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Destroying the World is Surprisingly Difficult November 29th, 2005 -- I read an article this morning about a speech given by Ted Turner (motto: I gave a billion dollars to the UN and all I got was this lousy corruption scandal.) The reason the article was linked from Drudge was because he said Iraq was better off before we went in. If he really believes that, I think Iraq shouldn't execute Saddam but instead give him a Napoleonic sentence of making him dictator of Ted Turner's ranch in Wyoming, and the both of them could be happy together as dictator and torture-ee. Anyway, what caught my eye was that he said we should dismantle all of our nuclear weapons, because a nuclear war could "kill everything on the planet" in an afternoon. Now, I know TBS tends to show War Games every few months, and maybe this comment explains why. In that movie, the supercomputer figures out that nuclear war is "mutually assured destruction", because it's like Tic-Tac-Toe, which always ends in a tie (not with my four year-old, but that's beside the point), and he flashes a bunch of scenarios where the whole world is destroyed with nuclear weapons. But, when you think about it, the only way nuclear war could "kill everything on the planet" would be for us to have a strategic and concerted effort to do so. If, say, Russia, were to launch a nuclear weapon at us, it would probably be aimed for Washington, D.C., and would destroy the Pentagon, the White House, the Senate, etc. At that point, Russia will have probably won. Just think, 3,000+ people were killed on 9/11, and it took us months to drop one bomb on our enemies in retaliation. However, if we decided to retaliate, we'd shoot for Moscow. But, of course, the Russians would be smart enough not to put all of their leaders into the same place, so destroying Moscow would be pointless. It takes months and sometimes years for us to resort to killing civilians, and there's no way we'd do that in the first few minutes. But, say that we did want to destroy all of Russia. We'd blanket the whole country with nuclear weapons. It would be madness, and the complete opposite of what we've always done, but let's just accept it as a hypothetical. But, tell me, would we attack Africa? South America? Would Russia attack Canada? Italy? No, of course not. I can't think of a single instance where we would feel the need to start destroying the Earth because Russia had launched a nuclear weapon at us. Even if it were still the eighties, we would at the most attack the communist countries, since they likely would have some nuclear weapons. Maybe Russia would go after France and England and Israel, since they all have the bomb and are allies with America (well, two of them, at least.) Otherwise, there's no point in blanketing the whole globe with bombs. But, really, most likely there would be one bomb, and America would invade the offending country a few months later in a traditional way, and take over their government within weeks. Actually, most likely there would be no bomb, because the countries with the bomb have enough sense not to invoke America's wrath, and the ones that don't have that sense need some in order to develop the bomb in the first place. But, on a happier note, destroying the Earth is no simple task. It takes money resources, and manpower, and a good bit of invention and planning. Sam Hughes outlines some of the various possibilities on this page, and it's heartening to note that most of the methods need between 250 and 1,000 years before they could come to fruition, and it would have to be a very dedicated and concerted "We Are the World" sort of effort, which, if you think about it, would be ironic on a whole slew of levels. On a less happy note, John Derbyshire tells us that most of us will die in poverty, the environment is collapsing, science is dead, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are saddled up and ready to ride. But, to end on a positive note, Baumer is coming to the Handlebar this Friday, and it's only five bucks. Keith |
| Please Fast Forward to the Commercials November 23rd, 2005 -- Annie (me wife) loves commercials. Well, she used to. She's not quite as fond of them now. But, if we're sitting around with nothing to do on a Friday, we'll watch one of those "The Best Commercials Ever, vol. 18" shows. Besides stretching the exclusivity of the word "best" to its furthest extremes, they tend to be fairly amusing, especially when they show wacky asian commercials. But, when it's over, you realize that commercials, the little spots designed to raise the awareness of a particular product, end up being more entertaining than many of the shows that they are supposed to be "helped" by. TV shows are supposed to make viewers watch TV so they can see the commercials, and commercials make all the money so there is TV to watch. Commercials are definitely the king in this relationship, of course, since they bring home the bacon. So, what you end up having are TV shows that are designed to hook you immediately and keep you on their station for an hour. If you've ever watched Law and Order or one of the other detective shows, you notice that something crazy and compelling always happens in the first three minutes. That happens because they want you to spend the next hour of your life watching the show, so you can watch their commercials. TV shows never have a slow opening, there is never an opening scene like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where you have to wonder what the heck's going on for about ten minutes, and by the end you kind of have an idea as to why it's there. It's also why you don't have too many variety shows anymore. Yeah, that juggler guy at the beginning was cool, but if you've seen one fire-breather, you've seen them all, so let's see who's going to get kicked off of the island this week. A movie, though, in a movie theater, traps you. You pay somewhere between $5.50 and $8 to get in, then they turn down the lights, and the movie starts. At