WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Meat Beat Manifested

Everyone has seen a live visual presentation (i.e. Shakespeare in the Park), and everyone has heard a live audio presentation (i.e. WFMU).  And most people have seen a TV show or a movie (i.e. Beavis and Butt-Head, Baby Mama).  Some people have even been told they're being treated to an audiovisual presentation (i.e. Dark Side of the Moon Laser Light Shows). Until last week, I didn't think anyone had made an live audiovisual presentation that really truly was aural and visual at the same time, together.  Then I saw Meat Beat Manifesto on Saturday at the Highline Ballroom.

Zillion-dollar budgets can give electronic music performers like Daft Punk and Kraftwerk an edge in creating visceral visual thrills at their concerts - you can't really do much more for a techno fan than have real robots playing a concert.  But Meat Beat Manifesto has taken a well-worn and considerably less expensive approach - collaging video behind the performers onstage - and taken it to a new zenith of accomplishment in that medium.

Meat Beat mastermind Jack Dangers and Mark Pistel from the political hardcore band Consolidated stood onstage controlling the otherworldly jungle-dubstep-trance beats and squiggles, and at the far right live drummer Lynn Farmer kept incredible pace throughout the entire performance.  On the far left stood Ben Stokes, the visual programmer for the show, who's worked with everyone from Ministry to Public Enemy to Levi's.  He grabbed video samples of Captain Beefheart, old BBC Radiophonic Workshop-esque explanations of sonic technology, Dali's eye-cutting nightmare, The Invaders, Sammy Davis Jr., Harrison Ford as President James Marshall in Air Force One, Star Trek, Billie Holiday, and even Animal, playing in tandem with a live feed of the drummer.

Unlike so many other video shows, clips didn't just sit lay flat and stuttery in the background.  They were accompanied by audio, and were layered over existing beats, scratched, stretched, and re-sampled in a way that fit in with the theme of the song - video of nuclear bomb blasts dropped to the beat, sounds and videos of Rastas burning weed edged their way into a drugs song (well, at least the one that referenced them the most overtly).  Dangers and Stokes were always working together in the audiovisual realm, as well - you could almost imagine the behind-the-scenes dialogue:  "Jack, I've found about 15 clips of people falling from the tops of buildings, can we work the sound of them screaming into the set?" or "Ben, could you work on finding a video of James Brown playing this one sample I use in this song?" Magic like that doesn't just pop out of a video mixer, or an audio mixer for that matter.

The most impressive part about the whole thing was Meat Beat's mastery in weaving overt political commentary into the show. 

Crocheting for Crustaceans

I took the ferry across the Hudson river last week, and left from under the watchful smirk of the newly restored clock tower at Hoboken's Erie Lackawanna train terminal.  It's a truly gorgeous old school terminal, with a beautiful waiting room, often full of sunshine and aimless people sitting on one-hundred year old benches.  I carefully mention my use of mass transit since we are mere hours away from Earth Day, and every advertiser  ('dude, they use horses to pull their beer trucks') including the US government ('we...ummm...think we should...ummm...perhaps think about reducing greenhouse gases') is working hard to milk the moment for personal gain.  I actually adore taking the ferry, except I don't usually need to go where it stops.  But this day I was en route to the World Financial Center to see a truly heroic task of many hands working to restore years of ecological damage with quickly repeated swoops of a crochet needle.
     Coral reefs across the world are dying off at rates faster than rain forests. You can put an end to this madness by crocheting your own.  Or that is what twin sisters Christine and Margaret Wertheim are promoting...sort of.  Simultaneously scientists and crafters, these two women have encouraged people in various communities to contribute crocheted pieces of an ever growing coral reef simulacrum, to dramatize the beauty and oddness that we would irrevocably lose if coral reefs continue to die out due to overfishing, pollution and maritime mucking about.  The group-hug quality of humans, from knitting and crochet circles around the globe, contributing their personalized efforts to this ecological alert is a wonderful reminder that we CAN actually find something to do with all that crazy leftover yarn we keep stuffing back into our closets (or for all the non-knitters of the world that the individual can affect change for the good).
        I am just a tad overloaded with the "oh, look at me, I am so green" commercialism of Earth Day this year.  If a major chain retailer really wants to stop contributing plastic bags to landfill, why don't they give away a canvas bag with their name on it, instead of selling it?  Helle Jorgensen, one of the contributors to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project gives a great tutorial on how to make your own yarn from plastic grocery bags and then suggests making your own tote bags, or underwater sea creatures, or hats, or you name it.
     While at the World Financial Center please take advantage of sitting under a palm tree.  A Californian friend tells me LA is no longer planting these akward beasts, as they are not native and are difficult to maintain.  On a more tragic aside, the under the stairs "nook" which WFC assigns as a gallery space is quite abject.  It spells out rather clearly where these financial titans see art in their commercial haze.  I don't know how to change this view of "non-commercial" activity, but I do know that if we continue, as a society, to let profit be our guiding light there will be no change that will ever contribute to, restore, or enhance civilizations to come, be they underwater or on dry land.  Unfortunately that sentence seems a little long to put on a tote bag.  But here's a few things you can do, that won't make a multi-national any money:

1.  Grow raspberries in your yard.  This will be year 3 for our berry fence.  We started out with just a few runners from a friends patch, and it has grown into a hardy spring and fall fruiting blast of deliciousness that happily grows along, and obscures, a rusty chain link fence.  I sunk a soaker hose and put it on a timer, so it gets the water directly to the roots, instead of wasting it on the leaves.  Raspberries worked out better for us than strawberries, because the nasty urban squirrel nibbles all our strawberries but can't seem to get at the dangling raspberries.

2. Keep a herd of worms in a plastic tub and do your own composting of food scraps.  Our yard is only 12 feet wide, and partly shady, so we couldn't exactly make a compost pile without it being the centerpiece of the yard.  A delivery of worms later, and we are on our way to creating rich soil from worm castings, and reducing our weekly garbage.  Even the city of San Francisco composts. They charge residents to haul away non-organic trash but pick up food waste for free, composting it, then selling the black gold results to golf courses and garden shops.  This has also significantly reduced their contribution to local landfills.

WFMU's Kelly Jones and Bronwyn C. on film

All of you Tribeca Film Fest fans should be pleased to know that WFMU's own hilarious girlie talk duo, Kelly Jones and Bronwyn C., are featured in one of this year's flicks: Guest of Cindy Sherman.

Back in 2004, listener Paul H-O called into The Kelly Jones Show Starring Bronwyn Carlton, seeking advice on how to deal with dating someone famous (listen to the archive). Said famous person happened to be artiste magnifique, Cindy Sherman. Less than a year later, Paul decided to document his experiences, and asked Bronwyn and Kelly to participate in the film.

Fast forward to 2008, and Guest of Cindy Sherman is slated for Tribeca AND Sundance. Congrats to Paul! More info and showtimes for Tribeca screenings available here. Ok ok, now the exciting part... check out this clip, starring Kelly Jones and Bronwyn Carlton.

Last Night's Protest Against Varvatos

(pic left from Flickr page of Jeremoss). I for one have grown completely numb to the co-opting of cool culture for nefarious commercial means. If the Strangulated Beatoffs had a song appear in a McDonald's ad, I probably would not bat an eye at this juncture (though if they do decide to do this I sort of fear for humanity what the band would be doing with their check). So, while I am right onboard with everyone who feels that downtown's identity has been clomped over by the high-rent boutiques, wine bars and luxury condos, I can't really feel that the amount of creativity in the city has been scaled down, just sort of displaced (to places with varying degrees of accessibility). I was truly saddened by Tonic's demise, mainly because it was such a central hub of important activity for so many artists who are somewhat more scattered now, but I never got that weepy over CB's. The last show I saw there was the Chain Gang, a good couple years before it's closing, and I think I hadn't been there since 2000 before that. Hence, the fact that John Varvatos decided to buy the old CBGB space and turn it into a fancy retail outlet that happens to preserve the club's graffiti, stage, lights and postered icons amidst racks of $700 jeans isn't as appalling to me I guess as it is to all of last night's protesters down in the Bowery. The difference between 315 Bowery becoming this or a Starbucks is what seems to be really rubbing people the wrong way; I mean, if the current realty office that owns the old Pier Platters space in Hoboken decided to put a box of Flying Nun records on their reception counter I'd probably applaud them. Perhaps someone who has respect for the careers of Graeme and Peter Jefferies may be the kind of person I'd like to rent an apartment from, who knows. Regardless, I'm glad there's still a spirit of protest alive (who's headed down to the LES to get a slab of that Bruce Willis-as-roast pig effigy happening?), though I did get a laugh from a comment on Curbed, whether it be facetious or not (thanks Doron): "I can't wait to protest this abomination, I'll meet everyone at the Whole Foods on Houston at 8PM!"

Douche of the Century

Listeners to my Killing Time show on WFMU know that I have a regular-ish feature called “Douche of the Week,” which is just what it sounds like. But I may have to retire that feature now that I’ve learned about Guillermo Vargas (“Habacuc”), King Uberdouche, the Douche of the Century.

Last year Vargas paid some poor kids to capture a stray dog in Managua. Then he took the dog, chained it to the wall of an art gallery, and let it starve to death—this was his art installation. (There’s video on YouTube!) Now Vargas has been chosen to represent Costa Rica, his home country, at the Bienal Centroamericana Honduras 2008, and he’s threatening to recreate his installation there and in other art galleries.

