Tolerance is not just an idea for a lousy museum

Ok. So right now I am on hold for a talk show on LA’s FM talk radio. I have been on hold for about 45 mins.

It’s a low point in my life.

One of the things I hated in film school, and one of the forces that drove me to take other classes and start hanging out with other people more than film students was the fanaticism.

As such:

I am not going to see X-men because they aren’t using the costumes from the comic books.

I am not going to see Lord of the Rings because they will mess up my opinion of the books.

I am not seeing X film because Director/actor/producer did this film or is affiliated with this group. (To be fair, I vowed to never see another film by PT Anderson after my second viewing of Magnolia.)

This drove me away from my passion and I am still suffering from it. I loved movies. I used to live and breath at the multiplex on the weekends. I have a bunch of cherished memories in the theater.

But around my Junior year, I stopped going to movies as much. I stopped feeling comfortable with the audience in the theater and the response of my fellow students when I mentioned I had seen a film. It became a lot easier to go to films by myself because I became wary of expressing my opinion on a film with my friends, because I had a wider reference point and basis for opinion, and I likely would judge the film from a different point of view.

How do you tell a girlfriend you don’t agree with her view on a movie (or anything for that matter), especially when you feel like you know better than they do.

I get chastised a lot for thinking that my opinion is better than other peoples, on film, on life, on music, on sex, on relationships.

The normal response is that our opinions are equal.

But if you barely push me, I am going to tell you what I believe, that I am better informed and I hold my self above you. Some of this stems from the fact that I have been training myself to be more experienced than you. That I am trying harder than most people to figure out what is good and what is bad.

In my opinion, there is a line between good art and bad art. If the artists intent is understood and matches the artistic output, and is cogent to the average man, then that’s art.

I think country, rap, and pop are almost always lesser than a singer songwriter, which is lesser than rock and roll bands, which is lesser than classical music like Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, and such. (and this is in the case in which something is seen by most as good)

I believe that black and white photography after the inception of color film is pretentious.

I believe that sculpture is lesser than canvas. (in close to all cases)

That novels are always better than short stories or most anything else of the written word.

There is always the question of mastery, skill, and performance. While the classical artists are on a different level of not actually being performers but planners, they work within the same boundaries, and maybe should suggest that the criteria of great music is that if other people perform it and it’s still good, then it adds to the quality of the music. While this is not a blanket statement, it is a testament to the material if you can effectively remove the original performer and it’s still as thrilling. (For instance, I don’t discount Psycho (a film I am not too keen on as a classic- it’s the dénouement for me), because of the remaking of Gus Van Sant is so much lesser-even if the said conclusion is actually more compelling)

But to the end of a side note, I still believe there is a universal truth in distinction, in which things are of quality or not. Enjoyable or a waste of time.

I believe this because I believe I have to believe it. If I want to be an artist, I have to show you something you don’t know about. I have to believe that I know better than you in the field of my passion.

I am planning on doing it better than you can do. I have to or I am not being a artist/entertainer who is worth your time.

Jim Carrey may simply be a guy who is good at getting laughs, and many discount his quality as an artist because of it (I am not one of them) , but I guarantee that his bottom motive is to be funnier than you are.

When it comes to art, I know I am more learned that 99% of the world (or at least I want to believe that).

There is a distinction between good and bad, between passable and compelling. Art for the masses and art for the learned.

Sadly, politics and the choices made seem a lot more like art discussion than it used to be.

There is almost never the clear answer in the lives of everyone, politics should always be second guessed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended a war, but it killed an unimaginable amount of people. It was, however, the right choice at the time, but it was not the best one. And by “right,” I mean the one that wound up causing the least damage. Yet I judge the right now, 60 years after, because it did saved more bad than it did wrong (for those who need a brushing up on history or at not as learned as they might need to be, the last throws of the US fight in the pacific theater was becoming almost comically terrible. We were taking towns not only by might, but by complete annihilation. To conquer a Japanese stronghold, the death toll was the town, not just the soldiers. The civilians were willingly going to fight and die.

For the 19 extremists who died, maybe 9/11 was the “best” option there was, but it was in no way the right decision. Too many of their cause have died for a lesson they wanted to teach the US did not take. And judging by the fact most American’s think that the war is about Freedom makes the death and the message of those who crashed the planes all the more worthless and misguided.

But I waited on the line of the talk show to put out an idea, that we are not noticing how many Iraqi’s we are killing in the name of the “best” plan. There are probably 100,000 people in Iraq who are dead in the name of the US response to 9/11. I didn’t say that we were in the wrong, but that maybe, we should think of that statistic when we think about the war. By the end of the war or our occupation there, my guess is that half a million will have died in the name of our cause.

Democracy may prevail. Everything Bush intended with his Neo-con agenda may wind up being the right decision. I doubt it more everyday, but I will not give up the hope that he was right (not in the hope that I support him, but that maybe all of this death was not in vain) and that the world is a better place.

Blame it on the immediacy of the media, 24 hour news, and the internet, but the patience in the world is gone, and it’s a terrible thing.

It takes a step back to realize that WWII was a period of 6 years (calling the 1939 Poland invasion the start). It took six years to beat an enemy, and it wasn’t until the last two years until the Allies stumbled upon the Holocaust. We can’t judge on the short term.

Yet we are.

And because of it, the division in this country becomes more marked and divided every time a major news story comes along. It’s not only that we hear Bush on the war, its that we have 100 talking heads talking about it immediately.

And the sad thing, is that it is not the terrorists that are winning, it’s their fanatical counterparts, the fundamental extremists.

The sane people are being marginalized to the louder points. We don’t hear that there may be a middle ground. It’s left vs. right. It’s blue states vs. the red states.

Politics are not art. There is no final product to judge upon. But we are arguing like there is, and that there is a distinction between pure good and evil.

We as a culture are becoming too divided and because people like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Alec Baldwin are preaching the extremes to prove a point and not the middle ground, the gap between grows forever wider.

You want to know what life will be like if this continues? Ask a first year film student what they think about “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” or tell them you think the prequels are better than the original trilogy of Star Wars.

It’s torture.

And that’s where we are headed.

