Y is Not a Dirty Word

Lennon/Ono's Unfinished Music #2: Life with the Lions is a great avant-garde album. Too bad it's nearly impossible to listen to.

1) It's impossible to listen to because it's impossible to find. It was released in 1969 on the experimental and very short lived Zapple subsidiary of Apple and never saw a re-issue until 1997 with the rest of Yoko Ono's catalog on RykoDisc. That is to say, it never saw a re-issue (zing!) I only have my copy thanks to pure luck. My friend found it without a jacket in the bowls of a record bin at some now-closed record store. Thank God it was in spectacular condition. Here's my make-shift cover:

2) It's impossible to listen to because Side A is a 27 min improv consisting of mainly Ono's unique vocal style (screaming) and Lennon's guitar feedback (noise). It's tough. Believe me. I like this and it's tough. It's interesting to me because after a while, the feedback and screaming feed off each other just like in jazz improv...really, really fucking weird jazz improv. John Stevens and John Tchicai join in later on percussion and sax but they're almost too late. If they came in once the guitar and vocal started meshing, it would have been more successful.

3) It's impossible to listen to because Side B is a Fluxus audio-documentary about Ono's first of three miscarriages with Lennon. Track two is the baby's last heartbeats followed by a Cage-ian "Two Minutes Silence." Yeah. Need I say more?

4) It's impossible to listen to because "Yoko Ono" has a horrible connotation in International Pop Culture. So horrible in fact that at this point, "Yoko Ono" is purely the subject of the sentence that ends with "broke up the Beatles." That's why all three of her experimental albums with Lennon are seen as obscene, not a continuation of her own artwork. They are not seen as Fluxus work finding its way into the mainstream. They are seen as John Lennon "going too far." The art world doesn't accept them either. Historians try desperately to separate Ono from Lennon, thinking that these records diminish her as an artist.

It's a good work. Not as great as their avant-garde peers, but worth it. It's hard to ignore all the pop culture shenanigans behind it, I grant you. That's defiantly the subject for a whole different argument.

Hip Idiom/Jewish Idiom

I listened to Lenny Bruce's Carnegie Hall Concert tonight for the first time and found a reference to what I call romantic reductionism. He was talking about the Bible and how the over-usage of it voids it of any real meaning. Like when people say "good night" or "thank you." "It's a contraction now," he said. "G'night. GUHNIIGH."

There really isn't anyone else like Lenny. Carlin picked up his cadence and the freedom of speech torch, Kinison picked up the obscenity torch, but no one has (or will) come close to what Lenny was. Carlin and Lenny do have lots of similarities but it's much like the Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan relationship and that's a whole other story.

He was a comedian, but he didn't really tell jokes. He was an orator, but he took digression and made it an art form. He was a poet, but his lyrics were disjointed. Lenny had his own language, that's why it's hard to get into his act and follow him. You really have to listen to him. He's the only comedian who speaks softly when he's saying something important, almost daring you to follow him down to his part of the world. Lenny was Lenny in a profession full of schtick. He was the first to really argue that stand-up comedy is an art form.

It's tough when you come across something so amazing to get your mind on anything else. It's like when I finished Everything is Illuminated earlier this week. I honestly can't read another book now. That book me affected me in such a way that I still can't put it into words.

Culture

I started running today after a five month hiatus. I suppose that's what happens when you're feeling low. You eat shit, drink shit, make bad decisions and work for public broadcasting. Not to say that last thing is bad. I was trying to make a joke.

I finished reading a novel called Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It's about the de-evolution of mankind after a cruise ship of seven living people, one dead person, one ghost and one dead dog shipwrecks on the Galápagos Islands one million years ago in 1985. That combined with the Zen I seek in running made me think a lot of about the power of the human spirit which all seems irrelevant at the end of the novel. Vonnegut has a way of doing that.

