Q: Are We Not Men?

This week I went with some friends to Mac Blast! The launch party for the mac version of Windows 08. A friend of mine who is a huge Devo fan found out they were playing and we all decided to try for one of the limited number of tickets which were offered to the public through a Devo fan site. Above should be video of their opening number. Sorry for the poor sound quality. I got my first smart phone for Christmas and am still trying to figure the thing out. I'm hoping my slow internet speed is the reason the video isn't looking too great for me.

Even though we had tickets we stood in line outside the venue for two hours so we could be among the first to get in. My friend had heard that there would be band freebies for the first two hundred. We watched as the line was separated into two by security guards and entertained ourselves by trying to guess who would turn to go into the strip club next door as they passed. This turned out to be more challenging than we thought it would be and we only got one person right. Then about an hour before the doors were set to open the line was divided again and a "friends of the band" line was created. We were really feeling rejected by not being chosen to be apart of that line. But we made it in! And were rewarded with a MacBlast/Devo t-shirt, Devo playing cards, and power point M&Ms (tasty). I've include the video the band played before their final song. Devo encouraged us to go home and become the epicenter for something "new." We should all go home and disconnect our computers from the internet and throw them out the window.



Awesome! Even though my first reaction when Devo took the stage was, "they're old!" They proved they still got it. I don't think I really appreciated Devo's music until I saw them that night. It was the first time I've seen them live and I'm so glad I got the chance to do it. I really wish I would have caught their performance of Uncontrollable Urge on video. It was the highlight of the night for me. Watching them while Mark Mothersbaugh ripped their contamination suits off and stripped them to their skaterish shorts and shirt uniforms. Below is the return of Booji Boy who apparently had been cryogenicaly frozen for this evening's performance of Beautiful World. Its even more surreal to see him appear as a white energy blob on the video because the stage light behind him drowns out his image.

Paper Or Plastic?

I take no pride in admitting that I too have fallen into the nasty habit of reading all of the gossip blog information I can find on the Britney Spears' melt down. Its horrible, its like admitting to looking at the bodies when you finally pass the traffic accident even though the car looks like a crushed soda can and you know it ain't gonna be good. I can't help it. And I've been trying to think about why I can't help it. I know the interest helps sells gossip rags and tabloids, which in turn buy these paparazzi shots and the whole thing perpetuates so I should stop but I don't. Is it part of our culture? Its certainly not novel to point out Americans love to create heroes and myths, and equally love to tear them down. But that's not it, it maybe part of the reason why we are so fascinated by the meltdown, but its not why we keep tuning in. Maybe its too see how far we're going to let it go before someone actually does intervene.

Clearly, nobody thinks this erratic behavior can be attributed to a bratty celebrity gone wild. The woman is obviously suffering from some sort of mental illness and needs help to rein it in if she can, but nobody seems to be stepping up. I was checking out of a store today and a woman behind me was commenting on all of the tabloid headlines with Britney on the cover. She said, "Is no one going to help her?" And when I turned around, to see who had said it, I noticed she was accompanied by a caregiver who was unloading her cart and helping her get her money together for her purchase. For some reason this really struck me. I have had several friends who have had to deal with loved ones who suffered from depression. You can't control the person's actions. From the outside it's easy to say if that were my loved one I'd... and I wouldn't let them blah blah blah. But the truth is, when the person is an adult there isn't really much recourse for their loved ones to help them unless the person cooperates or the family has them declared unfit to take care of themselves. What are the chances that someone who isn't in their right mind is going to cooperate with loved ones trying to take away their freedom?

Many who have never been in this situation also seem to equate crazy with dumb. Just because a person is all of a sudden acting manic or unstable doesn't mean they've lost their intelligence. Sometimes it's harder to help because they can control their illness enough so that many around them can't see the pain they're in. Take for example the noted academic who recently gave a rousing New Year's speech to the preparatory school he was president of and hours later threw himself off a building. Is the fascination with depression because the numbers of those who suffer from it is on the rise? I know a number of people, normal friends, who have taken anti-depressants to get through situational depression. And what clinically is situational depression isn't it just life do you really need a pill to get through it? More and more I think our fascination with Britney and others is likely because we see that depression and mental illness can affect anyone and in some sick way maybe people take solace in that.

Richard Corey

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich-- yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869)

Hybernation and the Rain

Between my housebound illness and the rain in the Bay Area I should have my ark ready no later than February. Whatever super cold/cough/flu thing that's been going around got me on New Year's Day. Happy New Year! Last night was my first night out on the town in a week. I went to see No Country For Old Men the latest Cohen brothers flick. It was worth all the attention its been getting even though I didn't understand the ending at all.

Miramax has the screenplay available online so I could at least read the last scene again (it didn't help). If you've seen it and have a theory let me know what you think. If not its a good movie you should see it and then explain the ending to me.

On the 18th Day of Christmas...

Several of my friends are flying tomorrow to several different parts of the country to be with their families for Christmas. Annually we all make the trip home for the winter holiday even if the expense serves as a valid reason to keep us away the rest of the year. Tomorrow they'll wake up, and brave the traffic and irritation at the airport to board a flight they're not really sure they want to be boarding. By the time they've spent two hours in line waiting to move through metal detectors while novice flyers slow the pace attempting to get their illegal token liquid presents or other contraband on to the plane, my friends will start to think of how irritated they are to have to make such inconveniences to accommodate their families. They'll start to pick apart and remember all the faults they initially found in their hometowns. And all at once, the reminders of why they left will come flooding into their minds building dissatisfaction into monumental levels that will never abide until they are back home. Their home. Essentially, all the good will which has been building and stored up through out the year will be spent in an hour before they've even left the ground.

My best friend once told me she admired me for moving to another part of the state and making a life for myself. I've never been able to express to her that I've always thought she was the braver one for having stayed home. Running away is easy. And figuring out that running away is easy is the best lesson to have learned from leaving home. People who leave home often boast about the lives they've built for themselves out of nothing. Nobody ever tells you that the best time to build something is when you have nothing because you have nothing to lose. Watching some DVD extras this week after a movie I came across an interview in which the moderator based his question to the director by first laying out this premise. That all writers are essentially bastards (or assholes I can't remember which). That he, the moderator, was most qualified to say this because he himself was a writer. Writers, he said, live in their own worlds. They create worlds and even the most talented writers are obsessed with their own perception of the world; its what creates their art--their perception. Am I an asshole? Are my friends assholes? Is this what makes an artist? The ability to selfishly indulge in one's one thoughts or perceptions? Or is this just the red herring question everyone of a certain age asks themselves? And by that I don't mean an actual age, but rather someone who has never really wanted for something. Someone who has never been tested by circumstance to want something that they can't readily access or conquer. Is it a question of the over privileged? Privileged not by wealth but by an abundance of choices and circumstance.

So on this the 18th Day of Christmas, I acknowledge that the things I want most this holiday are things that can't be readily given. But I'll settle for this, that when my friends finally land and they are met by an equally agitated family member who has been circling the crowded airport for two hours (not having known about the delay) that they are all suddenly awash in good cheer. That for some unknown reason a warm holiday feeling floods back into them and they are able to see themselves in the family that they see so little of.