Riding The Fence

I had to ride the fence today. Sit on the fine line between what was right and was wrong. I reckon everybody's had to be there at one time or another. Had to be handed a decision that challenged where you hung your flag. Good decisions with bad implications, or doing something bad for the common good, there's nothing uncommon about riding the fence.

I've had a pretty easy time with those decisions in my years. My sense of wrong and right is pretty basic and straightforward. I've never followed the bible or anyone else's books, ignored the laws that made no sense, and stuck to a basic set of rules. I do my best not to cause hurt on other people, try to judge based on the circumstance instead of the letter, and try to exist as honorably as possible.

But on a day like today, even the most basic of rules doesn't seem to have any applicable path. There is no clear-cut right or wrong. Not on a day like today, where I had to drive my brother to jail.

In black and white, it was the right thing to do. He was clearly in the wrong, made bad mistakes that hurt other people. His crimes were sizable, and they needed to be atoned for. No man's law or god could dispute that.

But he is family. Perhaps not family whom I'm close to in any way, or have bonded with in any significant fashion, but family nonetheless. And what little I know about family tells me that we're supposed to look out for each other. And yet, here I was, driving him to his fate. Almost like I had sentenced him myself. It didn't matter that this was his decision, and that me driving him was a gesture of compassion, I felt like the traitor here.

My instincts wanted me to pass the police station, and drive down to the Greyhound. Hand him all the cash in my pocket and wish him well. Hope to god that he'd find a way to make it out there alone. Sure, it was against the law and very much the wrong thing to do, but it seemed like a much better insurance policy on his survival than what I was doing.

Bob Seger's "Turn The Page" came over the speakers. I was four blocks from the police station. My right foot was cramping from trying to control the throttle on the vehicle. Didn't want to drive too fast, might get the kid there too quick. Didn't want to drive too slow and have the world thinking I was having second thoughts. Damned if I didn't feel like I was the one throwing him into lockdown.

Needless to say, I completed the trip to the police station, and turned in my brother. Now that it's over and done with, I don't feel any better about it. I didn't commit the crimes, I didn't rat him out, and I didn't force him into the truck. Still, I feel like the outcome rests on me. I guess in a way, it does. For if I had sat back and let the universe take over, any number of other things may have taken place. Matters may have gotten better. Most likely, they would've only been made worse.

In the end, I did what was right. And in the end, I feel like dirt about having to do it.

The Results Of Mexican Food After 10pm

Last night, I had a dream that I was sitting in a bar with Glenn Danzig and Christopher Walken. From the corner of the room, a band dressed in shadows played swing renditions of Jeff Buckley and Nick Cave songs. The music filled the scene as the three of us drank Merlot and discussed cartoons.

I have no idea what it all means, but I have never been in a better mood.

The Art Of Selling Out

I had one of "those days" at work. You know, the type of day where you find a nice quiet place to pace back and forth for a few minutes before you actually have to deal with anybody. The type of day where violent depictions of torture and flames fill every single thought you have. Yep, I had one of "those days."

And while I don't mean to compete with any of your bad days that you may have had, I dare say that my day might have actually been a little bit worse than yours. And not because I have a more stressful position than you, or that I work with any more particularity bitchy people than you. No, I make this claim on the basis that my work has recently started to pump music from "Sesame Street" into every corner of the building.

"Rubber Ducky," "Fuzzy And Blue," and "I Love Trash," all there, all the time. And there is place from which you can escape it. I went to the bathroom.........there it was. I took a break......there it was. I went to scream in a stairwell.............lo and behold, there it was. In my face, constantly repeating.

Whilst I managed to force most of those songs into my subconscious and slowly drive myself mad, there was one song that stood out to me.

It was the duet between Kermit and R.E.M, doing a Muppetized version of "Shiny Happy People," redubbed "Fuzzy Happy Monsters" and acting as some sort of Muppet revolutionary warcry or something.