There are always at least two sides to everything. The trick is, to paraphrase “Princess Mononoke” is “To see with eyes unclouded by hate.” To see the sides view for what it is, because most people are acting out of what they believe is best.

But to lay a deaf ear, and to continue to move to the extreme sides to prove a point only makes things worse.

The sad thing is that I don’t see a way this can happen.

There is no right answer now. Nor will there ever be at the time of action. The right answer will only be chosen through history. And the odds of it will be continually diminshed in a democracy if the sides are moving away to the extremes in hopes of winning an argument. Our country is failing becuase we are fighting for our sides, and fighting louder, instead of working with all people in mind.

Art imitates life only because it is removed from it. Life shouldn't imitate literary theory.

(continued...)

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Whatever the denim, whatever the cut, just do it! Get hot, get spun, get sexed, and have fun!

(continued...)

Link

You Make Me Wanna la la!

carnivale

Fuck all this indian summer talk... as far as I'm concerned, the summer is half over. The end of may and beginning of june are kinda like free days for you to unwind from everything that happened the throughout the year (also choice time to finally read the yearbook if you subscribe to delayed satisfaction, as I do). Hopefully there are a lot of parties, and most people are still around (before leaving on their summer trips to switzerland, or honduras, or bakersfield)... Joie de vivre, the entire summer is ahead of you, and whatever comes after is not even a consideration.

The next few weeks are a bit different. Some people have departed, maybe you've taken up a summer job, maybe you just spend every afternoon sitting by the pool, followed by a few hours of laying on top of your sheets, watching bad movies and wondering why the fan / ac doesn't work better. You're still going out most nights, but with a smaller group. You feel like solid gold because the sun doesn't set until nine, which means you can have a mild after-dinner buzz going as you watch the sun set... hopefully with your best friend(s). This is the sweet spot.

Fourth of july is supposedly the midpoint of summer, but in all of my experience, it's more like a swan song... Like graduation night and new years eve, you spend most of the night worrying that it will escape you. The time you spend with your family in the afternoon is occupied by hectic phone calls planning the perfect evening, but as with graduation and new years eve, eventually everything falls into place - you meet up with the people you love, and you're safe... safe to began anew and excited to celebrate, but more honestly, safe from being alone. You pass out with the musty combination of charcoal, gunpowder, and cheap, cheap beer, and when you wake up everything's a lil different. You spent the entire summer looking forward to that point, but the next milestone is the end of summer (save bastille's day), which forces you to do something you've been avoiding for a month and a half - think ahead. Think about the future, and about what you should be doing...

Time fast forwards after the fourth of july - the rest of the month melts away in an ear-popping limbo, and in what seems like days, august has arrived. There may be a few weeks left, but the summer is really over. If you're in high school, the next two weeks are spend visiting family you don't care about in places you hate, buying school clothes that will lose their charm after a single wearing, thinking about college and classes and athletics... who or what is going to be cool this year, who's changed for the better or worse? you planned to spend the summer with that girl or boy of your dreams, but since you never got the nerve to talk to them (much less tell him or her about your lust) all summer, you're planning some gesture of words for that final back to school party, just so you can convince yourself that you gave it a chance and have no regret.

If you're in college, the end of summer is like cramming for a final. You have to sort out your housing situation that you put off all summer, try to get the classes that you need to graduate, hope that you'll find an internship - or at least a work study job - that has anything to do with your major, all from hundreds of miles away, from your bedroom at home (as your parents will remind you, your REAL home). You spent all summer trying to readjust to your home friends, telling them elevated stories of grandeur, sharing drinking games and inside jokes that they'll just never understand, seeing how different everyone has become and then wondering how much you've changed without noticing. As you call up all of your new friends to compare summers - conquests, parties, little sisters, how square your parents are - you realize that you're closer to these people you met eleven months ago than you are to your own family and your friends from kindergarten... You gain some relaxed comfort from living with your friends 24 hours a day - an acceptance that no one is perfect and you don't have to be "on" all of the time - one of those revelations that defines who you are, and who you will be. This time is also like the septuagenerian stage of your young life - there is an overwhelming fear of mortality - since you were three or four years old, you've been in school. You've followed a structure and a linear progression - leaving mid-school was sad, but you knew you had high school to look forward to - leaving high school was traumatic, but you were excited for college. Eventually you realize that soon you're not going to have a new classes every semester and the opportunity to meet dozens of new people. You no longer have a like-minded pool of peers and possibilities - in the real world, friends come fewer and with more effort. The lines, "aren't we in the same class?" and "what's your major?" no longer exist, and the dream of fucking an innocent lil freshman girl is exceedingly less realistic.

And then you realize that there are no more summers. You could try to chase after your lost memories - maybe even try to re-live a careless summer - but it will never be the same, because in the real world you don't get to start over just because it's august.

I've always been afraid of change, so summer did for me what i could never do myself - it tied up all of the previous year's loose ends, and assuringly provided me with a new adventure at its end. Why Not was my last summer, and without hesitation the best summer of my life.

This summer I haven't done a single fucking thing. I've never been so aware of my age, nor assured of my childhood suspicion that, yes, indeed, summers as a grown up do suck!

The crux in Clueless comes far before Cher realizes that she loves Josh - it comes when she's robbed at Circus Liquor in the Valley. She is vulnerable for the first time, but it opens her to a new sense of confidence and maturity that allows for her transformation in the second act. As I sat below this icon on a hundred degree north hollywood afternoon, sipping an icy diet coke as I watched pornstars battle their way through friday afternoon gridlock, this post apocalyptic summer unraveled before me... Who's the real clown steazie?... Who's the real clown?

(continued...)

Frodo form 6 25 2005

Ramblings and short comings.

Jessica Simpson’s “the boots are made for walking” is out and now and is seeing decent rotation on MTV hits.

The song is a production disaster. She really can’t coo and she fails to sell a lot of the song.

Also the chorus is beyond miserable. You can’t ask for shout outs or yee hah’s when you are at a 3 when we need you at a 7.



