Scott Graves grew up listening to underground rock, jazz, blues, and funk and remains enamored with the idea of music as form of artistic expression. Specializing in literature in college, he subsequently worked on the periphery of the record industry, ultimately growing bored with the machinations of music business media and the vapidity of the product and its promotion. His ongoing interests in the arts and letters led him to teach literature and writing, first for a decade in inner city schools and afterwards at a rural charter academy, during which time he built a home recording studio to indulge his musical tastes.
He has worked editorially on numerous books related to pop culture, including Beyond and Before: The Formative Years of Yes by Peter Banks, and No More Mr. Nice Guy: The Inside Story of the Alice Cooper Group by Michael Bruce and Billy James. The author of the recent experimental work Zone Crossing and a book of poems, Phantoms of the Living, Graves is currently completing a revised, digital edition of I Remember Jim Morrison by Alan Graham and an album of ambient music, "Ghost Radio Orchestra."
He lives and works with his wife, artist Meg Masterman, in the foothills of western North Carolina.
Scott Graves
Satire is the Highest Form of Dissent?
by Scott GravesThough Thomas Jefferson never said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” the well-applied use of satire is certainly one of the highest forms of dissent. Jonathan Swift, after all, is more remembered for his grim irony in castigating the British and Irish for their collective humanitarian failures than for any contributions to the culinary arts.
Mad Magazine reigns supreme in creating a satirical crucible through which all subjects, social, cultural, political, artistic and philosophical typically pass. The difference between valid satire and mere mockery being, of course, the elements of truth contained therein, it is sometimes difficult to rule out former as as being buried so deeply in the latter as to be inconsequential, particularly during political campaigns. The editors of Mad would likely say that if such a line is drawn, they erase it, but nonetheless credibility rests on facts in satirical endeavors, humor being in the manner of delivery. (more…)
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Aren’t You A Little Old To Watch Cartoons?
by Scott Graves…Why, yes. Yes I am!
But considering the plethora of culturally and politically “controversial” (read: “contrived to be offensive for promotional notoriety”) ‘toons currently offered up for consumption like a plate of live centipedes in Interzone, the silly stuff is more than refreshing. It’s soul food.
YouTube Complete Opening Theme by Bowling For Soup with Fan Credits
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Enjoyable as it is to see conservative and libertarian viewpoints deemed worthy of existence in “South Park,” and as side-splitting as the adult humor and pop cultural references, sans a blatant political agenda, may be in “The Venture Brothers,” there has long been a need in the human psyche for pure, unadulterated lunacy. (more…)
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Do The Warhol—Part 4: The Manhattan Project of the Culture War
by Scott GravesWhen preaching to the choir, one directs one’s lessons to those who already agree. Conversely, those who otherwise might listen and gain something useful get nothing. More on that as this inter-connected series of observations comes to an end.
American Icon: “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”
Vast, determined, highly successful forces and superior technologies dominated the theaters of WWII prior to America’s entry into the conflict after Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Manhattan Project began in August of 1942, a couple of months before General George Patton invaded North Africa. Character, strategy, and tactics played as large a role in dealing with Panzer and Tiger tanks as did Patton’s Shermans, of course, because firepower alone was insufficient in itself. But the defeat of one totalitarian threat by 1945 was not apt to make much difference in taking down another in a place where school children were being trained to fight to the death for the Empire— with sharpened sticks. The Manhattan Project, through funding, research, experimentation, design, development and production, met the challenge and made the difference. (more…)
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Do The Warhol—Part 3: The Velvet (Underground) Revolution
by Scott Graves“They say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” —Andy Warhol
"I adore America and these are some comments on it. My image is a statement of the symbols of the harsh, impersonal products and brash materialistic objects on which America is built today. It is a projection of everything that can be bought and sold, and practical but impermanent symbols that sustain us." —Andy Warhol, 1962
Americans love rebels, even without cause or clue. Enough hip, smart, young people who are tired of having their faces and futures pushed into to sewage of bad ideas, pointless existences, and totalitarian ideologies, with strong support and encouragement, could really make a difference in the world. In contemporary context, they would be true anti-heroes, rebelling against the brave new world of ersatz freedom and the all-powerful fascist state, against crushing conformity and the annihilation of the rights of the individual.
Such things can and do happen. Some might say they happened in the nineteen-sixties. And they did—in Czechoslovakia. (more…)
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Do The Warhol— Part 2: The Cult(ure) of Personality
by Scott Graves“In fifteen minutes, everyone will be famous.” —Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol also spoke that jewel of wisdom, presumably demonstrating a sense of humor in referring to his most famous quote. Or was it, perhaps, prescient, albeit unintended foreknowledge? Pity he’s not around to toy with Twitter.
Bridge as visual metaphor, Media as bridge, Pittsburgh.
Looking back at Part 1, we considered a couple of insights into Andy’s Pop Life with the aim of solving some problems surrounding Mr. Breitbart’s incisive assertion that conservatives must come to terms with popular culture, and more, use it to advantage, or fail catastrophically in countering the negative effects of said culture and restoring public confidence in fundamental ideals. Narcissism, amorality, and an attitude of entitlement, as examples, speak poorly to the future of democracy, while the virtues of valuing others, the practice of ethical discernment and choice, and the elevating ideas of individual liberty and self-reliance are greatly to be desired in the body politic, and traditionally set America apart from typical “statist” governments around the world. Evidence abounds of the former set of attitudes in common currency as reflected in pop culture; the latter set, highly prized by conservatives, goes sorely wanting for attention in movies, TV, music, etc. (more…)
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Do The Warhol—Part 1: The Business of Vision
by Scott Graves
Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.