And I had to laugh. I absolutely had to. Because I was completely convinced that the guys in R.E.M actually lost sleep over this. I could actually see a sleepless Michael Stipe staring at his ceiling and saying to himself, "I did a song with the Muppets, no one will ever take me seriously again."

And then a thought hit me. A thought hard enough to make me shudder. "My god," I said to myself, "is it possible that one day I might have to sell out like that?"

It's a terrifying notion, to say the least, because the BGO and R.E.M kind of play in the same park. Not that I'm comparing my material to a refined band like R.E.M, but I know that if music sales kick up, I'll be sharing shelf space with them at Wal-Mart. And despite all the rebellious overtones, the intense research of jazz and blues, and my penchant for singing about weird shit, I would still be seated in the same musical section, a few racks down.

That kicks up the chances that I may be approached to have my work re-written to apply to hand puppets. I'm not even sure what I'd say to that. Yeah, I get a kick out of kids, and want to support anything that makes them more interested in the world around them, but at the same time I kind of want to protect my work.

"But," I again said to myself, "I sing about stalkers, moochers, and necrophiliacs. Surely they'd figure I 'm a little too unorthodox for children's programming." Well, considering the recent popularity of a little thing called Kidz Bop (Check out Vol. 9 for an absolutely painful rendition of "Feel Good Inc.") I would say nothing is safe anymore. With a bit more popularity, it's very possible that I would eventually become munchkin-fodder.

So, what do I do? I don't want to avoid fame if it comes a'knocking. Fame would guarantee financial security, and the ability to keep making noise whenever I feel like it. But, it can come with a cost. And having to lose sleep because a bunch of numb grownups figured out a way to make my work palpable for kids might be that cost.

I guess all I can do is fight it as much as possible. In the end though, I guess every artist with a good following has to sell his soul a little bit. There may very well be a day where a choir composed of cartoon characters and adolescents are performing one of my songs and singing, "She talks to the devil in backwards speech and spends her time trying to curse me."

Actually, that might be kind of cool

Half Asleep And Volatile

I am exhausted today. Fuzzy headed, corpsified, shouldn't be driving, but had to anyways because I had commitments, drifting into oncoming traffic and don't care, exhausted. I'm running on the most minimum levels of sleep and have faded in and out of consciousness all day.

And why am I so damn tired you might ask? Because I'm an idiot, that's why. I'm death-bed fatigued because I had to stay up and watch Resident Evil: Extinction, a movie that I knew would suck, but decided to watch anyways, because....I'm an idiot.

An hour and a half of plot holes, bad acting and stupid people. An hour and a half I'll never get back again. I'm beyond mere regret. Regret would've been feeling like I didn't do enough with my precious time. No, I'm feeling cheated. Like the makers of the film walked up behind me, and literally ripped 90 minutes away from me, then ran away laughing into the night.

And much as I would love to rip and tear this movie to shreds with my tuckered out, vengeful words. Or as much as I would like to buy a plane ticket to Hollywood and crowbar the knees of everyone associated with this film, I shall not. Nope, I'm gonna be good. Because despite how much I hate this film, I'm able to see that it's mediocrity is actually part of a much larger trend.

Yes my friends, I am talking about the trilogy. The modern day threesome that has become relatively popular as of late. I remember a few years back, that the third installment of a film series was something to be celebrated. It said to the world, "I made two things that were decent enough to make another one." And that's a pretty damn cool thing right? I mean, how often does a person get a third chance?

But today, the contemporary trilogy means something far worse. Now it says to the world, "I'm wrapping this shit up as quickly as I can, so I can forget I was ever involved in it." Don't believe me? Consider some of the more recent series to reach the threes:

X Men
Pirates Of The Caribbean
The Matrix
....and the aforementioned, Resident Evil

Now try and remember that sour taste you got in your mouth at the conclusion of el numero tres. Consider that feeling of disappointment after the credits. That sense of feeling robbed. Now, remember that feeling of seeing the first installment a few months later and thinking to yourself, "Why the hell did they make two more of these?" Admit it, you've all been there.

