Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Yes, I’m upset by the fact that the gaping maw of Comcast has opened and swallowed TechTV whole, grinding it into a fine paste and mixing it with the abomination known to all as G4. I would write something very scathing about it, but I think others have beaten me to the punch. Now, all I can do is sit back and watch and hope that some of TechTV manages to shine through the plasticized crapola that has been the hallmark of “G4: Television for Gamers.”

When I see something linked to as a call for elitism, I know I’m in for a bumpy ride. Even though I am, admittedly, a bit of an elitist (throw a hipster’s knowledge of popular culture into both characters, and I can easily play Niles to my brother’s Frasier), there’s a snobbery that always seems to be part of the mix – and it’s this snobbery that I hate. Shakespeare elitists look for plays to be produced the same way every time – otherwise it’s not “good” Shakespeare. Performance art elitists don’t like anything that has a plot they can actually follow. Indie rock elitists don’t like anything once they find five more people who have heard of it.

I cannot stand this attitude. For one thing, it makes people think they know everything.

Classical music has never been, nor should it be, a mass culture staple, but that doesn’t mean its audience has to be doddering. High art has always been created to be enjoyed by those who are educated to—or who educate themselves to—appreciate it. (Beethoven may have been a well-known composer in the 19th century, but the “popular” music of the time still consisted of folk songs, military band tunes, and hymns.)

Yeah. And Shakespeare never wrote for the groundlings.

The vast numbers of people in classical Germany who hit up three operas a night, never bothering to sit through an entire show, seeking out their friends to party and grab a bite to eat, certainly weren’t on the lookout for a good time. They were dedicated to “High Art.” They most certainly weren’t doing anything so base as “clubbing.”

Of course, there’s a point there. The “popular” music of the time was folk songs, military band tunes, and hymns. But that was in part because these songs were the songs that anybody could play. In today’s push-button, instant-gratification culture, anybody can get the music pumping just by slipping a tiny plastic disc into a player and hitting a button. But while folk songs and hymns were the most commonly heard music, opera and classical were not necessarily the realm of the cultural elite. They were instead the entertainment of those with enough money to get into the clubs. Take away the burgeoning home entertainment market that makes it simple for ecstasy burnouts to have their favorite beats at their fingertips, and classical music is the original Crystal Method.

So, what caused this transition from popular music to music that nobody ever listens to? It’s certainly not the quality of the music. And it’s certainly not that people find this music “boring.” Many people can easily find at least one piece of classical music they respond to – even if they only know it as “that song in the background of the ‘a diamond is forever’ commercials.”

If you ask me, it’s the elitism. At some point before the development of home recordings, classical music went from entertainment to “High Art,” and it became essential to wear a nice suit, eat expensive food, and sit very still in a crowded theatre for a long time while people in horned helmets sing loudly in German for five hours merely to observe that their gold has been stolen.

Believe it or not, Wagner is best sampled in small doses. Very small doses. Only a few of Wagner’s original audiences ever saw a complete performance of Das Rheingold – most either popped in for a little bit of the middle of the opera or caught the end of it with their homies.

It was when it became “High Art” that the common people completely lost interest in classical music. It was when the blue-haired lady in the row in front of them grew snippy over their choice of ties that the common man decided classical music was not for them.

Yes, ‘twas elitism that killed the beast. Now – all of you Final Fantasy and Radiohead fans might want to check out this article. John V. Bennett has a really high opinion of you.

Oh. One more thing.

Maybe the classical music establishment has something to learn from a violent video game like “Final Fantasy”

Final Fantasy is violent? The game where you step forward an inch, swing your sword, and magically cause damage without ever making contact?

Well, crap. No wonder people get their knickers in a twist over Grand Theft Auto.

