New Yorkers

My Favorite Haters are having a party this Saturday.

Come dance, drink and screw. What, you got something else to do ooh ooh? Ahh!

My Mantra

All the shit that runs through my mind every day in one paragraph. I really want to formulate a good response to this but I can't seem to devise the spine around which the flesh of my response could attach itself*.

Suffice it to say:

Why has music become significantly less important to me over the past few years? And why does it bother me less and less that this is so?

If the italicized (by me) words are true then you are lucky! If it doesn't bother you then don't let it+. As for me, I added about 300 records to my online wantlist this week just out of boredom at work which means I will be spending another year keeping myself up at night asking myself these same questions.

*A lot of my thoughts revolve around age these days. The upcoming birthday is number thirty. I have a little essay on the backburner that may never be finished, but it at least has a good title: If there is such a thing as adulthood, please explain Las Vegas.

+ I used to think the unexamined life was not worth living until I realized that I had become so busy examining that I had ceased to provide myself with the raw materials for these examinations.

Another Link

Don't know why I always forget to read this man. Who is he? Well, he writes for AMG and has written excellent reviews for the albums of many of my favorite groups that share the following traits: British, diffident, and reverb-obsessed.

Also the author of a classic list of 90s records. Under 25? Want to ride the retro-indie zeitgeist to Taco Bell endorsment deals? Figure out which record here sold the least. Download it. Figure out how it was recorded. Imitate. Imitate. Imitate. Play gigs. Release music. You owe me royalties. Thanks.

Positive Vibes

Glad to see Simon posting again. Mostly Youtube? Yeah, but you could do a whole lot worse than to have such an experienced listener making recommendations. Makes me smile.

My own contributions (and thoughts below):

Amazing that these tracks are almost 45 years old. Hard to imagine anyone in 1967 being a big fan of 1922s gems. But it's hard to give up the 1960s ghost, isn't it? All the cliches that later generations would try and discredit were still being codified; I doubt anyone could have been objective enough to see them as such. Nothing sounds faker to me nowadays than earnestness. This year is the most self-aware time in human history, except for the next one. I guess that's one reason why 95% of the music I own that comes from the last ten years is instrumental, though the last few years a lot of Germans have unfortunately found a way to bring that distancing self-regard to house music, too!

Ugh so much for positive. If you have read this far, that Jefferson Airplane song might already be over. Listen to it again.

Why Do You Come Here, When You Know It Makes Things Hard For Me?

That was a weird last entry to leave up for so long. I figured I would have something new to say fast enough to push it down the page. But no.

Pen-says:

1. I was exchanging emails with a coworker about politics. He, a longtime Democrat, was bashfully admitting that he put the welfare of him and his first, and worried about charity only after security. While it is worth examining, and has been examined by, I don't know, every critic of consumer culture as to what, exactly, is necessary for the haves to have before they no longer feel like have-nots, that is a subject for another post. I wrote back the following: Everyone has to eat. Whether you still think that after you and yours are eating is where politics begin.

At first, after writing that, I was tempted to disagree with myself. After all, taken too literally, the idea that everyone has to eat is a fairly political one. Does that mean food stamps for everyone? A military invasion of a country that don't ensure the health and well-being of its citizens? But, ultimately, what I say is true. Because anyone who has the luxury of the time to argue for or against welfare and have their argument be heard probably doesn't need it.

2. Ponder for a moment that there is no right time for anything. Where is the revolt? Aren't you tired of how "the same" everything is? When mentioning my job frustrations, some upheavals amongst my living situation, the constant feeling of being pressed for time, the vagaries of New York City life and the commutes, my need for a vacation, for a bed frame, for a sturdier pair of shoes before the snow falls, for more alcohol, for less alcohol, for more time with friends, for more time alone, etc. to a friend (who is, yes, still a friend after all that!), I likened my life to American politics. What bugs me most is the feeling of irresolution. The tension. Does this society ever make up its mind on anything? Torture good or bad? Abortion good or bad? Lexicon or Eventide? Some days I don't even give a shit about the answers I just want the choices to no longer be available. Anti-intellectual? As if intellectualism is really itself when it repeats itself ad naseum. Marx would understand my sentiment compltely: capitalism is way too dynamic and fascinating for all of us "thinkers" to just fucking get rid of it already, or so it would seem.

3. My birthday is coming up, and it is a significant one, a milestone. I don't expect anything to happen. I can't tell if it is all my fault or just a little. I am bad at remembering other people's birthdays but most of my friends don't seem to care. I still do, though. I guess because most of my birthdays have been so crappy that I feel I am owed one or two good ones before I get old enough to not want to think about them at all.

I have been recently told that once you are past a certain age, you have to organize birthday events for yourself. Somehow that rubs me the wrong way. Come celebrate me. Blah. I tried giving gifts for a few years. Books, always books. I got sick of asking people if they had had a chance to read them yet. The answer was always no. Maybe I should just tell everyone I know to get me absoultely fucking wasted for free. All they will have to ask is whether I am drunk yet. Eventually, at least, the answer will be yes.

Slowly Cracking At Work

Can't listen to music here. Have had a jingle from a chewing gum commercial stuck in my head for hours. Haven't seen that ad on television in probably a decade. Starting to twitch involuntarily.

Help me.

Sincerely,
:-p

Edit:

I have cookies at home

I have cookies at home

I have cookies at home

I have cookies at home

I have cookies at home

I have cookies at home

Smash Your Head On The Corporate Rock

Why do I do it to myself?

Favorite line: "I think it's much less important to wonder if Sonic Youth were ultimately "right" or "wrong" in seeking a major label deal, and more interesting to consider that the band-- in spite of its art-world and punk cred-- at it's core privileged pragmatism over ideology."

How pragmatic of them.

I miss David Brooks. (Don't see the similarities? Think harder.)

This article has no real discussion of why anyone ever thought that one should be on an independent label instead of a corporate one in the first place besides the fact that an indie would sing you and an corporate label wouldn't. Which makes it really easy to be critical of the "puritans".

But really, what is bugging me is, and there is definitely an analog in politics, why is being a "pragmatic centrist" not considered an ideological decision?