Archive for May, 2006
MC Lars, the only post-punk laptop rap artist.
Posted by Tony Hatter in Music on May 25th, 2006
He tours (usually) with just his laptop as a backing band (the current tour he is playing with the Matches). On his new album he sings about record labels not being hip to how the industry should be going (Sign Emo, Download This Song). He sings about the corporate buyout of what once was an innocent counter-culture (Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock). He sings about what he and other people like him are (iGeneration). He is basically a new Jello Biafra for a new generation of punks (to use the iGeneration lingo, Jello Biafra v2.0). Not that this is a bad thing. I used to have all of JB’s spoken word albums (yes, ALL of them) and Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables is still one of my top five punk albums of all time.
It is good to know that someone has the guts, perseverance, and talent required to stand up against an institution while being supported by that institution. The only drawback to being an incarnation of Jello Biafra is that, like JB, he can only take it so far. The constant legal battles (most recently with Iggy Pop’s label for a sample he used with Iggy’s permission), along with the lack of mainstream support (lets face it, as sad as this sounds, he’ll never be as popular as Dashboard) not to mention the usual wear and tear of being a hard-working touring musician will limit him.
There’s a reason JB wasn’t elected Mayor of San Fransisco, and it’s the same reason MC Lars shirts are on sale at Hot Topic. The vast majority are not listening. I heard him today on 91x talking abut how his goal is to let people know that they too have a voice, and all they need to do is make it heard. He’s right, everybody has a voice, and each of those voices has a right to be heard, as the often are, but the problem is who is doing the hearing. Nobody who is actually listening to MC Lars is in a position to change Hot Topic’s business practices; the people who like “Hot Topic is not Punk Rock” are the ones who already know this, and the people who choose whether or not to sell his t-shirts are not really listening.
Where am I going with this? Why did I stop myself to ask such a question? To stop myself before dropping completely into a MC Lars/Jello Biafra-esque rant about who knows what. Lets just say that coming from an old punk whose mohawk has turned into a simple, conservative-looking, who-knows-what to call my current hairstyle, and has turned from pink/green/blue/purple/orange (depending on what day of the week it is) to what I think is my natural hair color, no matter how much everything changes, nothing ever really does. It’s all just the same old problems (with different names) between the same old people (with different titles). But don’t get me wrong, I’m still a punk; in fact, I’m more punk than you just for having gotten you to read all this drivel. Who told you to listen to me in the first place?
Pardon me and my Buddhism.
Posted by Tony Hatter in Books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on May 24th, 2006
As a residual effect of reading a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which touches only vaguely on anything actually related to Zen or motorcycle maintenance, I have been on somewhat of an epic adventure consisting of trying to find the right book about Zen and the right situation in which to read it for several years. To clarify, I started this book a year before leaving school just short of graduating and am now close to finishing it weeks before taking the last class required to obtain my degree two years after leaving school. (Three years for the mathematically disinclined, i.e. me)
I have finally settled on reading by flashlight under the covers of my bed after 2AM. The title, though I am slightly embarrassed to admit, is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Buddhism”. To be honest, when I went to the library to check it out, I stacked it beneath a more advanced monogram on the teachings of a specific American Zen teacher and “The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion” Hoping that the first two books would disinterest the librarian enough that she wouldn’t notice the third.
Unfortunately, I forgot which library I was checking these books out from. Checking out the single title would have passed unnoticed. The presence of a pattern in my selections tagged me, apparently, as somebody who is not “down” with God. She looked suspiciously up at me as she scanned my library card and asked as un-nonchalantly as is humanly possible, “What’s this sudden interest in Buddhism?”
I wanted to shout at her. “You’ve never even met me!?” What made her think I was “suddenly” interested in Buddhism? Why should she care why I’m interested in Buddhism? Unfortunately, she was far too old and fragile to be yelled at. In fact, now that I think about it, she may well have been the same little old lady who has been working that desk since the last time I was in that library over ten years ago. The most confrontational response I could muster was, “I’ve been meaning to build a basic understanding of the most widely accepted belief system in the world for a few years now.”
I shit you not, she answered, “Well, what’s wrong with God?” First, I pondered whether to answer in terms of the angry God through whose hands so many sinners have passed (Jonathan Edwards would most likely have been proud of her) that she was referring to, or the compassionate God that she thought she meant. The former would have been an easy answer that she wouldn’t have liked. I have nothing against that God, but she is convinced that I must if I’m reading about Buddhism. Answering for the latter meant deciding where to start, and the list of possibilities is long enough that the decision would necessarily be left to letting the question go without an answer.
I couldn’t just not answer, though, that would have been rude. I collected my books, then told her it depended entirely upon which God she meant and scurried away before she could realize that telling me which God she meant would lead to the metaphysical tautology of the incompatibility of multiple monistic religions.
I can only suppose that she has already contacted the FBI to turn over my library records under the title “Potential Terrorist Sympathizer.” I’m a little worried, too, because I did check out a lot of Hardy Boy’s books in elementary school, and all of those included very detailed descriptions of espionage-type activities. If I go missing soon, could somebody please alert the authorities?