Lake Leelanau July 2010
I have a Rolling Stones playlist that is, like, 8 1/2 hours long. 86 songs. Obviously, it's weighted a bit front heavy, seeing as how the Zombie Stones are still disturbing electrons far beyond the normal lifespan of flesh and blood rockers. Anyway, shit starts to go south around track 71, "It's Only Rock -n- Roll (But I Like It)". It's a natural progression, at least in rock -n- roll: a medium whose currency is immediacy finds longevity more than antithetical, it finds it downright destructive. You know, "Miss You" is a totally badass song, but its bohemian narcissistic darkness is the death of rock -n- roll in that rock -n- roll, even at its most narcissistic and death obsessed, faces the moment actively, even if that activity is obliteration (a la The Stooges).
Some Girls was released in '78, the summer going into our senior year . . . I got it early enough that I actually have one of the uncensored covers, if you remember. These two facts are mere coincidence and somewhat irrelevant, but seem worth mentioning for some reason.
Is "Miss You" somehow inferior to the rest of the Stones oeuvre because, as death-obsessed cabaret music, it's no longer rock -n- roll? Well, no, I would have to put it fairly solidly in the strong part of the Stones canon, not as good as "Paint It, Black" or "19th Nervous Breakdown", not as good as the golden age that starts with Their Satanic Majesties' Request and ends with Goat's Head Soup, but better than some early hits such as "Lady Jane", "Sitting on a Fence", "The Spider and the Fly", etc. No, the problem with "Miss You" (or, more accurately, the Rolling Stones from "It's Only Rock -n- Roll" on) is that it's death.
Now, it's fine to view death from a distance . . . educational, even . . . but the problem is that the ultimate proximity to death is death. My postmodernist tendencies taken as given, there's not a lot that I concretely believe in; but death is ultra-conceptual, death is death. Certainly there's a distance between hearing "Miss You" and getting hit by a car, but there's a certain parallel between the contemplation of both . . .
I'm having a hard time remembering when we graduated, perhaps you can help me: was there already, even back then, the stink of death around us? I know we had a certain level of cynicism, listening smugly to our Zappa records and disrespecting everything around us. But we read Henry Miller and Hunter Thompson, and isn't that optimistic? Didn't Thompson try to prune away everything that was dead around him? Did not Miller live life as if it were the annihilation of death? Isn't optimism at the very core of the larger revolutionary urge? Didn't we feel we could rise above all the shit around us like a phoenix over the rancid valley of indecision?
Well, maybe, but it's hard to remember. I do remember how everything was foggy and diffuse, how modernism had spent itself in an orgy of equivocation, how the present became fractured into splinters of impermanence. I remember the impossibility of decision, the impossibility of committing to anything at all . . . "So I'm just sittin' on a fence / You can say I got no sense / Tryin' to make up my mind / Really is so horrifyin' / So I'm just sittin' on a fence".
Everything around us seemed in shambles, and there was nothing to hold on to. The sixties had developed into narcissism, rock -n- roll was dead. Miller was in retirement at Big Sur, one foot in the grave. Thompson was beginning his decline into irrelevance and self-caricature. Rubin was on Wall Street, Neil Young was voting Republican, and sixties activism had mutated into Chicken Soup for the New Age Soul. The faith of a generation - not our generation, but very close to it, and one we looked up to - was thoroughly betrayed.
I often wonder: was the idea too big, or not big enough?
The Rolling Stones are rock -n- roll, of course. They played the Super Bowl a couple years back, and I remember thinking "these degenerate fuckheads have always remained true to the game" (and, I might add, they were raunchy, edgy, and pretty good . . . of all the old rock bands, only Cheap Trick is better, and they don't have even a shadow of the legacy to live up to). You know, the problem is that rock -n- roll wasn't big enough for the Rolling Stones. They ran out of rock -n- roll in the mid-70's. They did it all, they used it up. And when rock -n- roll was done, they still remained faithful. Unfortunately, their fidelity to a concept they had already fully realized turned them into rock -n- roll zombies. All they could do from then on out was zombie rock, music that was mere simulacra. At least you could always outrun them.
