It Was A Very Long Day

     Earlier today (Saturday 10/27/2018,) I was sitting at the Carnegie Museum cafe trying to gather the rudimentary thoughts that I have about Lemmy Kilmister.  I noticed a more frequent than usual occurrence of sirens going by on Forbes Ave. and suddenly, my phone started buzzing away with text messages from family members that knew I was in the eastern part of the city.

     They were all trying to alert me of the mass shooting that took place at the Tree Of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill.  The situation was still unfolding and no one knew exactly what was happening and everyone wanted to make sure that my daughter and I were safe.  I let the nearest staff person know what little I knew and they said they were aware of the situation and more security staff was being brought in.

     It was a very weird sensation of uselessness that I felt when I sat back down to try to write again. Immediately, everything felt small and pointless.  Trying to write about Motorhead was suddenly ruined by some bigot that couldn't figure out how to handle his own emotions without reaching for an AR-15.  O, woe is me.  At least I made it home at the end of the day.

     At this point, there are at least eleven other people who didn't make it home today.  All because of some anti-semite that got twisted up inside from listening to our bigot of a president and unhealthy doses of Fox News.  This was an act of terror and a hate crime.  Period.

     After a week of people (and the working class union members of the Postal Service) being targeted and terrorized with mail bombs, let's bring it to a close with a mass shooting.  And this is after two people were shot in a grocery store, in Kentucky, for shopping while black.  Way to go Amerika.  What the serious fuck is wrong with people?

     Somehow, this asshole was taken into custody.  I will never understand how a black guy can't survive a traffic stop in this country but a white guy who shoots a building full of people to hell and back is taken alive.  Something seems to be askew.

     This town is going to feel this loss for a very long time.  Everyone's personal Venn diagram is going to come crashing together as each victims life splinters out into our own.  The majority of us will at least know someone involved tangentially.

     The first vigil, of what I am sure will be many, was held in the evening at the intersection of Forbes and Murray avenues.  There was a massive amount of people, all standing shoulder to shoulder as far as I could see in each direction.

     I couldn't help but stare at the haircut from Fox News that was set up near me.  I hope I was making him as uncomfortable as he was making me.  My initial thought was “The balls on those assholes for even showing up” but then it dawned on me that they are completely ignorant of their guilt.  They spew hate and fear twenty-five hours a day and say “Who? Me?” when someone takes their bullshit too seriously.

     Then I saw the Ned Flanders of the House Of Representatives, Keith Rothfus.  He was clearly too stupid to not show up given the fact that he was wearing a jacket that had his name and job title embroidered on it.  I guess he needs a reminder of what it is he should be doing when his corporate overlords aren't around telling him what to do.  After reminding myself that I was attending a vigil, I refrained from yelling “How many more people have to die before you'll do something, Keith?”  I really hope that pigfucking coward will be unemployed in the near future.

     Songs were sung, prayers were prayed.  The never ending process of healing has started. Pittsburgh has joined the ever growing list of towns that have been ripped apart by preventable gun violence.  We'll mourn, we'll march, we'll vote but I don't see anything changing for the better.   The irrational hate will always be there no matter what we do to combat it.

     Normally, if I'm writing at this late of an hour, there would be a record on the turntable but it felt so meaningless to put one on.  My soundtrack for tonight is the future that is snoring on the couch next to me.  It'll be up to her generation to set things right because we have all failed so miserably.

     Eleven people are dead and there are pipe bombs in the mail.  Are we great or what?

Turn That Radio Off!!!

     On more than one occasion of late, I have heard discussions, or read them online, about the dismal state of the local “modern” rock station here in Pittsburgh.  From the lack of actual music being played on the station to the restrictive playlist of mediocrity when they do play music.

     The last time I voluntarily tuned into the station had to have been about ten years ago.  I had a loaner car from a dealership while my car was getting worked on and FM radio was my only listening option.  I dialed in only to hear some guy screaming at me about some sort of sport.  It had been a while since I listened to the station so I thought they changed format to a sports station.  I immediately went back to the left of the dial in a futile effort to tune in one of the local college stations.  Static was all I could find so the only thing I had to listen to was the constant ringing in my ears.

     I have always had a hate/hate relationship with the station ever since 1996 or so when their parent company, Clear Channel, bought up a competing station with a similar format and changed it to “smooth jazz.”  Whatever that is.  They couldn't beat the other station in the ratings so they bought them.  Clear Channel now goes by the name of iHeart Radio and is, not surprisingly, a subsidiary of Bain Capital.

     I used to lug gear for one of the DJs on the oldies station that was also owned by Clear Channel. They pay so well that he had to take up side gigs playing music at car shows and weddings just to make ends meet.  During the drives to and from whatever event that neither of us cared about, he would clue me in to how Clear Channel worked.

