music:
R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt
Folk singer Vic Chesnutt died on Christmas after going into a coma from a suicidal overdose of muscle relaxers a few days earlier. It seems his desire to die was caused, at least in part, by him being overwhelmed by debt from doctors’ bills—over $70,000 according to reports. Vic was a quadriplegic from a car accident in his teens—in addition to the money he already owed, he couldn’t afford to pay for other operations that he needed. It’s another tragic case to add to the fucked-up chronicles of America’s long broken system, as reported by the Guardian UK:
At the risk of turning a personal tragedy into a political issue, it’s hard not to draw lines between the details of Chesnutt’s passing with the shortcomings of the current US healthcare system. While insured, Chesnutt reportedly owed $70,000 in unpaid medical bills and had recently been served with a lawsuit by a Georgia hospital. On the Constellation Records homepage, Jem Cohen, a filmmaker and producer of Chesnutt’s North Star Deserter vented his spleen at the United States’ “broken health care system depriving so many of the help they need to stay around and stay sane, and a society that never balks at providing more money for more wars but fights tooth and nail against decent care for its citizens. Vic’s death, just so you all know, did not come at the end of some cliché downward spiral. He was battling deep depression but also at the peak of his powers, and with the help of friends and family he was in the middle of a desperate search for help. The system failed to provide it.”
Although I hadn’t kept up with his latest albums, I’ve been a fan of Vic’s since the 90s, and was lucky enough to meet him once backstage after a show at Joe’s Pub in the City. He was very kind and charming, with a calm demeanor offset by intensely bright eyes. Those eyes lent a haunting glow to the dark oscillations (to paraphrase one of his lyrics) Chesnutt channeled through his poetic lyrics and evocative, nylon string guitar strumming. The show at Joe’s Pub had been a mix of new and old songs, including a selection from West of Rome, which had just been remastered and re-released. I’d discovered that album in college, and consider it a masterpiece of artistic vision and spiritual disasters. Despite it’s title the album was a definitive product of the Southeast United States—“smoked and honey-cured” gothic indie rock—you could hear it in Vic’s twang and picture it through the descriptions of dusty settings described in the songs. I’d go somewhere else when I listened to the album—somewhere in between my books and notebooks filled with my scraggly attempts to sound like the great writers I read in my literature classes—a place at an undefined clearing up ahead where I was brave and free enough to represent my own style of writing just like Vic represented own style of rock n’ roll.
The following is a blog post from the beginning of the end of the first version of this blog, in which the narrator, long since outed as playing all three characters at once, attempts to invoke the fictional threesome to allay her own impending sense of doom—imagining a scene in which a similarly depressed TRUE describes her feelings of loneliness and loss by invoking the the art of Vic Chesnutt:
04.15.2007
Become Famous 4 Me
I need the characters…the Magick 3. I need to call upon them again. TRUE, Sterling and Fitz. For the best time and also for the last time. I need them to help me get this right. I need to parcel out just the right words using their eyes as measures. As I’m walking down the street I imagine them pulling up alongside me in a car with tinted windows and a secret symbol stenciled across the windshield in iridescent ink. There they’d be—a few years older but still light years ahead. They had the attitudes and the style, miles of style, so much style it was waaaasted…
***
TRUE and I listened to “Little”, by Vic Chesnutt. She was lying across the couch—sick—but nearly recovered from a nasty summer cold. I was supposed to be taking care of her. Meanwhile my stomach ache got worse by the second. I’m always harboring these crazy longings to have a chilled-out time with just the two of us, but when it finally happens I can’t pull it together.
She sang along to the music, sweetly mimicking Vic’s loopy Georgia drawl.
“’A cup a day to curb visibility…’”
She closed her eyes and shuddered.
“Tea time,” I announced, hating the shrill note in my voice.
I pushed off from Fitz’s prized easy chair and headed to the antiseptic kitchen. He was still in Chicago, picking up sad and skinny indie rockers. “Can’t get enough of those assymmetrical bangs,” he liked to say.
“Hey.”
