Luck Rules Our Lives

I heard this story on art and luck on NPR.  Really resonated with me. I've ruminated upon luck for a long, long time. Good luck. Bad luck. It's hard to tell how much luck rules our existence. Maybe a lot more than we'd all like to admit. There are happy and unhappy accidents of birth - what happens to that little baby born in North Korea tomorrow? And what about the one born in Beverly Hills, CA?

And if one little detail changed in their stories, one lucky or unlucky break, would everything be different? It's one of those "mind games" we can play, but you can't really figure out what is just "Luck"and what is what happens, is just what happens.

And all our successes and failures… maybe just luck? Or maybe you get a lucky break and then that little success breeds success, or failure breeds failure? As Warren Zevon once sang, "Bad luck streak in dancing school…"

Hard to know. Hard to tell. I remember reading some of those great ancient Greek plays, thinking wow, this is work that has really stood the test of time, amazing work, and then I read that the Greek plays that we revere also happen to be the ones that just survived, by luck, by chance, by circumstance. It's a story of survival more than anything.

What endures, what survives, what succeeds… luck...

The Depths of Depravity - Catholic Church!

We saw Philomena. It's a very well-made movie starring Steve Coogan and Judi Dench.  It's one of those movies worth just going to see. A simple plot-summary doesn't sound appealing, or do it justice. It's such a touching, human story. And it's based on a true story, which seems totally implausible, impossible. But that's just because "real-life" usually seems stranger than fiction. More complex and odd, and unbelievable.

And it deepens and adds to the depths of depravity that is the Catholic Church. What a terribly pernicious institution. I feel free to condemn it, since I grew up in it. Luckily I exited it relatively unscathed, just the normal dollop of guilt to deal with. Others were not so lucky, what with Priests molesting children, and the Irish branch of the Church actually selling babies to couples in the United States. And of course there were the lies and cover-ups, for years. You can't make this shit up.

Reminds me of Sinead O'Connor and her great little protest that got her banned from Saturday Night Live.  She ripped up a picture of the Pope to protest the Church's abuse of children! She was damn right. One of the great moments in TV history. Too real for much of America!

And Sinead is just one of those amazing talents. Great voice, a powerful spirit. Wears her emotions on her shoulder.  It's brought her fame and also brought lots of boos and derision over the years. I love her. This is freaking beautiful, amazing, powerful...

Every Little Snowflake Can Blow Your Mind!

They say every snowflake is unique. And what is a snowflake? Check out this extraordinary video. A microscopic, time-lapse view. Amazing. You will never think about snow the same way ever again. It does make you think that the universe and all the things in it are almost miraculous. Complex. Beautiful. Aphex Twin's music is great too...

snowtime from Иванов Вячеслав on Vimeo.

Alec Baldwin Implodes!

Alec Baldwin is on a tear.  And his life has kind of imploded. He writes about it all in this major opus of a rant. And the rant is quite good. Funny. Sad. Outrageous. Did I say funny? He names names. There's a lot of truth to it. Lots of hard earned truth. It's definitely worth a read.

I can't help but like Alec Baldwin. A very good actor. A funny, sort of twisted psyche. But he got himself in hot water with some pretty harsh comments he unleashed at some of the paparazzi who have hounded him and his family.

And some of his comments were probably rightly (or wrongly) interpreted to be "anti-gay." And well, he may have designs on a political career, and that all has kind of blown up. Up in smoke. Especially since he's sort of a liberal Democrat. He got on the wrong side of some pretty prominent gay people: Anderson Cooper, Andrew Sullivan, Rachel Maddow. Myself, I can see how some people would be offended, but at the same time, I kind of get it that he was just very, very pissed off, and used offensive language. 

Offensive language is par for the course when you are majorly pissed off. Doesn't seem that crazy to me. And doesn't mean Alec is a bigot.

This fish-bowl celebrity culture really is too much. It's a big, ugly, monster that never stops. And just because Alec Baldwin is a "public figure" doesn't mean his wife and children should be fair game to the press too. Alec now wants to "give up public life." Understandable. Funny. True. 