that point, anything could happen on screen and I will be its victim. I've never walked out of a movie, because if I'm paying for it, dang it I'm going to watch it. Show me anything - dogs sniffing themselves, the life of a stapler, what dirt looks like, I don't care, I'm staying put. Put me on my couch in front of my TV, though, with a bunch of other free channels at my fingertips, where my only goal is to be amused, and you better be amusing, and you better be amusing right quick. Otherwise, I'm going to see what's on the WB, and it just might be something "ethnic", and you need some ethnicity every now and then, and that's that. This might be good for short-term amusement, but it's disastrous for anything greater than amusement. You might find some "compelling television" every now and then, but you'll be hard-pressed to find "life-changing television" or "awe-inspiring television" or even "really neat" television. You'll find stuff that's funny, that's kind of interesting, but nothing greater, it's just the way it is. The problem for me as a musician is that the movie theater and TV is analogous to the album (or a live concert) and radio. But with a movie, you don't get people to go to it by showing ten minutes of it on TV once every three hours, until people are so sick of it that they don't want to watch the movie. But for some reason us musicians think we can do that with the radio. I hear so many bands say "if we could just be on the radio . . . " So what if you're on the radio? What does that prove, that you can get people to listen to commercials? Bands think of their singles as commercials for their albums, but some of the worst albums I've ever heard had tons of great singles on them (I'm thinking Foo Fighters, the Beastie Boys, and Stone Temple Pilots. I gave up on most top 40 albums after them, so I don't know of any more contemporary examples.) Radiohead has had one big hit, and it was on one of their worst albums. Albums should be movies, united works, with certain musical and lyrical ideas working throughout, where, when you get done, you don't say "those last few songs where definitely filler, but the rest of the album was good", you should instead say "ah, now I get it. That was incredible." I don't listen to many albums because they often sound like a radio station that not only exclusively plays one band, but insists on playing a lot of the band's more terrible songs. Who wants to listen to that? So, my challenge to myself, is that over the next year or so, I'm going to embark on writing "an album", not just a big collection of songs. I don't know what it's going to be about, just yet, but when it's done, some of the songs might not sound cool by themselves, but it will be a unified work, something with drama and highs and lows, and when you get done listening to it, you say "yeah". peace out, yo, Keith |
| Milli Vanilli -- The Warrior Kings of Pop Music November 16th, 2005 -- I feel really bad about Milli Vanilli. I feel bad about a lot of people that have made terrible terrible music, the Gerardos, the Vanilla Ices, the Ashlee Simpsons, and the David Bowies (sorry about that, cool people.) Really, most of them were just taken advantage of when they were in their late teens by some record producer who wanted to make some money off of his new sound. The only difference between Milli Vanilli and the newer exploitees is that they didn't have autotune back in the mid-80s, so they had to get real singers to sing for them. Britney Spears can't sing, and what ends up on her records has very little to do with what came out of her voice box in the studio. She didn't write songs back when she first got big, either, so why was she chosen to be famous? Marketability, of course. What makes her and the others so much better than Milli Vanilli? Not much. I guess the reason that Milli Vanilli was reviled while Brittney et al got rich is that MV was just one step too fake for people. It's kind of a reverse uncanny valley effect. Go read that link before I continue, because I suffer not those ignorant of the history of Japanese robotics. People feel okay with something that seems real, up to a point, and when it gets too real they start to freak out, to become repulsed. The opposite is that people will deal with fakeness up to a point. In fact, we prefer it. Natural foods, unless they are just-off-the-vine fresh, don't taste as good as food that's loaded up with preservatives and cool things like ferrous gluconate and sorbitan monostearate. A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is about as fake as you can get, but this week I ate a generic, fake peanut butter cup that was similar to a Reese's, and I thought I was going to vomit. Honestly, I could barely choke it down. It didn't seem like food, it seemed like a something that was imitating something that was already trying to imitate food. It was third generation food. And it was nasty. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, however, retain their place in my mind as delicious. So, chocolate and peanut butter = good, chocolate and peanut butter loaded up with preservatives and chemicals = delicious, and imitation chocolate and imitation peanut butter loaded up with preservaties and chemicals = nauseating. So, mass-market rock is an imitation of a local folksy art form, and pop music, where the line between performer and producer is blurred, is great, but pop music where the musicians are different from the public face for the music, is repulsive. Maybe it's just an acquired taste, though. The Byrds caused a scandal a generation ago because they didn't play their own instruments, now it's no big deal if a singer's voice is manipulated to the point that it shares nothing in common with the performer's abilities, so maybe, in another generation, you'll have two groups: the musicians and writers that record the music, and the performers that dance a pantomime to it onstage. So Milli Vanilli, don't worry, you guys weren't losers, you were pioneers, and in the future maybe you'll get your day in the Sun. Well, one of you, since the other one died. We'll have to get a look-a-like. ********************* Cliff and I are finishing up his bonus room, so I'm hoping that band life will start back up again. Have a great week, and eat lots of Tofurkey, Keith |