Others that came after them were able to revive rock -n- roll, to make it live again. Problem was, every time they did, the useful lifespan became shorter. The Stooges were three and out. The Clash, sort of a Rolling Stones obsessed with confrontation and politics instead of blues and sex, didn't have the highs The Stooges had, but managed to stretch it over five albums. The Pop Group, two albums. Gang of Four, one. The Buzzcocks, one and some singles. Wire, three. Black Flag, two and singles. Sonic Youth, five if you're generous. Bad Brains, two. The Minutemen, a handful of e.p.s and one glorious album . . . well, you get the picture. You could kick rock -n- roll back to life, but every time you did, it came back a little paler, a little shallower. These days, rock -n- roll is measured in songs instead of albums and careers. The time is coming, very soon, where rock -n- roll will be measured in moments. And so, it seems, the entire world.
If I remember right, you were a Vonnegut man. I too was a fan. I think we both identified: in the face of continuous insult and horror, all you are left with is incredulity. All you can do is laugh that fatalistic laugh. But that's not enough, is it? That's all I got from Vonnegut, and that's why, as much as I felt him, I had to put him down. I needed more. I still need more.
But more is hard. That's the big problem, isn't it? What happens when everything you can believe in gets used up, gets pushed to its very end, to the point where it becomes what it hates? What happens when even success and failure equal the same thing . . . namely, an ending?
Well, you get up in the morning, that's what. I think that's the only thing I've learned in my entire life. You can talk about the diaphanous curtain that wafts around reality all you want, but you still get up in the morning, and that is its own clarity.
"Was the idea too big, or not big enough?" That was a rhetorical question. Of course the idea was not big enough. If an idea can be used up, it's not big enough. Until the map expands to the size of the city, it is not big enough.
You know what? God bless the Zombie Stones and their incorrigible hides. You just keep going, keep tramping off into uncharted territory, waking up to every new day. Long may they wallow in futility, searching for the ever-more-rare nuggets in the dirt, the moments of clarity and immediacy like that Super Bowl throwdown from back when. After all, we've already determined that rock -n- roll has come down to being measured in moments, haven't we? Who's to say the Zombie Stones don't have a moment or two left?
And that's kinda where all this is going: you just keep getting up in the morning.
I say I may have learned only one thing, but let me add a couple corollaries: 1.) the idea is yours; and 2.) no matter what, you will fail. It breaks down something like this:
And as far as death is concerned, it's only a problem because we refuse to acknowledge it as part of life. Some things have more death than others - like "Miss You", or getting hit by a car - but everything alive has death riding shotgun. It's just that sometimes death is fighting with you over what's on the radio, or what CD to put in the changer, or trying to crank up the air conditioner when you are already freezing; and sometimes death is asleep with its head against the passenger side window, just a little drool forming at the corner of its mouth.
Yup, that's pretty much it. One thing hasn't changed from back in the day: I'm still in love with really big ideas, in love with maps as big as cities. Ideas that you can get lost in, like infinity . . . because there's always something new, another corner to turn.
Anyway, I had to break that Rolling Stones playlist in two because it kept crashing my mp3 player. If you want, I can email you links to the playlists; but, knowing you, you would rather I burn you CDs . . . but that's piracy, you know? Wouldn't want Keith to have to bum cigarette money just because we are illegally sharing his songs.
Hope things are going well for the family. We should try to catch up this fall, before we all get wound up for the holidays. Talk to you soon.
Bill
Is "Miss You" somehow inferior to the rest of the Stones oeuvre because, as death-obsessed cabaret music, it's no longer rock -n- roll? Well, no, I would have to put it fairly solidly in the strong part of the Stones canon, not as good as "Paint It, Black" or "19th Nervous Breakdown", not as good as the golden age that starts with Their Satanic Majesties' Request and ends with Goat's Head Soup, but better than some early hits such as "Lady Jane", "Sitting on a Fence", "The Spider and the Fly", etc. No, the problem with "Miss You" (or, more accurately, the Rolling Stones from "It's Only Rock -n- Roll" on) is that it's death.