     Songs that were stored on the hard drive at the station would be played a few beats per second faster than they should have been.  The strategy behind speeding up the music was so there would be extra time for another commercial to be squeezed in during the hour.  This is why he always dragged around a couple of gym bags filled with CDs.  And as much as it was a pain in the ass for him to drag those bags around, he always refused to put his CDs on the hard drive.  He hosted a specialty show on Sunday nights and figured if he put his music on their hard drive, the station wouldn't need him anymore.

     He also explained to me what he called the Clear Channel “cradle to the grave” formatting strategy.  Clear Channel wanted to own a broadcast frequency with every viable format, in every market.  Top 40, Classic Rock, Modern Rock, Oldies, Country, Conservative Talk and sports.  This spread of formats was to ensure that they had listeners covered across every stage of their lives.  It wasn't about the quality of the content as much as the quantity of the content.  They wanted to tell you what you liked and when you will like it.  Given the proliferation of country music stations in Pittsburgh, I think this strategy may have been abandoned.

     The restrictive nature of the playlist is my biggest issue with the “modern” rock station.  It seems like their playlist has a framework of the same fifty songs throughout the day.  Allowing the DJ to stray from it only a few times during their shift in order to personalize their show a minimal amount.

Add to that the fact that some of these bands are indistinguishable from one another.  I don't think I could tell the difference between Godsmack, Nickelback, Creed or Disturbed if my life depended on it.  And they've been playing some of these songs for nearly twenty years.  Dead horse syndrome has to kick in at some point.

     They do have a “prehistoric” specialty show on Sunday mornings, where they get into older punk and new wave but I can't figure out why the regular playlist isn't expanded to include this music.  Why would I set my alarm to get up early on a Sunday to listen to music that is played at the wrong speed when I can put those records on any time I want to?  It doesn't make sense to relegate the good music to a low rating, time slot ghetto.

     And that's because it's never been about music for Clear Channel or whatever they're calling themselves this week.  They only care about ad dollars and media buys.  The format of the station is only a vehicle to get the advertisements into your ears.  That's why they also have a billboard division in some cities.  Getting ads into your ears wasn't enough, they also have to put them in your face while you're stuck in traffic.

     Clear Channel has bought up a large chunk of the outdoor music venues and also owns TicketBastard.   They have found a way to capitalize on almost every part of being a fan of music. That's why I'm glad I only tend to go to small club shows and try to find a way around paying the exorbitant fees they put on tickets.  The last time I bought a ticket through TicketBastard, the base price of the ticket was $25.  The final cost of the ticket was $40.  I can't figure out how there were $15 of “convenience” fees added to the cost of the ticket.  I can understand a fee to process the credit card transaction and to drop the ticket in the mail but that sure as shit doesn't cost $15.

     My self imposed boycott of this heaping pile of bullshit isn't all that hard to keep up.   I hate outdoor shows and other larger venues (Stage AE, I'm aiming my middle finger at you.)  Unless a band is on the shortlist in my head, I'll skip the show on principle.  I've got a house full of records and a hard drive with several terabytes of music on it so I don't need their radio stations either.  I can go from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds to High On Fire to Minor Threat without being rudely interrupted by Dave Matthews or a sports call-in show.

     I know that there is the local NPR affiliate that most people would point to for being an alternative to the Alternative Rock station but they seem to be stuck in their own rut of mid-tempo singer/songwriters.  You've got to wait until the graveyard shift to hear something without an acoustic guitar or a flute in it.

     Nothing on the airwaves in Pittsburgh seems to be aimed at me so I think I'll be just fine without them.  My iPod is my friend and all hail the mighty turntable.

The People's Poet Is Needed Now More Than Ever

     There has been a lot of gum flapping of late about people not really liking when their favorite artists and musicians get “political.”  To paraphrase, the great American, Bill Hicks: maybe these people should take a look at the world around them and try shutting the fuck up.  They might actually learn something instead of thinking they know everything.

     Those arguments are so steeped in ignorance that it proves these folks have no idea what art is and what art has been used for through the course of human history.  If these people are looking for a security blanket to make themselves feel better maybe they should buy a Sugar Ray record or a Thomas Kinkade painting while watching Dancing With The Stars.

     Now, granted, there are two types of art.  There's art that stems from rebellion and provokes thoughts and reactions that could be either positive or negative.  Then there's the commerce disguised as art whose sole purpose is to fill a hole in a market.  That's where you get your hotel paintings of a lighthouse, pop-country CDs on the impulse buy rack at the Walmart check out and your garbage TV.

     Commerce art is designed to push mind numbing product that makes the brain docile and easily manipulated by pulling the heartstrings.  This makes the consumer feel as if they are participating in some sort of culture when they are only buying a product.

     This makes me wonder how people that complain about politics in Punk Rock and Metal even got into those types of music.  Both genres were borne out of a disdain for authority and the status quo.