This meme was blatantly stolen from VTDaRkAnGeL:

——>On your current playlist, hit shuffle and pick the first twenty songs on the list, and write down your favorite line of the song. Then YOU people have to guess the artist and title… blah blah blah…

• 1. Well, I’m twenty-five years older now – So I know it can’t be right.
• 2. Though an ocean of tears divides us, let the bridge of our love span the sea.
• 3. I can’t do the little things I hold so dear, ‘Cause it’s all those little things that I fear.
• 4. You really make me sick with your fraudulent behavior – you’re gonna make me flip and then an army couldn’t save ya.
• 5. Realisant, mon espoir Je me lance vers la gloire.
• 6. Sex is good, but I’d rather be sailing.
• 7. There’s a monkey in the jungle watching a vapour trail, caught up in the conflict between his brain and his tail.
• 8. Teeny bopping disco queen, she barely understands her dreams of belly button rings and other kinds of things symbolic of change, but the thing that is strange is that the changes occur, and now she’s just a part of the herd.
• 9. When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble – give a whistle!
• 10. Water dissolving…and water removing – There is water at the bottom of the ocean.
• 11. We went searching through thrift store jungles, found Geronimo’s rifle, Marilyn’s shampoo, and Benny Goodman’s corset and pen.
• 12. Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist, aimin’ straight at your back and I don’t think they’ll miss.
• 13. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Vote for me and I’ll set you free! Rap on, brother, rap on.
• 14. Are you out of your mind, or have you had too much to smoke?
• 15. Don’t the best of them bleed it out while the rest of them peter out?
• 16. We started out new, you used to be true, now you’re buggin, what’s wrong with you?
• 17. You made me feel so blue, Babe, you made me weep and moan – ‘Cause you ain’t lookin’ for a woman, all you’re lookin’ is for a home.
• 18. I’ll shine up my old brown shoes, put on a brand new shirt, get home early from work if you say that you love me.
• 19. Fly as a bumble bee (Buzz), can’t nobody fuck with me.
• 20. If you climb aboard there is nothing to it, if you concentrate we will see you through it.

I try not to make a habit out of siding with the motion picture and recording industries too often. I much prefer siding with individual artists and consumers – the industries themselves tend to be a bit… well… grasping. So I find myself having to gird my loins and say that the motion picture industry is making a good point in their lawsuit against ClearPlay – the Utah-based company that makes the software that blocks nudity and violence from (some) DVD’s played in their DVD players.

Its scene-cutting technology, called ClearPlay, comes from a Utah company of the same name. Its executives maintain that by sanitizing movies, they’re actually doing Hollywood a favor by building a broader audience.

Hollywood begs to differ. Actually, it sues to differ; eight movie studios and the Directors Guild of America have taken ClearPlay and a group of similar companies to court. “ClearPlay software edits movies to conform to ClearPlay’s vision of a movie instead of letting audiences see, and judge for themselves, what writers wrote, what actors said and what directors envisioned,” the Directors Guild says.

Yes! Excellent point! If you forget the fact that most of Hollywood spends its days and nights trashing “what writers wrote, what actors said and what directors envisioned” in their quest to create the perfect Sierra Mist tie-in or to turn (shudder) Ashton Kutcher into an actor.

Of course, little of this actually matters to ClearPlay’s target audience. There’s a large portion of parents out there who will jump at any technology geared toward “protecting” their kids. It’s a big slice of the population, and it’s vocal. That’s how we wind up with wonders like “V-Chip Technology” and hotels offering to block adult channels. Some parents want any technology they can get to watch their kids when they can’t/won’t. And I can’t really fault them for that – as long as they’re calling for something that affects their viewing experience and not mine. I don’t have the same values as my next door neighbor, let alone the same values as a handful of Utah entrepreneurs.

So what this section of the population wants to know is not “How do the directors feel about this,” they just want to know if it actually works.

Well, let’s see.

For starters, its editors are wildly inconsistent. They duly mute every “Oh my God,” “You bastard,” and “We’re gonna have a helluva time” (meaning sex). But they leave intact various examples of crude teen slang and a term for the male anatomy.

