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. 

Ignorance Is Strength...

All this comes to mind partially as a result of hearing, for the umpteenth time, that horrid, superciliously intoned little chant that goes “Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, Barack Hussein Obama…” as sung by the children in that “unauthorized” Burlington Township School District video that is making the rounds.  The message being obvious and well-analyzed elsewhere, let us not forget how disturbingly cloying and memetically insidious the song is, in and of itself.  Even the 1910 Fruitgum Company, acknowledged masters of the form, would be hard-pressed to corkscrew such a tenaciously mind-numbing ditty into the listener’s skull.

–

The mind reels.  The brain, in a desperate attempt to exorcise the alien and excruciatingly insufferable mental loop, invents its own lyrics to alleviate the suffering, at least temporarily:

Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo
Barack Hussein Obama
Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo
I’ll tell my daddy and momma

Two, four, six, eight
Let’s build a liberal fascist state

Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo…

The President of the United States is
Black so all dissent is racist

Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo…

Remember all that you are taught
His problems all are Bush’s fault

Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo…

Little ones to him belong
We are weak but he is strong

Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo…

Redistributive justice rules
So we will be our Leader’s tools

Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo
Barack Hussein Obama
Ooooo, Ooooo, Ooooo
I’ll tell my daddy and momma

But not even Weird Al Yankovic would touch that one.  Better to catch a chunk of concrete upside the head at a G20 protest in the act of dissent than go there, such dissent, contrary to the President’s own honest assessment, being instantly equated with the evils of race-hatred by those who would silence opposing viewpoints.  Well-heeled anarchists can surely yell “no borders, no banks,” block traffic and hurl garbage all day to further the destruction of capitalism.  That’s healthy, and double-plus so for those who favor the particular dissent that would herald the end of  the aforementioned economic system.

Thus, the temptation to round up a gaggle of youngsters to sing the horrid little satirical ditty of unknown origin mentioned above, record it on a cell phone, and snag a cheap zillion hits by posting it to YouTube is quashed.  Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm.

But, really, nobody does it better than these folks:

We have always been at war with Eastasia, er, Westhollywood...

The People’s Cube – Correct Opinions for Progressive Liberals – Political Humor & Satire

Funny stuff, highly recommended, and fans of Thomas Jefferson will likely approve.

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.

–

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. 

Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, creators of “Disney’s Phineas and Ferb,” meet that need better than anyone since Tex Avery unleashed Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Screwy Squirrel on the animated universe, while providing the more, ahem, mature viewer the kind of witty amusement associated with Rocky and Bullwinkle dodging the sinister antics of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.

Pop references, literary allusions, and lightly satirical cultural commentary abound — and while these are likely to fly past little kids held fast in the spell of bright primary colors, stuff that blows up, and plots and sub-plots unfolding at light-speed — the laughs are for everybody. That’s right, laughs, and out loud, with no sudden gut-wrenching cruelty, mockery of innocence, or screaming heads blown off with shotguns.  No cartoons are injured in the production of “Phineas and Ferb,” and neither are the sensibilities of viewers jangled. 

It’s entertainment that, in the words of co-creator Jeff Marsh, “was created not just for kids, but simply did not exclude them as an audience.”  That concept works as beautifully as ever in animated comedy, and Marsh’s pal Dan Povenmire’s previous contributions to “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” (with both guys’ work on “Rocko’s Modern Life”) make the results of their partnership and creativity fun and luminous indeed.

So what’s it about?  Kids coming up with ways to have a good time and not get bored on summer vacation.  The thin line between imagination and reality, as delineated in the classic “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips.  Having a good, non-dysfunctional  family life, one that happens to be blended, and as normal as it can be when the stepbrothers are building a ski resort in the back yard.  It’s about the absurdity and selfishness of “evil,” as embodied by Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, whose nefarious schemes are constantly thwarted by the boys’ pet platypus Perry, secret agent extraordinaire.  There are teen crushes and puppy love, sci-fi space adventures, Mom’s jazz band (and her nostalgia for her days as a one-hit wonder pop singer), adventures hanging out at the shopping mall, working part time jobs, volunteering for community charities, and other wholesome, everyday things.

And what, pray tell, is wrong with that?  For the benefit of those who might harbor the suspicion that life is not always fraught with anxiety and despair, not relentlessly burdened with crisis upon crisis and the existential horror of a pointless, meaningless existence, it’s clear that there’s nothing wrong with it.  In fact, it’s the sort of thing that might point in a direction a bit more upbeat– and resonant– than that which can be found in a great deal of “entertainment,” children’s show though it essentially may be.  That might be one reason why ”Phineas and Ferb” is Disney’s number one animated series.

“Phineas and Ferb” may even actually be somewhat subversive in the sense that, although it’s a Disney production, it does occasionally hint, unlike the majority of Disney products, that there could be more to dealing with life than by merely “following your heart.”  It might possibly be worthwhile to think, even if it’s only to figure out a way to do something fun on your summer vacation.

Nothing silly about that.

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.

The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Andy Warhol’s 17th birthday.

“Progressive” revisionist history would have it that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were atrocities which rank with the Holocaust.  An accepted general estimate of the death toll for both cities is about two hundred thousand, as compared to projected casualties for both sides of the conflict resulting from an invasion of Japan, which number, conservatively, in the millions.  Do the math.  Then again, a prolonged invasion with Stalin’s help costing more lives and helping establish Soviet hegemony in the region might have been nice, by progressive standards, but American victory prevented that.

Victory in the cultural theater of the war of ideas is the contemporary problem, however, and what is commonly called the “elite media” is the dominant, overwhelming force.  In contrast, for example, talk radio’s audience for conservative and independent ideas forms the choir who hears the sermons and appreciates the alternative viewpoints to the left-leaning MSM.  This is not to minimize talk radio’s importance, by any means, but to point out the need for developing a potential audience throughout the media, and everywhere the purveyors of “progressive pop” have the lion’s share of cultural impact.  Nothing less than a “velvet revolution” brought about by combined intellectual and production efforts on the scale of a Manhattan Project can be expected to effectively change the situation as it now stands.