It's infuriating to reach that realization isn't it? You remember all the warm fuzzies you got from the first film, and then have to wrestle with the fact that those feelings are now diluted into pathetic semi-sappy endings.

And I know why these people do it. Hey, the first movie was pretty popular, well it makes good sense to make a follow-up. Of course, the sequel is never as good. Characters get weakened, the climaxes get more extreme, but not so extreme so there's room for a third, and the audience walks away going, "eh."

What I don't understand is why when someone puts money on the table for a third film, why the parties involved say, "I'll do it, but I won't like it." The animosity for having to make another movie in a series just leeches off the screen. The actors don't care. They read their fucking lines like Ben Stein smoking meth. When anything emotional happens, they kind of talk to the camera like a mother talks to her newborn. "Awww, dere dere. It's okay that a suppowting chawacter was pointwesswy kiwwed."

That's another thing about these trilogies, the writers just love to kill people off. Every chance they get. It's almost like they sit in rooms with the actor's face shots and say, "Wow, he's survived through the incidents of two films and is a fairly likable supporting character.....let's kill him!" And I know they're thinking in their fucking noodle heads that it's going to elicit a few "Aww's" out of us fools who paid money to see this dribble, but it doesn't work. Most of the time, we just sit there scratching our heads. Y'see, killing of characters has to be meaningful, but you guys just kind of rush the job, and now you've got an audience that's afraid to look away from the screen to sip a beverage, because there's a high chance that when they look back....someone will be dead.

And my favorite thing of all is the modern trilogy ending. Usually you end the movie with the ultra extreme feel-goods. Oh no, not any more. Now, there are so many story holes and plot fuck-ups in these things, that the only way you can end it is to throw something together and say, "Yeah, that's good enough." And for the rest of us, we walk out of that theater or get off our couches saying, "That was a happy ending.....wasn't it?"

I am so sickened by this. You would figure if you've made a name for yourself with a good product, you'd be smart enough to say, "I can't do another film as good as the first, so I'm not going to try." Yeah, you might miss out on all that box-office coin, but at least your reputation would be spared. Remember all those pats on the back you got for making such a good first outing? Never gonna happen again. Because people will never get over how bad the last one was. It was the most recent thing put in our heads guys, we won't forget it. And now, you have to deal with the knowledge that when you apply for your next job, movie, whatever, you'll have to say, "Well I made Blahblahblah the movie," and they'll retort with, "Yeah, but you also made Blahblahblah 2 and three. Get the fuck out of here." And nobody will ever take you as seriously again. I know I sure as hell won't.

Think about it............I'm going to bed!

Socially Un-Aware

I've been in the studio lately, trying to play musical catch up from my little incident in December. Slowly but surely I managed to get all the instrument tracks, save one song that needs to be redone, complete.

One song in particular had been a royal pain in the ass. It started as trying to cop the Motown feel, and ended up sounding half-baked, no matter what I did. My vocal performance wallowed in mediocrity, despite the fact that I selected some time-tested melodies to run with.

And the lyrics? Oh, the lyrics were a damned disaster. Probably the biggest pile of crap in the whole project. I was feeling good about things when I penned them to paper, because it took me about half an hour to lay down the whole song. That'll show me.

Y'see, here was the problem, the song originally started off being titled "Face Value," and was supposed to be about how people judge others based solely on appearance. The song morphed into "Strange Face," which was the same concept, but a bit more all-encompassing. Y'see the original lyrics focused primarily on race, and I felt that the words needed to be broadened to include sex, preference, and social groups. Y'know, who doesn't have issues with being judged by how they choose to look right?

