Traitors don't get to question my patriotism. What could be less
patriotic than constantly screwing things up for America? You know,
it's literally hard to keep up with the sheer volume of scandals in
the Bush Administration. Which is why I like to download the latest
scandal right onto my iPod. That way, I can catch up on this week's
giant fuck-up on my drive in to work.
In fact, Bush has so many scandals, he could open a chain of "Bush
Scandal and Fuck-up" theme restaurants. "Ooh, should I get the
Harriet Miers meatloaf or the Katrina crab cakes?"
You know, not to generalize, but the 29% of people who still support
President Bush are the ones who love to pronounce themselves more
patriotic than the rest of us. But just saying you're patriotic is
like saying you have a big cock. If you have to say it, chances are
it's not true.
And, indeed, the party that flatters itself that they protect
America better is the party that has exhausted the military, left the
ports wide open and purposefully outed a CIA agent, Valerie
Plame.
That's not treason anymore? Outing a spy? Did I mention it was one of
our spies? And how despicable that Bush's lackeys attempted to
diminish this crime by belittling her service, like she was just some
chick who hung around the CIA. "An intern, really. Groupie, if you
want to be mean about it."
No. Big lie. Valerie Plame was the CIA's operational officer in charge
of counter-proliferation. Which means she tracked loose nukes. So,
when Bush said, as he once did, that his absolute, number-one priority
was preventing terrorists from getting loose nukes, okay, that's what
she worked on. That's what she devoted her life to, staying undercover
for 20 years, maintaining two identities every goddamn day. This is
extraordinary service to your country.
Valerie Plame was the kind of real-life secret agent George Bush
dreams of being when he's not too busy pretending to be a cowboy or a
fighter pilot.
CIA agents are troops. This was a military assassination of one of our
own, done through the press, ordered by Karl Rove. He said, of Valerie
Plame, quote, "She's fair game." And then Cheney shot her.
George Bush likes to claim that he doesn't question his critics'
patriotism, just their judgment. Well, let me be the first of your
critics, Mr. President, to question your judgment and your
patriotism. Because, let's not forget why they did it to her. Because
Valerie Plame was married to this guy, Joe Wilson, who the Bush people
hated because he busted them on one of their bullshit reasons for
invading Iraq.
He was sent to the African country of Niger to see if Niger was
selling nuclear fuel to Iraq. They weren't. It was bullshit, and he
said so. In fact, his report was called, "Niger, Please!"
Valerie Plame's husband told the truth about their lie, so they were
willing to jeopardize an entire network of spies to ruin her
life. Wow, even the mob doesn't go after your family.
Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time,
and your government when it deserves it." And I say Valerie Plame is a
patriot because she spent her life serving her country. Scooter Libby
is not, because he spent his life serving Dick Cheney.
Valerie Plame kept her secrets. The Bush Administration leaked like
the plumbing at Walter Reed.
In the year, 2008, I really think that Hillary Clinton should run for
president on a platform of "restoring honor and integrity to the Oval
Office."
The ol' Commander still has it. I didn't take any photos because my
phone-cam is getting a bit long in the tooth, and produces a sort of
soft focus effect. I suppose that this would be great for tasteful
porn photos, but it lacks a certain satisfaction for
photojournalism. :)
I guess that it's about time to invest in something good, as I
intend to populate this blog with music stuff and related photos this
year.
The Commander and the band pulled out all of the standards; Too
Much Fun, Hot Rod Lincoln, Seeds 'N' Stems, Don't Let Go, etc,
etc. Jim Franklin showed up, served as emcee and announced the
band. Flashbacks of 1974. It was a fine night for an old Armadillo
survivor like me and other kindred souls.
I have been recording all of the shows this year (modulo artist
approval) and I think that we're going to master the standout cuts
each month for a "Best of" CD, which we'll put into the juke box at
Threadgill's South. (One copy only, not for sale, etc.) Look for it
starting next month. Should be a nice and unique accessory to your
chicken fried steak.
Tonight: The Gourds. Thursday: Eric Johnson. Next Saturday is going
to be fun... a twang guitar fest starting at 2:00 PM. Bring a
surfboard. :)
Well, SXSW week is gone, and I have recovered. As I get older, it
becomes more, um, crippling to stay on my feet for 10-12 hours,
days at a time. Heh. By Sunday morning wake-up, I was hobbling around
like my legs were in casts. But it was a fine week of music.