The Andy Warhol Museum

The potential audience for such change, which includes a lot of kids who have nothing better to do, trends toward merely exercising the right to yell “F***” in a burning theater, the fire having been set by the aforementioned elites.  This audience’s attitudinal aesthetic is effortlessly absorbed, so predominant is it in their everyday experience.  The thought of TARGET stores selling merchandise featuring Ernesto Guevara’s iconic mug is as cool as anything else.  Thus children at the private Black Pine Circle School may delight in their identification with the proletariat and the belief that capitalism will fail by marking the watershed event of their middle school education with the symbol of the hammer and sickle— on their publicly-displayed class mosaic.  We all may be predisposed, if appropriately educated, to enjoy the irony.  Or not.

But minds can change, particularly if there’s something better to do than passively absorb propaganda.  It can be just as much fun to oppose it, even in subtle ways.

As an artist and a capitalist, Andy Warhol had a different take on such communist icons.  One needs no highly refined eye to be struck by ways in which he presents them, for the most part, as graphically superficial or devoid of power.  Perhaps this speaks to his cultural heritage from “the old country”.  Somewhat surprisingly, Warhol, in fact, never created any version of the “Che” portrait, though he did once authenticate a forgery done by a Factory worker— not surprisingly, for all cash involved.

The general attitudinal aesthetic, or as one might have it, the interaction between culture and viewpoint, is critical in a democratic society.  It revolves to a great extent around the prevailing culture.  Right now leftist cultural hegemony holds the whip-hand over political processes and “correctness” generally.  The press, the schools, the intelligentsia, the liberal arts, and pop culture are particularly saturated with progressive, collectivist, elitist thought.  While the USSR rose and fell, and freedom was regained in the Bloc states as mentioned in the previous correspondence, such hegemony has had more than enough time to take hold in the West.

That these wretched, obsolete ideas, elsewhere cast into the trash-heap of history, are worthy of no more than mockery and condemnation is beside the point.  They’re alive, baby.  Why else would people be singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” every time the ball dropped on New Year’s in Times Square for the past four years, and likely forevermore?  Refer back to the link on “irony” above for a concise description of long-term processes, as envisioned by Antonio Gramsci, by which such outdated leftist influences survive.

Interestingly, while the process of saturating the West with Marxist ideologies took nearly a century, the Warhol Factory redefined the cultural landscape in a decade or less.  The progressive left had to surreptitiously fill academia, the press, and the entertainment industry with their supporters over time, since ingrained American values— and the Second Amendment— precluded other, quicker options.  That goal seemingly accomplished, the capitalist economic system can now be overburdened by the demands of special interests to the extent that it collapses.  The nature of the State can then be modified to control the economy and create a more ideal, pacifist, utopian system on the euro-socialist model.  Everyone can be “free” to lower their expectations and be happy with less, and the “world can live as one.”  Especially under the global caliphate likely to come next, if Western Europe is any indicator.

Warhol’s influence on culture, in contrast, might be seen as promoting freedom of expression and personal, autonomous vision in a social context.  As American history often illustrates, one person, acting with the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, can move mountains, especially with the support of other individuals.  Collective, progressive groupthink, however, has currently forced the issue that the idea of human freedom is a matter of dispute between those who favor individual liberty in Jeffersonian terms and those who demand collective “power to the people.”  Is there any doubt that the people in question are of the enlightened progressive left, who will be glad to dictate their demands to all?  Such thinking reduces everyone to second-class citizenship.  It replaces upward mobility with that of a lateral kind, in a totalitarian class system which might just as easily leave an Andrew Warhola few better options than sweeping factory floors in industrial Pittsburgh all his life.

Instead, he built his own Factory.

"Those who talk about individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few years it may be the other way around. Some day everybody will just think what they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that seems to be what is happening." —Andy Warhol, 1963

To recapitulate, Warhol’s was a commercial enterprise; it ignored boundaries between the fine arts and popular culture; its influence on everyday consumer culture, society, and even political resistance to totalitarian ideas was immense, shaping attitudes as well as images.  It is not Warhol’s content, but vision, methods, and means of manipulating media that provide lessons for those who would have an impact on pop culture and attendant attitudes.  Finally, and of critical importance, his was an American vision, based on that enemy of progressive thinking, that “cowboy” mentality of individualism, so despised by collectivists wherever they hold power, yet within the reach of all who are willing to think for themselves.

Collectivist, progressive conformity is the enemy of freedom everywhere.  It is the politically correct “enemy within” democratic governments, and it is exerting force throughout American culture and society.  It can ultimately gain total power— it can happen here— decades after it has been proven unequivocally rotten to the core among free peoples.  Its supporters have more money than they can spend, with billionaires on their side.  Power and money will bring it to pass if nothing is done.

Free and independent thinking is a common, potentially unifying factor among conservatives, libertarians, classical liberals, and large numbers of artists, producers, musicians and consumers of popular culture.  Many of them may not like traditional viewpoints very much, but they still cannot stand the idea of being under the collective thumb of progressives.  There are more than enough such people capable of working together as critical thinkers for the cause of personal liberty, and they have more than enough reasons to do so.  As in the case of Andy Warhol’s Factory, they can have the impact of a Manhattan Project on the culture wars, facilitating a swift and irrevocable change in fundamental ways of seeing and thinking which reflect —and re-assert— American exceptionalism as a standard of excellence the moribund predictability of collectivism will forever fail to approach.

“The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity. That is, something that can’t be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn’t be happy with.”  —Joseph Brodsky, Nobel Prize Winner and 1991-92 Poet Laureate of the United States.

The contemporary pop cultural idea of a hero is everywhere draped in progressive, underdog guise.  The contrary, rebel image will be that of a new anti-hero, one who refuses to accept the collective will and all its commandments, one who is, in fact, the real underdog of the real underground.

No other ideological self-examination necessary.  It’s a simple question: Do you want to be free, or not? Heed Andrew Breitbart’s warning about pop culture.  Learn from Warhol as well as Reagan.  Create and support what you believe in. Connect.  Let those who control the system compete with the new realities brought into being.  Work from the outside or the inside, but make it happen.  Make it accessible to the greater audience beyond the choir-loft.  Find the money, lots of it, and be smart with it.  The culture war needs a Manhattan Project, and it will not be government-funded.  The future must be redefined.  It can be done.

It has been done before.

—SG

"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.