Information about this douche is readily available online, including a translation of his “artist’s statement” as to why it’s really arty to torture another living creature to death. You can find it yourself, if you want. So I’m just going to give you the link to the international petition to the BCH, asking them to deny Vargas participation in their show.

Of course, if this guy was really committed to his art, he’d chain himself to a wall and starve himself to death. But I bet he won’t.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless helpless creatures.

People Like Us Retrospective Exhibition

WFMU's own sound/image/video collage mistress People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett) is being featured in a gallery exhibition next month. In case you weren't already aware, People Like Us is an amazing artist, DJ, and podcaster, sampling and reappropriating audio, music, film, television, found footage, and anything else she can get her hands on, resulting in surreal and sublime juxtapositions that bend one's perception of culture.

We Edit Life: a retrospective exhibition
alt.gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Opening Night: 15 May 2008, 6 - 8pm
Exhibition: 16 May - 12 July 2008

The exhibition will focus on the concept of collage, showing an edited selection of Vicki's work, including twenty album releases, numerous singles and remixes, live sets, seven films and over a hundred and fifty radio shows. Dr. Drew Daniel of Matmos even composed an essay for the the exhibition! On top of that, We Edit Life also marks the launch of a new compilation CD, "Smiling Through My Teeth," curated by People Like Us for the Sonic Arts Network.

People Like Us has previously shown work at Tate Modern, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It, as well as WFMU. In 2006, she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive, no small feat.

Links:
Do or DIY radio archives on WFMU

Do or DIY Podcast

Codpaste (with Ergo Phizmiz) archives

People Like Us back catalogue

People Like Us homepage

The Saint Louis Metro Evening Whirl: The Greatest Newspaper Ever Printed

Wangstas, here's a caveat: Don't mess with the Whirl with the balls its got.

First-degree murderer?  This 50,000 subscriber local crime fighting publication says it's your ass!  Armed criminal action?  You best stop sitting on the edge of the bed and picking your feet in Poughkeepsie (or "East Boogie") 'cause the St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl's got a hunch that you're a yella son of a bitch who better start running.  (The actual home website's right here; only problem is you can't access the "more" link at the end of the Leonard Taylor story nor any of the stories "under construction" as the site is still in the process of getting established (siiiiiigh), making this site not particularly worth navigating.  This 2004 Riverfront Times article and the Whirl's MySpace page will be of much better help in acquainting you with this uproariously entertaining paper).

The CKLW 20-20 News/Quahog 5 News of tabloid newsprint publications, the Whirl's police blotter-style capsule reporting continues in their 70 year-long standing tradition, still going about nine steps further--nine very risky steps--than blotters in your daily slickly pretentious, impersonal Chicago Tribunes, Washington Posts or my city-of-residence's dearly beloved Post-Dispatch.  This November 2006 article from Believer (a great literature mag in print form and on-line published by McSweeney's) chronicles the Whirl's history.  Original founder Benjamin Thomas ripped into St. Louis's crimelords seeking mayoral runs and teachers gettin' busy with students (the story that gave birth to the Whirl; two high school teachers brought a group of boys to the country for picnic and were alleged to have sexually assaulted them) with an explicit aplomb that would shock readers today. 

Like a Sect Machine: Warren Jeffs, Singer/Songwriter

Warren Jeffs, imprisoned "President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of the polygamy-prone FLDS Church, must be verklempt over all the baby moms dramz going down at his Yearning For Zion compound in Eldorado, TX.

Yet despite his conviction as an accomplice to rape (not to mention that crazy connubial bed his sect kept in the YFZ temple), Jeffs still knows that the way to a pastel pinafored child bride's soul is through song. Who wouldn't wanna "keep sweet" after hearing the lilting refrains of....

"Yearning For Zion" by Warren Jeffs (MP3)

(Many thanks to Joey Gardner!)

FEMA B Txtn Me, OMG!!! ;)

Our nation's Emergency Alert System (EAS) was created by the FCC, FEMA, and the National Weather Service to warn the public about imminent danger in the form of important weather announcements, civil emergencies, and Presidential messages. Broadcasters are required to maintain and participate in the EAS system, airing any and all messages the feds fancy us to relay to the listening public.

Here at WFMU, we joke a lot about the EAS. In recent years, the system accidentally called for an evacuation of the entire state of Connecticut, failed to pass on any announcements whatsoever on 9/11, and warned folks along the Delaware River about a flood by requiring broadcasters in the area to announce that "A civil authority has issued a civil emergency." Though we must admit, the EAS warning for Hurricane Katrina was indeed accurate, and carried an appropriate doomsday-esque tone, the system is far from perfect, a fine example of bureaucracy getting in the way of good intentions. Hence, all of those "Unknown Event" or "Marine Sector" warning messages you hear WFMU DJs read over the air from time to time.