A dance craze— like “freaking”— it is not, but rather, a point of view.
Back in January of this year, Andrew Breitbart announced “Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry”. The announcement is as important as it is radical, assessing the power of Pop Culture in shaping global attitudes and standing athwart contemporary assaults on Western values, yelling, as did William Buckley in 1955, Stop.
Ask yourself: Is a vision of the world that is contrary in almost every way to the prevailing cultural paradigms a difficult “sell”? Given this is always so, how is such a challenge overcome? (more…)
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Iran Is Not Film School
by Scott GravesOkay Class, stop sniffing your Sharpies in a futile attempt to reach a state of intoxication and try to take notes using that writing instrument and what brain cells you have left. Remember, if you can, that information you believe to be useless is, indeed, of no value whatsoever if you are unable to apply it in real-life situations, or at the very least for pc gaming “cheats.” Otherwise your very existence is no better than a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any human being, past or present, living or dead. (Or in your cases, “living dead” or zombie, if you prefer, or the more inclusive term “differently animated.”)
Aristotle, in Poetics, slops the pearl that “art” is a “representation of reality.” By this definition, presentations of the creative sort contain something, if only a je ne sais quois, that can be recognized as a reflection of the human condition and the historical present. Reach back in time to The Epic of Gilgamesh, and out of the cuneiform pressed in clay comes the tale of a king’s hubris, lust for immortality, and ultimate understanding of his place in the world. Fast forward and select at random. “The Counsels of the Bird” by Rumi, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Eliot’s “Quartets,” “The Short Happy Life Of Francis MacComber” by Hemingway. Consider Andy Warhol’s body of work as a commentary on the superficiality of modern culture; look at the content of films, popular songs and television programs, comic strips and “illustrated novels,” with their wide diversity of theme and thought. All these arts, of varying degrees of cultural significance, may be seen to generally adhere to Aristotle’s commentary. (more…)
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Whoopi Goldberg and the Separate Reality
by Scott Graves
Good day, Class. Some of you have asked what schedule of course work is required to become a Doctor of Separate Reality. Please understand that this is not a PhD, though like many degrees of that type in many fields, is utterly pointless and without value in the workplace. It is only indicative of mastery of numerous absurd and esoteric concepts, most of which are virtually unknown to the entire population of the planet.
Attainment of a Separate Reality sheepskin entails direct experience of consciousness as it existed prior to the imposition of Failed Nineteenth Century Beliefs upon the collective mentality of Humankind. And, like Napoleon taking the French Crown from the hands of the Pope and settling it upon his own brow, one must confer the honor upon oneself. Tanning the hide of one’s own sheep is no easy task either, as there are many other animals, mostly bipedal, which are easier to fleece. (more…)
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Seeing Voices, Hearing Faces
by Scott GravesOkay Class, today’s Lecture is on “Text and Subtext”, that is to say, for those of you who managed to make “A”s in all your Language Arts classes without actually learning anything of value, the lecture is about Stated and Implied Themes and the ways and means by which a reader or audience is involved in what is expected to be one message while actually being inculcated in another, or various other, messages. Be sure to take notes as otherwise your lives will be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and most especially in the likely event that, having taken said notes, you never look at them or think about the points therein again. Take it from a Doctor of Separate Reality.
We begin, as we often do, with “things we fail to realize”. First, regardless of the extent to which we have absorbed a kind of reflexive, “hip” atheism in our lives without giving it any thought whatsoever, we have still grown accustomed to the idea of Vox Pop. The meaning of this term has undergone various insidious transformations over time, and especially in contemporary culture, which, yes, we fail to realize. Vox Pop is short for the Latin, “vox populi” and originates in the phrase, “vox populi, vox dei“, or, “the voice of the people is the voice of God”. Stop groaning and considering the threat of lawsuits as we are not talking about a Supreme Deity, except as metaphor for the ceaseless demands of particular populations to be given anything and everything they want at any time, preferably at the expense of others. When the group wearing “Che” t-shirts stops cheering and stomping their feet to the tune of “We Will Rock You” we will continue. (more…)
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Rock Is Still Dead
by Scott GravesIt used to take decades and even centuries of cultural transmission by storytelling, theater, ballad, and a general diffusion of knowledge by processes unknown to bring myth and legend into being. That may be another way of saying that people once had brains, and then came television, Video’s killing of the Radio Star, and the genteel cultural virtues obtained through 24/7 media immersion.
People once heard, told, acted out and retold these tales, taking active roles in creating visions of life and its possibilities in imaginative ways, instead of flopping on couches with a Monster Burger in one hand and a Bucket o’ Suds in the other, passively awaiting the predetermined outcome of one steroid-based extravaganza or another. This says something disturbing about the contrast between ancient and modern civilizations and the ways the perception of reality can either be generated by humans or imprinted upon them, unless you’re the CEO of an international fast food conglomerate or a viewer engaging in a fierce wind-breaking competition during a broadcast’s inevitable male-enhancement advertisements or rain delays. (more…)
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