The Big Man Rises, The Big Man Falls

I am always stunned when I hear some amongst us root for the Strong-Man. The Big Monkey Man.  I guess it is built into some of us. Some of us love the Big Man. The Authority. The Bully. The Dictator. El Commandante. 

I do think it's an inheritance of our primate-past. Submissiveness to Dominance. Some of us want to follow. Want to be told what to do. Want to cheer on and support the Big Man. You can see this trait in it's most extreme case when the Big Man falls. Or dies. Tears for Stalin, Mao, Milosevic, The Fuhrer, etc.

I remember being a wee lad on the playground. There were the bullies, and those who cheered on the bullies. There were those who were bullied, and those who sympathized and tended to the bullied. This was the major line of demarcation between the kids. Which side were you on?

Some of us are always in opposition to the Strong One. Some of us have problem with Authority. In every case. 

So this kind of divergence in the human realm gets acted out over, and over and over again. The Big Monkey Man rises to prominence, he rules, he bullies, he skims the cream off the top. And then sometimes, he falls.

There are those who cheer the fall, and some who cry at the fall. Then the drama repeats itself all over again.

Pussy Riot vs. the Cossacks

It's easy to decide which side to be on. You have to admire the women of Pussy Riot - that "Russian, Feminist Punk Rock Protest Group." Their calculated acts of "hooliganism" are a provocation, and a joyous shout of "freedom!" They are "tickling the Dragon's Tail." They are standing up against a little Tin-pot strong-man. He seems to have a thin skin. And he's got freaking Cossacks on the payroll.  Oh how old world!

I mean a movement of the moment vs. a stereotype from the distant past.  Time-warp!

Supposedly the Cossack is a revered figure in Russia. Sort of like the Cowboy in the US. But holy shit, talk about a figure out of time. They have their silly little outfits and their horse whips. And they beat up on women! How pathetic.

The women of Pussy Riot are a brave lot. They are risking life and limb. Not sure if Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious or even Joe Strummer were ever that committed to any cause. Sid's greatest commitment was to his own self-destructive stupidity.

Anyway, the cameras were rolling at Sochi when Pussy Riot stopped for a visit. And then the Cossacks entered! You couldn't make this shit up! Long Live Pussy Riot!

"Putin will teach you to love the Motherland."

The Climate Change Trilogy

Yes this is the 3rd post on "climate change" (see previous two posts). It's a big looming problem. And to most of us it's invisible. It's a big, long-term problem that needs collective, coordinated action. And that's just not something humans are good at.

We are much better at competition. We've even built economic systems that encourage competition, that rewards winners and punishes losers. It's kind of a ridiculous way to run a world, but hey, that's how we do it!

And our language fails us too. Global warming is kind of a misnomer, and Climate Change sounds quaint, genteel - it doesn't really sound bad. Change is good, right?

You'd like to invoke biblical, apocalyptic language: pestilence, scourge, hell-fire, rain of frogs, rain of blood to sort of convey the proposed future.

These are the things that FREAK ME OUT when I think about climate change: What happens when the oceans die? What happens when the trees die? What happens when all the pretty little creatures die? What happens when the fertile regions of the world become flooded? Or they become deserts? How do we feed ourselves? What happens when drinking water and edible food becomes scarce? How do world governments act? Will the people turn on each other? How will we keep the lights on? 

Will we all fight to get to higher ground? Will the rich crush the poor? How will we deal with epidemics and world-wide sickness? And will we all just scratch our heads and wonder if it was all inevitable, or avoidable?  

Maybe it really is inevitable. Kind of built into us. Maybe it's a Freudian thing. We love nature, and hate it too. We've tried to dominate it, tame it, harvest it, own it.  And really nature can't be tamed or owned. And we, as a species will learn that lesson, the hard way.

30 Gigatonnes of Carbon Dioxide A Year - That's A Lot!

I suppose James Lovelock (see previous post) could be wrong. No, not about climate change, I mean throw 30 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, and well, you know there will be a price to pay somewhere along the line.

So yes, a species that acts as if they own the place, that trashes it and doesn't look back, will probably end up reaping what they sowed. I guess there is some poetic justice in that.  A kind of a cosmic karma payback.