Now, with new instrumentation, and the need for new vocal melodies, it's guaranteed that the song will become something else entirely, and that the whole "Face" thing will disappear completely. And that will mean that the second BGO album will, most likely, not have a single song that brings awareness to any social causes. Considering that "Fuzzy Jank" only had one song that remotely qualified as being radical, I'm starting to think that I may not be the kind of person who can deliver the revolution unto the masses. I just can't seem to make anything that would run with the leftists, liberals, anarchists, rebels, progressives or good old-fashioned rabble-rousers. I don't ally to causes all that easily, or used my words to move culturally-defined mountains, or anything like that. And judging from my latest epiphany, I probably never will. I just can't get past how biting social commentary can be so whiny.

And no, I'm not saying social commentary is inherently whiny. Just when I do it.

Chuck D can speak about all the wrongs in the world and everyone's guaranteed to go "Oh fuck yeah! Down with the man!" But when I start getting up in arms, it almost always comes out like "Waaah, why don't you like me?" I just can't bring the kind of intelligent fury to my lyrics that's necessary when you're hitting the big button items like racism, poverty, or the politicians you love to hate. When it comes to those topics, you have to balance intellect and fury. If you just yell and scream about all that's wrong, it sounds too much like bitching. But if you're too intelligent with the words, nobody can understand you enough to get riled up. It's a double-edged blade people. And I have to admit that I probably don't have the skill to wield it.

Maybe it's because I invest too much time in listening and thinking. Not meaning to say that other revolutionaries don't listen and think, just that I tend to overdo it. I spend a lot of time watching the bad people of the world, than challenging them to arm-wrestle. Kind of perched in the tree cougar-like, waiting for them to screw up in some large way. Sometimes they do, and I get to pounce recklessly. Sometimes they're smart enough to cover their own asses, and I remain in my tree feeling very frustrated.

Of course, there's also my battle ethic. I like to wage my wars person to person, select my enemies one at a time and deal with them thusly. Truth be told, it's a lot harder to fight racism than it is to get into it with a person who is racist. When dealing with the individual, you can challenge the stereotype, discuss the perspectives, and drop a bit of education on the side. That person can either walk away being a bit more open-minded and knowledgeable about race relations, or they can walk away knowing never to screw with the person they just talked to. Either way, it's a solid win for the home team. Now, if I applied that strategy to racism as a whole, well it'd be the equivalent of mouthing off to the Klu Klux Klan, armed with nothing but a BB gun. My dedication to the cause would be solid, but short-lived.

Basic warfare people. If you wanna make a good stand, don't put the army before the solider with a gun pointed at you. Keep things in perspective. Don't let the numbers bog you down. And make no doubt of it, they can bog you down. Anyone in the revolution business knows that the odds are stacked against you from the outset. Keeping that data on the noodle is a quick way to burn out and end up drunk in a dark room watching "I Love Lucy" reruns.

Of course, that could be what comes with dedication to a cause, I don't know. Perhaps I really am a lame-duck revolutionary. I'm completely unwilling to don shirts and inscribe myself with tattoos so I can scream about injustice. And despite being completely underwhelmed with the people in charge of this nation, I have precious little interest in raising fist-to-sky over their bigger, more obvious fuck-ups. My battles are usually private, soft spoken, and free of war cries. Definitely lacking in adrenaline and sex appeal, I must confess.

As such, my music remains revolution-free. Happy compositions with sad endings. No politic-tinged fury, or even a chirpy "We shall prevail" to be found. It is a little depressing to realize that. I'm definitely an advocate for change. Less hungry people, less excuses to drop explosives on each other, artists with heart and soul getting more attention than artists with good producers and big boobs. I dream about that sort of thing regularly. Wouldn't mind it a bit if I was able to contribute to any of that. It just seems so unlikely that I'll be able to, that's all.

But, who knows? Hell, John Lennon was able to make a few changes just by sleeping in with his wife. I guess anything is possible.

Random Conversations With My Mechanic

It's funny the kind of people you encounter.