Willie Nelson should be spinning in his grave

*being tapped on the shoulder. Wait, he’s not dead. That’s actually him in the video. My apologies to the redhead genius.*

Anyway, the video is pretty hot. Or at least Jessica looks good. She, and I can’t stress this enough, can NOT pull of sexy. Her sister can, and so can Amerie and Shakira. Jessica’s sexuality stems solely from her looks and she’s so attractive you overlook her cold fish demeanor. I mean Jessica seems like a girl you would stare at all day, but would only stay in the missionary. Her sister gives the aura of “I’ll fuck you in the bathroom.” That’s sexy.

On a side note. There was an old show on VH1 where they got a bunch of 30 something’s together and had them judge what is sexy in videos. The only one video women thought was sexy was Faith Hill’s Breath, where Faith is in a semi-backless silver gown. Very elegant, very classic. The men agreed but on the shows scale of 1-100 1 being masturbation with a chastity belt and 100 being jailbait escaped convict sex, this was the only video the women put above 50. When they showed the Fiona’s criminal video, the males were near 90, the women near 10.

Batman Begins: A minor masterpiece. Some stuff about it bothers me in retrospect, and I think it might not be as good the second time around. But the story telling is absolutely fantastic. From the repeated lines/mottos to the control of time via flashbacks and jumps is quite frankly as impressive an accomplishment for Nolan as Memento was. It’s not as inherently mind blowing or revolutionary, but the fact that he is able to start with an old Bruce Wayne and then weave in the origin story without making it seem like exposition is a tremendous accomplishment. The fact that we don’t see the actual Bat Suit until about 100 minutes in is something special. The old record was Superman which took 70 minutes till we saw the tights and cape, and while Donner made it great, it isn’t nearly as enthralling of start as Batman Begins.

The storytelling in this film is some of the best I have seen in a while, maybe since American Beauty.

One of these days I am going to do a journal of MTV’s video channels (2, Hits, Jams, VH1 classic, VH1 Soul, and the originals) for 8 to 10 hours straight and put in on here. Here’s a little taste.

My Chemical Romance: Helena. While I have watched the opening of the I’m ok video where they riff on the 80’s Hughes films and use the return of the Jedi font at least 30 times, it sucks after that.

Helena is an awful experience. It’s pretty much what would happen if the goth kids and dweebs ever got to put on a show for the school like “Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure.” Can you fathom what it would be like if the goth kids and drama students were to force you to watch a production of their creation. Miserable.

If the lead singer of the group ever stumbles upon this:

Dude, stop the whispering as singing.

Singles of the year thus far:

Beck – E –pro. This is what mainstream would have been if Britney Spears and the Backstreet boys died in 99. One can dream.

Bloc Party – Banquet. This is probably going to be the song of the year. Just genius. The songwriting follows a formula to a point, but it doesn’t go all the way. It reminds me of John Lennon post Beatles and Talking Heads, where you think they are going to do something normal or formulaic, but instead challenge the song.

For Lennon, listen to Watching the Wheels or Instant Karma. He is able to trick you into thinking the chorus is coming earlier, but it doesn’t.

For the heads, listen to once in a lifetime. I’ve always loved the chorus because they drop the word “ground” and "head" at the end of the line instead of bringing it up, and they go right into the next line.

Banquet has multi-layered harmonies. They build to big drama, but the outcome is not predictable. The delivery is peppered with nuance and local accents.

It’s one of those songs that reinvigorates my view on rock, yet serves as a reminder that American rockers outside of the south or south Jersey tend to never try these things, and why they tend to suck. (Not Secret Machines, though, I just lump them in with the southerners because they played Bonaroo)

And, I’m up in 3 hours.

David

(continued...)

A Million Miles Away

not managing to name the specialty of his desire for the loved being, the amorous subject falls back on this rather stupid word: adorable.

i forget all the reality in paris which exceeds its charm... i see only the object of an aesthetically restrained desire.

The adorable is what is adorable. Or again: I adore you because you are adorable, I love you because I love you.
       a lovers discourse, roland barthes

when i say that she is adorable, it's never to condescend. i say she is adorable to express some amazement, to be fascinated with something - her, all of her, her words, her face, her tone, her sparkle - that cannot be fetishized because it is intangible! the beauty of love and the adorable is that there's no one thing that I can say, "this is it! this is why...!"

i used to play tetris ad infinitum. it was intriguing because it is an unbeatable, unrepeatable game - you take a different path with each new game but the pieces never change. each new piece connects to form something unique but ultimately futile. you can play continually, but will never win - the game only ends once you've failed. she is my new tetris. and she knows it.

being adorable is delightfully deceiving because it shifts desire from a girl or from an object to the notion of what is adorable... the beauty of this is that though an object of desire can depart, its intangible radiance, its aura will persist as long as you allow it. the thing that's lost though is the best and most selfish hope - the dream that one day the object of your love will love you back.

I can never answer the question, why do you love her?
once you answer a question you move on... i'm happy where i am.
but guys do like gadgets more, and girls who think otherwise are adorable.

being adorable is delightfully deceiving because it shifts desire from
a girl or from an object to the notion of what is adorable...
the beauty of this is that though an object of desire can depart, its
intangible radiance, its aura will persist as long as you allow it. the
thing that's lost though is the best and most selfish hope - the dream
that one day the object of your love will love you back.

I can never answer the question, why do you love her?
once you answer a question you move on... i'm happy where i am.
but guys do like gadgets more, and girls who think otherwise are
adorable.

(continued...)

Peaches n Creamy

Remember that time when you listened to ToyBox while talking about the emo gothie chick's foxy jailbait sister and new york dolls loving non-gay brother? Danielle Harris should have stopped growing at eleven, and Lauren Greenfield gets style tips from Christina Applegate...
Jayne Brook is like Maura Tierney, but so. much. more

(continued...)

Frodo form on coldplay, PSP, and waking up alone

(Another) New running installment that lets me post little bits. I'll call it Frodo form writing.

Bought the new Coldplay album. I don’t like to review or comment on new albums until I have listened to them for at least 10 days. You just don’t get the snap judgment with other media like TV and movies or books as you do with music. Perhaps because it’s the way we ingest it, while we are doing something else (driving, working, playing on the computer or videogames – which is one reason I love madden, I can go through a season and a bunch of albums in a night).

