let's poeticize

...few weeks ago, then. Long lost friend from La Grange Park posted a lyric from Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (1968) on his Facebook wall. I peepered on that verse and felt:

1) newfound respect for said friend
2) a vague urge to cry

Here's why 2) happened:

Back during summer ‘05, clown-carred into a middle seat of a Portland-bound flight out of O’Hare, I thumbed eagerly thru my new book (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, a Lester Bangs anthology). Lester ain't a virginal blog topic; I referenced him here. Anyway, one of the articles in Carburetor Dung addresses Astral Weeks, Van’s second release as a solo artist. Here's how Bangs (an unabashed Van disciple) concludes his analysis of this seminal album:

"...it might be pointed out that desolation, hurt, and anguish are hardly the only things in life, or in Astral Weeks. They're just the things, perhaps, that we can most easily grasp and explicate, which I suppose shows about what level our souls have evolved to. I said I wouldn't reduce the other songs on this album by trying to explain them, and I wont. But that doesn't mean that, all things considered, a juxtaposition of poets might not be in order…”

[Lester then presents one Van lyric and a poem from Federico Garcia Lorca, a prominent Spanish writer who died in ‘36.]

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dreams
Where the mobile steel rims crack
And the ditch and the backroads stop
Could you find me
Would you kiss my eyes
And lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again

--Van (from the title track off Astral Weeks)

My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those hills,
farther than the seas,
close to the stars,
to beg Christ the Lord
to give back the soul I had
of old, when I was a child,
ripened with legends,
with a feathered cap
and a wooden sword.

--Lorca

Tough-ass Mike lost his shit after reading Lorca's poem. It was just too much; I cried and cried. With those sixty-two words, Lorca issued my stale, sepian world a (much-needed) Randian shrug. I read and re-read that passage probably fifteen times whilst aboard the plane, tearing up every time. There's really nothing more life-affirming than a bare, minimalist work of art powerful enough to fell an emotionally armored man.

(…props to Lester for isolating two brilliant verses that warrant magnification…)

I'd like to give Lester the same treatment. One might argue that Lester (like a Nietzsche, say) was born posthumously. Though he boasted a rabid readership while alive, he's reached far more since his untimely death in '82. For us to ignore Lester's amphetaminic, electric prose would be to deprive our genius-starved society of a beautiful mind. In a crude attempt at an epitaph of sorts, let’s turn the mic on him as he sidles up to literary pioneer Mark Twain:

"It is a fact that nine-tenths of the HUMAN RACE never have and never will think for themselves, about anything. Whether it's music or Reaganomics, say, almost everybody prefers to sit and wait till somebody who seems to have some kind of authority--even if it's seldom too clear just where they got it--comes along and informs them one and all what their position on the matter should be. Then they all agree that this is gospel, and gang up to persecute whatever minority might happen to disagree. This is the history of the human race, certainly the history of music."

--Lester Bangs (from Carburetor Dung)

"When an entirely new and untried political project is sprung upon the people, they are startled, anxious, timid, and for a time they are mute, reserved, non-committal. The great majority of them are not studying the new doctrine and making up their minds about it, they are waiting to see which is going to be the popular side."

--Mark Twain (as quoted in the Dec. 22nd/29th New Yorker)

Someday, if I do it all right, if I tell it straight and true, perhaps someone will choose to juxtapose my words with someone of relevance…
...

psychotic reactions re: wenner dung

Rather than offer up the snide, vengeful blog I first intended to write (Rolling Stone, thanks for providing glossy shit-catcher for my parakeet, or something in that vein), I’ve decided to go all Bacharach on y'all by adhering to his love, sweet love credo. There’s enough madness and misdirected ire skulking about to last us another two World Wars; for that reason, I’ll try to keep this rant relatively civil. It’s nearly Christmas, after all, and I’ve had a very pleasant day.

But you ain’t off the hook, Wenner (Jann Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine). Let’s take a moment to consider how RS, cultural fossil and THE one-time titan of the music print world, has baited and switched into a fanzine for indiscriminate rock fans and/or fifty-five year old men and/or naïve Top 40 receptacles interested in The Killers and/or Jackson Browne and/or Beyonce.

RS’s most recent list (The Top 50 Albums of 2008) says more than any blog can. Here’s a few artists that made the cut:

Bob Dylan (Saint Bob!), TV on the Radio (a safe, polite pic at #1), Lil Wayne (Wenner: “Alright, staffers: We’re gonna throw this Carter nonsense way the hell up there--top 5, say [it got #3]--for all the black readers. Gotta bring ‘em back over to our side after that Eagles cover.”), The Jonas Brothers (!), John Mellencamp (?), Randy Newman (haha!), Jackson Browne (there he is again!), Nas (see Lil Wayne), Taylor Swift (erm), Guns n’ Roses (wow).

Let’s wade thru this whiplash sea of greying goatees and tweeny glitter and break it all down. What happened here?