Now, it's fine to view death from a distance . . . educational, even . . . but the problem is that the ultimate proximity to death is death. My postmodernist tendencies taken as given, there's not a lot that I concretely believe in; but death is ultra-conceptual, death is death. Certainly there's a distance between hearing "Miss You" and getting hit by a car, but there's a certain parallel between the contemplation of both . . .
I'm having a hard time remembering when we graduated, perhaps you can help me: was there already, even back then, the stink of death around us? I know we had a certain level of cynicism, listening smugly to our Zappa records and disrespecting everything around us. But we read Henry Miller and Hunter Thompson, and isn't that optimistic? Didn't Thompson try to prune away everything that was dead around him? Did not Miller live life as if it were the annihilation of death? Isn't optimism at the very core of the larger revolutionary urge? Didn't we feel we could rise above all the shit around us like a phoenix over the rancid valley of indecision?
Well, maybe, but it's hard to remember. I do remember how everything was foggy and diffuse, how modernism had spent itself in an orgy of equivocation, how the present became fractured into splinters of impermanence. I remember the impossibility of decision, the impossibility of committing to anything at all . . . "So I'm just sittin' on a fence / You can say I got no sense / Tryin' to make up my mind / Really is so horrifyin' / So I'm just sittin' on a fence".
Everything around us seemed in shambles, and there was nothing to hold on to. The sixties had developed into narcissism, rock -n- roll was dead. Miller was in retirement at Big Sur, one foot in the grave. Thompson was beginning his decline into irrelevance and self-caricature. Rubin was on Wall Street, Neil Young was voting Republican, and sixties activism had mutated into Chicken Soup for the New Age Soul. The faith of a generation - not our generation, but very close to it, and one we looked up to - was thoroughly betrayed.
I often wonder: was the idea too big, or not big enough?
The Rolling Stones are rock -n- roll, of course. They played the Super Bowl a couple years back, and I remember thinking "these degenerate fuckheads have always remained true to the game" (and, I might add, they were raunchy, edgy, and pretty good . . . of all the old rock bands, only Cheap Trick is better, and they don't have even a shadow of the legacy to live up to). You know, the problem is that rock -n- roll wasn't big enough for the Rolling Stones. They ran out of rock -n- roll in the mid-70's. They did it all, they used it up. And when rock -n- roll was done, they still remained faithful. Unfortunately, their fidelity to a concept they had already fully realized turned them into rock -n- roll zombies. All they could do from then on out was zombie rock, music that was mere simulacra. At least you could always outrun them.
Others that came after them were able to revive rock -n- roll, to make it live again. Problem was, every time they did, the useful lifespan became shorter. The Stooges were three and out. The Clash, sort of a Rolling Stones obsessed with confrontation and politics instead of blues and sex, didn't have the highs The Stooges had, but managed to stretch it over five albums. The Pop Group, two albums. Gang of Four, one. The Buzzcocks, one and some singles. Wire, three. Black Flag, two and singles. Sonic Youth, five if you're generous. Bad Brains, two. The Minutemen, a handful of e.p.s and one glorious album . . . well, you get the picture. You could kick rock -n- roll back to life, but every time you did, it came back a little paler, a little shallower. These days, rock -n- roll is measured in songs instead of albums and careers. The time is coming, very soon, where rock -n- roll will be measured in moments. And so, it seems, the entire world.
If I remember right, you were a Vonnegut man. I too was a fan. I think we both identified: in the face of continuous insult and horror, all you are left with is incredulity. All you can do is laugh that fatalistic laugh. But that's not enough, is it? That's all I got from Vonnegut, and that's why, as much as I felt him, I had to put him down. I needed more. I still need more.
But more is hard. That's the big problem, isn't it? What happens when everything you can believe in gets used up, gets pushed to its very end, to the point where it becomes what it hates? What happens when even success and failure equal the same thing . . . namely, an ending?
Well, you get up in the morning, that's what. I think that's the only thing I've learned in my entire life. You can talk about the diaphanous curtain that wafts around reality all you want, but you still get up in the morning, and that is its own clarity.
"Was the idea too big, or not big enough?" That was a rhetorical question. Of course the idea was not big enough. If an idea can be used up, it's not big enough. Until the map expands to the size of the city, it is not big enough.