But maybe, somehow, someway, in the 11th hour the humans do something? Maybe a global change of consciousness, some kind of technological miracle, some amazing gizmo, something totally unexpected comes along and saves our bacon? A Deus Ex Machina? I mean it happened in Donnie Darko, right?!

It's a long shot. And there is a certain calm that comes with the thought that we actually can't or won't do a damn thing. Except face up to a much more hostile environment on earth. And if there is major dislocation, major flooding, major drought, epidemics, etc. will we blame god? Or our governments? Or ourselves? Will we ask, "What happened?"

It will be easy to locate the culprits. Still, like Lovelock, I am actually an optimist. I do believe in a better tomorrow. I must. You must believe. Just to get up in the morning. Life on this planet is a gift. And we just haven't treated it very well… and that's a shame. And what can we do? Live lightly on the land, with reverence and grace. Treat life on earth as a precious thing. Live that way, even if it means nothing in the grander scheme of things.

Our Goose is Cooked!

Another reason I love Radiohead. Their work is fragmentary, dissociative, dark.  And these are fragmentary, dissociative and dark times. We are hurtling along, as a species, as if all is hunky dory. We are greedy, rapacious and breeding madly like fruit flies on steroids. We do not live light lightly on the land.

And we can't really change our ways - the way we rape the land, the way we use energy, the way we feed ourselves… I don't want to pass on bad news, but James Lovelock, eminent, British scientist tells us our goose is cooked. The clever monkeys have really out-foxed themselves this time. The planet has a fever, and we are the culprits. And according to Lovelock, the game is up.

We act as if everything is fine. There are even lots of us who deny there is even a problem. And we continue to harvest the planet as if it's inexhaustible. And the fragile equilibrium that has birthed an incredible ecosystem is crumbling, fraying and dying out. We have unleashed a mass extinction on earth, and really it is the humans who have fucked it all up.

Still Lovelock is not a doom-sayer, no, he's just a doom-seer, but after lots of devastation, dislocation, and thinning of the herd, he does have hope that a small band of survivors, maybe another version of human being, will finally get the message that it's best to live with nature and not in opposition to it.

"Will they say he's a wise man? No!"

I hear Dennis Hopper's photojournalist character in "Apocalypse Now" saying, "Will they say he's a wise man…? No!"

You lug this bag of bones around on the planet for awhile. You grow older, the story gets a little bit longer. You hope you learn something. But it's not guaranteed. If I were to dispense any wisdom, it would be a few simple ideas:

1. Do the hard stuff first, you think it's a good idea to put the hard stuff off, leave it for later, but no, best to jump right in and do it. Now. No time like the present. Tomorrow might never come along.

2. Push the rock, try to find joy in pushing the rock.

3. You can't tell anybody anything. You can't really pass on "wisdom" to another person either. I'm probably just talking to myself, and even I might not really be listening. You can only lead by example. Maybe, somehow, someway that gets filtered and absorbed by someone else. But you can't take the pain away from another person, even if you'd really like to.

4. Let shit go. This one is hard. Sometimes you think holding on to shit is what makes you, you. But letting shit go is even more character defining. And the less you hold onto, the more you can be open to embrace.

5. You are time, and time passes. Lots of people and things will disappear in your life. It happens to everyone. We are more the same than different. The things we hate in other people are the things we are most afraid of in ourselves. It's a complicated human thing.

6. You can make rules, live by rules, but in the most important things - love, life and art - there are no rules. Really.

Radiohead From the Basement!

Yes, I do like lots of old music, but I like lots of new music too. I do think this is a great time for music. There are bands/artists today who are making music that can stand up to anything from any era. I think of Wilco, U2, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Dirty Three, Sigur Ros, Tom Waits, Atoms for Peace, The National, Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Patti Griffen, and Radiohead, just to name a few of my absolute favorites.

Radiohead might be the best band I've ever come across. At first I admired them more than loved them, but over the years, they have continued to grow on me. They are uncompromising, intriguing, baffling, groovy, confounding, moody, exhilarating. They are serious dudes. Musicians with serious chops.

For a long time I couldn't figure them out. I mean the songs. So many sounds coming from so many directions, I could never get a handle on what I was hearing. It helps to see them play. You can put the sound together with the source. And it increases the enjoyment.