Well, a few things. Rolling Stone--many, many moons ago--wagered every last chip on standard guitar/bass/drums rock n’ roll. Granted, it’s hard to blame Wenner for his fanciful astigmatism since we know what was going on in 1967 (the year RS debuted): Doors, Beatles, Hendrix, Cream, Floyd, Stones, Kinks, Donovan, Velvets, Who, Love, Beefheart, etc., etc. All powerhouse rock bands, every last one of them releasing disgustingly great vinyl within a period of about nine months. RS got in at the right time (Wenner deserves credit for capitalizing on a golden nugget of opportunity, though--admittedly--said nugget was nestled square in a crease of the most affluent pocket of rock history we’ve ever seen) and recruited a readership the old-fashioned way: thru stimulating, no-bullshit analysis of the mainstream music scene.

Hunter S. Thompson and Lester Bangs (pictured at right) wrote for RS, as did Cameron Crowe and Robert Christgau. Four resident badasses. Thompson, of course, will forever be associated with the “gonzo” label. He blurred lines between reporter and subject, observer and participant, as effectively (and humorously) as anyone before or since. Lester Bangs is Lester Bangs, the greatest rock writer of all time [an aside: Bangs hated RS, and for good reason. Wenner wanted his writers to lick the asses of the rock stars, and an ass-licker Bangs was not.]. Crowe, an intrepid, precocious reporter who lived out every teenage rock fiend’s dream, went on to become a noted filmmaker after many years of dues-paying music writing. Christgau ranks as one of the greatest (and most influential) rock critics of all time, an inarguable distinction.

I cite the above fellas only to remind all three of my readers that RS once meant something.

Depending on who you ask, RS forfeited relevancy sometime in ‘68/9 (when it failed to recognize hard rock and heavy metal as legitimate movements, choosing instead to champion singer-songwriters above all others), ’77 (when they laughed off punk as a passing craze) or ‘round the time that hip-hop and rap broke (since--you guessed it--they paid the genre no mind). Some insist they’re still relevant, but I have yet to hear a viable argument in the magazine's defense.

In short, RS has always been a few steps behind the pace car. For a publication that claims to worship the forward-thinking Dylans and Lennons of the world, RS seems content reclining in its well-eroded rocking chair, head bobbing along to--oh, I dunno--Eric Carmen?

What I’ve witnessed whilst methodically dissecting this whole RS fiasco (believe me, I’ve been watching closely) is an all-too-common trend in the corporate world: a glaring lack of direction.

Businesses tend to fail not for wont of money, but for absence of vision and order. There’s a reason the MTA, NYC’s transportation authority, is going bankrupt, and it sure as hell ain’t from a lack of disposable funds. Well over half of the city's 8 million inhabitants swipe at the subway turnstiles on a daily basis, yielding untold MILLIONS in gross income--every day! per diem!--for the transportation authority. Now they're crying for a bailout. On Sunday my buddy Lucas and I discussed this over a slice. Our conclusion? Plump, handsomely-revenued companies have no room to bitch about money. You can trace the roots of MTA's bankruptcy to the corrupt, incompetent managers decisioneering from their swivel chairs. Let’s face it: the most effective product/service in the world won’t realize its potential without a sound marketing strategy or well-crafted financial objective…

…which brings us back to RS. Has Wenner ever called a closed-door meeting to discuss the future of the magazine? I get the feeling he hasn't sent that memo in well over two decades. When rock--in the narrow, 60s sense of the word--branched off into all these other subgenres (metal, prog, punk, post-punk, synth-pop, grunge, hip-hop, indie, etc., etc.), RS still had a choice. They could’ve decided--then and there--to tack one way (“let’s stick to covering radio-friendly rock…”) or the other (“let’s isolate a niche and exploit the hell out of it…”). Wenner, though, never called that meeting; as a result, his precious rag suffers from an identity crisis.

That’s why modern, well-respected RS oil-burners David Fricke and Peter Travers have no idea what the fuck’s going on with their magazine (though they certainly wouldn’t concede that, for fear of the AXE). Those wee voices in their brainiums urging them to craft faithful, honest reviews are allowed hardly a syllable ‘fore they’re bound and quickly gagged by Big Brother (a.k.a. Wenner, shown at right in a rather old photograph). Next thing you know, Fricke and Travers (zombie eyes marked by a tired glaze) toss out stars in a confetti fashion. Three and 1/2 for you! Four for you! Album of the year! Album of the decade!

Where’s the continuity?

Wenner’s recent decision to cover all vaguely-important artists (even the burnouts who clamored around during RS’s formative years) has resulted in the muddled mess you see before you today. It’s a shame. A damn, damn shame. You could’ve done it so much better, RS.

In semi-related news, I really dig the album Tim by the Replacements. Fantastic record.

Love you all. Happy Christmas. War Is Over!


(If you want it.)