Thinking of The Children

I didn't like most kids' shows even when I was a kid because I thought most of them were stupid, especially the more didactic ones. Looking back with the eye of a cultural X-er, I realize my dislike wasn't completely unfounded and these things were indeed stupid and somewhat creepy.

Black and white aesthetic, confused depressives in a cold universe? No wonder a generation of young Norwegians raised on Pompel Og Pilt grew up to kill themselves, murder their bandmates and burn down churches (I'm kidding Randal). WFMU's excellent blog has more clips including a creepy baby and other delights.

Still, this is nothing compared to Jihad Bunny, complete with plastic key to paradise, because why grow up and do something good for the world or break the cycle of hate if you can die for Allah? Seriously, this is so creepy and evil I almost didn't post it, and it's hard to laugh at such blatant death-mongering to vulnerable kids. Spoiler: Jihad Bunny ends up getting bombed and replaced by Jihad Teddy Bear, 

Far more benevolent is Odisea Burbujas, which as far as I can tell is some Mexican lovechild of HR Puffnstuf and Captain Planet, described here as "a do-gooder scientist and his motley crew of animal friends who fly around in a solar-powered spaceship (made out of an LP, a teacup, and a straw), fighting the evil polluter, Ecoloco..."

 Along similar lines, but not embeddable is the Japanese straungeness of Kure Kure Takora, about an octopus and peanut in love with a walrus. Surrealness abounds.

And then this discovery of the morning, thanks to the Turkmen Golden Age site, full of tidbits about amazing horses, festivals of healing melons, and UNICEF/State-sponsored puppet shows like the one below. Not only does it look like it was filmed in a Parmastan kitchen in 1975, there are also creepy Gonzo-looking germ monsters, and multiple song-and-dance routines to kiddified folk music. Nice to know that the spare change The Kids collect on Halloween to give third world villages fresh water and food goes to such a worthy cause.

long gone day

Melancholia cured by tea and time, of sitting on the porch in the old almost-hood and wandering the streets of the city, routine can cure so many ills, as do the joys of conversation with those whose company I like, the purring of the cat next to me on the pillow, good books and some incomprehensible divine grace.

There are straunge folk afoot with the changing of seasons and such, scowling at the creep doing the eye-rape because there's no other way to combat lecherous gaze and pass-making without getting written up especially since the race card will inevitably get played, wondering how the hell all these people who are supposed to be helping the down and out seem to be in need of mental help themselves, if not for being crazy, then for having no heart whatsoever. Such eternal questions of existence may remain unanswered until the end of time like the ones that I constantly scream to God on the days when nothing makes sense and only the logic of some updated queen-free great chain of being seems to hold my view of the universe together.


And Layne Staley would have been 45 today, so of course an Alice posting is mandatory. All of you except Randal are probably rolling your collective eyes but dayum those harmonies were swank, and they've yet to be co-opted into any voice-of-a-generation hipster thing. Mad Season's one-off and Dirt are desert island discs, Jar of Flies too. I love it all.

One of my britpop loving friends referred to them as 'Camaro Rock' and she's not entirely wrong. But yeah, no apologies, no guilty pleasures here, sheer enjoyment maybe.

 I was too young to remember when grunge was cool, never did the flowered dresses or the floppy hats, being too young and hand-me-down dweeby as it was, and the unfortunately gigantic baggy jeans and t-shirts gave way to skinnier jeans and longer skirts still mostly black, but more bibliotheque gothique than displaced Portlandia.

 I get leery at burgeoning cultural zeitgeist nostalgia for things I love without apology, like grunge and rusty smokestacks and overgrown teenage angst and slackitude that befits this region I call home. I can't wait til everyone moves on from rust belt chic, because I love this stuff out of familiarity and comfort with my low station in life and its attendant trappings rather than a kitschy aesthetic of ironic quaintness.

I can't get condescending about the taste of other folks anymore, because of what I like, and because I know that most of my fellow rust belt denizens are wearing Affliction instead of vintage bowling shirts, and that they like Bon Jovi unironically and watch a lot of sports and drink non-artisan beer and while none of these are my thing, there's nothing really wrong with that. It's stupid to be a snob when you're the butt of everyone else's jokes and you just look more insecure. What we're all respectively into might not do it for others, but that was never the point as it was.