Ken warned us about this 2 years ago, but yesterday the feds finally approved a plan to send EAS messages to our nation's cell phones via text messages. And what's even better than getting a government-sanctioned emergency text message? The message will be delivered with its own unique ringtone! Will it be "The Imperial March"? Will it be "Carmina Burana"? How about "The Macarena"?

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for more text message spam! There are 3 types of txts that the gov't can send you:

1. Presidential messages. For example: "Dis bbq s orsum!", "w@ did Putin sA?"

2. Imminent threats. Example: "OMG Tornado, fnd Toto n run 4 covR! :("

3. Amber Alerts. Example: "12 y/o abductd, blk van, NJ pl8s"

Rest assured, you'll be able to opt out of this new EAS wonder... but good god, why deny yourself?!

Yearning For Big Love

As a fan of the HBO show Big Love - about an LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) splinter-group member with three wives - I was heartened to see the news this week of the government raid of a polygamist compound in West Texas. Why "heartened", you wonder? Because I have no idea when the show's coming back and the news coming out of the Yearning For Zion compound (Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them...) should hold me over until Harry Dean Stanton once again dons the creepy mantle of Roman Grant, patriarch of the fictional Yearning For Zion ranch, Juniper Creek.

The Very Short Post Which Concerns Barack Obama, Motörhead, Battlestar Galactica, and to a Lesser Extent, the City of Philadelphia

Riding on SEPTA yesterday, an idea for a new Barack Obama campaign song came soaring through my iPod: Motörhead's "Bomber", the chorus of which sounds crazily like "Obama!" (Thanks to Lemmy's unique British snarl.) I was just outside of Philadelphia, and the lyrical absurdity of this notion inspired me to listen to the song three more times before getting off at the Market East station.

[Listen]

Short of singing Saxon's "Denim & Leather" to a bunch of unemployed steel workers, I don't see any way that Hillary could possibly counter that. In fact, she'd be eating dust for eons.

Granted, it also kind of sounds like he's yelling "Adama!", which is another word that I fully endorse the random shouting of. Where are my Edward James Olmos MP3s?

Freezepop of the Current Gaming Music Future Future Future Perfect

Freezepop are not just a band. They're the first band in the world to become popular almost entirely because of their appearances not in newspapers, radio, magazines, or the blogosphere, but in video games. As a result, they're a convincing picture of the near future of music, gaming, and the worlds of art and commerce that surround both.

Just a few years ago, Freezepop's songs were sharing the stage with karaoke-style covers of "Smoke on the Water," "Ziggy Stardust," and "Spanish Castle Magic." Now, through a combination of good timing and great songwriting, they're sitting right up there with Bowie, Radiohead, and Blue Öyster Cult. Not karaoke-style Blue Öyster Cult, but the REAL Blue Öyster Cult...in a way. *

The Boston 3-piece has at its core The Duke of Pannekoeken, a programmer of infectious synth-pop and also of music for highly infectious video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Liz Enthusiasm is Freezepop's bouncing, purple-haired frontwoman whose deadpan delivery is every bit as plasticky and cutting as their synth lines. The two were kind enough to answer a bunch of my stupidly detailed questions about music, licensing, the Cardigans, and the concepts of "fun" and "songwriting" in rhythm gaming. If you haven't experienced rhythm gaming or Freezepop, you might want to watch these videos to get an idea of what you're dealing with. The first is Freezepop's official video for "Less Talk More Rokk," and the second is the same song being played to perfection in Guitar Hero II.

Trent Wolbe: How have your audiences and concerts changed and/or grown over the years?

Liz Enthusiasm: Well, when we were in the smaller games (Frequency and Amplitude) it was more hardcore gamers who came to our shows, but Guitar Hero has really opened it up to a lot of people. One thing I really like is that there are all kinds of people there, all ages groups and different scenes. It's pretty cool.

TW: Duke - you work at Harmonix, the company that makes the best Rhythm games in the world. What is Freezepop's relationship to Harmonix, exactly?

The Duke of Pannekeoken: why thank you kindly for the praise... i hope to think that harmonix has worked really hard to try and bring fun, interactive music experiences to people! the relationship is pretty straight-forward... just after freezepop was started back in '99, i joined harmonix as a sound designer and composer and was tasked with writing music for our first game FreQuency, as well as authoring a number of other tracks in the game. after a couple of years doing that, i moved up and became the audio director for the Karaoke Revolution series of games, AntiGrav, and Guitar Hero 1 & 2. Since then, i've transitioned over to being a producer and lead the team that made Phase for the iPod which was released last fall. All of this has opened up a great opportunity for freezepop to include tracks in almost all of those games and reach whole new groups of fans. it's been amazing the reaction we've gotten to our songs in the games and has brought out lots of gamers to our shows.