But early thoughts

· The band has hit a new high in terms of musicianship. Just smarter, more coherent and sometimes brilliant structure.
· Martin sounds a lot more mature on this one. This is not really that welcome or bad. It is just a little bit different. He fits with the band more than before, but somehow he’s a little bit lacking. More skill, less soul.
· They are lacking patience somehow. I just do not hear the thoughtfulness or longing as in the first album, and somewhat in the second.
· There are a couple of songs where the guitar line is the same as the vocal track, note wise. I have never liked this, and it’s why I never liked Alice In Chains.
· Fix you is a keeper. Even with lyrics you see coming lines before Martin sings it, it has a fantastic melancholy sense about it. The organ permeates the first half, making you think that it’s a mood track in comes slight acoustic guitar that seems more harmonic then part of the melody. And the song takes off, full blast. This is my favorite type of song. Songs that have a build that comes out of nowhere, and take over the song. It’s why I love Radiohead. Plus the climax completely redeems the awful writing in the beginning (when you try your best and you don’t succeed / when get what you want but don’t what you need, just horrible. I expect better from Rob Thomas. On his worst day.)


Their writing is atrocious. It is too simple. It has always been their style to not overwrite, and to stream together lines. But somewhere around the second album they started writing really simple lines and putting them in with other lines. For instance, Clocks:

Singing come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease

The first two lines are great. The last two always made me cringe.

Even with a song likes spies on the album; I still think that Parachutes was one of the best-written albums ever made. They are coherent in a simple, yet difficult way. Yellow is a great example. The lyrics are a perfect compliment to the song, and they look good on paper, even if they are simplistic. It’s not quite the Smiths, but it’s not as homosexual as well.

But the new album is full of lines like the second bit of the Clocks stanza. Just miserable clichés passed off as songwriting. Drives me nuts. And it’s part of the reason I am unable to sit through the entire album yet.

You wait for albums to be fully ingrained in your mind, this one is almost too familiar, and that is not a good thing. Thats why I am writing about it. After 3 listens I feel like I already have heard the lryics.

There is a wide gap between underwriting for songs and overwriting, and the middle is almost impossible to get right. There is Radiohead for the under part, stringing together bits and pieces, and Dylan for the over writing, where you look at a long sheet of lyrics that are seemingly disconnected but it paints a picture all together. Dylan’s skill is so far beyond anyone (Paul Simon and Morrissey being a distant second and third) you take it for granted. Look at Vision’s of Johanna.

Inside the museums Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while.
But even Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues,
you can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze.
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze,
Hear the one with the mustache say "Jeeze, I can't find my knees."
Jewels and binoculars hag from the head of the mule,
But these visions of Johanna they make it all seem so cruel.

The jewels and binoculars line is one of the most cited as Dylan’s ability. It’s almost nonsense, but instead of being hippy mash like his contemporaries (think sometimes Dylan coverers Fairport Convention) it’s part of a larger picture.

Radiohead lyrics are so minimal it takes some deciphering. Black star is not really about the cosmos, but about a girl who keeps cheating on the singer.

Both, in all real senses of the word, are poetry. They aren’t Geography 3, but they are done well enough it takes an intelligent person to get the true meaning, yet can be enjoyed by most. We just tend to discount them as we become more learned. But I can tell you this, we will see 10 Frosts before we see another Dylan.

The happy medium between underwritten and overwritten is almost impossible to hit. The beatles did this better than anyone. Smart but not too smart or hard to get (though Harrison tried for the latter). Drive By Truckers can do this, and do it in a slice of life way that is nothing short of amazing. The Clash were great at this. As are the Strokes. It's one of the reasons I like and adamantly defend them. They may sound a lot like television and be too hipster, but they can write some solid lyrics.

Anyway, Parachutes was a great effort that hit the mark perfectly on the middle ground. They were able to stretch simple lines into choruses and connect them to other lines to make a sum greater than the whole of the parts. That was why I liked Coldplay.

I can’t help the feeling though, that X Y misses the middle, and does so in a terrible fashion. It’s really rotten in parts despite the bands improved sound. Even if it sounds better, it lacks something of a soul. I can only hope it gets better. Emphasis the hope part.

Well, that was supposed to be shorter.

Anyway.

Two other notes:

My PSP. I am a little under whelmed because there aren’t any great games for it. I have not spent more than 2 hours on any game where I am not doing anything else. Which is not as bad as it seems. The games I like are simple and easy to pick up. It’s fantastic to play while watching the news or a baseball game. Talk about ADD.

For society, it’s a bad thing. For me, ehh, I like it but it’s probably not too good.

The Cubbies.

They are starting to get hot. And they are doing it without their three marquee players. But above all, they are playing the Red Sox. Never in your life will you see a series like this where the fans and the teams actually feel like brethren. As much as I would love to see the Cubs win it all, I came upon the realization a bit ago that I just love the cubs, for all of they represent. And quite frankly, I’ll die happy if I can live to 80 and still watch the Cubs play in Wrigley Field, even if they never win. Because it’s not a curse that rules the team, we only think of it now because of the Sox hype and how bad the 03 loss was.

But you don’t watch the Cubs to watch them win. It’s because you love them. I can’t think of any other club in the world like that.

One last thought (which is not a note)

One of the things I miss most about college is waking up to find people in your house. I don’t mind living with only one person, esp. one who is a contributor to this blog and a good friend, but I miss having other people there who force you to do things. Peer pressure is probably as good of a reason not to recover from your hangover than anything else. I think life gets more boring as we get older because we don’t have enough people to come up with enough ideas to act on.

Too often I try to get people to stay at my house, if only for the next morning. I like being shaken from my routine. Twice I have asked someone to stay at my place this week, one male one female. It’s not really that I want their company for the rest of the night, it’s that most of the truly enjoyable meals I have followed a night of drinking or hanging out. It’s a sweet coda I miss too much.

(continued...)

Binge & Purge

Photography is a unique art form. With other forms an artist attempts to create something - a figurative likeness, a visual metaphor, an outpouring of emotion, whatevs. But with photography, the author of the work captures a scene, a moment in time, a perspective of reality as a physical representation of his or her expression & sentiment.

