published in this week's Lumberjack.


British pop band Keane have evolved from album to album. Their debut Hopes and Fears used only piano, drums and occasional bass. Their second LP, Under the Iron Sea added guitar riffs, organs and effects pedals. Their newest album, Perfect Symmetry finds the band tossing in annoying synth sounds and monotonous background vocals. Once past that, it's pretty much the same-old, same-old you expect from the trio, which is a relieving and good kind of familiar.

Keane's Under the Iron Sea was an attempt at a concept album, but the scattered notions didn't really stick with the diverse pallet of songs. Perfect Symmetry seems to present a better underlying theme with almost every song about drowning or swimming in wreckage, which are metaphors for the human condition and romantic relationships. Basically they're just echoing the lyrics from Radiohead's "Pyramid Song "I shake through the wreckage for signs of life," sings lead singer Thomas Chaplin. "I dreamed I was drowning in the river Thames; I dreamed I had nothing at all." If any progress Keane has made is good, it has to be the lyrical content.

The first track is a tune called "Spiraling" that at first sounds as if the disc was microwaved. Each chord warbles between the backup vocals, which sound like Alvin, and the Chipmunks. This is their attempt at being original, and while irritating at first, the song quickly fades into familiar territory. This antagonizing sound is patterned throughout the album, crowding out the actually decent tracks such as "The Lovers are Losing" and the album's title track "Perfect Symmetry.”

Other notable tracks include "You Don't See Me" and "Black Burning Heart,” songs that retain the minimalism that made Keane good in their early days. Unfortunately, Symmetry is too unbalanced to maintain Keane’s former decency.

I will not give in

IF I GET OLD, I WILL NOT GIVE IN
BUT IF I DO, REMIND ME OF THIS

Horrible Beautiful

Doing some research on Banksy, I stumbled upon an artist who's work look vaguely familiar.
His pen name is Stanley Donwood and he's done the artwork for Radiohead's albums since the Iron Lung EP. That means, pretty much every album but Pablo Honey.

I really like Donwood. Check him out.


Nice quote by him: "Somehow I want to make the horrible beautiful."