Thinking of The Children

So the photo below has been making the rounds as far as saying "oh isn't that sweet and how could anyone thing bad of him" because Kundera-esque kitsch knows no bounds on both sides, and visuals are powerful mediums. The camera only shows one angle, one dimension and any picture can be worth a thousand words of propaganda. Besides, part of Politics 101 is kissing babies and posing with kids. Who the hell are we kidding?
 

 let's take a look at the rest of the world, shall we? Here's Enver Hoxha, Der Fuhrer, Lenin, Richard Nixon, Josef Stalin, Hugo Chavez, Everybody's Not-Favorite Pope, Mr. KGB, and Robert Mugabe. Oh it's so sweet. Who would ever think that any of these people did anything that wasn't nice and didn't Care A Lot?

and of course this:

It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it, right Chuck?...

femina feminae

One of my friends linked to some article lamenting the lack of feminine presence in the current music industry, bemoaning the preponderance of The Kids to prefer Lady Gaga to Patti Smith, and how there aren't as many prominent "rock chicks" as there were back in those halcyon days known as the 90's.

The aesthetic of the time was different, the slick marketing of acceptable grungeness, heroin chic, and edginess, and former dance-pop divas like Alanis Morissette were rebranded as Angry Chicks, in an image just as manufactured as any other. And most of the girls in bands were either the bombshell lead singer or the hot bassist. They weren't the main creative force or the songwriters or the guitarists, more often the eye candy and the objects of ogling by the male fans and the image of what we girls wanted to be, which maybe wasn't the same sexualization as, say Britney Spears, but it still was just as dysfunctional.

And hell, most music is "mewling" about love and stuff. It's just that some people make it more awesome than others. So yeah, non-story, but people like Liz Phair need to eat and still feel relevant, so it gets trotted out everyone once in awhile so everyone can feel superior about the good old days that in this case really weren't. Besides, as I've said before, there's more than enough good stuff out there due in part to the fair sex as it is. And while I don't believe that the double standard will ever magically evaporate, I do think the next generation of girls will have it easier than I did.

heavy-eyed

I went my first show of the year tonight, forgot about some dinner plans and ended up missing A Storm of Light (figures that this is the show that starts on time), met up with a mutual friend and fellow radio comrade for hangingoutness, enjoying the riffage of Torche muchly, and while I'm more partial to the 90's-era Corrosion of Conformity, the power trio incarnation was good as well, relentless riffs and kids younger than the band moshing in front like it was 1985 all over again as me and the other older folks stood in the back and nodded along.

I didn't feel like driving all the way home so I tried to crash at the station but it was really cold and the furniture uncomfortable so I tossed and turned on the floor before giving up and hanging out with one of the late nighters. A nap on the breakroom couch and the Five Hour Energy bottle in my desk drawer saved for such a day are sustaining me for the half-day until I can depart to sleep perchance to dream.

if it's too loud you're too young

The Kids are still doing their hair like this?

I usually try to figure out the crowd in line for a show at the two venues within walking distance of where I work based on the gender of the concertgoers and their attire. I forget sometimes that bands like Good Charlotte still exist until I see a line of teenage punkers who consider Green Day old-school lining up at the House of Blues, and it really doesn't seem to matter the jam band or whether or not it's a tribute to the Grateful Dead because the hemp necklaces, long skirts on both the ladies and dudes and the patchwork pants will be out in full force regardless. And then there was that one night where the Hank II/Skynyrd fans converged on to the street at the same time as the audience for "The Color Purple" which was bemusing and thankfully free of any drama.

Sometimes there will be long-haired Scandinavian types in tattered black metal t-shirts wandering down the street in search of food or something interesting to do and I feel bad because all the interesting things in Clevelandia are not within walking distance of aforementioned venues, which might be why a lot of bands I like don't play here anymore. I wouldn't come here either if this was all I knew of the city.

But anyways, I'm leaving work the other night and there's a line of The Kids waiting to go see some band, decked out in millennial splendor of asymmetrical and multiply colored Mad Rad Hair and skinny jeans and black t-shirts with splashy neon graphics. I thought that whole look died out with Myspace but evidently not. I'm probably just out of touch.

My sister texts me that night because she's lost on the way to a show and I give her directions. I've never heard of the band she's going to see, but she likes a lot of that stuff with synths and chimes that's never moved me the way it does her. She doesn't like the stuff I'm into, not being in caterwaul and loud guitars, but we're different people and what moves our souls is going to be different too.

I guess that's really all it comes down to, refined or pedestrian taste be damned. There are some things that will resonate fiercely in one's world that are just not my thing or don't make any sense to me. I may not think it's any good, but that's subjective too. I've liked my own share of dumb stuff too.  I feel like there's so much good stuff to unearth and discover, but for others, maybe the familiar is comforting, be it generic music or formulaic novels, maybe it meets some needs that might be simpler than my own because any analysis otherwise just begins to fall flat with pretension.