     Punk and Metal were reactions to the music industry establishment that had gotten bloated and greedy on their own excess.  Once both forms of music found their footing they were quickly co-opted and capitalized on by the major labels to keep the booze and coke flowing for as long as they could.  This led to the music being watered down and made more palatable for the masses that don't like a mental challenge.  The consumers of the watered down product easily adapted to being spoon fed low calorie music that they end up turning their noses when presented with high octane, uncut and uncompromising music.

     There are numerous songs about police brutality and our culture of greed to go along with songs about wanting to be left alone to live outside of the norms of society.  Not to mention the abundance of anti-Reagan and Thatcher songs that came out of 80s Punk.  And there's also Stoner Metal that is anchored in smoking weed which happens to push the agenda of legalization.

     Again, this idea of “I don't want politics in my music” is ignoring over one hundred years of music history.  Leadbelly, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie sang about civil rights and unionizing.  The Blues has a very visible direct line back to slavery and the coded spirituals that were sung in the fields to pass along information.  The Beatles wrote songs about revolution and giving peace a chance. Practically every Public Enemy song has some sort of subversive lyrics.

     What these people want is to not think or have their tiny bubble of a worldview challenged.  They don't want a spoonful of sugar with their medicine.  Fuck the medicine, they want diabetes of the mind.  It's a real problem when people are offended by someone else speaking out about children in cages when there are actually children in cages.

     I have heard the arguments that Punk and Metal somehow lean to the right of the political spectrum which is completely ludicrous.  Check the lyrics of the last few Slayer records.  There were songs about war and they've always had songs about blindly following the made up authority of religion.  This recent claim that being a republican is the new Punk Rock leaves me wondering where I left my guillotine.  Joe Strummer would not invite these assholes to sit around his campfire.

     Of course there are skinhead bands and there's no shortage of misogyny and homophobia in both scenes.  As with every other area of life those elements were bound to creep in and it's up to us to police our own scenes to weed out that nonsense.  And if we're not paying attention to the greater world around us, it's harder to notice when the ugliness starts to develop.

     The world is a mess and one way to hold the line is through art of any form.  Whether it is overtly political or if it just kickstarts the brain.  There's no longer a time or place for escapism or looking the other way.  The barbarians are at the gate and we need to do anything that will stop them.

Sometimes A Picture Is Worth Slightly Over Six Hundred Words

     When I saw this picture of the 61C coffee shop, that was taken by Stephanie Strasburg of the Post-Gazette, it stopped me cold in my tracks.  Suddenly, I was having what felt like a panic attack while I was chained to my desk at work and powerless to do anything about it other than let it hit me full on.

     Even though I had driven past it a few days before I saw the photo, long forgotten memories from decades ago came screaming out of the back of my mind.  The what ifs and paths diverging in woods of my youth were pounding on my frontal lobe, trying to escape.  Realizing that there was nothing I could do about any of it, since what is done is done and the poor, gutless decisions had already been made, I had no choice other than to ride out the shakes and sweats.  Along with a great desire to sweep the contents of my desk to the floor, yell “Fuck It!!!” and walk out the door.  Constantly having to remind myself that food and shelter are some of life's necessary evils so a day job does serve its purposes.

     My shadow used to darken the door of the 61C on a somewhat regular basis.  That is where I would obtain post show coffee, if I was on that end of town and too wired to head home yet.  And back when I wasn't a poet but didn't know it, the 61C was where I would go for a change of scenery to tirelessly drill away into a notebook while listening to my Discman.  The other coffee places that I used to frequent were the Kiva Han on S. Craig St. or either of the Beehives.  This was in a time before there was a soulless Starbucks on every other corner so each of these places used to have their own character and didn't try to sell me a Dave Matthews CD when I cashed out.

     If it wasn't a Friday or Saturday, I would start at the South Side Beehive but if it seemed too crowded I would keep heading east until I found one of the spots lacking the youths of America that I didn't want to be and would go to great lengths to avoid.  During the school year, the 61C always had the smallest crowd or at least a crowd that knew how to act when they left their houses.

     More often than not for some reason, it would be raining when I left the 61C so the rain passing through the light given off by the streetlight and the people huddled under the umbrella, in the photo, really landed on me.  Always without an umbrella and too stubborn to pay for parking close by, I'd always get back to my car thoroughly soaked and wondering why I didn't park closer or spring for an umbrella.  I never said I was smart.

     So many nights and cigarettes were spent scrawling ink across paper in an attempt to form sentences that certainly have not held up over time.  Trying to find where I might fit in to my own life, thinking that I was pondering and tackling the big questions that I still haven't found the answers to all these years later.  Attempting to figure out what was wrong with everyone else and why they didn't see the world the way that I did.

     Life became much easier when I realized that I would never fit in so I stopped trying altogether and normally head in the opposite direction of humanity whenever possible.  Pretty soon, only the 61C will remain after all these years but not much else has changed.  I have dropped the steady stream of cigarettes from my diet but the sentences are still shaky, I still park too far away from where I'm actually going and I refuse to switch to decaf.

I'm Sure Many People Have Said This Better Than I Have But...

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