TW: Do you write Freezepop songs and hope they'll end up in Rock Band, or see a hole in Rock Band, for example, and write to fill it?

LE: We generally use pre-existing songs of ours. There are certain ones that are just more obvious choices as to what would work well in the video game context.

DoP: For the most part, it's just a song we've written, and have gotten an opportunity to include it in a game, and then we've made some changes to the track that will make it play more fun. the only exception to this really was Less Talk More Rokk which was pretty much explicitly written knowing it was going to go into Guitar Hero 2. But it sounds pretty much like our other songs so it wasnt much of a stretch. We have added guitars and beefed up some of the instrumental parts in Brainpower to make sure it's super fun to play in Rock Band.

Enough already

Spitzer went to prostitutes, and McGreevey had threesomes with his driver, and Paterson had affairs and did coke, and NOW we find out Bush is into furries.

Boredoms vs Cai Guo-Chiang Explosion

Japanese noise / punk / kraut / space / future rockers Boredoms played last night at Terminal 5, and it was absolutely amazing.  I wrote about their (also absolutely amazing)  77BOADRUM event in these pages this summer, but I think it's worthy to write about last night's concert because, well, every time they play is an...absolutely amazing and inspiring event.

Terminal 5 is a well-designed space, and the non-ground floors offer plenty of front-row rail access good for leaning over and catching the action below from.  But the spectacle last night pushed Terminal 5's (considerable) capacity to its limits.  Every floor was packed, and I stretched nudge muscles I didn't know I had trying to get a direct line of sight to see the band below. 

Every Boredoms concert is an explosive exploration of ideas in music, with lead Bore EYE literally turning everything we know about song structure inside out and puking it up in a perfectly-orchestrated space of time.  The sound itself is an exercise of controlled and beautiful explosions: at the beginning of each performance, Eye summons some sort of powerful otherworldy being into existence on the stage via two glowing orbs that he swings around in the midst of ecstatic shouts and song, creating miraculously glitchy lightning crashes.  Three drummers pound away cyclic and ever-changing rhythms that build and collapse on themselves, only to reveal more complex rhythms that you're surprised you didn't heard before.  The centerpiece of Boredoms' round stage is a disembowelment and re-construction of 7 purple guitars called the Sevena, built by Boredoms "sub-member" and DMBQ guy Masuko. Eye treats it as a percussion instrument, hitting it with a broomstick, using such force that it must be anchored in place by a steel crossbeam and two assistants to make sure the fucking thing doesn't topple over in the course of the performance.  Eye makes it his business to play the perfectly-tuned (and re-tuned, and re-tuned) strings off of the instrument, and when they finally walked off the stage, only a few strings remained - all but destroying the Sevena in the process.  A few minutes into the set as I watched Eye spazz out across the stage, I noticed - this guy is in a motherfucking CAST.  After seeing that, in a move I'll probably regret later, I took my earplugs OUT towards the end of the show to experience what was going on in a more direct manner.  I didn't need my eardrums anyway. 

I was reminded more and more as the night went on of the Cai Guo-Chiang exhibit currently on display at the Guggenheim. 
 

Photo: pocketmonsterd

Struck Truck

For the last two years Meredith Ochs and I have hosted a daily 3-hour talk show - Freewheelin' - on Sirius Satellite Radio's Road Dog channel 147. We just returned from MATS - the Mid-America Trucking Show - in Louisville, Kentucky where anyone who's anyone in the trucking industry displays their new wares or peddles their services. Before getting the gig on Sirius I never truly considered all that trucking means to this country. I've always enjoyed truck driving songs (the more maudlin the better), I'm old enough to remember the C.B. craze and can name just about every truck driving movie ever made: but pondering the importance of the American Truck Driver in the grand scheme of things is not an activity in which I ever engaged. My eyes have been opened.

Most four-wheelers (those folks in cars) view trucks as a hindrance on the highway and stereotype truck drives as a bunch of lard-ass rednecks with little or no brains. These people speed home from a store bitching about that 18-wheeler in their way and never make the connection between the stuff in their shopping bags and the cargo in that truck. As the saying goes, "If you bought it, a truck brought it." These same myopic four-wheelers don't realize there are women truckers, gay truckers, trans-gendered truckers, African-American truckers, Latino truckers, etc., etc. Nor do they understand there are company drivers and independent owner-operators, those who are over-the-road (OTR), moving loads long distances, never knowing where they might go next - and those who run dedicated routes. On Freewheelin' we've heard from 4th and 5th generation drivers whose great-grandfathers ran mule teams and who say "Trucking's in my blood..." and we've also gotten calls from former "corporate pukes" who gave up their desk jockey jobs so they could get out on the road, see some of the country and enjoy a little freedom.

But perhaps what the average four-wheeler understands least is just how fed up most truckers are. With the price of a gallon of diesel now over $4.00 in most states, tolls and highway taxes ticking ever upwards and the price of truck insurance skyrocketing, independent owner-operators are working on razor-thin margins with many claiming they'll soon be out of business. These are small business owners, the very people our current administration claims are the "backbone" of our economy. They feel betrayed by a country to which they've sacrificed so much, including any semblance of a family life. Even company drivers for whom operating costs are not an issue feel as if they get little or no respect on the road.

Truckers see the bail-out of Bear Stearns, wonder "What about us?" and begin - once again - to talk again about striking. Or shutting their trucks off for a day or taking a "vacation", since a strike would be declared illegal. Legal or not, the strike chatter has reached a fever pitch, with some drivers creating websites like truckers4change.com to carry their message and test the waters. In the last few weeks there have been stories all over the web, in print and on TV and radio, including this article by Barb Ickes in the Quad City Times  as well as a report on KTKA-TV about a strike set for April 1 (or perhaps it's April 3 or some other day in the next month or two). Two recent documentaries - Alligator on the Zipper and Big Rig - also shine a light on how hard it is to be a trucker these days.

Will a strike actually happen? And - if it does - will anyone notice or care? There was a trucker strike in Italy recently and it did bring similar issues to light and force the government to take those issues seriously. Can it work here? Only if the independent owner-operators who take part are joined in significant numbers by their company driver brethren. Otherwise, the numbers would be too small to make an impact. The trade organization OOIDA (Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association) has taken the position that a strike would be at best unwise, at worst criminal. The Teamsters haven't released any statements about a possible strike. And no one has mentioned - as far as I can tell - that a strike was attempted about four months back, to no avail. But tomorrow is April 1st and if there is a nationwide trucker strike (shutdown, stoppage, vacation, etc.) it will not be a joke. This country will come to a standstill.

This week's viral crazes...

Two videos I just saw this week and couldn't help but share.

The McCain Girls (via New York Mag)
It's painful, but hold out for the scene where it actually does start raining McCain's and you'll lose your shit.

UPDATE: Tis a damn fine comedy hoax.

Bathing with Bierko: John Malkovich
The fact that John Malkovich is willing to get in the tub with Craig Bierko and have his ears lovingly scrubbed as he repeats "Portugal" and "flamingo" over and over makes me love Malkovich even more than I already did.

WFMU's 2008 SXSW showcase archive

For those who couldn't make it to the taco-filled streets of Austin, TX last week, now is your chance to live vicariously: check out the unedited soundboard recording from the main stage of our first and triumphant SXSW showcase, which happened at Spiro's nightclub on 3/14:
Playlist  |  Real Audio  |  Streaming MP3

Or listen by band:
Harvey Milk   
(listen: Real Audio  |  MP3 )

The Homosexuals    
(listen: Real Audio  |  MP3 )

Hank IV    
(listen: Real Audio  | MP3 )

Carla Bozulich / Evangelista    
(listen: Real Audio  |  MP3 )

Half Japanese    
(listen: Real Audio  |  MP3 )

Citay    
(listen: Real Audio  |  MP3 )

The Bad Trips    
(listen: Real Audio  |  MP3 )

Thanks to Irene and Diane for engineering, and thanks to Jason for splicing and dicing. We've posted downloadable MP3s of songs by The Homosexuals and Half Japanese already, but stay tuned for even more!

Yosuke Yamashita Playing a Burning Piano

via Japan Today. "Jazz pianist Yosuke Yamashita, 66, plays a burning piano on the beach in Shiga, Ishikawa Prefecture. He was showing his appreciation for his old piano that he no longer uses. Yamashita did the same thing once before in 1973."

Yamashita's 1973 piano burning was made into a short film by the Japanese director Kiyoshi Awazu and can be viewed in full on Kiyoshi's website.

See an excerpt from the film from YouTube below Actually this looks less like an excerpt and more like a piece from a Japanese news program.  No matter, if you like what you see, you will probably want to click through to check out the complete film.

Grindin’ a Rail with Jesus

I’m not a Catholic, so the impending visit of Pope Benedict XVI to New York wasn’t especially high on the Killing Time Watch List. But then I found out about the Papal Skateboard Art Design Contest! If only I were 11-18 years of age and living in the Archdiocese of New York, I could design some artwork for the Official Papal Skateboard. No, wait—I mean THE OFFICIAL PAPAL SKATEBOARD!