Yes, philosophers' pens have bled tomes of rhetoric romanticizing the photographer's ability to paint with light, defining the fetish of the frame, and explaining that a captured scene only exists through the eyes of the photographer - all are true, but photography will always remain a unique entity as a visual art form.

Everyone has some voyeuristic tendency, but photographers are a bit more obsessive - they do not simply appreciate what they see, they must capture it so they may experience it again. That's where the creation process - the art - of photography begins. It's also where photography departs from other art forms, and why I am so intrigued by the medium.

Whereas a painting or a sculpture [even in the case of photorealism] is always understood as a representation or an expression, a photograph is often considered to be reality captured. Since the mediums inception artists - from the Lumiere Brothers and WeeGee to Annie Leibovitz and Andy Warhol - have tested the limits of the reality that exists within the frame of a camera, and though they did so in very different ways, each captured not only a visual presence but also a hyperreality: what that subject represents (kinda the antithesis of Abstract Expressionism). Auguste Lumiere did not captivate all of France with moving pictures of a train station, but with the feeling of standing before a speeding locomotive. Weegee's photos created false reality - stories of crime and horror that actually never happened but were far more interesting than the Truth. Warhol was Warhol - he defined art, photography, icon, et al as we know them, but he took Weegee's style out / to hte next by actually creating the Truth with his photos - creating icons and identities in the real world that were a product of his photographs. Leibovitz took documentary photography and portraiture and gave it a signature - she rejected the Death of the Author to create photographs that are as much a product of her as they are images of celebrity & iconography... and did so with feminine grace. (to be continued...)

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My Favorite Class

Though I wound up going into the world of literature and media for my college education, I always feel a tinge of sadness that I never pursued science any further. I wasn’t the best at the actual experiments, namely because I lacked the slow discipline to prove it right. Deep down I believe that the truth can be born out of logic, reason, and argument, which often lead to a lack of patience in proving an experiment. Few things ran my imagination as wild as science though. In some forms, it is the path of proof and causality, distilling the complex in to smaller more digestible forms and figuring out how they fit together and why they worked; in others is it an attempt to take that causality and put it into reverse, an act of alchemy to create a new creation from pre-existing elements to form a new substance or elicit a combined effect from the properties of select items. Some studies deducing the explosive reaction of a new element to a set of preexisting life forms. Others are fueled by the desire of creation, to figure out a riddle before the riddle changes life permanently. The former is a practice of slow, determined, and calculated moves, where the end result can take years. The latter can take lifetimes, for sure, but there is also the promise of an almost divine conception, where a simple change of ingredients (often accidental) can spawn something that changes the world forever.

Science is actually the most basic of all studies and the most impossibly difficult at the same time, the paradox stemming from the fact that once the answer is discovered, it’s remarkably easy to figure out why. Getting there can be impossible. Science can (and hopefully will) cure AIDS, allow us travel to other galaxies, and endow us with the ability to live in our 18 year old body form forever. Getting there is the hard part, because the path is unknown. When you connect a certain filament to a power source you get light, it’s figuring out which filament and perfect environment that’s the hard part

Its no mystery then, since I was more inclined to, and would pursue, the creative path; I always was fascinated by the latter practice. I’d rather paint my own picture than connect the dots.

This is not to say I did not love the deduction side of science, and the known results. Not only do the known results hold the proofs to build theories like evolution, space-time, and existence in some form or another, but science lets you know other little marvels that history has already revealed, like that when anything in the sodium family (the first column of the periodic table) touches water, sparks literally fly.

It was my tenth grade chemistry class. It covered the basic and introductory teachings of the practice of combination.

Our teacher, Ms. Doepken, was a graduate student fresh out of her academic course. She was a mere 25, and was bright eyed and excited about her new prospects. Though this was not her final stop in her career, this was certainly one she didn’t think she’d despise. She was intelligent too. Not just book smart, but street smart as well.

She was also the speech and debate coach, and me in my theatrical personality joined to handle the radio section. (it was pretty much me ad libbing the news. I loved it, I could do jokes and get college resume stuffing. I once did a live interview with Harry Caray and myself, and a news brief that essentially turned into me doing the hindenburg crash. Oh the humanity indeed.) This allowed us to get another, non teacher side of her personality, and was genuinely affable about the whole thing, telling us stories and showing us a human side.

She had 3 different classes, the 1st and 2nd period class, the 4th and 5th session, and my class, the 8th and (final period of the day) 9th.

Doepken received raves about her first two classes. She was able to handle them without rookie fear and was able to engage the classes in an academic matter by appealing to the students with entertaining experiments in the first quarter of classes. She didn’t simply teach the material, she was able to engage them into learning it. She was hip enough to respect on a social level, and smart enough to command one’s involvement.

The tactic she won over most of the kids with was the mole project. For reasons I have since forgot, there is a shortened term for 6 times 10 to the 23rd power referred to as Moles. It is more scientifically called Avragado’s number for the discover, so why they called them Moles instead Avragado’s (or avocados, everyone like avocados) is beyond me. The project was simply to construct a mole made out of felt and stuffed with cotton and bring it to class.

The other classes liked this, because even though they knew it was stupid, trivial busywork, it still wasn’t a tedious lab report (and who likes showing work, honestly).

But, as you surely have noticed, I have not mentioned my class yet. The short story is we enjoyed these moles (the project not the term) far too much. The long story is as such.

Park Tudor’s 1996 to 1997’s 8th and 9th period Chemistry is likely canonized as the worst collection of students ever assembled in a class in the history of the school. While the worst class is usually cited as the class that smoked in the back of class in our school*, I can’t imagine a more difficult collection of students to spend a year with.

* Mind you this was a private school, where decorum is a standard, and though I am sure public schools have worse collections of bad students who commit bad deeds on far worse levels because they aren’t disciplined, this is a different breed of troublemaking, one made not from lack of authority, but in spite of it.

The class roster:

Brian M.: This was one of the stoner kids of the Junior class. Aside from not really caring, he would actively antagonize the teacher by making clicking noises.