I loved stumbling across this video, Radiohead From the Basement.  Here they are playing songs from their superb "In Rainbows" record. I really admire, and totally love this band…

Blew Me Wide Open!

If you've never seen Noah Baumbach's 2005 movie "The Squid and the Whale," you should, as soon as you can. I mean, no time like the present. It might change your life! We just saw it over the weekend and it's a knockout. The last scene features Lou Reed's great song, "Street Hassle." One of the great, great Lou Reed songs. Blew me wide open. Completely. Perfect…

 

The Black Keys - Lonely Boy!

I do love the Black Keys "El Camino" record. It's got soul and groove, and really it makes you wish you owned an El Camino with an 8 track and you had a 12 pack of Stroh's beer, and lots of lazy ass time on your hands. I wrote about El Camino here in a rock and roll diary post. Sometimes videos take away from a song, and sometimes they add to the enjoyment of a song. This video adds, yes, indeed!

The Least Mad of a Mad Lot

People. I know a few of them. Seems they are spinning out. Losing it. Cracking around the edges. Psyches are fraying, disintegrating. Maybe it's the times. Maybe it's age. Maybe, well,  maybe, I mean, who knows why?

And it's funny, you can see the madness, the rage, the silliness, the absurdities of others easily. It's a little harder to see these things in yourself.  And maybe it's the fear of succumbing yourself that makes the madness of others so repellant. 

It's easy to judge. But probably not worth judging too harshly.  And as they say, or did I make this up, "we don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are…" but I get this weird feeling that I'm the least mad of a mad lot. That's funny...

Make it Rain, Obama!

Obama goes to California to fight drought! Yeah, but how about a rain dance? If only Obama could organize a ritual dance to make it rain. That's the hope and change that I bought into (twice!). We need our leaders to have powers beyond the legislative kind. Come on! Make it rain, Obama!

Fight the Impulse!

I hate nostalgia. I mean, I hate being nostalgic. I mean, I try to fight the impulse. I don't want to live in the past. I don't think the past was better than today. I mean, I was younger in the past, and I did things back then that I wouldn't do now, and some of those things were really cool and some of them were really stupid, and sometimes I'm just amazed that I've made it this far.

I do miss people from my past. And if you live long enough, you really do learn what "death" is; death is an emptiness, a hole in the fabric of existence, a lack, a void. 

I love pop culture (oh yeah, I sometimes hate it too), and I love lots of music and movies from the past. My favorite era of music ranges from about 1965 - 1975.  I just think lots of really great music was made in that period, AND, music at that time had a much bigger social/cultural significance.  At least that's how it seemed to me. Movies too. Those post Easy Rider early seventies movies were amazing.

Now, I listen to that music and watch those movies, but when I do, I don't long for a now long gone past. I listen and watch because that music and those movies still resonate with me today. At least some of them do. And the really good ones really still hold their power.

But today there is really great music, and there are still great movies too. And in some ways because of the technology, more people have the means to make really great work for a fraction of the cost. Which means many, many more bands and artists doing their thing.  It's overwhelming how much good music is being made today.

Still, sometimes I see or hear something and I do get a twinge of regret about another world, another world that no longer exists. And I do remember. A friend sent me an email this morning with this photo attached… Jimi, Mad Magazine - 1967 at the Warwick Hotel near Central Park New York… oh man! I mean...

Sochi and Pussy Riot

Sochi Winter Olympics? 

No. I don't even have to try hard to not be interested. At all. Saves lots of brain cells.

Pussy Riot? 

Yes! I mean, I was always in their corner. Love acts of provocation against the heavy hand of authority.  I loved to see them do their thing. I hated to see them be persecuted, prosecuted and imprisoned. I was delighted when they were released.  And I love that radio and television and media people of all stripes have to constantly say, "Pussy Riot!" That alone is very cool.  I mean, just say it, "Pussy Riot, Pussy Riot, Pussy Riot!"  It conjures up all kinds of images. And, at least for me, none of the images have anything to do with cats!

The Hype vs. The Snark

The Hype vs. The Snark. People can't help themselves. Pop/Celebrity culture brings it out in us. And it really is the worst. 

First, The Hype. 