There are some rules, of course. You can only use four (4—they give you the numeral, in case the word is confusing) FOUR colors: Papal Gold, Satanic Black, Holy Ghost White, and Bleeding Wounds of Christ Red. (I made up the names, except for Papal Gold—that one’s real.) And they would really, really like you to use the official motto, “Christ Our Hope” on it, and they would especially really, really like you to incorporate the official Papal Visit Logo which is a photograph of the Pope and an abstract design of the dome of St. Peter’s Basillica, and three big long lines of copy. They would really like you to get that all onto the “convex side” of the skateboard (and then they explain that’s the bottom side, like you don’t know where the art goes).

I think they must have asked a professional designer to incorporate all those elements, and when the pro told them it was impossible, they turned to the blessed, innocent children to create a Miraculous Official Papal Skateboard Design. And the Miraculous Official Papal Skateboard Design artwork is going to be put on THE OFFICIAL PAPAL SKATEBOARD and it will be presented to Pope Benedict as a gift from the Youth of the Archdiocese of New York, and the winning designer gets three (3) tickets to the Papal Youth Ralley at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers on Saturday, April 19. 2008. (They put the year in, just in case.) And why three (3) tickets? Maybe it’s so your Mom and Dad can go with you. But if that’s the case, why not nine (9) tickets so you can take your six (6) Catholic brothers and sisters, too? Where are they gonna go while you’re off seeing the Pope with Mom and Dad?

The best thing about the Official Papal Skateboard Design contest is some of the designs ostensibly submitted already. You can see them all at the Web site. I really love the ones where you can see the graphite pencil lines. Seriously. Although some of these were allegedly drawn by, like, 15-year-olds.

And the second best thing about the Official Papal Skateboard Design contest is imagining the Pope Benedict episode of my favorite TV show, Scarred.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless.

Grammatical Adventure on the E Train

If you saw a flyer boasting "Prostitution Reform" crumpled up on the floor of the E train, you'd pick it up, too. Dirt, footprints, grammatical errors, and a most confusing message... nothing could have provided more entertainment for Maria Levitsky and I, who giggled all the way home.

I challenge any of you grammar geeks out there to take a stab at this. Download the PDFs:  front  |  back

They’re Tearin’ Down the House I Was Brung Up In

I often get little messages from my subconscious in the form of song lyrics. I’ll be going along, doing something or other—taking a shower, walking to work, washing the dishes—and I’ll realize I’m humming a song, and then if I pay attention and figure out what song it is, it’ll turn out that the lyrics are making a little commentary on something that’s been on my mind. Lately I’ve found myself humming an old country tune called “They’re Tearing Down the House I Was Brung Up In,” and I sure wish I could post an MP3 of it for you, in case you’re not familiar with it, or at least put up the lyrics, but it seems that the whole wide Internet has never heard of it. But it’s a real song, I promise.

I guess the reason that song’s been in my head is that the people who own the Carpenters’ old house in Downey, California, are getting ready to tear it down. This is the house that was on the cover of some Carpenters’ album, and apparently rabid Carpenters’ fans (Who knew?!) are all agitated because they consider the house to be a SHRINE. It’s where anorexic Karen collapsed before she died! The fan who’s put himself in charge of saving the house calls it “our version of Graceland,” although apparently there are no guided tours, no souvenirs, no Richard Carpenter sightings—oh, wait: I think he’s still alive. Anyway, the people who bought the house are tired of obsessed weirdos peeking in the windows, crying through the locks, and they want to tear the place down and build a McMansion or something, while the fans are hoping the city of Downey will declare it a historic landmark. Maybe the fans should stage a hunger strike in front of Downey city hall.

A long time ago Sluggo worked the overnight shift as a proofreader at a big New York City law firm, but since he’s dyslexic he spent most of his time drawing pictures for the people he worked with. One of them happened to be an obsessed Carpenters fan, so one night Sluggo drew a picture of himself sitting on Karen Carpenter’s grave, eating a picnic. He meant it to be funny, but his colleague burst into tears and never spoke to him again. It’s kind of scary to think that if you get enough people like that together, they might make trouble for you, if you're the kind of person who would buy the former home of someone who sold a lot of record albums. In the 1970s.

Thanks for reading my blog post this week, and please give generously to the WFMU Marathon.

BUY ME, or at Least Label Me: Why is Culture Sold to Us?