| Omniscience or Omnipotence? November 8th, 2005 -- I asked Annie this question yesterday, and she said omnipotence (all powerful). I originally thought omniscience (all knowing), but I've switched sides. First, omniscience would be incredibly cool, to know everything, even the future. All of the winning lottery numbers, all the best places on the interstate to speed, how to fly a helicopter, how to break into Fort Knox, etc. In some ways, omniscience is omnipotence. If you know how to do something, you can do it. If I knew how to make a spaceship that flew faster than the speed of light, I could show others, step by step, and get it built. If I wanted political power, I'd know exactly how to please crowds and get elected. If I wanted monetary power, I'd know what the unexplored markets were and I could make a product to fit the need. But, with that, I think another unfortunate side effect would emerge -- you'd already know what everything was like. As shallow as it sounds, I think a lot of the reason people work so hard to get rich and successful is because they want to know what it's like to be rich and successful. I think it was Robert Frost who said that he wished that he would have known that when he got to the top, there would be nothing there. So, omnipotence for me. But, I can see downsides to that, too. Omnipotence without omniscience is probably pretty dangerous, since you wouldn't know what the consequences of your actions would be. The whole three wishes problem with genies. Unforseen consequences. Which reminds me of a joke that only a select few of you will think is remotely funny: One time a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was cleaning out his attic, and he comes across a beaten up lamp. He rubs it and, what do you know, a genie pops out. The Genie says "hey there, I'm kind of old, and pretty weak, so I can only give you one wish." So, the guy thinks about it for a second, and he grabs a world map that's in a nearby box and says "I'd like for there to be peace over here" and he points at the Middle East. The genie says "oh, geez, I don't know, there's a whole bunch of people, and they've been raised since they were very small to hate each other, there are ethnics conflicts that go back thousands of years, and it's just a big mess. Is there anything else you'd like instead?" And the guy says "well, I guess, if you can't do that, maybe just once I'd like to hear the Chicago Symphony viola section play in tune." The genie thinks about it for a second, takes a deep breath, and replies "let me see those maps again." ************** In Wind-Ups news, our friends Farewell For Tonight are going to be recording a new demo for us in a couple of weeks. If it turns out really well, maybe we'll sell it at shows. If it's just okay, we'll give it away here for free. Also new pictures from the TR show. Keith |
| Music for Children November 1st, 2005 -- I came across a great quote when reading The Closing of the American Mind by Allen Bloom. Here it is: "Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later." But before that, I just want to give a quick thank you to a dear and personal friend, The Internet. You've been a great help to me in my research, and you helped me just now by giving me this quote, saving me from having to find it in the book and type it out. Thank you. Anyway . . . What Bloom is talking about starts with Plato's view of music that "rhythm and melody, accompanied by dance, are the barbarous expression of the soul." It's the idea that passion is inherent in a human being, and reason comes along later and makes the passion more palatable to the real world. Becoming an adult is the process of balancing passion and reason. It's pretty easy to see how this works. For example, I heard a comedian say that it would be funny if everyone actually grew up to be what they wanted to be when they were kids, and the world was populated largely with cowboys, firemen, ballet dancers, astronauts, baseball players, princesses, nurses, and teachers. The reason we don't live in that world, of course, is that as you grow up, your passion to slide down poles and lasso "dogies" starts to be tempered by your rational desires to eat and make money, and you end up being an insurance adjuster or HVAC installer. But music speaks to those passions, the parts that yearn for adventure, danger, violence, sex, and intensity, or, possibly, peace, solitude, contentment, and commitment. The problem with most rock is that it appeals primarily to the passions of the barely post-pubescent, the desires for sex, power, and excitement, and almost not at all to the passions that have been tempered by reason and experience. This is why my dad doesn't listen to rock. It has nothing to say to him because it is completely disinterested in him. Why is that? It's because my dad is part of the group that is least impressed by the superficial, by the glitz and glamour and flashy stuff that is the hallmark of rock marketing, and he's also unimpressed by the pretensions and pseudo-intellectualism that is the cornerstone of indie rock marketing (ie, rock for college students). If you can't find a way to market your product to someone, then that person will not be part of your market, simple as that. One of the goals I have as a composer and musician in a rock band is to make music that appeals to people on a deeper level, music that doesn't rely on appealing only to undeveloped passions, but to passions that have been refined and shaped by time and experience. If we can do that, I think we've created art that is much more substantive, timeless, and affecting than the music for children that weekly comes and goes on the rock charts. Unrelated -- THIS IS AWESOME!!! Keith |
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