BTW, thanks for the comments on the SXSW post below. Emails ran
about 66% "Thanks for saying that, me too" to 33% "Aren't you being a
bit dramatic and shrill? It's just a friggin' music convention. It's
fun. Suck it up." And the answer to the latter is, yes, the post is
overly dramatic and shrill. But I am leaving it up there as a reminder
of how irritated most Austin musicians that I know tend to get around
spring break every year. I guess that it can be summed up in two ways:
(a) SXSW is a unique and well-run event that is an excellent
opportunity to learn techniques and get to know people in the music
business, and (b) they've got theirs, and they don't give a damn about
what anyone thinks, least of all
me, and never will. They don't pay the artists because they
don't have to, and in their view it's none of my or anyone
else's concern how they choose to run their business.
Such is life. As I get older, I've noticed that injustices tend
to self-correct and public scrutiny tends to hasten that correction. Next.
So, tomorrow is an old-Austin day at the joint, with Commander Cody
coming through. I'll try to post up some pics for you.
That's Louis Black, Editor/Principle of the Austin Chronicle and
co-founder of SXSW. (Nick Barbaro is also a festival partner and
publisher at the Chronicle, and Roland Swenson is the managing partner
of the festival.)
He's policing the line at Waterloo Records, apparently bored,
observing the Austin, Texas music fans who gave him his fortune, all
of them queued to pay $160.00 for a wristband that does
not guarantee that they will be admitted to any venue or be
able to listen to any SXSW showcase. Because, remember kids, it's not
a
"consumer event."
Nevertheless, they'll sell somewhere on the far side of three
quarters of a million dollars worth of these wristbands (that
guarantee nothing) prior to the music portion of the festival.
I was here long, long before the Church
Of Swensontology. I helped to create the infrastructure and the
culture that they utilize for their profits. I hope that I'll be here
long after they're gone. The only people who make money at SXSW are
(a) SXSW by far, and (b) well, everyone except for the creators of the
arts that they espouse. Oh, yeah, and audio engineers. Lucky for me
that I am also an audio engineer. I create music, too, but musicians
pay for the "privilege" of performing at SXSW. Independent
audio engineers get to name their price at this time of the year in
Austin, Tx.
SXSW lacks... honor, I guess; it lacks a sense of obligation, an
institutional conscience. It is no longer about the music, or the
films, or the "interactive," if indeed it ever was. It is about
itself. It is about using the Austin consumer and the Austin musician
and Austin culture, a culture that made SXSW's existence possible in
the first place, in service of its own advance. It's among the worst
kind of blood money -- in its least attractive aspect, I see cult-like
steely-eyed profiteering posing as a patron of the arts. In my less
charitable moments, as it freewheels through my town every year and
vacuums up money, I can put SXSW right up there in RIAA territory.
The saddest thing about it all is that, at the worker-bee level,
the organization is made up of true patrons of the arts. Fine,
fine people who love music. Who
love film. Who know their geekery. And who work hard,
extraordinarily long hours year-round so that they can work even
harder this week every year - and experience only a fleeting hour or
two of their beloved Arts during the festival. And at festival time,
hundreds more are used as volunteer staff and get paid only a badge
and a piece of pizza or two.
And make no mistake, those fine people absolutely deliver. There is
an enormous wealth of talent and quality panels available to
participants in Austin this week. Some important films have made their
debut at SXSW, and it is pretty much the premiere venue for web
designers to get together and share ideas. SXSW is an
extraordinary and well-run event. I simply wish that it would give
something back to the artists who have made its existence possible.
SXSW takes enormous sums of money from the industries that profit
from the arts and provides them with ten days of an orgiastic
narcissictic power-schmooze fest, as SXSW assumes the role of the
arbiter of this year's 'Next Big Thing.' Simultaneously, they require
the artists that make it all possible to spend enormous amounts of
money—money that they often don't have—to
participate. And, of course, they staff the festival itself with
unpaid volunteers.
They profit from the creators; they profit from the middlemen; they
profit from the patrons, and they profit from the consumers. And now
that the City of Austin is a "partner," they profit directly in the
form of tax credits from the citizens of Austin. Quite the profitable
enterprise there.