Steve: A kid who was more interested in drama than in the practical works (in this case, he wasn’t gay) who was a Senior, and was only trying to get the bare minimum grade.

Jay (or Dave) M.: there was a set of twins in the year two ahead of us, and one of them was in this class. That I remember, even if I can’t remember which one. These kids were the heir to an airline. They really didn’t care. He would show up late, and best (worst of all) took pride in being a tremendous bastard. He always would ask “Gaslight” questions, ones that drove the teacher nuts and had little relevance on the class, especially since he wasn’t going to use the material anyway.

Casey M.: A kid who wound up dating my sister for years, he was one of the few kids in my year who would pick Pac over Zeppelin. A rich kid who was destined to work for the family business, he cared little about school in general. A good guy, and a fun kid, but he was one of the laid back types who never put much effort into what he didn’t see as interesting.

Wade K.: Casey’s friend / lackey. A goofy kid with a good heart who tried to be one of the cool kids but failed with desperate motives. Smart, but easily turned to the lazy side. He was a stem cell personality. Put him next to a jock and he’d be a jock, a burnout and he’d be a burn out. Fun, but weak-willed. Men like these types as friends because they are loyal, and they often fail miserably in simple actions that allow us to laugh endlessly. At them.

Jon G.: The resident genius of the class. In a year of absolutely gifted kids, he was #3 in terms of brilliance. My class had a kid who went to Harvard a year early and one the national science award, a girl who was the first woman ever to make the national math team. Saying he was #3 may seem like he’s lesser, but in any other school, he’d be the Einstein in a collection of Gumps. This kid was one of my best friends in lower and middle school, but never figured out how to be cool. He had a great heart, but his fatal flaw in High School was trying to fit in with personalities he wasn’t akin to. He was great though, as he was able to teach us information we as 16 year olds have no right to know (like if you light magnesium oxide on fire, it will last for days on it’s own because, being self sustaining as a chemical, it can’t be put out).

Bill N.: The closest thing to a burnout my year had. Smart kid whose natural ambition turned into lazy malevolence about midway through this year. Didn’t care about getting in trouble, but smart enough to raise his goofing off to an impressively destructive level.

The girls: I can’t for the life remember their names (there might have even been three, but they did little). All I know is that there were two girls in the class compared to the 13 or so guys, and they couldn’t care less about chem..

Bobby M. and Brian H.: Two of my best friends thru high school. They were two wildly different kids, but I lump them together because they both: 1. always got A’s. 2. Once every 2 weeks would miss half or more of the class playing basketball and getting a gym teacher to write them an excuse (this was Indiana). 3. Were brilliant enough to get the good grades that allowed them to get away with petty crimes.

Josh C.: One of my best friends to this date. When ever I think of Indiana, I think of him. He, like me, went to college out of state. Unlike me, he returned to Indiana. While he endured cold winters in Maine, I was in comfy California. While he didn't have to live through the recall election that put an action hero in the states highest office, he also didn't get the Southen Cali weather. Which is probably why he returned to Indy and I didn't. But he is what I consider middle America, smart, hard working, a man of great wit, and loving to everything. But as to this story, he was a model Midwestern kid, a complete bastard to athourity. You couldn't hate him because he did good. You just couldn't love him because he was always trying to make the world of a teacher more difficult. On a side note he is the only friend of mince I have ever heard get busy. It was in my friends' Will Z.'s cabin, and in between tracks of Disenegration by the Cure, I heard him and his current (then soon to be) wife making out; and heard the words, "take off my pants, it's ok." Soon after the next man on the list came into the room and put on a CD. When I asked him what he was putting on, he had put on the Beastie Boys, and when the album came on, he simply yelled, "YEAH!!!!"

Brad D.: I have wrote about Brad before. He is one of the most street-smart kids I have ever known. He was a made arguer, and could outsmart most anyone in a conversation. So much so that he had an ability to convince you of impossible circumstances. He once convinced a road trip that markings on bananas were due to a killer named bananaman. It’s not that he was trying to get you in a joke, he just could build up false scenarios so well, you bought them because he was so convincing. He wound up getting funniest kid of the year (I was second) in the yearbook. Just a vital contributor to any class.

Me.: Mirth maker who liked getting good grades but cared more about being remembered than getting high marks. Able to take concepts to even higher levels. A teachers worst nightmare: A kid that respected and wants to please the teacher as much as they want to be liked for being funny and bring the teach down a notch. (This was my “bring them down to my level” phase)

Back to the moles. The other classes saw a project that didn’t involve math. We as a class looked at the project and gave a collective, what the fuck is this. Moles, you want to have us make stuffed moles. While a few of the goody two shoes turned in moles, the rest of us decided against it. Our class participation in this class was probably 70% less than any of the other classes.

But as these moles pilled up, we found we had projectiles to throw all over the place. Not a good thing. Obviously. Brad sat on the right side of the class room and would take any item he could find in the drawers and cause mischief with them. Consequently, this was where the moles often rested, and from his angle in the room, he was in a blind spot to hurl the moles all over the room, and often at poor Doepken. She was at one point reduced to taking a plastic barrier and using it as a shield.

16 and 17 for boys is probably the worst time to know them if you are not family, and especially if you are an authority figure. We were terrible, to say the least. Some of the better antics.

During one of the experiments, Bill N. hooked up a high-pressure faucet to a connector tube. And then connected the other end another high pressure faucet. And turned them on. Poor Doepken got soaked, as the tube began to expand with pure force.

Jon G. home made a beeper with a 10-foot cord activator button. He hid the noise box and every few moments would set it off. This lasted 10 minutes. A few days later she left the room and we found it for later use.

One day the Headmaster of the school made a playful gesture that Ms. Doepken was carrying a bun in the oven. Which she was not. Why she then told us is beyond me. But that day was a test, and she always put up extra credit questions on the board for us. Usually they were 80’s trivia, but this time the question was what two books are on my nightstand. Brad’s answer, “The works of Dr. Spock,” mine was “what to expect when you’re expecting.” In retrospect, nothing would have been funnier than “an abortion packet,” but ces’t la vie.

At one point, we were encouraged to give better names to our lab reports.

