KILLING IN THE NAME (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE) // ROCK'N'TOYS SESSIONS (THE WACKIDS)
That amazing solo instrument is an Otamatone, and I want one. There seems to be a plethora of YouTube vids of rockers making music with them and at least half the fun is the smile on the little guy's face as they do so.
Thanks to uploader acquiescefc, Jack White's Love Interruption from his debut solo album Blunderbuss, performed with his male backing band The Buzzards - and Alison Mosshart.
Jesse Singal, writing in NY Mag, argues that there is a difference between "old millennials" and "young millennials".
As someone who graduated directly into Thatcher's Britain and consequentially can't stand to be labeled a "Baby Boomer", I feel for him or her.
They argue that there's a split that occurred due to the introduction of the iPhone (2007) and the Great Recession (2008) that caused a major difference in young people's outlooks. I can believe that; it seems more likely that cell-phone availability and job insecurity is a much likelier contributor to cautious vs. risk-taking personality than the arbitrary Arabic numeral group giving your birth cohort.
When It Might Get Loud came out in 2009, I was just getting into Jack White’s music and at the peak of a rediscovered Led Zeppelin fanaticism. I loved the hell out of the idea of the film. Thesis: take three guitarists and examine the role of rock guitar in music, and what drives the players to learn and excel at it – starring Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge.
The premiere was in LA and when I phoned up for tickets, they said there were two premieres. I asked what the difference was, and she didn’t tell me the truth, which is how come I went to the second premiere that didn’t have Jimmy Page and Jack White in attendance. But never mind! I saw it another two or three times in the cinema, and then bought the DVD. I gushed about it several times on my blog, and other bloggers – cooler heads, one might say – did try to tell me it wasn’t very good, but I wasn’t having any of it.
I re-watched it just now. There’s things I still love about it. Jack’s laconic gunslinger outsider shtick, Jimmy’s palpable excitement at listening to Link Wray’s Rumble and his enthusiasm with the other players; Edge’s self-deprecation and brief Wanderer-of-the-Wasteland episode ending when the looming tangle of trees suddenly resolves into perfect rows with clear paths between them; the cows listening to Jack’s Diddly Bow; the slide guitar jam near the end; the White Stripes performing for a room full of puzzled Chelsea Pensioners. And although the three men seem to be mostly there because they were the three who answered the phone, rather than anyone’s idea of a broad selection, they settle into their roles as Jack (heart), Edge (head) and Jimmy (groin).
The cooler heads were right, however. The exercise was flawed in numerous ways. Neither producer Thomas Tull nor director Davis Guggenheim demonstrate an understanding of the guitar nor are they able to pull together a cohesive account of the electric guitar or its place in rock. The narrative used is a three-act drama, which means that at the top of the second act, someone had to have a crisis, reach rock bottom and be forced to develop new strengths to overcome adversity and ultimately triumph. This is a really strange thing to have in the middle of a factual film that is not a biography. It’s shoehorned in by bending poor old self-effacing Edge’s story, having him go into exile to learn songwriting skills. Which he does, but the sought-for emotional catharsis is blunted by its artificiality. As a more concrete example of a flaw, Jimmy’s first electric guitar is labeled onscreen a ‘Stratocaster’ even though it’s a Grazioso, and Jimmy was one of the least likely rock musicians to be seen with a Strat at any point in his career.
More obviously (and loudly) two of the three guitarists refuse to stick with the script. Jack’s first love is the drums, and he’s portrayed as switching to guitar mostly because his upholsterer boss Brian Muldoon already played drums and he wanted to jam. Apart from a fair amount of drumming, the bulk of Jack’s music in the film is thumped out on piano, so Guggenheim must have been overjoyed to get hold of the footage of him bleeding for his art all over a guitar pickguard. Jimmy loves guitars – literally – but spends a lot of time talking about producing music (mostly drum sounds) and plays a lovely mandolin bit. At least he can tell his spooky story about the guitar “intervention” when his first guitar turned up mysteriously in his house just as he became interested in music. Edge sticks to guitar, but his style – very simple riffs compounded into lacy ruffles by echo, delay and other effects – means that the film spends most of its time marveling at his equipment and following his guitar tech around.
The ’summit’, where all three guitarists meet for the first time, with their equipment set up around them, is evidently supposed to be a climax. In the event, all three seem a little shy, and you watch The Edge, ever eager to please, trying to keep the conversation going by asking Jimmy questions but aware that he needs to avoid the minefield of disallowed inquiries that have tripped up many a professional journalist and gotten them yelled at by an irate Page. (He steps in it with the Kinks question, but manages to get out with both feet intact.) They demonstrate one of their famous riffs each, teach it to the others, and then join in on the ultimate song of the movie. It’s… The Weight, that old chestnut, played on acoustic guitars, and there’s nothing about it that you wouldn’t see at any house party where three or more of your friends brought or found an acoustic instrument and downed sufficient beers to have a loose jam.
