Please forgive the following musical digression. My dad loved jazz. When he was in college in the early 60’s, he used to drive to Manhattan on some weekends and go to clubs. My exposure to jazz was the Johnny Costa Trio who provided all the music Mr.Rogers Neighborhood. Years later, as I was looking up “Who was that guy who went nuts on the piano at the end of every episode?”, I found that Costa was known as “The White [Art] Tatum”, a nickname given to him by Tatum himself. So I got a ton of Tatum, and I listen to it to this day.
Re: Jello Biafra & the Dead Kennedys - Jello lost the thread many years ago when he came out in favor of suppressing speech he didn’t like. Before that, he was somebody who I liked, despite vehement disagreements. He wrote “California Uber Alles” and “Holiday in Cambodia”, both of which are about how murderous the left wing can be and communists are, so I can’t call him a monster. Forgive me if I mis-read you and you aren’t equating him with the Ivy League cabal, and being monstrous.
I liked Public Enemy. They had fire. I knew about them because they were always mentioned as one of the two groups that sold millions of albums in the 80’s with virtually no radio airplay. The other band was Metallica, of whom I was a much bigger fan.
I can’t imagine not liking somebody’s music because of who else likes it.
To borrow from Office Space, when someone suggests that Michael Bolton change what people call him to “Mike”. “No way! Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks!”.
I have a grudge against the counter-culture who have made an almost entirely baby-boomer only fortune on pop rebellion. They seem so transparently transgressive. And the vibe I've been getting for decades is all contained in Rebel Without A Cause, "My white middle class parents (who look like Bill Evans) are the most evil people in the world. Anything I can do to be nothing like them is good for the world." These were the whitebread Babbits it became so trivially easy to 'radicalize', and thus you had suburbanites whose kids rejected them show up and bend the knee to the likes of Eldridge Cleaver.
What's at core here is the leverage that every generation of naifs gives to black rage and white guilt and how it plays out in society through culture. What's at stake is the ability for abandoned white parents and everyone else to transcend such radical racialized politics and those 'artists' who take advantage.
I liked PE as much as anyone, but I never took them seriously politically. Same as I could never take Spike Lee seriously politically. If I had any idea how many grownups would disappear paving the way for reality-show candidates, I would have been more outraged.
I guess in general I expected there to be room for outre and punk expression as well as the arcane, but I never expected politics to become so stupid and squalid. Squalid art is artillery for softening up the electorate for lame political footsoldiers. Yes We Can! Yes We Can!
Good stuff.
Please forgive the following musical digression. My dad loved jazz. When he was in college in the early 60’s, he used to drive to Manhattan on some weekends and go to clubs. My exposure to jazz was the Johnny Costa Trio who provided all the music Mr.Rogers Neighborhood. Years later, as I was looking up “Who was that guy who went nuts on the piano at the end of every episode?”, I found that Costa was known as “The White [Art] Tatum”, a nickname given to him by Tatum himself. So I got a ton of Tatum, and I listen to it to this day.
Re: Jello Biafra & the Dead Kennedys - Jello lost the thread many years ago when he came out in favor of suppressing speech he didn’t like. Before that, he was somebody who I liked, despite vehement disagreements. He wrote “California Uber Alles” and “Holiday in Cambodia”, both of which are about how murderous the left wing can be and communists are, so I can’t call him a monster. Forgive me if I mis-read you and you aren’t equating him with the Ivy League cabal, and being monstrous.
I liked Public Enemy. They had fire. I knew about them because they were always mentioned as one of the two groups that sold millions of albums in the 80’s with virtually no radio airplay. The other band was Metallica, of whom I was a much bigger fan.
I can’t imagine not liking somebody’s music because of who else likes it.
To borrow from Office Space, when someone suggests that Michael Bolton change what people call him to “Mike”. “No way! Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks!”.
I have a grudge against the counter-culture who have made an almost entirely baby-boomer only fortune on pop rebellion. They seem so transparently transgressive. And the vibe I've been getting for decades is all contained in Rebel Without A Cause, "My white middle class parents (who look like Bill Evans) are the most evil people in the world. Anything I can do to be nothing like them is good for the world." These were the whitebread Babbits it became so trivially easy to 'radicalize', and thus you had suburbanites whose kids rejected them show up and bend the knee to the likes of Eldridge Cleaver.
What's at core here is the leverage that every generation of naifs gives to black rage and white guilt and how it plays out in society through culture. What's at stake is the ability for abandoned white parents and everyone else to transcend such radical racialized politics and those 'artists' who take advantage.
I liked PE as much as anyone, but I never took them seriously politically. Same as I could never take Spike Lee seriously politically. If I had any idea how many grownups would disappear paving the way for reality-show candidates, I would have been more outraged.
I guess in general I expected there to be room for outre and punk expression as well as the arcane, but I never expected politics to become so stupid and squalid. Squalid art is artillery for softening up the electorate for lame political footsoldiers. Yes We Can! Yes We Can!