Those who may lack familiarity with the recordings of The Velvet Underground have nonetheless heard their style reflected for decades in everything from pop songs to TV commercials.  The V.U. is one of the most influential musical groups of all time.  Their debut album, driven by poet/guitarist Lou Reed, avant-garde musician John Cale, drummer Maureen Tucker and guitarist Sterling Morrison, also featured the voice of Warhol Superstar Nico, actress and fashion model.  Warhol “produced” The Velvet Underground And Nico by paying for the recording, designing the album cover, and lending the band his image.  Released by Verve records in 1967, the music, starkly contrasting the “hippie love” stylings of the day with a primitive, hard edged anti-romantic realism, was almost universally reviled by critics and ignored by the public.  However, as the legend goes, “they only sold a few thousand records, but everyone who bought one started a band.”

The impact of this fusion of art and music should not be underestimated.

In January of 1968, Alexander Dubcek became leader of the Communist party in Czechoslovakia following a period of economic recession that had weakened Marxist power and authority in the country.  It soon became apparent that Dubcek was no typical Soviet-style bureaucrat, but a genuine reformer.  Censorship rules were relaxed.  Plans for policy changes began to take shape.  Czech baby-boomers caught scent of the winds of freedom, and while leftist ideology fueled anti-war, anti-establishment protests in the USA, Czech youth took hold of the idea that the communism they had been born under could be replaced by a liberal democracy.  The “Prague Spring” had begun, Dubcek’s popularity soared, and citizens of Poland and other Soviet bloc states watched closely as events unfolded.  Special elections were scheduled for September—not, by any means, with the goal of overthrowing the State, but to address the impatience of the people with the entrenched bureaucracies of the Party regime and provide the opportunity for some house-cleaning.  Loyal apparatchiks were in the hot seat.

The Kremlin was not pleased.  On August 21, 1968, Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.  At a time affluent American radicals were marching in the streets and on college campuses chanting “Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh, Viet Cong is going to win,” adherents to that same philosophy dealt a crushing blow to aspirations of human freedom, soon occupying a nation where they had been welcomed as liberators at the end of WWII.  Dubcek was allowed to retain figurehead status during the transition, but was forced to resign within the year and finally expelled from the Party.  Any leftover illusions about the nature of communism were dispelled as totalitarian politics made a fully armored, locked-and-loaded comeback.

Wenceslas Square: Beautiful place, fine people. Now picture it crawling with Soviet tanks.

A month later the rock group Plastic People of the Universe was formed in Prague, named for a song by Frank Zappa and heavily inspired by the music of the Velvet Underground, whose dark, dreamlike, and aggressive songs filled the PPU’s set lists.  They also had a mentor and manager, art historian Ivan Jirous, whose role in the development of the group was similar to that of Warhol’s with the Velvets.  The setting, however, provided no tolerance for free expression, and, for refusing to conform with the politically correct standards required of musical artists, “the Plastics” license to perform was revoked in 1970.  Ivan Jirious, member of the Union of Artists, then staged lectures as an art critic, discussing the work of Andy Warhol, followed by a PPU performance of Velvet Underground songs.  When the Party caught on, they continued underground.  They no longer had professional status, so they could not be paid for their shows.  Their hair was too long. Nor would they state their “approval” of military occupation, perform apolitical songs or write the occasionally “requested” anti-American tune.  They were banished from Prague and literally played in secret, sometimes outside remote towns and always at private events.  Meanwhile, the underground grew around them.

They were finally busted in 1976 and brought to trial for, ahem, disturbing the peace, the result of a thousand fans showing up at a clandestine PPU event.  They were sentenced to jail terms of up to a year and a half.

But the revolution was not over, and echoes of the Prague Spring still resonated.  Since the signing of the 1975 Helsinki Accords by US President Gerald Ford, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, and 33 Western and European heads of state, what promised to be a relaxation of Cold War tensions between opposing powers soon evolved into an carefully orchestrated assertion of human rights and liberty within the Soviet Bloc states.  The Accords spoke to equal rights, national sovereignty, and self-determination; dissidents could now lay claim to the right to freedom of speech, if they had the courage.  Among the first to do so was the Czech opposition group Charter 77, named for their guiding document and formed in large part to protest the arrest and imprisonment of the Plastic People.  Among Charter 77 founding members was playwright Vaclav Havel, future President of Czechoslovakia and later, the Czech Republic.

Charter 77 was roundly condemned by the authorities, its manifesto circulated outside the official media via hand-written and machine-duplicated copies, propagandized against by the government, and kept alive for the next dozen years by the efforts of its leaders and supporters, among them artists, writers, and unkempt musicians.  The Plastic People of the Universe managed to record albums, notably Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned, named for writer, philosopher, and Plastics contributor Bondy, whose works were, indeed, banned.  Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and glasnost and perestroika, entered the public vocabulary.  French President Mitterrand visited Prague in 1988 and insisted he be able to meet publicly with Charter 77; Vaclav Havel spoke at the outdoor meeting.  By June of the next year, the original few hundred signatures of the charter had grown to forty thousand.  Soon, Solidarity brought down communism in Poland, Boris Yeltsin was in power in Russia, and by November 9, the demolition of the Berlin Wall was unstoppable.

On November 17th, 1989, the Velvet Revolution began in Prague following a peaceful demonstration the previous day in Bratislava.  Thousands of students took to the streets in non-violent protest where the Communist police confronted them.  Numerous injuries were reported, some serious. Such protests continued, supported by artistic and literary associations, growing in size until their numbers at some gatherings exceeded a half-million.  Alexander Dubcek appeared with Vaclav Havel on a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square to thunderous approval.  Tensions were high as tanks and police sat in Prague, waiting for orders that never came.  A national general strike on November 27 brought work to a halt for two hours everywhere in the country, with seventy-five percent of the population participating.  Within weeks, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia fell to ruin, and through transitional parliamentary processes, which avoided the necessity of immediate elections, democratic government came to the country for the first time in forty years.  On December 28, Dubcek was elected by Parliament as Speaker.  The next day Havel, the rebel playwright, was elected President.  And artists, writers, musicians, poets, actors and intellectuals were now free to pursue their own dreams and visions.

Thus ended the Velvet Revolution.