TRUE’s hand suddenly shot out and grabbed my wrist. I jumped and stopped in my tracks.
“Sterling.”
I looked deep into her blue eyes. For once they weren’t glassy.
“What is it?”
“Have I taken it too far?”
I peered down at her hand. Her grip was tight.
“How do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Tell me.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but I liked the conspiratorial tone she was using. It made me feel a part of something.
“I think it’s art for art’s sake.”
“Really?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Oh, come on!”
“What?”
“You only fuck around like you know what I’m on about.”
“That’s right. What are you on about?”
“You haven’t got a clue, do you?’
“I might have half a clue.”
“Oh, yeah?” she shook my hand free. Her eyes grew heavy.
“Maybe you do, what the fuck.”
“You’ve got to rest. I’m going to make the tea.”
“Fine, fine,” she arched her back and collapsed with a sigh against the pillow. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her so tired.
“Just tell me one thing…”
“Yes?” I said.
“Are we still recording?”
***
Can you feel it? The light is getting brighter. When’s the last time you looked at the sky? Have you noticed the shimmery wash of Alex Grey pinks and purples—the chem trail visual symphony and distinct sense of otherness that I feel is up there, right in front of our eyes. Something is different: am I the one who changes it through the filter of my own perception or does it look that way to you too?
Intricate mandalas flash in code—sacred geometry appears in the crops and the clouds. Information is becoming known by a new found ability that is in between hearing and sight—an increased intuition—a higher sense of coordination like the kind that sends the nimble-minded Google researcher cartwheeling across the internets. You go (joyfully) where the search leads you, remembering that no matter how chaotic it may seem at any given moment, the internet is a lot like life itself—we always make only the moves that we were meant to make—and only at the right times. Our human evolution is opening us up towards recognizing that our magnetic sixth (or seventh?) sense—the kind birds use to navigate the earth—is not about knowing, but about feeling.
Can you feel it?
I was drowning in information that I knew was important if only I could figure out how to lay out all the different pieces. I was frustrated and about to finally give up when I received a series of signs. That was when the nature of my work changed—I went from playing detective to mining synchronicities. Everyone’s experienced synchronicity at some time or another—whether or not that’s what you called it. A series of uncanny “Twilight Zone” events connected not by causality but by meaning, as Sting sang in the Police song, “Synchronicity”:
A sleep trance, a dream dance,
A shared romance—synchronicity…
We know you, they know me
Extrasensory—synchronicity…
A star fall, a phone call
It joins all—synchronicity
The more I studied them the more synchronicities seemed to occur to me—each one taking me deeper into some tale to which I didn’t know the plot. What’s more, the coincidences in my life started to link up in uncanny, yet undeniable ways to various pieces of popular media. The feeling I got when these links were revealed was usually one of bliss and awesomeness. The first few times that it happened I tried to shrug it off. I told myself I was imagining connections where there were none. But they kept happening.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Just Disturbia”— Lady Gaga & Rhianna Mashup
There’s been too much worrying about all the time spent worrying—there’s been too much feeling bad. Too many “I’m sorry’s” to too many people. No matter what u do energy can’t be destroyed.. No matter how hard u try. You can penetrate anything you want. You can liberate anything you want. Everything’s exchanged but nothing counts, no one and nothing’s permanent…
(just dance, it will be OK)
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Whatever You Say”, by Little Brother
Sometimes when I’m in doubt it’s music to the rescue. Forget words, forget pictures—I just want to glide. Seems more magical that way—opening up to all that you can’t wrap your understanding around. I want my ear buds to bloom—I want the crowd to transform. I want angel faces to appear on the clouds in the sky. Till we’re all Pre-and Post Human. Together forever. One Love in the Dub.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Bruises”, by Chairlift
A Total Guilty Pleasure—like skipping lunch and eating an entire bag of cheese puffs instead. Sometimes synth salt is just what is needed.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“I Want You”, by Bob Dylan
Dylan is an amazing folk singer but I find his pop hooks just as delectable if not more so—there is a place for lyricism but sometimes a moment’s poetry requires a stripped down simplicity so startling that it takes hold and pulls you out of the rushing intricacies of the world, like a lover placing his or her hands on your shoulders—their grip firm but not rough—as they lean forward and whisper the words you long to hear…
I want you…i want you…i want you…so bad…
The Online Mega-Ritual of Michael Jackson’s Death
@pareidoliac we have to respect MJ, a world monarch, bigger of course than Iran, America even…
“Mediocrity was not a concept that would even for a second enter Michael Jackson’s being or actions…..