Some of the resulting titles:

Equilibria!
Coping with Being an Alcoholic
Burning Dog Poo and the human response
Magnesium Oxide Batteries: Why I no longer believe Jesus Christ is our savior

Some days the class would denigrate into sound wars. Where Steve and Brian M. would constantly make click and clacking noises and Brad would try to drum most of the song wipeout on his desk. One day we started doing car wash in the back of class. I drummed bum-bum-bumbumbabum-bum. Brian H would make the ch-ch-ch-cha-cha-cu noises.

We also had a running argument what the sounds of the coconuts in Holy Grail sounded like and why they needed it needed to be replicate with two hands instead of one.

Though it was a year later, I went into the classroom on a day they were showing a movie. I unplugged the RCA cords and put them into new slots. Doepken went home early, but the teacher giving the class apparently had a fit unmatched in anger for a while.

We drew pictures of the nerdy kids in our year and put them on the bulletin board. Some were blue in nature, other just plain mean. My favorite: Doug Hunt, which was a drawing of the nerdiest kid in our class in a video game scenario where he was shot and retrieved by dogs.

This was one of the first years of calculator games. The internet had gotten to a point where you could d’l games for your TI-82 or TI-85 and we essentially had found a game boy we could use in class. Tetris, Race, and worms were huge, but no phenomenon was bigger than DrugWar (a program I d’ld and spread to the school, a thank you very much). In short, we were one of the reasons calcs were banned from almost all classes.

And so, it continued like this, us trying to push the buttons and extend the envelope.

Now, to the two best moments.

1. Word of the day.

By the third quarter, the moles were locked up and Brad was moved to the side away from the drawers full of goodies. Thinking about good ideas, we came up with word of the day, a la Pee Wee’s Play House. The first day, the word was log, as in logarithmic.

Bobby M: What button do we push on our calculators to make this work.?

Doepken: That’s the LOG button.

Me, Brad, Brian, Bobby, Jon. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. YIP YIP YIP.

Doepken: Huh. Anyway, LOG is…

Me, Brad, Brian, Bobby, Jon. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. YIP YIP YIP.

Doepken: short for 10 times, ahh forget it.

This continued for a few days, and eventually she figured out that I was the ringleader. Before one class, the following exchange happened.

Doepken: Ok David, what’s the word of the day?

Me: Genital Chafing.

To this date, I have no idea where that answer came from. She said she should give me a detention, but she would have to tell the principal why I was given the discipline. She had no intention of saying genital chafing to her boss.

2. The Inner Sanctum

Being grown adults who chose science as a profession, it is no question that science teachers were dorks in high school. Some of the rooms of the science wing were hard to get to, and were given fun names, the most notable being the Batcave, where the AP chem. class was taught. It was only accessible thru the means of a teacher, which made it all the more mysterious and taboo.

We always pleaded to have class in the Batcave, but to no avail. We told her we already knew where it was, and that it was no big deal. But she insisted no. But Doepken made a fatal error in mentioning there was another. The most secret of all rooms in the school.

THE INNER SANCTUM.

We bothered her for months about this. Almost daily.

So, one day, we are sitting in class for the lecture session of a double period. Bobby and Brian stumbled in 20 minutes late, claiming they didn’t hear the bell in the gym. About this time, Wade put his hand up on to the lab table behind him to help him tip in his chair. The class before us had done a lousy job cleaning up, and Wade got some of the chemicals on his hand. He then rubbed his eyes.

Wade: Ms. Doepken? My eyes are burning. Can I use the eye wash.

Doepken: No. (she thought this was a prank)

A few seconds pass.

Wade: Seriously, I think I may have put something bad in my eyes.

She came over and looked at his hand, which was covered in a chemical that was not visine.

Doepken: Go, go.

The entire class rose to watch.

As the class gathered round the eye wash to see this device thought solely to be ornamental in action, I took it as a chance to find the mysterious room.

I ventured back in the supply rooms, and then I stumbled upon it, a small room which read do not enter. I knew what I was looking at almost as if it were fate.

I rushed out: I found it, I found the inner sanctum!!!

The general chaos with the eye wash and my proclamation could not prevent Doepken from stopping me as I ran out into the hall yelling, “I found it, I found the inner sanctum!!!“ up and down the hall manically.

It was at this point she forced us to do a lab she was going excuse us from doing (we had been good for a week or so), and at this point Bill N connected the tubes and Doepken was drenched. Class was called soon after.

Soon after the inner sanctum incident, Doepken cooled and took a different approach. She knew the seniors (one of the twins and Steve) were going to graduate and stopped trying to make them care about the teachings and worry more about the grade. She eased up her authority, and got us to respect her more as a person instead of an authority figure. She would lay down the line, but did so in a way that we became hesitant to cross it. It was action through inaction; very Buddhist and effective. We wound down the rest of the year, using the ridiculous paper titles to vent our hormonal rage.

To this date, I still don’t think any class has ever had such a terrible collection of students in one setting. It was not that we were all bad kids; far from it in fact. The universal trait every student save Jon had (and he tried to make up for it), was that we were slackers. Not in the purely lazy sense, but fueled from defiance. And while not everyone is the class were friends, we rarely ever fought amongst ourselves. We saw a weakness and we as a group exploited it. The opening presented itself and the class was never the same.

The catalyst, was of course the teacher, who was just green enough at her job to think she had the skills to win, and was not far enough removed from her own experiences to not recognize the cause of our actions.

Maybe I cherish this memory more than I should. And even with 3500 words, I still didn’t really do it justice. All of the stuff seems a bit tamer now since I have been through college, (Halloween on a campus will do that for anyone- the horror, the horror) yet few of the stories me and my friends from high school have make us laugh as hard as those of Doepken. I still can’t stop from smiling when I think that we continued to throw moles at a teacher, or that she didn’t kill us for our drum solos, or that I actually said the phrase “genital chafing” in real life, and I particularly relish saying it to a female authority figure.

I suppose I just miss High School some days. It’s fun to relive it, but I think we are all trying to recreate it in someway, whether to get back or to right the wrongs.

Obviously, I am trying to do the latter. It’s what brought me here to LA, I suppose.

(continued...)