The Plastic People, who broke up in 1988, reunited in 1997 for the twentieth anniversary of Charter 77.  They continue performing today and have many CDs in their discography.  Their music is most recently featured in Tom Stoppard’s play “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” as are songs by the Velvet Underground.

The Velvet Underground reunited briefly and performed in Prague in 1993.  Of Andy Warhol, Lou Reed has said, “If it wasn’t for Andy, who knows, I might have been driving a truck.”

Lou Reed fan Vaclav Havel once told Reed, “Because of you, I am President.”

President Havel was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2003.

Andrew Warhola was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania  His parents emigrated in the early twentieth century from the village of Mikova, in Austria-Hungary, later known as Czechoslovakia, and now as Slovakia.

The next time someone dismisses or demeans the value and importance of pop culture, the next time you hear a pop artist complain that his or her right to free speech has been violated by the free speech of someone else who does not like what the pop star has to say, the next time you hear some smug leftist lauding another in stereotypically affected, NPR-inflected, dulcet tones for “speaking truth to power,” think on these things.

“He who is late gets punished by life.” —Mikhail Gorbachev

“If conservatives don’t figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death.”  —Andrew Breitbart

Tomorrow: Do The Warhol—Conclusions.

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.

The critical problem is that even people who are taught virtuous ideals and behaviors as kids get practically no reinforcement in the entertainment media for knowing, doing, and desiring what is generally called, in classical terms, The Good, which is determined in the greater part by the transmission of culture, conscience and common sense.  The rewards of such attitudes being as self-evident as the consequences for failure to acquire them, how may they be elevated in the popular culture?

As a visionary master of the Culture of Pop, Warhol’s work invites analysis, and previously the essentials of (1) commercial appeal for profitable outcomes and (2) elimination of distinctions between “highbrow” and “lowbrow” art were mentioned.  If it’s not hip and it does not sell, even to a niche market, it’s pointless and wasteful; since the rarefied sensibilities of cultural elites are of such little consequence outside their ivory towers and cocktail parties, crank up the heavy metal and unleash the moronic slapstick teen comedies, if that’s what it takes to deal with the issues and get the points across, specifically through thematic content.

In our next look at the Warhol canon, consider the obvious:

“It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. Everybody has their own America, and then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can’t see.”  —Andy Warhol

It takes actors and actresses, musicians and filmmakers, media mavens and individuals of charismatic character to thrust themselves and their ideas into the forefront of pop cultural awareness.  Jerks, nitwits, dirtbags and phonies do it every day, as Big Hollywood attests daily, because the template is cut for them and the infrastructure is in place to launch their downhill course.  Warhol, credited with coining the term “Superstar” which he applied—ironically, perhaps—to the loose troupe of lunatics, drag queens, and hangers-on who appeared in his films, parodied Hollywood culture with his Factory’s unstable stable of “sex symbols” and “celebrities,” growing all the while into a true media icon in his own right, ultimately hobnobbing with the genuine idols of stage and screen as a superstar himself.

Filmmaker John Waters followed much the same path, unfazed, as was Warhol, by the lack of blockbuster budgets, and has written and directed numerous crossover and mainstream movies in addition to his early, “underground” flicks.  For underground, read unsavory, demented, filthy, what you will, (and particularly offensive to conservative sensibilities) in both Waters’ and Warhol’s oeuvres.  The point, however, is about realized potential, not content, and about the degree to which anybody can do it.

Content which reflects The Good is the desired outcome in delivering a product for widespread Pop consumption; in its creation, contemporary technology goes a long way to minimize budget obstacles which would have been insurmountable in even the recent past.  “The Blair Witch Project” was made a decade ago for about thirty-five grand.  “Fireproof” was made for around a half-million.  Somewhere between those two budgets there is enough money, in the right hands, to build the beginnings of an alternate Pop universe, as Warhol did in a wide range of media.  Conservative hands, libertarian and independent hands, any like-minded people who want to get together—and get a grip—can, and should, give it a shot.  (Perhaps needless to say, in promotion and manipulation of image, such works should never be promoted as “conservative,” etc., any more than the others are promoted as “progressive.”  Let the critics and the Democratic Media Complex complain about that.)

The more such alternate worlds, the better, because audiences embrace the pleasures of participating, however briefly, in fully realized, well-defined imaginative realities, such as the “Star Wars” films, the “Mad Max” and “Lord of the Rings” trilogies, the “Seinfeld” and “X-Files” TV productions, and, for that matter, the entirety of the imaginary ”country” American society and landscape created by country music artists.  Rock and pop music create similar imaginary worlds, though the music industry as a whole continues in decline.

For a time it was said, “The Rolling Stones are not a band.  They are a way of life.”  That way of life is a continuum in the world of rock and roll, which is blasted all night followed by partying every day, to paraphrase KISS.  For party, read “indulge.”  Anyone can play.  Especially with karaoke or the Guitar Hero game, which provides just the imaginary setting for your rock and roll fantasy.

The degree to which anyone can do it: low-budget media-generated alternate universe by your correspondent. In Warhol's day, such an image would have involved considerable time, expertise and expense. Note subtle product placement of the famous Marshall Amplifier.

Video games—which currently surpass the movie industry in sales—put the players in such worlds, contending with or even surpassing the experiences of “real life” activities.  Individuals create such worlds with shameless self-promoting personal websites, Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites.  You can take high school kids on a field trip to Mount Rushmore or Auschwitz, but if you don’t keep them away from their phones or iPods, they might miss the whole thing.  That is the power of immersive digital media, which now means everyone can play.

Erstwhile film student Jim Morrison may have had no idea of what was coming when he expanded on Marshall McLuhan’s statement:  “Everyone should say, the media is the message, and the message is me,” but that is what is possible now, and that’s the message, in every form imaginable.  Camera held at arm’s length, snapping self.

The fifteen minutes Warhol mentioned have elapsed—everyone is famous.

Now what?  Pop culture demands glamour.  But it needs The Good.  It needs character, courage, and vision.

Tomorrow: Do The Warhol— Part 3 of 4: The Velvet (Underground) Revolution ]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/07/24/do-the-warhol%e2%80%94-part-2-the-culture-of-personality/feed/ 21 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/07/23/do-the-warhol%e2%80%94-part-1-the-business-of-vision/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/07/23/do-the-warhol%e2%80%94-part-1-the-business-of-vision/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:56:47 +0000 Scott Graves http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=179126

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?

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”  —Andy Warhol.

This from a man whose art, at a time when the prevailing artistic paradigm was the dynamic force of abstract expressionism, cut against the grain entirely with stark, cold, objective representations—with silk-screened wooden boxes virtually indistinguishable from their cardboard counterparts containing Brillo pads, and with paintings of common household items— Campbell’s soup cans, most famously. It is not impossible to shift the paradigm, to change the perspective, to assert new viewpoints in art and capture the minds of the audience for them.

The business of producing “art”— representations of reality in every possible medium— generates billions of dollars and has an enormous impact on culture. In point of fact, those representations reinforce sensibilities in their audiences and participants that not only contribute strongly to the creation of culture, but also to the attitudes that are informed by culture.

What’s the problem with so many contemporary attitudes? They are, among other things, non-judgmental, amoral, narcissistic, belligerent, pathologically emotional and unreasonable, anarchic, obsessed by a sense of entitlement, absurd, destructive, willfully ignorant, nihilistic, devoid of self-knowledge and an understanding of human nature, externally motivated, and as controlling and manipulative as an adherence to leftist ideology, whether conscious or unconscious, can produce.

These leap to mind and reveal nothing more than the tip of the iceberg, saying nothing of the attendant symptoms of such folly in over-excitement, anxiety, ennui, sexual dysfunction, chemical dependency and so forth. The litany can go on and on and on… but to go so far as to question the ‘appropriateness” of such attitudes is, as often as not, viewed as intolerable.  Such benign expressions as affectations of dress or teenage dancing simply must not be “suppressed” or linked to the entertainment industry, since kids have always done it, and they’re just having fun.

Somehow (golly gee-whiz, I wonder how?) these attitudes and viewpoints have come to define convoluted and contradictory ideas— twisted ideas— of freedom and the pursuit of happiness more in line with fear and loathing than with joi de vivre. Are these viable foundations for a life worth living? We can’t ask Lord Byron. We can’t ask Kurt Cobain. Nor can we ask Michael Jackson.

Claims that “it’s only rock and roll” or just a movie, TV program, a video game, etc., are bogus. These popular diversions can and do consume our time and attention, often demanding the total focus of consciousness it takes to be an Indy driver or a member of a Bomb Squad.  Ephemeral, disposable, they may be, but those things that produce such riveting effects cannot be dismissed as mere entertainments, i.e. of little consequence.

Ideas have consequences. Art has consequences. Both worlds create connections in the mind to abstract visions that, again, inform cultures and subcultures collectively and individually. “Everybody here is wearing a uniform, and don’t kid yourselves”, as Frank Zappa, a wise guy, put it. Black tie, rainbow bumper sticker, stacked heels, AC/DC or Che T-shirt, cowboy hat or rose tattoo—what are the connections?  They can be almost infinite in terms of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, ideas, self-images, all broadcast by various media, and it might be reasonable to suggest that not all of them are in one’s best interests.

And if such choices regarding personal appearance reflect only the surface, what lies in the depth of the content of our character? What can be said of our thoughts and emotions? What of our words and actions? Do our deepest inner selves and our reputations among others reflect genuine integrity of character in the combinations and permutations of all these elements of personality?

But we’re smart. We’re highly intelligent. Yet we are like consumers of some exotic hallucinogen so jaded by long experience we say derisively, “That stuff has no effect on me” as we ramble somewhat aimlessly from one personal or cultural/political disaster to another.

“If conservatives don’t figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death”, said Mr. Breitbart six months ago, and rightfully so. What, then, must conservatives, independents, libertarians, classical liberals, free-thinking artists, producers, and, yes, patrons of popular culture who are unswayed by leftist “progressive” dogma figure out?

Andy Warhol assumed a role of detached observer, a recorder, a mirror; an objective overview of Warhol’s work, one not distracted by glitter and trash, brings certain elements of popular culture into clear focus. First among equals is Economics, and it’s no more complicated than the artist’s quote above. Make the money, work hard for it, be smart with it. Good business means making the hard work pay off with financial growth and independence. Diversify. There’s no yawning abyss between art and music, film and literature, magazines and photography, sculpture and performance art, news and gossip and entertainment. They are all mediums through which an artistic vision may be realized. Media is meant to be used, to be manipulated.  Objectively, is most effectively manipulated by the controlled application of CASH.

Invest.  Invest in Ideas.  Artists, (you know who you are, if no one else does) knowing with certainty that there will be no grants from National Endowment for the Arts, get a job, be self-supporting, and invest in yourselves.  There is no such thing as “selling out”; selling out is the whole point. Tongue planted firmly in capitalist cheek, of course, with the hope that conservatives and others will get a handle on pop culture, and soon.

And Fat Cats take note: George Soros has moved so much money in the promotion of the Left in politics and media he could easy change the name of his Open Society Institute to “Global Social Engineering R Us”.  Those who wish to see their values portrayed in artistically viable ways, in a manner conducive to accessibility and commercial success, need to ratchet up their efforts to compete with this monster— or at least put up a viable Resistance.  Put your money where your mouths are, and into the hands of artists and producers who may be “under the radar” but who know (knowing hunger and even the concept of thrift) what to do with the financial resources, and will do it wisely with the intentions of realizing their creative ideas and reaping a profit, thus keeping your patronage.  You might even avoid seeing the wealth you’ve worked so hard for over the years go up the noses of your trust fund beneficiaries.  (Don’t worry about their dance floor behavior, though.  It can’t possibly be an indicator.)

Another important Warholian element for consideration is the idea that there are differences between the culture of the fine arts and the popular culture. Simply put, it does not matter. Warhol effectively erased a great many such distinctions, and if there are to be any, history will be the judge. The intellectual and moral crises challenged by those who rebel against the cultural dominance of the left today are of such existential moment it is foolish to labor over such points.

The real work of redefining the future is what is of profound importance.

NEXT: Do The Warhol— Part 2 of 4: The Cult(ure) of Personality

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.

They represent reality.  They do not create reality; they are not a direct experience of reality; they do not encompass the fullness and mystery of reality, or of life and death.  They are not meant to serve as a replacement for reality.

Yet some may not be aware of this subtle distinction between Art and Life.  Therefore, we find a warning label sewn into the famous Superman costume admonishing those who can read that the garment does not confer upon the wearer the ability of physical flight.  Further, this type of error in understanding may be seen in other scenarios that demand a degree of discrimination in determining that which is likely fact from the absurd.  In ancient times, for example, some viewers tended to to believe the “daytime dramas” they received on black and white screens were what are now called “Reality TV” programs; others were convinced that there was actually a sport known as “championship wrestling,” as opposed to the acrobatic entertainments now designated by similar names.

Human perception being what it is, an audience may be neurologically disposed to “believe its eyes,” as legends of audience reaction surrounding the first screening of the Lumiere brothers’ “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” attest.  One might also consider that reaction– a screaming rush to the exits– as giving the lie to the idea that “perception is reality.”  Nonetheless, subsequent manipulation of media and the exploitation of its consumers for social and political purposes remains a constant.

Anti-war films portraying American efforts in a negative light may fail at the box-office, but they are viewed, and color perceptions, globally. Potty-mouth humor encourages the same.  Celebrity glamour promotes superficial ideas of beauty.  Novelty wears thin.  Longing for something more interesting to fill the existential void in everyday life, many are attracted to acting out pointless fantasies and other futile, chaotic behaviors.  Stoked with the belief that lack of responsibility equates to freedom, men remain in suspended adolescence long after they belong to a “youth culture,” and women are left to deal with it.

Parents insist perpetually that their children know the difference between such things as movies and real life, yet experience as well as education impacts character and a moral sense. One need not be a neurologist to speculate that vicarious experiences that permeate consciousness through a saturation accumulated over time have telling effects as well, if only in the ways the world is perceived.  As is often suggested, one of these effects is a “numbing” of awareness and empathy in terms of viewing genuine violence and acts of evil perpetrated against others.

That said, if such children and adults do indeed understand the differences between those things which are staged and contrived to represent reality and those which are directly recorded as actual events in progress, sans commentary and for all practical purposes impossible to manipulate, there can be no equivocation over the facts brought to light by the “underground” media coming out of the immediate crisis in Iran via internet resources.

Such communications are as close to naked truth as media technology can deliver, in a revolution that will be televised, whether it fails or succeeds, without stage blood or the kind of editing designed to evoke a predetermined emotional reaction.

This is information that demands a response to be applied in a real-life situation; the stakes are genuine, and human freedom and dignity hang in the balance.  The whole world is, as always, watching, while the response so far from the American Executive Office is most generously described as “measured.”

Train’s coming…

–SG

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.

Today’s Failed Belief System simply must be discarded to attain even a smattering of the insights consistent with a point of view which recognizes the absurdities of competing contemporary “realities.” Any number of social or academic rationalizations aside, these so-called realities stand opposed to the Separate Reality once generally agreed-upon as reflecting what is historically known as “common sense,” as has the Failed Belief we will shortly consider. 

It has poisoned the culture and the body politic for at least the past two centuries. Having long and ugly roots, it nonetheless goes by the lovely name Romanticism.  To approach this pleasant-sounding but unpleasant subject, however, we must first consider a term which might have entered your consciousness as you slept through your Western Civ classes, but may not be familiar to those of you who were “liberated” from even bothering  with the study of “Dead White Men.” We begin with the Age of Enlightenment, though it has nothing to do with the satori of Zen Buddhism or the cosmic consciousness of Taoism, Sufism, or the Transcendentalism of both Hindu and Western schools of thought. 

The “Enlightenment” we are concerned with at the moment has its origins in the seventeenth century and the advancement of Reason, which is well and good and resulted in numerous virtuous events, notably the overthrow of tyrants, establishment of democratic republics, individual freedoms and tolerance of religious differences.  A robust cultural force, it was all very scientific and measurable and free from superstition and the like, but ultimately rather too much so.  Contrasting sharply at times with the other forms of Enlightenment mentioned, it lacked somewhat in areas of faith, or spirituality, or emotional fulfillment.  Thus the blowback, or unintended consequences, appearing in the form of Romanticism, first augured in the writings of Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In a nutshell, which might be an appropriate metaphor, Rousseau insisted that human beings in their “natural state,” one in which they could live without having to contend with the repressive hierarchies of established social and economic conditions, are essentially good and moral, the implication being that human nature is in itself good, and society, with its emphasis on things like private property, competition, and merit (thus inequality of outcomes), is bad.  Bad, bad, bad-but Rousseau’s theories are themselves problematic. The idea that “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine” has its obvious drawbacks, the ancient Aryan word for “war” having the meaning “time to go get more cattle,” for example. 

From there, we could labor endlessly over the theoretical minutiae of the idea of the Social Contract and the myth of the Noble Savage, but the pertinent issue is the perception of human nature.  If we are born “good”, only to be ruined by society and economics and so forth, we can trust our instincts and feelings.  If that idea is wrong, that is to say, if such things as the Biblical metaphor of the Fall and “The Smoking Gun Presents: The World’s Dumbest” can be understood as being, at the very least, indicative of the imperfectability of human nature, there exists a fundamental error in cultural thought that could use some fine-tuning.

Romanticism contrasts easily with Realism; the former relates to subjectivity, the latter jibes with more objective matters.  The Romantic nature desires that there be no war; the Realist knows war has been around since prehistory, and thus wants the finest, most fearsome weapons-not necessarily to obtain more cattle, but just in case self-defense, or defense of said cattle, is required.  The Romantic is passionate to obtain, or even to be, an object of desire; the Realist places the good of the loved one first in relationships, and refuses to compromise honor or integrity to obtain wealth, fame, or the self-esteem associated with sexual conquests or more cattle.

For the Romantic, feeling is everything, the end-all and be-all in living and decision making.  This world-view has evolved since the days of Rousseau into a dominant cultural force.  While Enlightenment-based points of view depend upon Reason in the process of founding opinion and judgment upon facts, Romance cannot be bothered by anything that might get in the way of the preciousness of subjective emotion.  Thus the Separate Realities, as exemplified by this exchange between Whoopi Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly:

GOLDBERG: I’m still not a fan of the war in Iraq. I think we went in under misguided ideals and with no real way to get out. And now what we’re seeing is everybody saying how are we going to get out? How are we going to get out? Democrats, tell us how we’re going get out. Republicans, how are we going to get out? Nobody has an answer. Nobody knows how to get out of this, because it’s a mess.

O’REILLY: And that’s a legitimate point of view.

GOLDBERG: OK. That’s my opinion.

O’REILLY: And I respect that point of view. But if you’re going to go out and say to millions of people we got to get out of there now, then, I’m going come in and say, “Well, what happens if we do that? Do we put America in more danger?” And it doesn’t matter how you feel, you need to – you need to think about that.

GOLDBERG: If you are asking my opinion…

O’REILLY: Yes.

GOLDBERG: Then it does matter how I feel.

O’REILLY: No, you need to think about it.

GOLDBERG: No, Bill. You need to think about it. That’s how you do it. I don’t do it that way.

O’REILLY: So you don’t have a responsibility to back up how you feel?

GOLDBERG: No. I have a responsibility to answer your question.

Rousseau and the Romantics who came after him might, in large part, have questioned–with good cause and motive– the efficacy of Reason in settling all issues, but to dismiss the function of Reason altogether in establishing a viable point of view, one on which actionable decisions can be made, reflects a Separate Reality which exists in a dimension not of time and space but of attitude, where emotion is the ne plus ultra of cultural forces. 

Certainly this is a viewpoint that has often been termed one of mere subjective delusion.  It can’t be called thinking: it insists that it is not.  It’s not Idealism, unless in the pejorative sense that, while it may be wonderfully imaginative, it’s worth nothing except to those who claim it “contributes to the conversation”, meaning “impedes rational discussion and decision-making”. Thereby it derails any realistic train of thought regarding issues and events on behalf of those who would coerce acceptance of their agendas or otherwise lord their pseudo-moral sense of superiority over everyone else.

Genuinely idealistic students of life are encouraged to heal themselves of this kind of cultural conditioning, toward goals of clearer thinking about themselves and the human condition, while also being strongly cautioned that the attempt to cure others is rarely, if ever, successful.  They prefer their reality separate.  They pay for it, too, but we should not be compelled to do so.

Until next time, think responsibly, and don’t hesitate to let someone else be the designated drunk.

–SG

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. 

As we see, there are many for whom the idea that “the voice of the people is the voice of God” is to be taken literally, and more often than not, enforced as a kind of political formula at the end of a gun.  Who would like to see Dick Cheney given a blindfold and a Marlboro and stood against a wall and shot?  No?  Okay, take away the evil cigarette, then.  Yes, that’s a majority of hands, thank you.  But regardless of these sentiments, we fail to realize, as we so often do when quotes are taken out of context, that the original Latin statement, as addressed to Charlemagne in the Middle Ages, advises the king to ignore and disregard all those who keep shrieking “vox populi, vox dei“, as the mob is both populated with, and represented by, a bunch of lunatics.  Thus we arrive at the next thing we typically fail to realize, which is that the answer to the question, “Isn’t this supposed to be a democracy?” is, in a word, “No”.  In point of fact, this, meaning the USA, is a “constitutional republic”, or essentially a government ruled, not by individuals or groups, but by the rule of written law.  Vox Pop, then, is no more than anyone’s given opinion, whether insightful or absurd, whether that of the voice of reason or a lone nut, as voiced by a single individual or a massive crowd, at any particular moment in time.

As Mark Twain, who was once a famous American author, put it, “we all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking”. Thus, devoid of reason and enslaved by emotional attitudes, we assume that those who feel the way we do have the moral high ground and that no right-thinking person could feel otherwise, which is something of a stretch, given not only our inherent amorality but our increasing inability and refusal to think at all.  At any rate, Twain associated this with Vox Pop, which is what one hears when television journalists stick their microphones in the faces of people in the street.  Obviously, this is why media organizations employ people who are called “editors” when we agree with them and “censors” when we don’t.

Bearing these thoughts in mind, then, or, for the scientific materialists among us, maintaining the focus on the so-called “meaning” of these “words” by whatever as-yet undetermined but merely physical means they are held in the soft tissue contained within our bony skulls, we come to the final thing we fail to realize, which is the often unnoticed but ever-present medium by which the Vox Pop is conducted to our attention, and the filter through which it is processed in the transmission.  This, one might gather, would be the “Fourth Estate”, but it is present in virtually every transmission process of the Mass or Mainstream Media, whether it has any relationship to journalism or not.  Briefly, then, we look at first the one and then the other, with an eye towards more detailed analysis of specific examples in future lectures.

Among the “insidious transformations” of the vox populi previously mentioned as being visible in our contemporary culture, it requires no immense intellectual effort to realize the inherent connectivity between the fourth estate and the voice of the people.  The former once peddled its wares as actual hard-copy “print-media” and claimed-some assert strove for-objective reporting, or the dissemination of facts; the latter, as one might expect, predictably shouted their grievances and demands as loudly and perpetually as possible.  “The People”, naturally, are self- identified groups, who claim to speak for everyone; “The Press” distributes information on current events, which includes these groups and their causes.  Unfortunately, perhaps, it is the nature of objectivity to be difficult, which is another way of saying it is not effortless.  Therefore, like reading, doing homework or research, or holding a job for pay, no one wants to do it.  Too many words are involved, too much time away from whatever one happens to be “passionate” about, and it’s not fun.  It’s too hard to transcend the attachments of emotion and to cultivate the ability to discern facts from codswallop; imagine how impossible it must be to engage in probative analysis in quest of determining something such as whether or not a group’s cause serves as a smokescreen for its actual agenda and ultimate goal.

We know it can actually be done; we know it has been done in the past.  Some contemporary reporters have genuinely studied the concept of objectivity, know how it is practiced, and occasionally do it, if only to see what it feels like.  Some of you might actually be able to see it in action on a daily basis, provided your parents removed the programming block to the Fox News Channel.  Still, objectivity is rare and has lost its cachet among journalists, idealism and the desire to save the world being higher callings than simply telling the truth.  Hence, we see another case in which something that began as a vice has become nothing more than a habit, in that the voice of the news media now styles itself as the voice of the people.  How can this be so if the Vox Pop is not, in itself, the Fourth Estate?  It’s as simple as the press saying so, particularly when they reference what they are doing as “civic journalism”, “public journalism” or “activist journalism”.  Therefore it is no stretch at all to conclude that, as easy as it is for ideas to gain common currency through media saturation as opposed to education, it slips past our notice that the Voice of the Press, usurping the role of the Vox Pop, is now the voice of God.