Events, sometimes Faux-Events are built up and sold as the second coming of some God you didn't even know existed. Everything is blown out of proportion. There is no proportion. There is glitz and glamour and lots of huffing and puffing. Smoke and mirrors. Beautiful, rich, desirable and successful people stand up before the multitudes and demand to be honored just for being the great celebrities we've all decided they are. They demand our attention and envy. And we do pay attention, and we do envy them.

Then comes The Snark.

Every little thing is up for scrutiny. The snark is poisonous. And we love to do it. We rip people for daring to be old, or fat, or too thin, or phony, or too serious, or too ridiculous, or in it only for the money, or for being glory hogs, or for being awkward, or for having too much hair, or not enough hair, or coloring their hair, or altering their noses, jaws, etc. We tear these people down, with a million little poisonous cuts, those who dare to stand before us, we devour them, destroy them.

We love our celebrities. We love the machine that builds them up. And we hate these people too. And we love to destroy them. A little cut, a little bit of snark. One biting little cut at a time.

Transcends the Bullshit!

We watched the Beatles 50th anniversary show with a bunch of people last night. Lots of Beatle fanatics in close quarters. We heard lots of Beatle trivia. The Beatles story really is the Pop Culture Origin Story!

We all thought the show was over-blown but pretty well-done! Still, the hype machine is an amazing thing to behold. It is more than a little bit over-bearing, but must say the Beatles music somehow transcends the bullshit.

And Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are both class acts.  They did what they had to do and they did it well. You got the sense that for them it was just another show in a long, long line of shows. And you realized they had no idea how big the Ed Sullivan appearance had been to so many people in America back in 1964.

That's what's still kind of amazing. The survivors are still pretty much dedicated to the music. Even all these many years later.  Good job boys! 

Broken Bells - Astonishing!

This is brilliant, and elegantly (a simple, shimmering elegance) done… Broken Bells (which is a collaboration of Danger Mouse -reinvented from Brian Burton and James Mercer - reinvented from being the lead singer of the Shins) do one of the most beautiful songs ("And I Love Her") from the great Beatles catalog.

And they do it with a couple audio/visual loops of Ringo Starr - he really is one of the great drummers in r&r!  What a great way to bring the past to the present. And they throw in a nod to "I Am the Walrus" too.  Astonishing!

Can't Imagine the Not-Beatles!

OK. I guess I'm on the bandwagon to the countdown too.

You can't imagine a world where the Beatles didn't come to New York and blow the doors open to the British Invasion. You can't imagine a world where they didn't become the biggest band in the world.  You can't imagine a world where they didn't inspire generations of boys and girls to pick up instruments and form bands too.

Those four dudes from Liverpool made it all look fun. Joyous. They played with a smart exuberance. And then the music got better and more intricate, and really, really artful. You can't imagine any other band filling that slot. That's not how history works. They did it. Nobody else did. All other comers were just following in their path. And lots of the others wore Beatle boots and had cute haircuts too.

Wayne Coyne, Sean Lennon, Flaming Lips - BEATLES!

It's the countdown to the big 50 year anniversary of the Beatles breakout show on Ed Sullivan in 1963. "Big shoe" this coming Sunday! No one has ever adequately explained the mass hysteria that The Beatles debut unleashed in America and around the world. Young girls engaged in an incredible mass hysteria of screaming, hair-pulling and panties-wetting over those four cute Liverpullian Mop-Tops. Beatlemania! A mystery. Unexplainable. A Beatles concert was typically 20 mins. of unbelievably hysterical screaming, it was some strange ritual that had little to do with music.

The Beatles could only take it for a few years and then decamped to the recording studio, "got weird" and created some even more amazing music.  Another mystery - how did they keep it going, how did they make those creative leaps, how did the insanity and crass commercialism not totally destroy them as people and musicians? Unexplainable.

Anyway all week on Letterman different acts are doing Beatles songs. Was really looking forward to Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips collaborating with Sean Lennon on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." They did not disappoint! Love these guys. I thank the "Great What's-It" that they exist!

The Bigs and the Littles

I was gonna write how "the bigs always eat the littles." Just look around in nature, in polite society. "The bigs," whether they are hungry or not will eat "the littles," just because they can.  Ethics don't enter into it, conscience doesn't enter into it, "doing the right thing," doesn't enter into it.

