Music

Bands. Looking for validity? If "American Idol," a TV show based on the expectation of becoming a popular recording artists, represents mainstream views both in marketing and consumption, then somebody must believe there is substance in music. If music was persecuted by the Russian government for its ability to alter thinking and become an enemy of the "state," then there must be substance. If music has been condemned by southern bible belt preachers as possessing messages of the devil, than there must be substance. If "jass," that New Orleans music capable of inciting riotous behavior and fornication, can kill people by causing a trombonist to impale a musician sitting in front of him with his slide, then it must have substance. The arts are substance. Literature, the visual arts, music, and theater all have substance and are more crucial to the future and history of this world then say, the PC. What does it promise? Capital? A vessel without substance isn't much, just like a "Hardly." A "Hardly" is a nickname for a Harley Davidson, a grossly over-priced status symbol just like the SUV. What the fuck happened to substance? I guess it just got railroaded out of town on a dream of making quick fix money. When did people just suddenly forget their upbringing? It must be the ADD. Lose you mind, your memory, and your dreams in one fail swoop. I fight hard to remember my education. I fight hard to live in the moment but with prospects of my past. I fight hard not to eat poisoned foods and drink polluted water. That's all tap water is anymore. (Drink Dasani. It's the only thing Pepsi has ever made that is any good.) Educators have always had to fight for the arts. Pundits have always tried to "trim the budget" by getting rid of music and art in the public schools. Want some substance? Try figuring out the Lydian Chromatic Concept, the modes of the lydian-augmented scale, or hexachordal combinatoriality. Try harmonizing a Bach chorale with four part writing. Try understanding four part counterpoint, one of the most difficult methods of composing. What's a motet? What is Gregorian Chant? What is stratification of voices? What are the hard and soft "b?" What is Expressionism? What is Impressionism if anything but a misnomer for the works of Claude Debussy? In Fayettenam people aspire to be yard monkeys. In this neighborhood you are valid if you drive a truck with a trailer full of gardening tools. My mother grew up on a diary farm picking cotton in the fields. She plants items all over the yard, and they grow. That is valid too, but so is music. I hate yard work. Why worship the graven image of a yard or a house? Maybe if it is yours and you own it. I feel some of that ADD coming on now. It's in the form of either an Amtrak passenger train, or a GP-40-2. It makes my body shake. It makes my vision blurred. It fucks with my thought process. It screws with my feelings. Where does the ability come from to effect so many Americans? Look in your backyard. American is a barren wasteland populated with the diesel engine. Hayseeds are driving down our interstates with their homes tacked in the front of a sewers. They pull their trucks into public parking lots, cut off the lights, and step in back for a snooze with the engine running. Gotta have that AC. Forget about the people living 200 feet from your turbo-charged polluter. "It's all about moi!" Maybe Europe is the place to be. Maybe money is not the only meaning of life.