SOME WICKED: Dashiell Brown's Blog

As I sing about in my song from my latest album, “Happy Little Song,” I suffer from what they say is over-use syndrome. I screwed up my hands playing guitar about two years ago. I was taking guitar lessons after having bought a brand new Martin Acoustic guitar, the kind with steel strings. During the lessons, I pushed myself so hard that I over practiced, I guess, and my left thumb started to feel intense pain after about 4 months of lessons. One of the main factors in the pain, I think, was my guitar strings. The gauge was too high and my fingers had to push even harder, especially when bending or pulling the notes. So I quit the lessons, stopped playing the guitar, and proceeded to ruin my other hand, by overcompensating on the mouse and using the internet and composing music on my PC. Big mistake. Now both of my hands are pretty much ruined. 

Flash to present day, I now only write occasionally, I barely play the guitar, doing my last album was very hard on me, surfing the net can be painful, etc. My hands are in bad shape, and it’s amazing what your mind does when you’re stripped of some of your favorite passions. You go nuts! You try to ignore the pain and keep at doing what you love. Well, thank god I love to read. Since I used to be a High School English teacher, I’m a big fan of the books. Music and books. And writing. The Big Three. Raising kids, too, of course…

Unfortunately, for me, I love to read on the internet. But it’s painful for me, every time I scroll and browse. So, I try to avoid it, but it’s still pretty captivating and hard to resist. All that juicy information waiting to be tapped at the push of a button. Mmmmmmmm…

So now I’m looking for a good book to read. One that I can truly escape in. Escapism is what I need right now. And since I just saw the movie Souvenir of Canada where Douglas Coupland has the director document his experience in making the Canada House, only to have it destroyed later, I thought, hell, I should read a Coupland book. I loved both Generation X and Microserfs. So I picked up J-Pod, only to give it up half way through. Very disappointing, it totally lacked substance. Miss Wyoming? I couldn’t get past the second chapter. So I went back to the library and tried again. I didn’t know which Coupland book to check out, are there any other good ones??? Gum Thief wasn’t there, either, so I thought of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods which was a good read, and I just saw Caroline, so I picked up Neverwhere. It was okay, but nothing to write home about–I didn’t get a thing out of it, except for the end, which was great, just like Synecdoche, NY. A great end to an okay movie, the ending of which turned an okay movie into a great movie. It’s as if the way something ends determines its level of greatness.

Now I’m reading Coupland’s Gum Thief, though, and it’s funny and satisfying, thank god. But it seems Coupland is quite an inconsistent writer. After reading this one, I’m not sure what to read. I have no idea. It is partly due to a realization I had awhile back about fiction: I’ve been feeling like each time I read a book, I have accomplished nothing. Even worse, I feel like I am wasting lots of time. I never feel like this when I play guitar, write a song, or compose on the PC, or write. When I am creating something, I feel like I’m using my time valuably. But I’m probably just some kind of art snob that holds the act of creation on a pedestal, way more valuable than watching YouTube or any other kind of TV. Is listening to music a waste of time? It could be argued, I suppose. Isn’t a lot of the music we listen to a way to distract ourselves from whatever boring mundane task we are currently doing like washing the dishes or sitting in the car, bus, subway, etc. Music seems to be something we can use to kill time with or talk over. Either music is a tool we use to fight the emptiness in our lives and fill any perceivable void we’re feeling at any given time, or the lack of music causes us to feel this same void as we experience the void even more fully, when the music stops and the world stops because the silence is too unbearable, or at least unknown. 

In other words, the more music we listen to and the more we surround ourselves by it, the more empty we feel when we find ourselves without it. The other viewpoint could be true, too, where the more we listen to it, the more meaningless it becomes–it’s just another song, another mp3, another singer, more of the same. Music, music videos, DVDs, CDs, TV shows, books–consumable, disposable, ready-made entertainment right at our fingertips constantly. Does this add more importance to our lives or less? Especially when we surround ourselves by it like The Great Wall of China…aren’t we entertaining ourselves to death? And if were to give it up, wouldn’t our lives be that much emptier? Live and Die by the Sword, Live and Die by Media and/or Information. Information Glut. News. News=Entertainment. 9 to 5. Work. Consume. Work. Consume. What else is there? We better stay in tune, lest we face a deep and endless void of the “substance” we have become comfortable with. The Sublime is dead. Not our search for the sublime, but the actual center, the sublime awe that Wordsworth prostrated himself to.

There is nothing to wonder at anymore, unless you find Wal-Mart so utterly titillating to all of your deadened senses. Today’s Media and consumer culture is not sublime, it is completely lifeless, and yet we still consume it like ants towering into an anthill of insignificance. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just the way it is here in North America. It is what we are about and the rest of the world, though they would love to make us into the enemy, the evil capitalists we are, they want all the same things we have, you can be sure of that. So they can damn us all they want, but we all know the wealth that America has created at the expense of mass exploitation of the have-nots, wars and death, unencumbered, unchecked business warfare, globalization, it is the flag the majority wants to stand under, this American Way, the reason so many have emigrated from their homelands during the 20th Century–they knew America would give them a better life, a means with which to climb the ranks and make their lives better than they were at home. And for the first time, the world’s getting a big wake-up call: America might not be all that it was cracked up to be. Perhaps it isn’t the answer. Hmmmm…it depends on what you’re looking for. Bono hasn’t found it, so don’t feel so bad if you haven’t either.

