April 11, 2004

• Thank god she hates music for me. I don't think i could handle a job like that.
• I like a good reaming-of-the-deserved as much as the next bitter consumer sold a bill of goods by the old monolithic music company A & R hucksters. But then I made some disposable income, started reading Lester Bangs, et al, to hone my tastes, got a car, and discovered I had a CHOICE. I'd also like to see some essays on what she is deliriously, Pop-Tarts and buttery happy mouth, FOND of. Because that way leads to a kind of self-revelation, many writers resist (fearful of being cheerleaders, I guess-- what in the world is wrong with passionately shouting your loves' name with the simple red-bloodied full-throatedness of a wren on an April morning?) and are enticed by the Jimmy Breslin model of grizzled reporter, sans favor, sans love? I am prolix, and am better for it this morning! (Happy Easter to all my Christian friends at home and abroad!)
• I feel there are problems with her approach, and her writing border on possible lack of sensibility. Hate achieves little. She needs to adopt reason if she hopes to make a difference. She lives in a free society where she can choose whatever activity she may desire, but she chooses complaint. What if we take away all music? Will she be happy then? I would argue not! She impresses to me as someone who slowly hates the world away until we are left with a impenetrable darkness, when at last she will proclaim from her dying form: 'At last there is nothing wrong,' and collapse woefully upon the hard earth. Perhaps then, a moment before death takes her, she sees a sudden spark of light: the light that once shined upon the world, and wishes for a second that she had helped it, enjoyed it where it shone most brightly. It is however too late. As her body finally gives way, she tries to move, tries to right her wrong - but she is trapped, alone, weeping. Trapped in a fading corpse who will never see light again.
• Music is the greatest thing in the world. (OK, I'm biassed.)
• When I was in college, my roommate briefly dated a girl who didn't like music. Any music. My roommate was a poet, a moderately heavy drinker, and would often dance around the apartment popping his fingers and babbling while listening to Eric Dolphy or Mingus. If he was talking, chances are that he was talking about music. The girl was reportedly interesting and better looking than the skanks with whom my roommate would usually associate, but conversations about music never got very far. When asked if she liked Coltrane, Beethoven, Led Zeppelin, or Christina Arugula she would always reply, "no." When ask whey she should just shrug her shoulders and say, "I just don't like music." When telling my about the girl my roommate had a look on his face like he'd found out the girls was actually a nun or had a penis or something. I don't buy that anyone who knows who Canonball Adderly is actually hates music.
• *hears word "Cannonball", starts rooting around in huge pile of old vinyl*