Farewell, Mr. Moog

The most delightful instrument.

Brainwave

I think I just had a really good idea. Say you're a kid who browses an independent bookstore on a regular basis, covets several books but has little pocket money (like Charlie Bucket). And say you're a kid who so badly wants to have a cool job at an independent bookstore. And say you're a sympathetic bookstore owner who started this for the purpose of getting books into the hands of those that love them. What if you worked out a kind of a scholarship system, and came up with little tasks for these kids to do, to earn a book at a time? I mean, you can't hire everyone who wants to work there. But for certain people, maybe you could work out something? Melinda sort of does the same thing, gives out free drinks to people who do nice things for the shop. Our ad guy gets a pound of coffee for each design, Noah got THREE free drinks for prying a quarter off the floor that someone had glued down. The nice man who just came in to meet a friend and ended up helping us fix our melted pipes got two large big trains.

I think it's a nice idea.

In other bookstore news, the state department officially recognizes Ragmerchant Media LLC as a corporation.

Ich Spreche Starbucks Nicht

I love Questionable Content. I am not alone! Though if I behaved that way, Melinda would, well, she wouldn't fire me, but she'd be very, very disappointed. (She's leaving the country soon . . . I'm definitally considering a mandatory ignorance charge on the next customer who asks me if "espressos are an iced drink")

Title edit, thanks to anonymous commentor. Sorry, I was tired first time around

Reverend President Georgie Ray Bush

I know I'm dense, or maybe I was just closing my eyes to an unpleasant fact, but I just recently realized that not only is George Bush a church going, clean living christian, but he's an evangelical. As in, if he lived her in Tulsa he'd go to Rhema, he'd send his kids to Victory, he'd guest lecture at ORU. I thank Craig for making me vomit and bringing this fact to my attention.

And then today I read another article and discover that 40 percent of active military personnel considers itself evangelical. Not 40 percent of the religious military personnel, 40 percent of the ENTIRE MILITARY would go to Rhema. And 60 percent of the military chaplains are evangelical.

I wasn't exposed to the world of evangelicals until I was older, which is one of the few things I can thank my inocuously religious upbringing for. Evangelicals make the sleepy middle of the road Methodists uncomfortable. They're in the same category as gay people. When I was growing up, the reaction to someone raising their hands in a worship service was nervous chatter and averted eyes. I imagine it would be the same if two men held hands. Though it's a testament to the rapid rise and popularity of evangelical practices in the American church that last time I visited my dad's church, several people were waving their arms about during the singing, and even showing outright emotion, and almost no one whispered and pointed.

"Scream, Create, or Die"

I was recently steered to this site for a template for some Kick Ass Initiative stuff. It's right, I guess. I mean, it's accurate and all. But written in the voice of The Man. It's The Man who keeps saying "let's make Tulsa COOL" and The Kids who say, "Let's make Tulsa KICKASS". It's The Man who targets youth culture and sells us sneakers and soda using very good imitations of our passions and yearnings. It's The Man who thinks Tulsa needs a convention center. It's The Kids who know that almost anyone who can fill that place is not worth seeing.

As encouraging as all this "creative class" stuff is, it's written from the outside. To The Man, we may be a marketable group, but this is our life, you know? They can classify us, describe us, sure, but whatever they come up with from that, it's just a product. It didn't come from their hearts, their passions. It came from a boardroom.

A few weeks ago the Text Mob was discussing the difference between art and advertising. Advertising today, it all looks like art. It's done by the same people, with the same tools, same skills, often better tools. And what about people like me, who put their art into their business, who make ads and design products for their business with the same part of themselves that could make paintings and write songs if they were so inclined? But in the end, what's the difference between the advertisting for my store, versus Barnes and Noble's ad campaign? It's all for profit, right? And artists sell their work in galleries, bands do music full time. Whats the difference between that and writing a jingle for Pepsi with the same skills you would use to write an indie rock song?

It's all very fine, highly shiftable. We aren't living in such divisive times these days, where the sides are clearly and cleanly seperated. The Kids and The Man are right up against eachother, copying and playing off one another's creations. Sampling, culture jamming, wit, mockery, these are the ways we raise our fists today. There's no consistently defined window and brick to throw through it. They buy and copy and profligate our ideas and culture, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Sometimes we join their ranks and sometimes we're clearly aligned against them. Sometimes they have good intentions, but they're just not getting it. It takes a lot of vigilance to keep all this in mind, but this struggle has been going on for all of modern life. Sometimes The Man would put a fist in your jaw and a boot in your gut and it was a different kind of fight. But the enemy is a coward today, show your teeth and they go running for their lawyers. It's not muscle we need, but alertness.

Throw a little paint on the walls, make a little noise, break a couple rules, buy a little less and create a little more, and see how far it gets you in this sleepy town.

And You Thought Pavement Was Old School

I just finished reading Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad and have been listening to some of the bands it talks about that I'd not heard much, like Husker Du and Fugazi. And as good as they are, listening to them makes me think of that scene in Back To The Future, when Marty plays the arcade game in Cafe 80s, and the future kids scoff at him, "You use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!" Having come of musical age when all these bands are retired and their influence integrated into the current indie sound that we don't even remember them, their early efforts are tame in comparison. What Azerrad calls "thrashing" or "mind blowing" sounds weak and undeveloped compared to what I might find in my iTunes folder.

But I'm not so arrogant about the new indie world that I belong to, where the Sub Pop Singles Club is a quirky relic, Omaha is the new Seattle, and bands can ethically occupy the realm between obscurity and mainstream with ease, that I can't give these pioneers their due. Far from it. I've told every kid I know, all my friends 25 and under, that this is required reading for anyone claiming musical knowledge. I mean, I've yet to hear anyone my age cite Beat Happening when discussing Kindercore Records, or Mudhoney as a regional ancestor of Neutral Milk Hotel and Death Cab For Cutie. And I've NEVER even HEARD MENTION of bands like The Minutemen and Big Black. Maybe I just hang out with ignorant, naive Oklahomans, but I think most of my peers really are cut off from our musical origins.

I'm eager to learn more about the indie rock family tree. How did we get from Steve Albini to Conor Oberst? But I've yet to find another resource as professionally researched and well-written as Our Band Could Be Your Life. If you know of one, or you are one, let me know.