You know what? God bless the Zombie Stones and their incorrigible hides. You just keep going, keep tramping off into uncharted territory, waking up to every new day. Long may they wallow in futility, searching for the ever-more-rare nuggets in the dirt, the moments of clarity and immediacy like that Super Bowl throwdown from back when. After all, we've already determined that rock -n- roll has come down to being measured in moments, haven't we? Who's to say the Zombie Stones don't have a moment or two left?
And that's kinda where all this is going: you just keep getting up in the morning.
I say I may have learned only one thing, but let me add a couple corollaries: 1.) the idea is yours; and 2.) no matter what, you will fail. It breaks down something like this:
- You keep getting up in the morning to chase your big idea.
I know it's hard to think of success as failure, but you know what? The world keeps spinning around, and just when you think you've got the game won, you're not even on the same field anymore. Some people think that sucks, but not me: it's reason to get up in the morning, which, as I've said, is the only thing I've learned in my entire life. It's been popular to site variations of Samuel Beckett on this, from Mao to Zizek: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
- The idea is one you create.
- No matter what, the idea ends in failure: either the idea is too big and can't be realized, or it's not big enough, becomes realized, and you have to start over either with a new idea or an expanded version of the old idea.
And as far as death is concerned, it's only a problem because we refuse to acknowledge it as part of life. Some things have more death than others - like "Miss You", or getting hit by a car - but everything alive has death riding shotgun. It's just that sometimes death is fighting with you over what's on the radio, or what CD to put in the changer, or trying to crank up the air conditioner when you are already freezing; and sometimes death is asleep with its head against the passenger side window, just a little drool forming at the corner of its mouth.
Yup, that's pretty much it. One thing hasn't changed from back in the day: I'm still in love with really big ideas, in love with maps as big as cities. Ideas that you can get lost in, like infinity . . . because there's always something new, another corner to turn.
Anyway, I had to break that Rolling Stones playlist in two because it kept crashing my mp3 player. If you want, I can email you links to the playlists; but, knowing you, you would rather I burn you CDs . . . but that's piracy, you know? Wouldn't want Keith to have to bum cigarette money just because we are illegally sharing his songs.
Hope things are going well for the family. We should try to catch up this fall, before we all get wound up for the holidays. Talk to you soon.
Bill
Lotta shit to react to here. Let's see if I can react in an even somewhat meaningful way.
ReplyDelete- Paragraphs 5-7 are very, very Thompson-esque, at least in my limited knowledge of him. It is insightful stuff that has this power to accurately encapsulate an era in just a few sentences.
- The concept of realizing an idea is or can be failure is a new one to me. It's kinda fucking with my head.
- "What happens when even success and failure equal the same thing . . . namely, an ending?
Well, you get up in the morning, that's what." This probably isn't exactly what you're talking about, but this reminds me of an interview I saw with Indian activist Dennis Banks. In talking about his alcoholism, he says he didn't want to live another day in the white man's world; that is, a world that despised him for who he was and what he stood for. So he didn't. In a weird way, I totally admire him for this and I totally identify with it. It's hard to explain. When he sobered up, he came to realize that his very existence was a fuck you to those he despised - getting up and living another day was the ultimate activism. Again - I identify with this and admire him for it.
- Speaking of Indians, I've come to understand/admire more the role of the trickster/prankster in all cultures. For this reason, I've come to like some prancing nancy-type music, stuff that has a real kind of glam influence, because it tends to mock the very success of rock and roll - it's like a huge, flamboyant parody, all the while it's propagation/success is perpetuated on the very infrastructure created by rock and roll (if this makes any sense). Yet there is a dark undertone that makes you realize there's more to it than some artist just being a jackass. I'm thinking specifically of songs like this - http://grooveshark.com/s/Pumped+Up+Kicks/47nzMK?src=5
I don't know if any of this shit makes sense. And anyways, the older I get, the less I believe I can extract meaning out of a lot of crap I enjoy, like this letter for example. That's just a fancy way of saying the older I get, the shallower I'm getting. Comments like this are based upon first readings and are usaually from the hip. So maybe I'll comment less and just enjoy the ride as best I can.