I was over at the auto shop yesterday, getting a little work done on my loyal steed, when I got drawn into a conversation with one of the mechanics there. He was an old school sort of gent, graying hair, wrinkles setting in, that sort of thing. Y'know, very golden years.

Naturally, the conversation gravitated towards music. And we started swapping info on good tunes in the bluegrass, old country, and blues fare. None too surprising.

And then he asked me a question that blew my mind. He said, and I quote:

"You have picked up the new Radiohead album right?"

I was stunned. Here was a seasoned old-timer, arthritis in his hands, who seconds ago was talking about Hank Williams Sr. Now, we're discussing Radiohead. It probably took me a full two seconds for me to regain my composure and shamefully admit, "No, I haven't even heard it yet." He then proceeded to tell me about a few modern bands that were actually shining stars in the current sea of blah. By the time the conversation ended, and my vehicle keys were handed to me, I was a much wiser person.

After thinking about it for a spell, I decided I really shouldn't be too surprised about how that conversation turned out. The musical borders we have maintained for decades now are starting to crumble all over the place. The nature of music is changing so much that record labels are losing sweat trying to slap genres on each new sound that comes about. Artists who have that interesting new sound have a helluva lot easier time peddling their wares these days. And fans care less about all of it, as long as it sounds good.

Personally, I thank the iPod. And I don't mean to discredit the internet, social networks, or illegal downloading sites, for they all have their parts. But, I think the iPod definitely changed how people interact with their tunes.

Walk with me, back into time a few years ago, when CD's were all the rage. Remember the difficulty in picking albums when you were going somewhere? If you wanted to go for portability, the most you could carry was about 25 CD's. You could kick it up to the hundred's if you bought one of those Trapper Keeper deals, but Then you'd have something the heft and size of an encyclopedia to lug around. Most folks I knew tended to keep it light.

The pressure was on to pick the "right" albums too, because you knew that people would be digging through your stash. And if there was anything contrasting between a CD you own and the clique of your association, you'd never hear the end of it. The razzing would be tremendous if you were an all-black wearing metal guy who happened to have brought along a Lionel Richie CD for the trip (yes, very much a personal experience.) Music was very much socially defining, and people selected their albums accordingly.

But, in this day and age, everyone is packing around the same (or equivalent) device, that's smaller than any CD player, and has tons of memory. Now, it's altogether possible for an individual to carry their entire musical collection. And that, believe it or not, changes the social politic of music.

Now, choosing a CD by Journey for a three day trip doesn't seem nearly as shocking as simply having it on the ol' iPod, along with everything else you listen to. Now the folks who view your tunes get a grander picture of your musical tastes. A single album suddenly doesn't have nearly the impact on your social bearings from your mates, as where that album fits into the ratio of cool shit you own.

Couple that with the fact that you can now buy albums anonymously, and you have free reign over everything sonic. Y'know how the music stores do it, segregating every album into a handful of well known genres. Remember how silly you used to feel, wanting that Johnny Cash CD, and having to stand in that "Country section" in the corner? Hunting for that vintage Cash meant having to look the likes of Tim McGraw and Charley Pride in the eye. Not always a comfortable situation to be in. Nowadays, buy it online, and the next time folks see it is when they flip through your iPod and compare the ratios.

Granted, this isn't a super good setup for the music stores, but it's good for the fans. Loving music means taking an interest in everything music has to offer now. More folks are exploring the roots of their favorite artists, and taking chances on some new sounds. metal guys can dig on a little country, hip-hop cats are paying some homage to the original jazz cats, blah blah blah. It's good stuff. Being musically hip doesn't mean conforming to a section at Wal-Mart, but exploring some shit nobody's ever heard of.

So I invite everyone, to talk tunes with me, or whomever you know. Doesn't matter if it's as old school as you can get, or some band from the 80's with big hair. Good stuff is good stuff, so embrace it, and spread the word around whenever you can.