Some of the more astute-or awake-of you may have already realized that the press is merely one facet of a larger and more potent means of cultural transmission, the one through which ideas and issues enter the public discourse and our daily attitudes almost as if by osmosis.  This is of little consequence to journalists and their editors because they are in the position of directing the action; issues they deem “serious” are taken as such by the Mass Media itself.  T.V programs, whether dramatic, comedic or satirical, follow their leads.  Films, popular music, books and talk shows do the same.  So one might say the Vox Pop Fourth Estate is more like the Herald of God, with the Mass or Mainstream Media having the omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence of the Voice of God.  No surprise that one of the present undercurrents of the latter Voice is that no such thing as a God exists, since shedding that difficult-to-control belief would be essential in eliminating a filter of conscience between “media” and “self” making it possible, finally, to place all the contents of consciousness under the benign control of superior, enlightened beings who know what’s best for us.

So, having not yet looked at specific texts and subtexts, we have gained, some of us, insights into the processes by which they might be manipulated in order to influence opinion and dominate the public discourse.  To further explore how literary themes, both implied and stated, are manipulated in this way by processes through which the Mass Media tells its stories-and remembering Aristotle’s definition of art as a representation of reality-your homework assignment it to obtain and watch the two versions of the film Cape Fear. The original, filmed in 1962 and starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, tells the tale of a noble father and husband whose family is being stalked by an evil, ruthless criminal bent on revenge against the man who sent him to prison.  The re-make, released in 1991 and featuring Nick Nolte and Robert De Niro, uses the general outline of the same story.  The implications of the original subtexts are that “this is what we, potentially, can be”; it is obvious that the message of the later film is that “this is what we are, and all we are.”  It is up to you to determine the meanings of what these two distinct Voices are saying to you, and about you.

Until next time, be well and think carefully.

–SG

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. 

In terms of giving one’s ears and mind something more interesting to do, then, where is the contemporary equivalent of music as interesting as “Dharma For One” by Jethro Tull or Pink Floyd’s “Money“? Heard anything as refreshing and widely accessible as a “Cars” by Gary Numan or a “Walk On The Wild Side” by Lou Reed lately?  And where are geniuses the likes of George Clinton and Prince, lavishing funk beyond measure upon the collective consciousness and contributing to a more harmonious cultural groove?  

Consider for a moment that the Captain of the P-Funk Mothership and the Artist Formerly Known As He Is Now did not have to fill James Brown’s shiny boots or restrict their expressions to genre-specific limits, but made it up themselves and let it fly.  So did the aforementioned musical luminaries, and the earth rocked on its axis between listener’s ear-holes.  Therein lies the clue to the death-rattle of rock music.  The verdict: Murder One with a bullet, even with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reuniting briefly for David Lynch’s Transcendental Meditation benefit. 

This has nothing to do with the good work floating around by the likes of Crystal Method, Flyleaf, or Radiohead, for instance.  Music is not dead, nor are musical ideas, popular or obscure.  It’s the culture that has been laid low, with the aid of the old scapegoat “corporate greed”, true, but more so by conformity of thought regarding the disposability of music and artists.  Creative writers and musicians, that is to say, real artists, do actually exist, as opposed to hacks motivated solely by “stardom” and its blandishments. These genuine artists, capable of growing and expanding their audiences for lifetimes, are essentially defenestrated by the media conglomerates that snatch them off the streets as soon as they either fail to turn a profit or bring in a profit that is smaller than that required of them. 

Meanwhile, absurdly, record companies will willingly hemorrhage money in the maintenance of “stars”, throwing hundreds of millions after them with the net result of bringing in a fraction of that investment as profit.  If, say, for some reason, “99 Red Balloons” had sold 27 million units of product years ago, Nena would have been packing venues for years afterward, with sales driven by high-dollar promotional hype in the expectation of the record label for lightning to strike twice. Forget Economics 101.  If that sounds like an allusion to the career of Michael Jackson, how dare anyone think such a thing of such a fabulous, larger than life superstar?  So now we’re back to myth and legend, and regard to proportionality in terms ancient and modern.  If it is impossible to wait for a hit to come into existence, it becomes necessary to create one, regardless of the cost.  That cost comes in the loss of what someone like Nena might well create with a modicum of long-term vision on the record label’s part.  This implies, however, the somewhat metaphysical notion that, in art, as opposed to mere product, anything is possible, particularly with conditions conducive to creativity. Such conditions are sorely lacking in the outlined scenarios, which have deteriorated for decades now.

Such narrow thinking applies not only to struggling artists, but to established ones as well. John Kay of Steppenwolf and Boz Scaggs spring to mind as musicians having earned previous acclaim who could even now produce fine works, and likely hits, if the machinery in place made more room for respect for artists, as the American Recordings label did with the late Johnny Cash. This would mean wasting fewer resources throwing whatever a company thinks some mindless demographic will buy at the wall and hoping it will stick rather than stink, as it usually does, so that’s probably out.  That does not change the fact that Cash took Grammy Awards for those recordings in the last decade of his life. 

When legend and myth reflect reality, they evolve over time.  When they are created in fifteen minutes and tossed aside fifteen minutes later, with that method of production being a paradigm and a fixed idea leading to permanent stagnation and atrophy, what happens is what is happening now.  A music culture built on originality, defined by unpredictability and dependent on freedom, dies.  Something new, something unknown, or different in that it comes from outside the understanding and control of the failed system, gradually appears to replace it. 

Presently, the funeral wake is ongoing, prior to Rock’s interment, for which no plans have been made.  Rock Music is survived by its stepchildren, Bombastic and Melodramatic Pop (no relation to Iggy), Max Volume of Interminable Adolescence, and Dim Nostalgia of One Hand Clapping.  

Pass me that Beatle and I’ll sing you a bottle song.