So if Americans are starting to doubt this American way, not to mention the citizens of the world, and the capitalist business model, the selfish gene of the world, what is the alternative that people think they want? If acquiring more things in our lives leaves us emptier than before, then what is going to fulfill us as a people? What will make them happier if not the pursuit of happiness that America promised? OK, so America’s not the answer anymore, you tell yourself, then what is? According to The Daily Show it would be to go to Sweden, a “Socialist” country, because they obviously have it good. Lots of vacation time, few working hours, massages waiting for you at the assembly line, you will even love your job, because, hey, it’s a job and it’s something to do. And no bling bling??? Heavens to Betsy, even Robyn isn’t living like a pop queen, a Crib she did not have, that’s for sure, as they juxtaposed the hip-hop Cribs as seen on MTV. (So this woman said in the interview.) I wonder who hosts The Daily Show over in Sweden…oh wait, there probably isn’t one or any kind of equivalent. No, I know nothing about it, actually. Perhaps learning about it would be a good way to spend my time. Perhaps there’s a good book…

Anyway, I know what book I’m going to read once I’m done with Gum Thief. I am going to reread George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, two of my favorite books. I think everyone should read these books again and see what other alternatives we might look forward to as we damn the business model that got us here to this “ruined” state the rest of the world simultaneously envies and condems. Animal Farm. And South Park can damn Atlas Shrugged all it wants, but again, South Park doesn’t seem to respect the power of free speech and it’s ability to create shows like South Park in the first place. (I love the show and we all know nothing in the world of South Park is safe from their satire, and I’m sure they understand the power of free speech. Of course they are going to attack Atlas Shrugged, but I love that book! People take it too literally.) I’m sure I don’t have to say it, but Hugo Chavez doesn’t allow free speech, especially to the people that want to overthrow him. Atlas Shrugged is about curbing freedom and John Galt is a metaphor for freedom. If the business model has failed the world, so what’s the alternative? The pursuit of happiness by giving up your right to produce goods and services not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your government, a government that has the people’s wishes at the front of their concerns. And I’m Madonna. Good luck, world, in finding your alternative pursuit to happiness. I’m going to read a good book. Perhaps I’ll find something sublime within its pages. If I’m not numb enough already to notice, that is.

P.S. Searching for the Sublime is what Neverwhere is all about. It’s worth it for the end.

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I just wrote in my previous post about how The New York Times would never cover an op-ed by Adbusters even if they did manage to raise the funds to get it published. And now The New York Times had a chance to cover the TEA parties, as well as any other mass media engine, and guess what? Yep, nada zip zilch. And I’m referring to unbiased coverage of the protests, which just didn’t, couldn’t obviously, happen. That would be like hearing lots of  independent bands played on commercial radio–there’s a massive wall, people, constructed over years of smoke and mirrors, and today’s media coverage of the protests has synched it. Mass Media, we are on to your game and you just showed us your hand, and it’s full of Jokers. The T.E.A. Parties were protests, but also tests, and not only did you fail to cover it, but when you did cover it, you judged it as a bunch of right-wing, rich, wealthy hacks. 

The CNN reporter ripped the microphone away from the angry “conservative” who was venting about the times of Abe Lincoln, and the reporter became totally unhinged, the reporter yelling at the camera that this was clearly just a group of sore Republican losers and Fox cronies. ABC News had to make the point that this whole movement is right-wing propelled, so did NY Times. Alternet has a lovely little article about the “fact” that its not a grass-roots movement, and they are not “real populists.” These protesters are being called on the “fact” that, hey, where were you when Bush was in office, where was your rage then?

Are you kidding? Bush pissed off so many people because he was an idiot, and now you have Obama, who is not only maintaining the Status Quo, but making it even more invulnerable to the people’s ire, the ones who pay taxes at any rate. The protesters are tired of idiots running the country, pure and simple. And if the mass media were truly unbiased and fair, then that CNN reporter would have let that man continue talking and speaking his voice. But the people’s voices have been stripped long before this, and the mass media have just proved it. The protesters were not protesting Obama, they were protesting the bullshit that is the two party system.

Who did cover it? Fox News of course. Therein lies the heart of the tragedy. No one felt it was worth covering except Fox News, yet another biased media right-wing nuthouse, and so Fox News makes all these protesters look bad, and like bloody fish in a sea of sharks, of course the mass media ate them for breakfast, condemning them as being fake teabaggers. What a damned shame. At the Alamo protest, Janine Turner and Glenn Beck are having this lovely discussion about how great Palin was and why doesn’t she be the President. Give me a goddamned break. This is where things have to seriously change, and hopefully, these TEA parties will evolve into other real parties, the Libertarian Party has a great opportunity here, but knowing them they’ll probably blow it. They ain’t getting media coverage either, so…

The thing that has to happen is the protesters have to get away from any kind of associations with the two party system that is in bed with each other. Big Business and Government are in bed, and the mass media are their cheerleaders, they got their pom poms in hand, jumping up and down, yelling, “Give me an S! Give me a C! Give me an R! Give me an E! Give me a W! What’s that spell? SCREW! SCREW! SCREW! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!” It’s a three-ring circus people, and they’ve been putting on a wonderful entertaining act, but it looks like there’s some people in America that are starting to put down their popcorn and walk out of the show. Good for them.