It’s worth watching, because we care about the people and what they have accomplished, but as a movie, alas, it’s strictly third-tier.
Since the media still loves divide and conquer tactics - as both attacked and attackers will click on the content - Boomers vs. Millennials is one of today's big Let's-You-And-Him-Fight matches. I'm not happy with being shown how to hate on a daily basis, but it is - as the annoying Gen X folks always used to say - what it is.
Just this month I've seen the following headlines:
I found a couple of more recent articles about inter-generational sniping in my bookmarks. Anyone who's amused by the current Millennial/Baby Boomer social media battles might find them familiar.
"The growing public approval of anti-culture is itself, I think, a reflection of the new cult of youth. Bewildered by a rapidly changing society, excessively fearful of becoming out of date, our leaders are increasingly turning to young people as guides and mentors. If youth likes the Bieb, then it must be good, and clever men must rationalize this preference in intellectually respectable language. Indeed, the supreme crime, in politics and culture alike, is not to be “off the hizzle”."
Actually, I changed four words there. The original is from Bill Deedes (b. 1913) throwing shade at the Beatles in 1964. It's a great piece of sniffy fuddy-duddyism. It's worth a glance at the whole thing.
And from a decade later, we get another Bill - this time it's Grundy - tipsily attempting to out-snark Siouxsie Sioux and the Sex Pistols (Rotten, Jones and Matlock) on his TV show in 1976. The show was a disaster for the Pistols, as most of the country weirdly sided with Grundy (b. 1923) and the Pistols subsequently found themselves persona non grata, but at the time it was hilarious.
"GRUNDY: It's what? ROTTEN: Nothing. A rude word. Next question. GRUNDY: No, no, what was the rude word? ROTTEN: Shit. GRUNDY: Was it really? Good heavens, you frighten me to death. ROTTEN: Oh alright, Siegfried... GRUNDY: [Turning to those standing behind the band] What about you girls behind? MATLOCK: He's like yer dad, isn't 'e, this geezer? GRUNDY: Are you, er... MATLOCK: Or your granddad."
The picture was 'obviously' light blue and gold - to me. I assumed the people who saw black and blue were somehow processing the white balance in their heads, which is pretty damned clever. It's as though they weren't seeing what color the picture was, but estimating what color the real dress is and reading it back without realizing that's not what was on the monitor. The real dress is, equally obviously, blue and black.
But apparently, I couldn't have said that, because nobody knew how color perception worked at that time, at least according to this Slate researcher.
Two Years Later, We Finally Know Why People Saw “The Dress” Differently
Remember “the dress”? It disrupted our understanding of color, and, yes, it took science two years to catch up. No one had any idea why some people see “the dress” differently than others—we arguably still don’t fully understand it. It was like discovering a new continent. Two years later we have a much better idea of what may have been a reason for the varied perceptions: People’s perceived color is also informed by their perception of lighting. And the image of the dress, taken on a cellphone, contained a lot of uncertainty in terms of lighting conditions. Was it taken inside or outside? This matters because it implies artificial or natural light. Was the dress illuminated from the front or the back? This matters because if it was back-lit, it would be in a shadow, otherwise not.
I joined http://mastodon.social . If you're my friend here and you want to be included, why not join and follow? I'm LyleHopwood there. :)
It promises to have fewer assholes and more granularity than Twitter, but I'm yet to experience that because I don't have any friends. Luckily there is a timeline that streams everything 'local' so if I want to respond to a stranger's post, I can. (And they can respond to mine.)
I haven't found a button to share these posts to Mastodon yet. It's kinda new.
The aquarium has some nice jellyfish, among other things. (I went to the zoo too, but didn't take any photos.)
The Trump billboard went up the day I arrived and generated a lot of buzz. What the articles didn't show is the billboard is in an artist's community, not over a main highway.
The back of the billboard.
The billboard has since been vandalized, hey, it's the libs who always cause the property damage, son, the right wing people always respect property.
A screen in Taliesin West. I assume the decoration is a representation of the property. I forgot to ask.
The legendary Sa Gyu Ro cactus of the S'Morean dessert.
The Washington Post recently changed its motto to "Democracy Dies in Darkness". It's hard to tell whether that's a claim or a prophecy. The government is trying to make it literal, by reducing HHS grants for light. Statnews reports that HHS Sec Tom Price wishes to reduce support for "indirect expenses" or "overheads" in research.
Price repeatedly suggested reducing the amount the NIH pays universities to cover “overhead” costs, like lab equipment and utilities. That would let the agency direct more of its funds to actual research, even if the overall budget were reduced, he said. “I was struck by one thing at NIH,” Price said, “and that is that about 30 percent of the grant money that goes out is used for indirect expenses, which as you know means that that money goes for something other than the research that’s being done.”
"Indirect expenses" has a specific meaning to a businessman. They're things that cannot be directly linked to the product being manufactured. For example, they include electricity, rent, and telephone costs. His accountant will treat them differently from direct costs - for example, what accounting period the incurred cost hits the books, which affects spreadsheets and the bottom line. There are tax implications. I think indirect costs (unlike direct) are tax deductible. Usually a business will develop a costs rate. If indirect costs are normally say 30% of overall costs, then a change to 35% may need investigation to see if there is impending trouble.
If a researcher writes a paper, it's trivially true that institutional electricity and telephone costs can't be linked directly to the conclusion of the paper. However, it's also fucking trivially true that without them, the research can't be conducted and the paper can't be written. Every businessman knows this - that's why they keep an eye on the rate, not suddenly decide to defund indirect costs. What the hell are universities going to do if they lose support for rent because it's 'indirect'?
One of the reasons cited for high drug costs is the cost of developing a new drug. I've seen figures of up to $1.52.6 billion per marketed drug. (Article here at Forbes.)
So I have a toenail...condition. To cure it you have to use a special nail polish with fungicide in it that you have to paint on every day for a year. It has a 17% cure rate. (No, I didn't mistype that. After a year, one in five or so people are cured.) I'm on month 7 (nothing so far!) and got a refill today. The pharmacist handed it over to me and said, "That'll be $63.99."
I gasped. "Didn't the insurance cover it? They've always covered it before."
He looked at it wonderingly and said, "It didn't go through insurance. That's the cash price." He then pressed the various buttons to get it to go through insurance. "Okay, that'll be five bucks."
"Ah, that's better," I said, paying up.
But that's not the whole story. Because he handed me the "cash price" invoice at first, it had different information on it to the Full Price/Copay slip I usually get. The cash price invoice said,
**Congratulations! By using a generic you've saved $1563.97! Cash price $63.99**
I take that to mean I gasped at the sixty dollar price of Cic******, the generic drug, but the brand name drug, Pe****, had been priced at $1627.96. Since they last about two months, a year's worth is $9767.76.
You have a 17% chance of curing toenail fungus if you spend ten thousand bucks. This is why generic drug manufacturers can jack up their prices - they know brand name drugs are even more expensive. (Though this manufacturer is asking a fair price at around $60.)
I may have missed out a couple of swears in my transcript of the conversation up there.
I used to work with Lyme testing and it's a pleasure to read something in the news about Dr. Alan Steere again. it's less of a pleasure to read that his expertise has gone to waste in one area because people are easily led. Why your dog can get vaccinated against Lyme Disease and you can't
The other school mentioned in Alma Mater (the School's Out album track) is of course Cortez.
I always go to the really highbrow cultural places when I'm on me hols.
The song lyrics say, "We got no principals", but Cortez nowadays has a principal, and a psychologist (probably necessary).
After that, perhaps tiring of the hurly-burly of high culture, we went to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, the winter home of his architectural school. (Which, on contemplating some of the things the tour guide said, was as close to a cult as you could come and still be respected.) It's still a school and the students still spend summers in Wisconsin and then pick up and spend winters in Phoenix, in a house they design and build themselves as part of the course, which seems admirably grounded.
Looking out of the front door of Taliesin West, you can see Camelback (the hump is behind the sa gyu ro cactus, head towards the right), where Alice Cooper's famous school lies.
And facing the opposite way, the main building of Taliesin West. Among hundreds of other facts, the tour guide said that the stone and concrete foundations and translucent-blind covered roofs were put down first but it was years before the glass was put in. I find it really hard to imagine working with large pieces of architectural paper with the desert wind (and rain) howling through the four or five foot gap between the wall and roof, but that's what she said.
It also took years to get a well drilled and get this pool filled. And don't even think about the students digging latrines for the first couple decades.
The tour is completely fascinating and to be recommended.
And last but not least, STB taking his oath of citizenship in Phoenix. Due to the odd logistics, I wasn't very close to him, but he's in there somewhere.
I sometimes mention a product on this blog, and I give a URL to Amazon or similar sites. Just to reassure you, I don't get paid to advertise anything here and I don't get any money from your clicks. Everything I say here is because I feel like saying it.
