microwave pizza with fork & knife

this is the title of my new installation art piece. it consists of a white male, 24 years old, sitting at a cubicle desk, the titular meal in front of him. the viewer's perspective is actually physically changed by invasive surgical procedure to rotate outward in concentric ellipses at a rate of 180 degrees every 5 minutes to include in the field of vision a homeless man buying liquor at a Financial District store, business advisers making tapped cell phone calls on mp3 phones, a man dumping a body (female) on the banks of the East River, a Washington politician (male) receiving fellatio from a secretary (also male) underneath his desk, the re-nationalization of oil fields by the Bolivian president, an ice sheet the size of Rhode Island melting into the sea off the coast of Antarctica, the consulting firm of Hill & Knowlton advising the Chinese government how to image-manage the latest suppresion of rural villagers and the use of Google to monitor internet activity, the government of Chad expropriating oil profits to buy munitions, and a British model (female) snorting cocaine off the back of her hand in a restaurant bathroom. perspective concludes back at the start (point A) as the object white male thinks about playing guitar as his head fills with self-loathing.

what are the politics of boredom?

that's what was written on the banner Malcolm McLaren hung above the stage at the first New York Dolls gig. it's a worthwhile question. as i get older and recognize certain patterns in myself, i'm even more convinced that boredom is at the heart of so many evils. when i'm bored i get depressed, when i get depressed i drink and can't sleep, when i drink and can't sleep i get panic attacks. when i'm bored i hate the things i love and hate even more the things i already hate. the crux of our society, i think, is the organization of boredom, whether through diversionary commodities or meaningless labor. it's a self-perpetuating cycle of course, as the fleeting charms of products and socially-sanctioned activities breed a neurotic, compulsive need for more products and activities, more shiny, consumable image-identities to be bought, worn once, and discarded like a tacky prom dress. i'm startled that most of the people around me are more concerned with playing the part of their lifestyle archetype than doing anything with it, i.e. people in bands who are much more adept at "being a person in a band" than they are at writing a memorable song. we're a society of actors, and i live in the city of actors, and i'm a little bit sick of it.

that's what i'm talking about

The Face of a City Changes More Quickly

The interesting thing about New York is that you can literally watch it change before your eyes. On Saturday I walked all around the Lower East Side, which is rapidly filling up with posh high-rises, and then home to Brooklyn via 4th Ave. and the construction sites of ambiguous purpose that are surrounding (and dwarfing) my apartment building.

Soundtracking this bout of wandering was an assortment of new music purchases: the Ellen Allien/Apparat album, which is the best electronic record I've heard in a while, Bound Stems, who prove (along with Sally, Pelican, Chin Up Chin Up et al) that Chicago is birthing more interesting indie rock than NY these days, the first Durutti Column album, which is a bit more jazzy/noodly than I expected but neat nonetheless (love that Martin Hannet production), and I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, who are good but conventional.

I was reminded that the new Twilight Singers album comes out tomorrow, and this was happy enough an occurence, and then THIS! Now if only I weren't so immediately sick and miserable. I vow to persevere and rehearse like mad tonite - no excuses for missing a whole week.

This has been a little too what-I-did-today diary-ish for my taste. Sorry.

New songs are occupying my mind. They are good, but dark. Working off themes of sexual violence. Which is not enjoyable, but necessary I think. It actually kinda makes me literally ill. But, as they say, I didn't choose the subject, in a sense it chose me. Hope to demo tonite. I plan to eat a lot of pizza.

Note to future me(s): this was you before anyone cared.

Just cuz you feel it doesn't mean it's there.

An unexpected fringe benefit of being up till 7AM with a fever Tuesday night was that while surfing the Interweb I discovered that W.A.S.T.E, the Radiohead ticket service, had released a few more tickets to certain North American shows. I was able to snag 4 tickets to the June 4 Boston show. Very exciting.

If you haven't already, try to track down some of the new live tracks circulating, they're really quite great. Pitchfork has the YouTube video of "Arpeggi." It's amazing.

Mandrake

It's so surreal, returning to work routine after a succesful show. It's not just that my work has no connection to my reality - it has no connection to any reality. It's all smoke and mirrors, fake money and paper waste. It's been the kind of day that takes Klonopin and The Smiths just to get through work. A return to the familiar tropes that get you by - pretty girl on the subway, the scent of spring flowers, tulips at the cemetery.

So Saturday we partied and on Sunday I recovered and watched a documentary about Johnny Cash. I came to a conclusion - our generation does not know what sincerity is. It's part choice and part cultural indoctrination, but when it comes down to it I don't think we know how to recognize sincere expression or to express anything sincerely ourselves. We assume so many alterior motives that we create them, partly because human interaction has been reduced to a series of transactions - business, artistic, sexual, electronic. We transmit, not communicate - messages over email, credit card numbers over fiber-optic wires, diseases through blood.

When I watch Johnny Cash sing, in grainy footage from 1969 - just a man sitting at home with a guitar, casually strumming a new song for his guests, wife sitting by his side - it almost makes me want to give up music, it's that pure and honest, with no self-consciousness whatsoever. We've lost that forever I think. Lost it to market concerns and promotional tactics, to major league indifference and indie elitism. Lost it to the dollar, to the commodity, which renders any artistic/musical act packaged in plastic first of all an object of suspicion, the suspicion of the salesman, whom we just know is trying to pull one over on us.

On the train this morning a little girl was singing, her own made-up song about a dinosaur. I hope no one gets to her, and that nothing makes her lose her private joy.