“I became very ill and emotionally/spiritually exhausted in my quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior and from the awful vampires and leeches he would always manage to magnetize around him. ….Its close to midnight and something evils lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes,
Youre paralyzed
Chorus
cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no ones gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know its thriller, thriller night
Youre fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight…
For over a month now I keep coming back to this post about mega-rituals, for some reason unable to wrap it up, but now it seems I was unconsciously waiting for the sad occasion of Michael Jackson’s death to deepen the grounds of understanding. I learned about the concept of a “mega-ritual” from the writings of synchromystic blogger Jake Kotze—although he eventually swapped out the term for the more optimistic sounding “Starg8”. As he writes on his blog, “The Blob”:
The Mega Rituals mentioned in this post; JFK, Watergate and 911, massively challenged and changed collective perception about the tenacious whorl called America. By implication and extension challenging the very foundation of consensus reality.
What ever isn’t in alignment with the Gr8 WaterG8 mentioned above will be swept away or swallowed by StarG8 Mega Rituals.
I believe WE will all be massively surprised in the ‘near future’ by what structures survive as things align and which dissolve under the pressure of change.
In keeping with the spirit of this change The Blob NOW distances its mercurial form from the term Mega Ritual.
Its essence will remain in the blanket and flexible term StarG8.
A mega-ritual (a term which I will stick with for the time being) is an event in which people from all around the world pay attention to the same thing as it happens in real time, which is to say, “live and without commercial interruption”. This group experience of universal nowness only became possible with the advent of cable news and the internet. The mediated reality of Michael Jackson’s death is similar in scale and scope to the attention focused upon Obama’s Election, the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe and 9/11. The difference was that 9/11, Obama’s election, and Hurricane Katrina were each an even mix of live television broadcast and internet feedback. In contrast, Michael Jackson’s death is an almost entirely internet based mega-ritual, similar to Sully Sullenberger’s “miracle” landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River: while there was no direct footage of the event as it was unfolding, there was a nearly immediate creation of a feedback loop on the internet, primarily on social media outlets such as Twitter.
An internet based mega-ritual is different from those based on TV. The specificity of the image that television provides allows for the worldwide attention to be very finely focused, which has a more concentrated psychic effect—perhaps to the point of overwhelming those who experience it. On 9/11, millions of people watched as the second plane struck the South tower—literally scorching the footage into the collective psyche so that it would exist forever like a burn scar. On the internet the information “hits” in a more diffused, disseminated way—like a virus or a weed—it insinuates itself into our psyche in a rhizomatic way—growing offshoots that operate via a decentralized. self-organizing system. There is no iconic image that represents the event—it happens in the form of many-to-many in doses of one-to-one: via conversation, e-mail, the sharing of youtube videos, and a flurry of short, deeply felt blog posts as well as Twitter and Twitter-esque status updates. There were no live shots of Jackson’s ambulance or press conference updates from his team of doctors—but we did get a few shots of the press itself gathered outside the hospital. This kind of self-reference is a sign that a mass catharsis is brewing. The story was still breaking when it was confirmed that Jackson had in fact, died. Many felt the need to wait for Big Media news outlet such as CNN to confirm the news before they believed it. The mega-ritual was experienced as the internet reaction to his death—in which millions of people got online at the same time to communicate about the same thing. It is this togetherness that makes up the core of a mega-ritual. It is not the event as a whole but the part that is experienced by large groups of people as it unfolds in real time. The mega-ritual part of the Kennedy Assassination, for example, didn’t begin at the moment the gunshots rang out in Texas, but rather shortly after, when the nation gathered together around their radio and TV sets in the interim between the shooting and Kennedy’s death. During that in-between time there was a mass focusing of awareness as everyone paid attention to the same thing at the same time. For many, this had the effect of providing a realization of oneness with everyone and everything, while at the same time throwing each and every person back upon themselves so that they confronted/celebrated/condemned their own unique individuality. This is why everyone who was alive in the 60s remembers where they were when they heard about JFK—just as a couple of generations earlier everyone would forever remember where they were and what they were doing on 9/11.