     In the halcyon days of 1638, when the first printing press was shipped to the US, the colonists imagined that the ability to communicate with many people simultaneously would do massive amounts of good for the new world.  I feel I shared that sense of limitless joy last week while reading the NY Times.  It was there on page one that I discovered something buried within me, needing to be labeled.  For years, I had been carving out my identity as an over-educated artist/DJ/black sheep of the family/potential Buddhist/educator/gluten-free/bohemian.  That all came crashing to the floor when I recognized myself, as an 'EcoMom'! 
     Not only was I apparently in denial, but alas, I was doing it on my own.  Thankfully, the printed word hipped me to the many groups I could be part of, that could offer me support in this rough transitional moment.  Of course, you can see my unbridled joy at this important discovery.  What was I doing swapping out vinegar mixed with water as a window cleaner,  when I could be in a chat group trading quips about my kitchen smelling like fish and chips, but with very clean windows?  According to the article over 9,000 women have committed themselves to an organization that encourages them to unplug appliances when not in use, and to cut back on the amount of waste they generate by using washable containers for their kids' lunches, instead of plastic bags. Great!  Except, why do we need to be working toward a merit badge and do this in a group?  What ever happened to the pioneer spirit?  I fear it is cloaked in we-are-all carrying-the-same-cloth-totebag consumerism
     I can't find fault with many of the wonderful ideas that crop up in the latest living room version of Tupperware parties.  I use low VOC paints in my house, but this newspaper reporting stinks of a marketing moment gone wild.  Lately, many articles I read in the paper of record that don't detail body counts in East Timor, relate a story that suggests the author knows at least 3 people who are  doing this miraculous new 'thing' and it needs to be chronicled as a trend.  I know we are all still talking about the cultural importance of roller blades, or 'in-line' skates as we now know them to be more impartially called...but what about the substitution of the marketplace for thinking, looking and feeling?  Why does 'all the news that is fit to print' not feel the need to discuss the addiction to marketing and shopping that seems to fuel our 21st society?  Articles in home design magazines chiding happy readers to go green suggest buying window cleaner made with vinegar, instead of making your own.  "Throw away your old wooden chairs" (add to the landfill) "and buy new ones made from recycled soda bottles!" 
     Woman are the targeted audiences in this green marketing revolution.  Artist Martha Rosler skewered the disconnect between domestic reality and world tensions in the 1960's and 70's in her Red Stripe Kitchen photo montage, above, and Semiotics of the Kitchen video work that are still very resonant today.

WFMU includes music made 100 years ago, still sounding as crackly as when it was first recorded, next to home grown DIY tuba toots, and computer generated hum.  I don't know exactly what we would call it, but we don't sell it as a marketing trend. When listening to free form, (gulp, no marketing advice taken), listener-supported, WFMU you never know if the next song is going to be recycled, reconstituted, mashed up, or environmentally sound...Pledge to this uncategorizable lifestyle, my dear free formers, and think of how much vinyl we are keeping out of the landfill with your heavily recycled dollars. 

Johnny Greenwood and the Oscars

It is a sure bet that Paul Thomas Anderson's excellent film There Will Be Blood will grab a few Oscars tonight, but unfortunately it won't get one for Best Original Score. The reason is an arcane and stupid Academy Awards rule excluding "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music".

The score was written by Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood, combining pieces by Arvo Pärt, Johannes Brahms, and others, with a good chunk (supposedly about 35 minutes) of music written by himself specifically for this film. He also used a few pieces of his BBC-commissioned 2006 composition Popcorn Superhet Receiver (RealAudio streaming link). Apparently this was too much "diluting" for the Academy, and it really is a shame that this keeps the best 2007 film score out of the awards.

If you think this is a 21st century problem, you might be surprised that this rule has already robbed another great composer from receiving an Oscar, 35 years ago. Nino Rota's score for the original 1972 Godfather movie was ruled ineligible for recycling a theme from his soundtrack for the 1958 film Fortunella. However, Rota used the same theme again in 1974's Godfather II, and this film finally got him his deserved award. It doesn't make any sense, but it really happened that way. I am waiting for There Will Be Blood II...

You can listen to a track from Johnny Greenwood's score on his MySpace page, and you should also check out an excerpt from Bodysong (YouTube link), a 2003 film by Simon Pummell which was scored by Greenwood.

Chris T.'s Oscar Picks 2008

I'm stranded in Hollywood due to the winter storm on the East Coast, so I thought I'd take advantage of my proximity to the Kodak Theater, where the 2008 Oscars will be awarded Sunday night, and see if I can go five for five in the top categories, as I did last year:

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: The true contenders are Ruby Dee in American Gangster and Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There. I was leaning toward Blanchett but she won a few years ago for The Aviator. Ruby Dee has never won an Oscar and that will be rectified this year.

BEST ACTRESS: The race is between Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose, and Julie Christie, Away From Her. They're both earning raves but Miss Cotillard gets my nod because my friend Jim says she was amazing.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: This one is a lock: Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men.

BEST ACTOR: Another lock: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood.

BEST PICTURE: Some folks hated the ending - not me: No Country For Old Men.

Sensory Overload

This is what it must be like to live in Tokyo:
http://oamos.com

Type in any search term (like wfmu or taco), making sure you've swallowed your seizure meds and turned up your speakers before the fun begins.

I think my head just exploded. Either that, or I've become a cyborg.

Thanks Andy (I think). Image by RSMS Kopimi.