WHAT'S THIS LOOK LIKE A HOLIDAY INN

Maybe if I hold your hand you will understand.
Dick Cheney: Iraq Shuffle

I had prepared a 1,000-word post that would answer, after a fashion, a question from an esteemed reader. A while back, I posted the following: "Here's the thing. I write all the time about both politics and music on this blog, and I've clearly devoted my career to the latter over the former, but what's at stake in these issues is, I'm sorry, a whole lot more important than the loss of some really great bands." This reader wrote in to ask, "Wondering how it is that you came down on the side of music rather than politics for yourself, particularly as you go on to catalogue the various ways you find politics to be more important than music."

Well, shit. Like I said, those 1,000 words were going to answer that, tie in all kinds of bullshit ways that people treat discourse (political and musical) as if the symbols that compose language didn't also stand for a real something, and then eventually totally explain how this means we need a new, crazy way of approaching language to match the medium of our time-- that we need, like Finnegan's Wake, or Super Furry Animals, to transcend language. I think at some point I actually tried to address dude's question.


A song for the young believers, who woke up and found themselves neither.
The Standells: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White (via Dennis Cooper)

Then this happened. I mean, I'll probably put up most of my previous, aborted post sometime (actually, I accidentally posted a draft of it, so there's probably a copy floating out there in a Google cache somewhere). But one of my daily reads, Bob Somerby's Daily Howler, posted this following exchange regarding young Atlantic blogger Matthew Yglesias:


SOMERBY:

YGLESIAS: This is what I've referred to as the "hack gap" and it seems to me that it's very important. The nature of two-party democracy is that elections are decided by the small minority of the public too confused or too ill-informed to realize that there are persistent, substantial differences between the two federal political parties. As a result, the issues (or, more likely, pseudo-issues) that are most important in deciding elections tend to be the issues that are least important in substantive terms.

Due to this unexplained “hack gap,” pseudo-issues tend to decide our elections. We’ve been discussing such issues forever. But guess what? As we continue, we learn that Matt doesn’t want to waste his time on these decisive pseudo-issues. Darlings, the lovely shall be choosers! Matt would rather spend his time working on things that he finds “interesting.” The gentleman wants an “appealing” way to spend his valuable time:

YGLESIAS (continuing directly): As a writer, though, I'd rather spend my time writing about things that I think are important or at least interesting. Harping away on haircuts, Bykofsky's appalling column, the way George W. Bush lied to the American public about what kind of cheese he likes on his cheesesteak (really!), etc. doesn't seem like an appealing way to spend my time. But the fact that the right has an army of people willing to pretend that this sort of thing is the most important thing in the world is a massive, massive impediment to having sensible policies about national security, taxes, health care, global warming, etc.

Darlings! Haircuts and earth tones decide our elections—and, thereby, the fate of the world. Their pre-eminence is also “a massive, massive impediment to having sensible policies about national security, taxes, health care, global warming.” But so what? Matt would rather spend his time writing about the things that are interesting! Writing about things that decide our elections “doesn't seem like an appealing way” for Matt “to spend [his] time.”


Let's see here. I also think this stuff is vastly important! I have also said as much, on my blog! So why the hell am I doing what I do, then? Is it because I love it, love the music, and the writing, and the writing about music (not so much music about writing, though there's not enough)? Is it because it's easier for a twentysomething smart-ass to find an outlet for music writing than political writing? Is it art for art's sake? Is it because I'd never want to end up in Washington, D.C., and I invent stuff like that as an excuse? Is it because I'm a big goddamn hypocrite?


Why won't you recognize how psychedelic I am / And love me?
Josh Ritter: Me and Jiggs (from 2002)

Then again, what the hell are you doing? Is that part of my rationalization process? Is this one of the five stages of grief? Why would I be sad? Lil' Wayne's so mother-fucking high he could eat a star! Lil' Wayne was in the New Yorker! Dick Cheney was against invading Iraq before he was for it ("How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? ...Our judgment was, not very many"). Wait, does that mean I'm rehabilitated?

Why would a seashell illustrate Jens Lekman's homelessness? Where are all the homeless in this town? Why don't you ever run into Chicago-style crazies on the subway? Why has nobody called Michelle Rhee on her unverified credentials and apparent falsehoods? Why is nobody talking about the fact that other countries have much better health care, for much less money, than the U.S.-- the equivalent of a BMW that was half the price of a Hyundai? Why isn't everybody talking about the Tough Alliance? Is it because Josh Ritter actually sings in the inspired Dylan-esque torrents other critics write of hearing in Lil' Wayne (true!) and Jack White (words are meaningless, and regrettable), or is it because he doesn't have a punk pedigree? Is everybody reading Deerhunter's blog every day? Is there a Santa Claus? What's the Soft Pink Truth about the Shocking Pinks?

Um yeah but posting about Justin Timberlake is interesting and appealing to me. There was an article in the New Yorker about head trauma making people obsessed with music. Let's rationalize it that way. "My mind is on another continent." One blink for yes, two blinks for no, sweet dreams, sweet cheeks. Yours truly.


I'll never be free of memories.
Anonymous Keyboardist: Hot for Teacher

EDIT: a crygasm so powerful, it encompasses us, as a group, and we too are caught up, brought to a cathartic peak, and we all... release:


P.S. Oh hey, I forgot to mention, my Dizzee Rascal review ran in Spin.