Mega-ritual events teach us that we are a part of something much bigger than just our own lives. Michael Jackson appealed to such a broad demographic that EVERYONE knew who he was, regardless of skin color or nationality. He was a true international star, as well as a true enigma—two aspects that will help propel his legend further, for it is the darkness of many buried things that seemed to haunt Michael Jackson. In these days after his death all you hear is his music—wherever you go. Michael is in the clubs and the bodegas, the bars and the baby stores, the Gap and the Highline, Chelsea and the street. Similar to 9/11 the feeling of togetherness lingers on, but unlike 9/11 we have a ready made background soundtrack as we exchange stories of when we first heard Michael, or where we were when the Thriller album blew up. The music increases the vibe as you exchange winks with shopkeepers and dance in the sidewalk outside a bar blasting “Billy Jean” with its doors wide open.
Music goes beyond images, to open up pathways of being long covered up in our brains. Music connects us to that primitive part of ourselves—the raging, dancing animal enigma. Perhaps the reactivation of those channels is Michael’s gift to us now.
Don’t stop till u get enough (cuz this is Thriller nite)…
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Paper Planes”—MIA (DFA Mix)
Dope as it is, I thought I’d had enough of MIA’s Paper Planes after hearing it dropped in every big city set this year but this DFA mix from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack is super catchy. A great remix makes you remember why you liked the song so much in the first place.
MIA uses hip-hop to build a new mythology based on a westernized remix of eastern culture. Danny Boyle uses digital video to do the same thing in a movie.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Jolene” (Divide and Kreate Remix)—Dolly Parton
I watched Morely Safer interview Dolly Parton on 60 minutes last night and I was pretty wowed out by her. Morely noted to the audience that she was as real as they come, and he ought to know since he’s been doing interviews on the show since before my parents even met. I knew she had a tuff life but I didn’t know she was dirt poor—one of 14 kids growing up in a shack in Tennessee without electricity or running water. I was shocked by a story she unabashedly told of being a little girl and so enamored by the pigs on the family farm that one day, her parents found her squeezed in between the pigletts, nuzzling on the mama pig’s teet!!!
She always knew she wanted to be a singer and left for Nashville on the day after her high school graduation. She created her attention-grabbing look based on the town tramp and wears her trademark ginormous bleached hair and heavy make-up to this day. She described herself in the interview as a cartoon character that she created. She said that she was three people—Dolly the business woman, Dolly Parton the singer and entertainer, and the Dolly that her family and friends knew.
I relate to her self-awareness about being a character. There’s a big difference, however, to being a character online and a character onstage. I was a clown in the chorus of Barnum during my freshman year of high school and thought it was all great fun until I stepped out in the bright lights and saw a black abyss in front of the stage where I’d expected to see the smiling, happily expectant faces of the audience… After that it was purely behind the scenes for me. I can strip things down to the bone for hundreds and thousands in my posts but I can’t imagine doing it LIVE with all of those people really THERE.
It’s one thing to fake it so real and flip the laptop lid shut and another to dive into a sea of people, half-naked but still in character…
There’s a thereness to the real world that hasn’t (yet) been duplicated. I am of the mindset that this is a good thing, as I don’t think the aim of technology should be to recreate the existing “real” world, but to invent new ways of being that are (loosely) based upon it.
P.S. I got this disco mix of Jolene off of a Tumblr mix by Sufjan Steven called “The Mix Will Rise Again” filled with tunes from and inspired by the past.