But then I thought about how "the littles" also eat "the bigs." That happens too. "The littles" can swarm, they can infiltrate, they can destroy a bigger foe.  I guess it really is an "all against all" kind of game.

Everything lives off of everything else.  You can think "it's ugly," or whatever, but it's just the way of the universe. To a certain extent we can build a polite society based on ethics, conscience and doing the right thing, but underlying the whole grand edifice is the war of the next meal.

And sometimes "the bigs" or "the littles" just want to flex their muscles and stir up the shit.  "That's entertainment, baby!"

People - Capable of Anything!

When people do outrageous things, things you didn't think they were capable of doing, and it happens all the time, (just scan the news), people you think you know end up doing things you didn't think they could or would do, well, I'm reminded of this scene from Roman Polanki's "Chinatown." And I remember too that Polanski fled the US to avoid his own little scandal. And well, it's easy to judge people, but all of us are just people, and well, let John Huston tell it...

John Huston's character: "See Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact; the right time, and the right place, they're capable of anything."

Yes, And Sometimes No

So yes, in the world of improv, in order to keep the scene going, you are advised to answer, "Yes," or "Yes, and..." to just about any proposition. A "No!" is always a scene killer.

This works in life too. You can spend your days always saying "Yes," or "Yes, and..." but, of course, it can get you into trouble, or  lead you into unwanted adventures.

When we are children we live in the world of "I WANT!"  Some of us live in the world of "I WANT" throughout our lives.  It is a childish way to live. But it certainly helps drive our consumer culture. Some of us start living in the world of "No!" More and more, "No" becomes the answer. "No meat," "No gluten," "No vodka," "No bullshit!"

It's a delicate balance. You don't want to live in a world of renunciation. You try your best to live in the land of "Yes, and of course, sometimes No."

Death of an Actor

Philip Seymour Hoffman's sudden death at 46 is tragic and shocking. I didn't think of him as a celebrity. I thought of him as a working actor. An extraordinarily compelling working actor. One of the best. Ever. And you think that the work, being able to do the work, and at such a high level would be everything.

Of course, it isn't, there's all that other messy stuff that makes up a life. And maybe some of that messy stuff was actually beneficial to him when he worked. He had a vast well of emotion to draw upon. Made for amazing work, and maybe sometimes a difficult life.

Seems it was an overdose of heroin. Shooting heroin, one of the riskiest of high risk habits. Unfathomable. You think the work, doing the work, would have been enough. But it's more complicated than that, unfortunately, and addiction is a killer.

I will not forget his amazing, extraordinary, moving work in True West, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master, Doubt, etc.

The Essence of Soul!

I caught some of the Grammy's show last week. What a big, over-blown spectacle. Lots of glitz, lots of huffing and puffing. Lots of pretending that what was on stage was significant or compelling.

Still, I did love seeing Stevie Wonder sitting in with Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams and two French dudes dressed as robots performing "Get Lucky." It really did seem like the song of 2013. And well, sure, it could have been a big hit in the Disco Years long ago, but it strangely seemed  "of the moment" too.

And in my book Nile Rodgers and Stevie Wonder, well they are music royalty!

When the world sometimes seems like it's falling apart, imploding from the inside out, maybe getting lucky is as good as it gets.

And then, I started looking for some early Stevie Wonder, you know when he was "Little Stevie Wonder?" And I found Fingertips. Love, love, love it. Does anybody play a chromatic harmonica any better? I think not! The essence of soul! Stevie!

 

Atoms for Peace - Skirts or Kilts?

Yes, I really like Thom Yorke's "other cool band," Atoms for Peace. (How is it possible that Thom could be the lead singer and lyricist of two incredibly awesome bands?)  Their record "Amok" has been on my hot play-list for months and months.  But even though I really enjoy the groove of the record, I don't think I really understood how great this band is until I saw it play live in concert.  Thank goodness for You Tube!

Just to see Thom Yorke and Flea jumping around like Mexican Jumping Beans in skirts (or designer kilts?) is so worth it.  I love this band. I love the joy, exuberance and pure adrenaline rush of watching these guys totally get into playing together.  Just wow! Here's their complete set in Austin. Amazing!