Think about this on Sunday, as you look upon the disillusioned band
begging gas money to get back to Minnesota or the film maker
hitchhiking back to Oregon with a backpack full of their unwatched
DVDs. They won't be attending the SXSW barbecue and softball
tourney with all of the badged hipper-than-thou Important People, and
no one from SXSW will be there to "support" their art after Saturday
night when the final bank deposit rolls away from the convention
center in that armored truck.
Of course, the standard-issue answer to these observations is that
SXSW brings $38 million into the Austin economy every year. Perhaps it
does. But it brings zero dollars into the overall artists
economy - it takes something up in the high six figures from
the musicians and film makers as application fees. Again, as is always
the case with SXSW, no guarantees.
I'm sure that all of this makes the Austin Convention and Visitors
Bureau happy—they finally found a way to profit off of all those
dirty hippie musicians that were always hanging around their
city—but
they didn't have a damned thing to do with making Austin a
musical and arts mecca. I remember well the early days, when they
wanted to make it a misdemeanor to carry a guitar case anywhere in
town except "to and from a licensed music venue." Now we're the "Live
Music Capital of the World." The artists of Austin, Texas owe ACVB and
SXSW nothing.
Apparently it's not enough for artists to be the creative profit
engine for all of these "industry" hangers-on for 355 days a year;
SXSW has added ten days where the creators have to pay to be
around the middlemen. And while they're at it, they sell a ticket that
is not a ticket to the fans who fund the whole industry in the first
place. Finally, just for good measure, they make it obscenely
expensive and difficult as the fans jump through hoops to try to
acquire one.
I can't help but think that there's some very bad faith in evidence
here. What started out as a symbiotic festival in service of Austin's
musical culture and diversity has turned into a gathering of wealthy
parasites—of, by and for its own profit. It has an institutional
contempt for its origins that I find extremely distasteful. Twenty one
years down the road, it's now "not an 'Austin music' event" and it's
"not a consumer event." Well, fine. Then take it someplace other than
Austin where there are no Austin musicians and no Austin consumers and
see how well it flies.
Oh, wait... SXSW tried that, didn't they? I believe that the exact
quote from the Billboard interview is "If we had gone ahead, it could have sunk the company."
Sadly, It's here and not going metastatize to anywhere else. I'd
just like to take a moment as a native Austinite and a life-long music
industry professional to voice the opinion that SXSW (the Non-Consumer
Non-Artist Industry Event) is a yearly irritation, and it is an
egregious and ungrateful misappropriation of the fruits of Austin's
unique culture, a culture that it had nothing to do with
creating. SXSW has taken the concept of "ripping off the culture" to
a previously unimaginable and profitable height of literalism.
Enjoy your blood money, gentlemen. Now please excuse me for a
while; I'm going to go listen to Chrissie Hynde sing "How much did you
get for your soul?" a few times.
Well, chirren, I am heading into the busiest week of the year,
starting tomorrow. I get to start the season with Chris Hillman, a
musician whom I utterly respect. He's been a player in many of my
favorite bands; he's been a player in many of my favorite cultures;
he's been a player in many of my favorite philosophies. It is a fine
way to start the season.
Friday, we do Savoy Brown. Kim Simmonds is a man who knows (and has
played with) every legitimate rock 'n' roll superstar you've ever
heard of. He and I had a great hour-long conversation at the Armadillo
in the mid-seventies; I haven't seen him since. It'll be nice to see
how we've both weathered the years.
I like my life. It's a wonderful, strange, fantastic (and sometimes
badly staged) thing. Odd. Perhaps I am the poster boy that illustrates
the concept that "intelligent" is not the same as "wise." Even
probably. But I am also an example of the fact that, if one rejects
everything that is of no interest, one can find oneself in interesting
situations. I represent a niche, but I am the best in the world in my
chosen niches. And I am in a place wherein such things are
appreciated. It is very fulfilling.
Ever the unapologetic contrarian. I know.
It's a fine, fine way to live. The road is hard sometimes,
but it is a road upon which one meets only the most interesting of
people. And those are the only kind of people that I can handle.
So. Tomorrow, I start this year's measure of the work that I came
here to do. Stop by sometime over the next few months, say hello, hang
out, and share the joy that I have in it.
I am who I am, and you don't need to know who I am, and I, at my
best, help geniuses to channel their genius more effortlessly. And at
its best, when I am successful, I do work in service of the Gods.
Charge the common ground, my friends; charge the common ground.