I’d say don’t pay your taxes, but you might go to jail, unless you all as a whole decided not to do it and watch the circus tent fall all over you as the madness ensues and the comfortable world around you, suburban gated communities and McMansions falls apart at the seams–oh wait, that’s going to happen to your grandchildren as your country flushes all of your efforts down the toilet flushing you with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s what happens in Atlas Shrugged, I know, the world falls apart. 1984 and all that. Yep, that’s what’ll happen someday, just the masses are too ignorant/blind/deaf/dumb/heads-in-the-sand to understand it, which is exactly why I hate mainstream pop music–it speaks to the lowest common denominator. So does the mass media. So yep, please protesters, do your country a favor. Just as you went out and screamed about the government spending getting out of hand, so too should you never pick up a newspaper again. Tell your stories about how the media could care less about your TEA. Boycott all the mass media, start reading Adbusters (which I have problems with but it’s better than what you read in mass media), I’m sure some of you already do. Learn from this: the media is not on your side either. If that’s not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is.

And so this is where a quote from Tool comes in handy: 

All You wear or see and
Hear on TV
Is a product
Begging for your
Fatass dirty
Dollar

So…Shut up and

Buy my new record
Send more money
Fuck you, buddy.

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It cracks me up when I get junk mail telling me I can help prevent global warming by turning my lights off for an hour. And it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that no difference gets made, but Time Magazine has a great article about the impact Earth Hour had last year: nil. But as the article states, that’s not the point, “because climate change is essentially a political problem, and the language of politics is symbolism.” Exactly. Turning off your lights for an hour wasn’t to save electricity or reverse global warming. It’s a political move. In other words, global warming clearly has nothing to do with actual science, it’s clearly a political game. Earth Hour is meant to make people more conscious of “climate change.” I just wonder how much electricity, not to mention all other kinds of fossil fuels, gets wasted in making an Earth Hour campaign, including all the junk mail that comes with it. 

Speaking of wasteful spending and wasting resources, The Onion does a great job of mocking the phenomenon with this video.

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work
 

And now with Obama going on the way he does about carbon taxes, the economy is in, and will be in, shitloads more trouble than before. Just like how sending me junk mail so I can save the planet doesn’t make any sense, neither does forcing companies to charge more for their production to create jobs, and thus making everything far more costly, make any sense either. If it costs me more to produce, then I’m not going to be able to give you low prices, and then you can’t afford it, and because you can’t afford it, I can’t hire more people because no one’s buying my stuff. 

People need to go back and read Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World. I know Atlast Shrugged has been back on the table now, and for good reason. 

Now having said that…I hate a wasteful economy, and I hate commercials, and I hate supporting corporations, etc. But I have to put my foot down when it comes to letting an inept government try to do the exact same thing. Not only is it wealth transfer, but it is ideological transfer. Capitalism creates jobs. Jobs create happy, productive, dishwasher-buying consumers. Do we really want to criticise the market the way we are, the angry populist masses? No, my life doesn’t center around going to the mall, and I really can’t stand the mall, but I am starting to see, in this economy gone sour, the point of the mall–it created jobs for people to buy more stuff, and on goes the cycle. But…the more I read about the mess we’re in, the more I realize the majority does seem to be getting it wrong, and I think it’s because they’re pissed, and rightly so. But their anger is directed at the wrong folks. The minority are the ones that create the jobs, not the majority. So to punish the minority and try to control/manipulate/coerce the minority into doing the govt’s bidding, well… into the Orwellian world we go. People seem to forget that business owners are responsible for hiring other people. Without them, I’m sorry to say, but we wouldn’t be hired. You would be out of a job. Of course the government won’t think twice about taking your former boss’s dough and using it to give you a government job, which I am also helping pay for against my will. 

So now that so many are getting laid off, of course the ones that hired you in the first place are going to be the target of your anger. But they are not the ones you should be angry at. Black is becoming white and vice/versa. 1984, we’re coming! Please wait up. We want to be controlled because we can’t control ourselves. It’s sad, indeed, but unfortunately, it looks like it’s what people want. Hell, the way my schools taught me, I don’t really know how to go out and create work for myself either. Business was never a requirement in school. Nor was money management. In fact, I was too stupid as a teenager to realize that my school curriculum was forcing me into majoring into the most useless subject of all: ineptitude. But if it’s purpose was to make us dependent on their system, which it clearly is, then they get an A+.

Speaking of the follies of bureaucracy, here’s my review of the Cohen Brothers great film, “Burn After Reading.”

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