Repopulating seemed kinda sexy in a way. Where sex goes beyond desire into necessity. Humans love to pat themselves on the back for being important. They also love to pat themselves on the back for getting laid. Talk about the best of both worlds. Especially when you're the first generation after a war that destroys all your ancestors. I'm a sucker for shit like that. Importance. Passion. Comfort.

I cried the day Vonnegut died. I cried an awful lot in front of an awful lot of people. I was wicked embarrassed. People treated me like a problem case, much like nowadays. At least everyone forgot about it the day after. I sure as hell didn't. However, one kid, a jock, came up to me and said "You must really care about about him." I said I do. When Salinger died all I thought was "So it goes." How ironical.

Now I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye for the fourth time whilst listening to Bob Dylan's criminally underrated Street Legal. I find a lot of comfort in art. These two things are art. There's also white wine and whoopie pies to be had. These two things are _____.

An Actual Homework Assignment For Art School

10) DISCUSSION QUESTION (follow instructions carefully):
Describe five specific incidents in which you have used your body to make sound in the past day. These do not need to all be sounds emanating directly from your body, it can also involve using your body (such as your hands or mouth) to trigger a sound. At least one of the examples should involve triggering or using some type of technology (such as ringing a doorbell or turning on your MP3 player). Include the exact location, a description of the sound, whether other people also heard the sound, how (and if) you heard the sound yourself and any other interesting information.

1- Right when I woke up, I cracked my knuckles. I was sitting up in bed. The noise was a very distinct and very loud crack. I don’t crack my knuckles often so the noise startled me a bit.
2- Early this morning, one of my roommates’ cats ran into my room and scared the shit out of me. I was half awake and I let out this horrible moan of fright. It came from the back of my throat and was very low. I hope someone else heard it because it was so weird.
3- I hit record on my tape deck. I was sitting on the edge of my bed. The deck made a nice CA-CHUNK followed by the hum of the spindles moving.
4- My esophagus made a strange gurgling sound after I ate when I was sitting on my couch. It was particularly loud. As always, no one heard it but me.
5- Since nothing loud or even interesting happened to me today, I started humming just now, seeing how low I can get. I can feel it in my chest but now it’s starting to hurt a little.

You, The Artist

I had to fill this out for one of my major classes. I think it's really good for all artists to take some time mulling over. Here it is with my answers:

1. What satisfies you in life?

Exposing myself to new things, writing, listening to damn good records

2. What are your affinities?

I have an affinity for outdated things. Rediscovering the old.

3. What other arists/musicians/etc. are important to you?

Frank Zappa, J.D. Salinger, The Firesign Theatre, George Carlin, Hunter S. Thompson, Wes Anderson, Jeff Mangum, Brian Wilson, Joel Hodgson, Woody Allen, William Shaff

4. Who are your heroes?

Jefferson Thomas, Matthew R. Sullivan, Pete Seeger, Barack Obama

5. Do you think art has a social mission?

Art’s social mission is to unite everyone. Not to bring peace. Peace is hard to come by, it’s like enlightenment. However, art needs to make us all realize that we are all in life together and need to band together.

6. What do you think IS important in a work of art?

Something refreshing. Not like a cold beverage. More like a smile that starts at your toes and works its way up.

7. Where do you look or go for inspiration?

Supermarkets, Cape Cod, bad movies from the 1950s

8. What are your best traits/skills?

Knack for dialogue, writing, technical audio junk, eye for editing even though I’m not that good at doing it

9. What do you abhor in art?

Pretentiousness and bullshit

10. Who do you want to see in your work?

The people I love.

11. Where do you want your work to be place or seen?

In the ideal world, my own cable network.

12. What styles/genres do you find the most interesting?

Lately I’ve been finding the film Slacker more and more interesting. Any of those early 90s independent films. They are so gritty, have loose narratives, and yet say so much. It kills me.

13. What is at the heart of your work?

I just make things I feel should exist.

14. How do you research your ideas?

On Google, late at night, with music blaring.