Someday love will find you, break those chains

1 video capsule and one look back at what may be the funniest thing in history.

Current video review:

The Arcade Fire: Rebellion (lies)

This band made the best album of last year. Hands down. Even with the bands immense talent, their fame could be pinned more on Pitchfork.com, (the best music site on the net) who gave the album a 9.7. It brought a notoriety in America to the band they sorely lacked and really deserved.

The video falls into the Radiohead “Knives Out” category, where there is a bunch of well meaning and thought put into the video, it just falls short as a whole.

1. The whole streaks of light attached to the drummer’s sticks. Where did this come from, and what does it mean.

2. The end is at a cemetery and it shows the group following the band (think Pied Piper) hiding under a giant sheet. It ties into the song and might be effective if it wasn’t comical to watch.

3. The whole old tyme video thing. Just a failed experiment from frame one. It’s impossible to tell who the people are, it puts you in an atmosphere that is never explained and the video does nothing with it.

The song is not one of the best on the album (it’s still rather good and somewhat catchy) but it’s a little lingering and it doesn’t have a very good structure. This to me, means not a single.

I see it (as a fan) as a decent view to the band, and lets you see the band is eschewing the formulas and isn’t concerned about style over substance.

People who don’t know the band will look and go: What the fuck is this?

Grade: C+

So now on to:

Separate Ways

Journey

It’s hard to describe Journey. They may be the worst band of all time that are actually enjoyable. Of the 70’s and 80’s supergroups, Styx was far less talented and took their music as serious as the pope takes Catholicism, leading to a stage production of a rock opera about robots. Kansas was more talented but were so overblown their songs read more like a didactic preaching than ballads. Bon Jovi was only liked by girls. Van Halen was only appreciated by men. Motley Crüe were great for biographies and for reality TV shows of the 2000’s, but not much else.

Journey had basic songwriting skills at best. They were decent musicians, and actually could play and learned how to perform. This has made good bands before (like Van Halen or Soundgarden). They also had a distinctive sound, which is what really helped them elevate to the top of the charts. There are few songs in their catalogue that you would be hard pressed to say don’t sound like Journey. That’s a good thing.

Steve Perry was one of the worst front men of all time. His voice is terrible monotone in temblor that any time he tries for range he sounds like a parody of all music of his period. It’s a weird paradox, he sounded terrible, and his lyrics were repetitive and stupid, but he could deliver them. Bad material, yet matched with a solid delivery that fit in with the band’s style.

You would never willingly choose this personality bereft man to lead your band if you were doing a rotisserie music group. He is startlingly unattractive, a reputed dick and loser in real life, and with a voice that is only remarkable in falsetto.

None of their songs should ever be put on a top 100 list. EVER. Not even Don’t stop believing.

I know this band is terrible, but I like them in spite of it all. They just have a sound that makes me feel like drinking and acting outside of myself.

The song is driven by a crunching guitar and drumline. It’s not a bad starting point. But add the falsetto and it gets worse, but still passable. Add the staccato singing of the chorus and repetition of lines for no reason (two, two, two; pain, pain, pain), which Perry takes to new heights. Counterbalance all of this with a terrible keyboard synth and you have separate ways. Everyone in the band is at 110% involvement in this song. Playing, singing, and stretching way too hard.

But back to the video:

1. 90% of the time anyone sings in the video, they start 90 degrees away from the camera, and then turn when singing.

2. The band mock plays their instruments for half the video. This includes the drummer and keyboardist. (read that last sentence again.)

3. Every shot of the band is at least 5 feet too close.

4. The woman seems to walk to the guitar line. (trust me, it’s eerie)

5. It’s shot on shipping yards. I mean, this is a video that takes place on a wharf. A wharf which restricts them to not playing their instruments half the time, including the drummer and keyboardist.

6. The final shot is not of the band, but of a girl laying in bed with headphones on, presumably listening to the song. Is it the same girl? I can’t actually tell with her being profile and the fact that all we really see of her in the video is her ass walking in step to the synth line. That and the fact it’s unlikely she could make it from the wharf to her bed so fast.

In the classic MTV’s 25 lame, this one made the top 15. While the ones above it were populated with crap we fell for like Rico Suave and Ice, Ice, Baby, (only two of the vids could match this one, Heartbeat by Don Johnson and Whatsupwitchu by Eddie Murphy and MJ clearly feeling the pain of the mid 80s), this is one of those videos that is SO lame that it’s hard to even fathom how transcendently crapful it is.

But I must tell you, I know I this review is lacking. The truth is that I am amiss in actually coming up with a coherent way of describing it to you. It’s not that it’s done horribly, it’s that it’s done in a way that the choices made are so bad that it ruins any artistry to the song or video.

Separate Ways is like the anti- Casablanca. In the classic film, it’s the little elements that make the simple story so memorable. It’s not the fact that Rick lets Ilsa go, it’s the road they had to take that creates the impact, and with the backstory of the film being that lines were given to actors without knowing the next line, the end result is one of perfect luck. Everything went right in making this memorable.

With Separate Ways, it’s like everything coalesced to create a video that is so awful it’s hysterical. The emotions are SO misplaced by Steve Perry that he comes off more like a overzealous preacher than a singer. It’s not that you don’t believe him, you are anticipating the moment to lambaste him. It’s not that the band mock playing doesn’t make sense at all, it’s that it ruins the whole point of music videos with musicians. It breaks a fourth wall in which we are actually supposed to believe that they are performing for the camera. It’s not that they simply denied to play, it’s that they thought that they could convince us that the effect is the same.

In any year, only a handful of videos are going to be tolerable. Even fewer of those will be of quality. The rest of the heap is a mass of crap. Some of the crap is watchable for reasons unrelated to the music (think anything you have ever thought naughty things about while watching {side note: don’t you wish your girl was hot like me}).

Like Simple Plan’s Untitled, this video does everything wrong to the point of absolute glory for those with a ironic sensibility. Which is about how I view Journey.

Grade: 0/100

Dave’s Entertainment value: 110/100

(continued...)

Cramouille

She's not who you think she is. Sometimes the world sucks and it's no one's fault...

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.
-- Arthur Miller

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