In “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “God-forsaken island” is bleeped, but “heathen gods” slips through. (So much for the promise to remove references to “God or a deity.”)

Similarly, in “Terminator 3,” the software skips over the Terminator – a cyborg, mind you – bloodlessly opening his abdomen to make a repair. Yet you’re still shown a hook carving bloody gouges into the palms of a “Matrix Reloaded” character.

The second problem is that the editors wield their scissors differently according to their view of the characters’ righteousness. When Americans are shot in “Black Hawk Down,” the editors carefully omit the bullet’s moment of impact. But when Somali gunmen are blown apart, you see the whole twitching, gruesome scene.

ClearPlay’s most ridiculous assumption, however, is that excising only the split second of central violence somehow makes the overall scene less traumatic. In “Spider-Man,” you’re spared the three frames of film in which the Green Goblin is impaled by the razors on his own flying skateboard – but you see the entire painful, lingering death that follows. (Maybe ClearPlay assumes that your first grader is numb by now, having already seen Uncle Ben’s ClearPlay-approved sidewalk death, his assailant’s fall from a six-story window, a test pilot’s midair incineration and a grenade blowing several city elders into glowing skeletons.)

Yikes. That sounds… not very effective. Which is natural, since there is no complex algorithm driving the software – it’s not figuring gore on the number of red pixels on the screen or loaded with five-thousand linguistic variations on various obscenities (neither of which would be very effective, either). Instead, it’s done by people sitting around, watching the movie, and making notes on when the offensive material appears. And offensiveness is subjective, as we see in the example of Black Hawk Down.

Plus, these censoring breakdowns are all stored in a large database. Which you have to pay to access. $1.50 a movie or fifty bucks a year for the entire library – and some movies either haven’t been entered into the database yet or have been deemed too graphic to bother with a database entry (such as, say, Kill Bill).

So, it’s offensive to the filmmakers whose product it operates on, it’s not nearly as effective as it claims to be, and you have to pay on a per-movie basis (or a fairly sizeable yearly fee) to access even those ineffective operations.

All of which smacks of one thing to me – a con.

People, if you’re looking for something to monitor what your kids are watching when you can’t, then look harder. There has to be something better on the market – and something that’s not nearly as willing to exploit your good intentions.

There’s so much that’s really disturbing going on in the news, I thought I’d post something that’s only mildly disturbing in kind of a fun way.

Remember when the Harry Potter kids were young?

The Boston Globe asks if we’re seeing a resurgence in politically active folk music.

Of course we are.

But what gets me is this:

It’s the folk purists who bother him: “They will say, `Oh, don’t be political; you’re supposed to be singing traditional material.’ And I want to say, `This is traditional. The wealthy and the powerful taking advantage of the poor and ignorant. People like us screaming about it, and people like you rolling over and taking it. How much more traditional can you get?’ “

Who are these folk purists, and where can I find them so that I may apply my righteous pimp hand upside their heads for displaying their musical and cultural stupidity?

You want to stick to traditional music only? That’s fine. But anybody who claims that folk music is not supposed to be political knows not whereof they speak. Arlo Guthrie wrote “Alice’s Restaurant” to talk about the draft. Woody Guthrie wrote “The Ludlow Massacre.” Traditional bar song of the British Isles “Sir Patrick Spens” is a song about the readiness of the nobility to sacrifice their people over trivialities. “The Golden Vanity” is a wider variation on an older song about Sir Walter Raleigh that painted the picture of a proud, arrogant, selfish and ungrateful man put in charge of dangerous operations.

Sticking to traditional music only is all well and good – we need that in our society. It’s always best to know where we’ve been on our way to where we’re going. But to imply that acts performing traditional music are the only true folk musicians is to fail to understand folk music and its origins. Folk music is the voice of the people – and when the people are dissatisfied and discontented, the music will reflect that. Folk music is now – and will always be – rebellion.

That’s my word.

It had to happen.

Looking ahead to what we can all now confidently say is going to be ENTERPRISE’s fourth season. Berman confirmed that he had indeed been in talks with TREK star William Shatner about a guest starring role in Enterprise, and is hoping to fit a William Shatner Guest appearance into Enterprise’s 4th season.

“Bill is busy doing ‘The Practice’ right now, and he’s going to be doing the spin – off next season.” Berman said. “We have had discussions in the last week, when we were talking with the studio about areas and directions we would like to go in next season, and there were two different ideas that we think could be developed into a good vehicle for Bill. And hopefully we’re going to pursue one of them for next season.”

You know it had to happen. The Next Generation got Nimoy and Doohan (and a cameo from Kelley in the pilot). DS9 got gumped into “The Trouble With Tribbles.” And Voyager... well, they got John DeLancie as Q. And they were damned happy to get him, too.

So it had to happen, really. Especially with Shatner’s webpage pushing a campaign to get him on the series.

Let’s just hope that Enterprise opts to go with something cheesy – like running into Kirk’s great-grandfather. As opposed to going for el queso grande and having Kirk turn up in a time travel storyline.

I know, I know. My geek is showing.

If you haven’t heard yet, Designs On The White House has extended the deadline for submissions. This also means that they’ve extended the time for you to go view and vote on all of the groovy designs they’ve gotten in so far.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go, go, go!

I like John McCain as a politician. Which is not to say that I agree with his politics or think that he knows what’s right for the country. But while I disagree with a lot of what he has to say, I have a tremendous amount of respect for him – he’s one of the few Republicans left in office who actually seems to be following his heart when it comes down to making decisions. Other Republicans in elected office might feel that impulse from time to time, but the fact that they long ago scooped out their own hearts to make room for the vile green ichor fermented from pulped campaign donations has made it hard for them to have a conscience.

If McCain had gotten the nomination for President (and won the election) instead of Bush, I honestly feel that things would be different, now. I’d still be ranting and raving about the President, but I would at least feel that it was part of a discussion on the issues.

That said, the Republicans have turned their attack dogs on… John McCain?

Have they completely lost their minds?

McCain, who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison, excoriated fellow Republicans on Tuesday for pushing more tax cuts while U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan (news – web sites).

“Throughout our history, wartime has been a time of sacrifice. ... What have we sacrificed?” McCain said. “As mind-boggling as expanding Medicare has been, nothing tops my confusion for cutting taxes during wartime. I don’t remember ever in the history of warfare when we cut taxes.”

Asked Wednesday about McCain’s remarks, Hastert, who was rejected for military service because of a bad shoulder, first joked: “Who? Where’s he from? A Republican?”

Then, more seriously, he said: “If you want to see sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda (two Washington area military hospitals). There’s the sacrifice in this country. We’re trying to make sure that they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong not only militarily but economically. We want to be able to have the flexibility to do it. That’s my reply to John McCain.”

If you’re of a sensitive nature, you might just want to skip the screaming italics to come and get on to the more sensible part of this post.

You blithering numbskulls! Your President can’t even prove that he was willing to show up for duty in The National Guard when draftees were fighting and dying by the handful! You can’t find the weapons of mass destruction and you haven’t been able to come up with a justification for the war that doesn’t wind up biting you on the ass and now you want to go after the guy who’s on your side who just happens to be not only a Vietnam veteran – but a guy who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison? What are they putting into your Kool-Aid?

ahem

That feels better.

Look. Maybe you can pull the “Your military is fighting and dying for you” card on me – I’m young and have never served in the military. But McCain was in the military. Not only that, but he was a prisoner of war during Vietnam. He spent five years in prison.

Not only that, but the attack doesn’t make any sense, fercryin’outloudindemud. Here. Let’s take a look at these in reverse order, shall we? First, here’s Hastert’s snide comment on McCain’s original statement?

“If you want to see sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda (two Washington area military hospitals). There’s the sacrifice in this country.”

Got that in your head? Good. Now, let’s take a look at the comment McCain made to set this off.

“Throughout our history, wartime has been a time of sacrifice. ... What have we sacrificed? As mind-boggling as expanding Medicare has been, nothing tops my confusion for cutting taxes during wartime. I don’t remember ever in the history of warfare when we cut taxes.”

[side note – Al Franken has been pointing out that not only has America never cut taxes in a time of war before, but we can’t find an instance of any country at any time in history cutting taxes while they were fighting a war.]

All right. Do you see the brain-exploding flub in Hastert’s response here? Hastert’s acting like McCain is whining about having to sacrifice.

McCain is pointing out that we haven’t sacrificed.

“If you want to see sacrifice … visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda,” is the kind of thing you would say to the person at the gas pump loudly complaining about how much money they have to pay to fill up their tank because of the war.

It’s precisely the kind of thing that people who wanted to raise taxes to support the troops would be totally justified in saying.

But Hastert blithely tosses out Standard Pro-Military Industrial Complex Line #14/9-B in a situation where it makes absolutely no sense. You’re telling McCain that he needs to stop complaining and learn what real sacrifice is?

First of all, the man knows what sacrifice is. And, second, he’s calling on all of us to sacrifice more for the benefit of those making that sacrifice you so casually call on to win your arguments, Mr. Hastert.

Perhaps you’re the one who needs to take a trip out to Walter Reed and look around. Perhaps you’re the one who needs to see those pictures of flag-draped coffins being brought back to the United States. Perhaps you’re the one who should attend a few funerals and meet a few grieving families. Perhaps you’re the one who should actually take a plane to Iraq and see first-hand the situation that the fighters in Iraq are in – not the dining halls filled with carefully-selected, freshly-showered and shaven military personnel, but the actual areas of conflict.

And perhaps you should bring the President along for the trip. Just perhaps.

Or you could just sit back, enjoy your nice, fat tax cut and tell the rest of us that we just need to learn to sacrifice a little bit for your benefit.

TalkLeft posts The Financial Times’ short list of VP candidates for the Kerry campaign.

My pick? It’s a dead heat between Edwards and Clark.

First of all, let’s address an important issue in the Kerry campaign: Charisma. Kerry is frankly a little bit Al Gore-ish in that field. He comes off like a nice enough guy, but he attracts woodpeckers. He’s not good at making clips and phrases – which benefits him in live events (he’s definitely more reasoned and logical than Bush), but is a hindrance in a sound-bite based culture. His running mate has to be charismatic.

Edwards and Clark have charisma down.

Edwards’ boyish looks and friendly manner make people think Kennedy. The thing that struck me when I saw Edwards speak and watched him greet people afterward is that Edwards is the image of what a politician should be – a friendly, easy-to-relate to guy who turns into an absolute wildcat when the issues and circumstances call for it.

Clark, on the other hand, is a rock star. The man knows how to work a room – possibly even better than the BC himself. His button-down look characterized by sweaters and the occasional black turtleneck softens his edges a bit and makes him seem less angular, but still cannot deny the fact that he radiates greatness. And people love this guy.

Second, let’s talk North and South. It seems like every report on John Kerry at some point or another mentions that he’s a New England liberal and that this might not play well in the South. By now, it could be considered common knowledge that Kerry needs somebody from the South to kick up his chances of winning.

Edwards hails from the Carolinas and even carried South Carolina in the primaries. That might not seem like much of an achievement, considering that SC is his state, but the win came at a time when the Kerry campaign had all but been declared the campaign’s unstoppable juggernaut. And folks in the South love Edwards. I’ve spoken to people who never voted liberal in their lives who had nothing but good things to say about Edwards, and who proclaimed that they’d vote for him in a heartbeat if he were running for President. Well, he’s not. But he could run for Veep – and the boost would certainly make Bush and Cheney quake a li’l in their oversized boots.

Clark is from Arkansas. Arkansas. Little Rock, even. Do I need to say more?

Third, let’s consider the “Looks better than Bush” factor. I know, I know. It’s not that hard to look better than Bush. But our veep should have some characteristics that make him stand out head and shoulders above Bush to help boost Kerry’s already impressive list of credentials.

With Edwards, the most obvious element is his record when it comes to law and politics. He graduated with honors from UNC Chapel Hill with a law degree (RIAA Critics take note: the Almanac of American Politics states that Edwards began his law career “representing recording companies accused of pirating Elvis Presley records”), fought against caps on awards in lawsuits, and was one of the most persuasive speakers in favor of acquitting Bill Clinton during the impeachment procedures. His relatively short political career is already strong and happy – and he was one of the few senators running who was actually willing to give up his chair in the Senate when he decided to run for President. He’s a bright, intelligent, friendly southerner – as opposed to a spill-beer-on-your-shoes, daddy’s-an-oil-man loudmouth like certain people we could name.

With Clark, the first thing people latch onto is his military career. Honestly, between Clark and Kerry, Bush’s (already weak) record is next to obliterated. With Clark, we’ve got a four-star General with 33 years of military service, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and Commander in Chief of the United States European Command, Vietnam veteran, and a graduate from West Point (who just happened to graduate first in his class). Oh, and he also holds a Master�s Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and has received honorary knighthoods from the English and Dutch governments.

And, finally, let’s consider the legacy factor. One of the things Gore seemed to forget in his campaign was that a Presidential election isn’t about winning the White House for four years. It’s not even about winning the White House for eight years. It’s about winning the White House for as long as humanly possible. That means picking a strong running mate, since the Veep is most likely to be the strongest contendor for the Presidentail nomination when it comes around. Gore was a good choice for Clinton – a strong political figure from the south whose environmental stances had made a name for himself in the more liberal circles. Lieberman was not a good choice by any stretch of the imagination (neither was Dick Cheney, but I digress). You want to pick your Veep with the idea that this is the person who will follow you, and this is the person who will help (by cleverly choosing his own running mate) to give your party sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-six – however many years in the White House it can get.

Edwards was on Gore’s short list for Veep. And, looking back on it, I still have absolutely no idea how we had Edwards on the table and we still wound up with Da Leeb. Gore and Edwards as a team would have absolutely slaughtered the Bush/Cheney campaign and gone on to the White House (that is, if they avoided the pit of underestimating Bush). Edwards is still a relatively young politician, but it might just be that his time has come. He may not have pulled off the primaries this year, but the next time around you can bank on his being a contendor – why not set him up for the job now?

Clark? Oh, good grief. The man has everything we need in the White House. If he comes around next time we need a nominee and doesn’t turn out as one of the heavy hitters, I’ll be shocked. His campaign this time around got off to a slow start, which meant that by the time he was rockin’ and rollin’ it was about impossible to get the news media to pay attention – he had already been written off. Now he’s into the swing of it, he’s strong on the issues, he has good plans, he has the credentials to fit the job, and dammit, the man can speak! How many times do I have to say it? He speaks sincerely and from the heart, but still logically and with good sound sense and reason. Do you understand? Wesley Clark is love! Wesley Clark will save us all!

ahem

Sorry. Got a little bit carried away there. Clark as a veep would be in a strong position to take over as the Presidential nominee in eight years. Right.

Once we’ve considered all of that, there’s still one slight problem – both of these men have stated in interviews that they wouldn’t be interested in a Vice-Presidential nomination. It may be that that’s the case – but both have also come to Kerry’s support in the campaign, now. It’s important when you’re running for the nomination to keep up a strong front – but now, it may be time for them to consider the Veep chair.

Either one of them could be just what the campaign needs.