I almost cried when I read about Haiti today. It happened yesterday and I only found out today. I feel guilty of something, but I'm not sure of what. Of being somewhere else?
I almost cheered when I watched Keith Olbermann tear into a pair of calloused, blithering excuses for human beings, as many talking heads are. At the same time, I don't want his reaction to other peoples' stupidity to be mine, not without witnessing their foolishness first-hand. Which I'm not going to do.
What I hate is watching people, particularly on television, who have no right to be there, excepting that they are the greasiest cogs in the machine, which lets them stand out. Jon Stewart hates this too, I guess, but all he does is point and laugh. Many of us are just as content to do the same thing, and it's come to the point, it seems, where leaders can say or do anything--once it's out we are entertained (by virtue of inundation, too) by the ridiculously embarrassing situation that somebody has to publicly deal with. Thank God it's him and not me, right? Along with everything else, we've turned politics into a reality show.
Which means we don't take it seriously. I mean, I know we don't, that's what I've been saying. But I try to think of it like this. You listen to music, right? Do you ever think of the human element in the song you're listening to--that it was conceived and perfected (it must have been perfect to some one) by another person, recorded; that it reflects a single perfect instance, or a delicately polished collection of perfect instances, if it's a good mix; that so much creativity and willpower went into whatever's tickling your earbud. Never think of it? Take it for granted? You're not going to meet these people, anyway, right? Even if you see them live, are you thinking, "Gee, those are the guys that WROTE it? I wonder what inspired them? I wonder what the minutes, the hours that went into that song were actually like? I wonder what they were thinking, or doing, at the exact moment this song came into being?"
If I had to guess, odds are you don't really want to know, or won't care. "Yes, I wrote it, but kinda offhand, while I was drinking, or was I watching me soaps? Maybe both. Anyway, me mate wrote the lyrics in the shower while he girlfrien' blew 'em. It was pretty much done the next week, we didn't think much of it then. People seem to dig it now." The course of history is mind boggling--can you imagine what it must be to watch something, say, something marginal that you've written, as it goes from being a little draft in your hands to an insatiable best-seller? Something you've struggled with for months or years, a physical extension of yourself torn from your gut, is now out among people, who are convinced by your talent that you're worth something in the world. And then, of course, you're changed by your success, because those little elements of struggle that kept you up while your poured your undiscovered soul into your work are no longer with you. I guess that's why so many bands fall off after four or fives albums. More time spent touring and promoting then actually just playing.
Because practicing his how you get the good stuff. Sitting around and just doing it. Not overthinking it. Complex simplicity. Like the Beatles. Not great musicians, really, but the greatest song-making machine we've had so far, because their material is so simple at its face, and so complicated when you look closely. Writing is the same way--don't construct it, just let it come out. And, for Zadie Smith's sake, edit. Carefully.
The complexity is an afterthought. The more critical we are of a song, or story, or movie, or play--the more we read into a piece of work, interpret it--the more we are inspired. That's why Shakespeare's so sacred, I think. We've had four hundred years for thousands of scholarly-types to tear his body of work apart, and synthesize SO many conclusions. A few good observations are bound to come out of it. Shakespeare was so prolific, though; there's no way he gave second thought to what he was writing, he didn't have Word, he had a quill and friggin' ink. He was attuned to his self, though, his wiring, and he could let it right out, and the rest is history.
What if Shakespeare was only subpar? Imagine that, over the course of the next few hundred years, KISS is the only band any one listens to, because other recorded music has been lost or destroyed. Our descendants will no doubt build intellectual metropolises of Gene Simmons' basslines, and, God forbid, his lyrics.
Assuming this isn't the case, Shakespeare had something going on. I wish TV heads were that way. Conscious, I mean. Turns out they're not, they're pretty much the common ignorant, with personality, I guess, which probably translates to enough asshole in them to command attention (a confused sense of respect), and, importantly, they're beautiful. So they get seated down in front of a camera with a few other people just like them and they're aired to the world. I wonder if they realize they get paid to spew shit. I fear they don't. They lucky fuckers, though, the rest of us gotta do it for free.
There are people out there that deserve credit and never get it. We don't give it to them because it's an extra effort--money use to make up the difference, and now even that's endangered etiquette. Have we forgotten our hospitality, our mortality? We watch, or listen, judge, with no regard to the manpower that crafted that movie I just didn't like. And, on that note, there's no fear of God anymore: We eat without considering for a moment what's in the food, pop pills without considering if we should; bind ourselves to the efficiency of machines, and contractual sedentary lifestyle, forcing us to make time for healthy, natural releases that we used to get during the course of an average day anyway.
Why are 100,000 possibly dead in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country? Why are comment boards on CNN and USA Today fueled by people who advise prayer, but not money, and people who advise money, but criticize prayer?
Because let's face it. We're back to a pagan society: We worship the God McDonald, and Starbucks, and Windows, and Google, among others. And uniting them all, their king, is the God US Dollar. If you're going to pray for the misfortuned, that's fine, as long as that's all you've got. If you can't spare money, you're probably not much better off than they are--with room for translation, of course. If you want to make a difference, psychic suggestion, in a world where we forsake God by forsaking each other, won't go nearly as far as a few bucks.
I do wonder if, back in the day, when religious arguments were settled with a club or sword, if we weren't more pragmatic then, than we assume ourselves to be in our civilized ways are now.
*
He did see a shooting star last night. Her message is "Defying Gravity," by Idina Menzel. Defying Gravity.
Now what?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment