I start a new job next week, which means my salary is about to soar into six-figure peanuts range. However, in so doing, I will largely be leaving my musician/student life behind. Of course, that isn't to say I won't be playing music. On the contrary, I have the feeling that with my new-found financial semi-stability, I'll be able to afford all sorts of fun new gear and finally be able to build that perfect home studio. And my Big Pretentious Blog will in no way suffer. If anything, I'm about to get even MORE pretentious.
Case in point: this idea that my generation (mid-to-late 20's) and the subsequent generations seem to possess, namely that we are the most talented motherfuckers in history and that our paltry accomplishments should be taken more seriously than cancer, is ridiculously over-saturating the lives of nearly everyone with whom I come into contact. When I told my friends that I got a new job, no one was excited. Except for a select few, they all responded with some iteration of "Ugh, why?"
Listen, if you're in your mid 20's and have to ask why someone would get a full-time job, then you have bigger problems than a blog, even this ridiculously amazing blog, can fix. However, I'll try to explain things as best I can in the unlimited amount of space that I have.
The concept of "full-time musician" is sketchy at best. Being able to eke out a living as a musician requires WAY more than 40 hours per week, and most of it is unpaid or actually costs money. Sure, you're in business for yourself, but check out this breakdown: learning songs? Unpaid. Rehearsals? Cost money. Keeping up your chops? Unpaid. Recording? Costs money. Exactly which parts of that self-run business sound appealing or profitable to you?
Full-time musicians tend to make money in one of two ways: teaching or gigs, and neither is particularly lucrative unless you happen to score a professorship or an awesome gig with an established band or recording studio as either an engineer or contracted musician. If none of those things occur, you can count on either struggling to make ends meet on your own as a teacher, or working for someone else anyway in a small local music school (splitting your teaching fees with the house), all the while fighting bar owners for a pittance after playing 3 full sets on Friday and Saturday nights. Self-employed? Not so much.
"But Uncle VerbalShred, my parents/boyfriend/girlfriend have/has lots of money! Surely they'll support me until I hit it big!"
First off, you shut up when Uncle VerbalShred is talking. Secondly, good for you. I'm sure that your parents or significant others absolutely want to support a 25-year-old fully-functioning adult financially for the foreseeable future. However, some of us actually want to make our own money, because we hear that that's how things used to work. I wasn't making enough money as a musician to fund the lifestyle I want, therefore I decided to see what else was out there. This whole paragraph, however, is just a symptom of a larger problem that pervades my generation: entitlement.
Like a bunch of little three-year-old children, many people my age have massive entitlement issues. The sense of entitlement that surrounds people in my peer group is actually simply astonishing, and I wholeheartedly believe it stems from incremental successes that, in the long run, are like giving out gold stars for reading a Dr. Seuss book. I've seen people begging for money to record an album instead of getting second and third jobs, and then actually receiving donations instead of derision before bragging about their successful recordings. I've known people whose parents paid for every single piece of gear they own (sometimes totaling over $20,000), none of which has ever been used on a gig, then heard them talk about how they've mastered guitar and need their parents to buy them other instruments. I've seen people with less than two years of gigging experience proclaim themselves to be experts in the field of live performance because once they field-repaired an amp by screwing in a loose input. I've had people with absolutely no recording experience tell me that they know exactly how to mic a drumset because they took a production class.
All of this adds up to the fact that certain people feel they deserve special treatment because they believe they're already successful, while the fact of the matter is that if they were successful enough to warrant special treatment, they wouldn't be gigging on Staten Island every weekend or playing free shows at dingy coffee houses. I implore my students who read this to NOT feel entitled to anything. Be thankful for gigs while acknowledging your own talent. If your parents or significant other buys you gear, make them proud and thank them by learning that gear and then USING it for lots of gigs and/or recordings. Work your asses off to record or build up your chops. Don't take precious hours for granted.
While I'm sure I'll experience entitlement issues (2) in corporate America, I'm also sure I'll be getting paid enough to insure that I don't care (1). See, no matter how hard I work at being a private music teacher, which is the aspect of musicianship I'm most in love with, I'll never be able to rise above a certain point unless I have solid financial backing behind me. Because I harbor no illusions about what precisely I'm entitled to, I plan on earning that solid financial backing for myself, to eventually either go into business for myself or have enough of a savings to just coast on my earnings as a teacher. Otherwise, I can never complain again, and I simply won't have any of that.
So while I'm certainly nothing special, neither are the people who believe their little chunk of local success should result in their being handed the world on a silver platter. And the sooner we stop believing in the hype (our own and that of our hardly-successful peers), the better off we'll all be. As the wisest man I've ever met, Laine Thompson, once said, "When you're dead, you're a blurb on the back page of the newspaper." More people need to remember that.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Too Cool for School
I just finished slogging through an 1130 page novel (Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson) about math in roughly two weeks (NOTE: page count added to indicate my reading speed in a book through which I'm "slogging"). Well, it wasn't really about math. It was about World War II gold and the modern threat of the disintegration of traditional political and economic borders due to the encroaching inevitability of ubiquitous high-speed internet in southeast Asia the Philippines. However, there was a staggeringly large amount of information on both number theory and cryptanalysis contained in the text. Indeed, there was enough about it to cause a caesura in my reading of the novel, during which I read a bunch of free information about elementary number theory (available in your local library if you're a traditionalist, or on the internet if you're lazy). It's been quite a long time since a novel has made me fundamentally question my worldview, and while I'm not sure if anyone else would accuse Stephenson of being an epiphany-inducing author, I am about to do so.
I've always loved stories, and whether those stories are contained in books, comics, video games, or films (pornographic or otherwise), I've been able to transport myself through time and space to really feel myself become part of the stories (especially the pornographic films). Naturally, then, I majored in English Literature in college, where I learned that stories are both banal and a tool for white male imperialists desperately seeking to maintain their tenuous-yet-iron grip on the economic forces that keep them in power while holding down the rest of what could be modern society but is instead, thanks to those aforementioned stories, an ignorant mish-mash of uneducated wage slaves whose only function is to feed the maw of the white-male-ruled military-industrial complex.
What I've realized, thanks in part to Stephenson's novel, is that the entire preceding sentence is, for lack of a better phrase, complete and utter horseshit (also see my humorously crossed-out phrase in the first paragraph). Unfortunately, it's also completely and utterly the point of every literature class I've been a part of in the single undergraduate and two graduate institutions I've attended. Assuming that the dominant discourse somehow pervades and greatly affects the quality of your daily life assumes that you have nothing better to do than sit around thinking about the which discourse(s) affect you and how you can somehow use them to facilitate financial gain. This is the life of the social theorist, the cultural critic, and the English major, who, for all their theoretical smarts, still haven't figured out how to do anything that would be considered useful outside of academic circles. If you think you're affected by the oppressiveness of a discourse, congratulations! Your family was rich enough to send you to a college where they taught you about discourses.
I wrote all that to write all this: I've spent the greater part of the past six years defending my decision to study literature, both to others and to the gnawing sense of regret that eats away at me when I try to make Photoshop work and it laughs at me. I think now I'm finally man enough to admit I made a mistake when it comes to my chosen academic field, because I fell in with the crowd of story-haters. After almost a decade of reading for academic gain, I'm reading for pleasure again, and I've found the divine something that made me love stories in the first place. This is why I crossed out the sentence in the first paragraph. Neil Stephenson's book is certainly about the eroding of traditional concepts of border, but it's also just a really fucking cool story about war, smart people, computers, and Cap'n Crunch.
I've realized that the absolute dumbest thing you can do is study something you love in college, unless that something is one of the sciences or mathematics, where you genuinely need the massive amounts of resources a university can place at your disposal in order to advance in the field. If you like music, stay away from musicology. If you like stories, stay away from literature. If you like God, then absolutely stay away from theology courses.
Of course, this won't be true for everyone. If you genuinely believe the world operates on a sub-conscious level, that we are all controlled by philosophical ideas spinning in the vortex of our minds, then go become a cultural critic, and write a book about the dairy discourse perpetuated by entrenched power-farmers who seek to keep most of us in chains while offering us only delicious cheese to pay for the labor they steal from our very bones. I, however, will go ask an evolutionary biologist why cheese is so fucking delicious, and where I can get some.
I've always loved stories, and whether those stories are contained in books, comics, video games, or films (pornographic or otherwise), I've been able to transport myself through time and space to really feel myself become part of the stories (especially the pornographic films). Naturally, then, I majored in English Literature in college, where I learned that stories are both banal and a tool for white male imperialists desperately seeking to maintain their tenuous-yet-iron grip on the economic forces that keep them in power while holding down the rest of what could be modern society but is instead, thanks to those aforementioned stories, an ignorant mish-mash of uneducated wage slaves whose only function is to feed the maw of the white-male-ruled military-industrial complex.
 |
| Right on, man, white males ruin everything. Wait...what? |
What I've realized, thanks in part to Stephenson's novel, is that the entire preceding sentence is, for lack of a better phrase, complete and utter horseshit (also see my humorously crossed-out phrase in the first paragraph). Unfortunately, it's also completely and utterly the point of every literature class I've been a part of in the single undergraduate and two graduate institutions I've attended. Assuming that the dominant discourse somehow pervades and greatly affects the quality of your daily life assumes that you have nothing better to do than sit around thinking about the which discourse(s) affect you and how you can somehow use them to facilitate financial gain. This is the life of the social theorist, the cultural critic, and the English major, who, for all their theoretical smarts, still haven't figured out how to do anything that would be considered useful outside of academic circles. If you think you're affected by the oppressiveness of a discourse, congratulations! Your family was rich enough to send you to a college where they taught you about discourses.
 | |
| Thank god our discourse runs the world! |
I've realized that the absolute dumbest thing you can do is study something you love in college, unless that something is one of the sciences or mathematics, where you genuinely need the massive amounts of resources a university can place at your disposal in order to advance in the field. If you like music, stay away from musicology. If you like stories, stay away from literature. If you like God, then absolutely stay away from theology courses.
Of course, this won't be true for everyone. If you genuinely believe the world operates on a sub-conscious level, that we are all controlled by philosophical ideas spinning in the vortex of our minds, then go become a cultural critic, and write a book about the dairy discourse perpetuated by entrenched power-farmers who seek to keep most of us in chains while offering us only delicious cheese to pay for the labor they steal from our very bones. I, however, will go ask an evolutionary biologist why cheese is so fucking delicious, and where I can get some.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Same Old Song and Dance
I know at least one of you has asked yourself recently, "Hey, where's that jerk been? You know, the guy who posts his opinions about things no one asked him about?"
Hi! Here I am! I had been sullenly and silently debating with the only other individual who's opinions count as much as my own, and when I at last manned up and asked my reflection what he thought of overhauling Big Pretentious Words, he said that I should probablystop taking random hallucinogenic drugs handed to me by people on the street just stick to the what I know: everything.
Luckily for him, I agreed. So today I bring you an introduction to the new original Big Pretentious Words. No longer will I attempt to digest and regurgitate my experiences as a graduate student until I begin writing my thesis (t-minus 3 months). Instead, I will be spewing superfluous opinions on Life, The Universe, and Everything, topics about which others (particularly Brits) have written far more concisely and cogently, but not nearly as arrogantly (except Brits). I'd love to be known as the realest motherfucker on the face of the internet, but I'll probably only be thought of as the second half of that title when I'm thought of at all. So be it. Flying under your radar will allow me tosneak unseen into your brain avoid another class-action lawsuit.
To begin, I'd like to mention the rampant charades being paraded around that self-righteous time sink people call social media regarding the Japanese tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis. By the by, if you feel the need to mention the irony of me posting this blog to Facebook, first look up "irony", then look up "trite".
Back to the problem at hand: there is no problem, at least not for almost every single person on my admittedly, and understandably, scant list of Facebook friends. Yet most of them saw fit to mention that they would be "keeping Japan" in their collective "prayers" while their "heart went out" to the Japanese people. All of that is a lie. Most of the people who were most vocal on Facebook probably spent their lunch break doing something like this:
Meanwhile, on an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, this was happening:
If I learned nothing else from kindergarten (and I didn't), it's that actions speak louder (and hit harder) than words. While it's wonderful that you say you're praying for the victims of the tsunami, that won't put clean water in their cups, or food in their stomachs. It won't do anything except make you feel better about eating a $10 salad and let your friends know that you read/watch the news.
And please remember that that being selfish doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a person, a member of the human species whose main goals are survival and reproduction. But in the future, please spare the rest of us the guilt-ridden inner thoughts that drive you to update your status with "OMG Japan is fuuuucked...I feel so bad for them :(" when ten minutes later you're asking whether you should eat a grilled chicken salad or Indian food when you go to lunch.
Hi! Here I am! I had been sullenly and silently debating with the only other individual who's opinions count as much as my own, and when I at last manned up and asked my reflection what he thought of overhauling Big Pretentious Words, he said that I should probably
Luckily for him, I agreed. So today I bring you an introduction to the new original Big Pretentious Words. No longer will I attempt to digest and regurgitate my experiences as a graduate student until I begin writing my thesis (t-minus 3 months). Instead, I will be spewing superfluous opinions on Life, The Universe, and Everything, topics about which others (particularly Brits) have written far more concisely and cogently, but not nearly as arrogantly (except Brits). I'd love to be known as the realest motherfucker on the face of the internet, but I'll probably only be thought of as the second half of that title when I'm thought of at all. So be it. Flying under your radar will allow me to
To begin, I'd like to mention the rampant charades being paraded around that self-righteous time sink people call social media regarding the Japanese tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis. By the by, if you feel the need to mention the irony of me posting this blog to Facebook, first look up "irony", then look up "trite".
Back to the problem at hand: there is no problem, at least not for almost every single person on my admittedly, and understandably, scant list of Facebook friends. Yet most of them saw fit to mention that they would be "keeping Japan" in their collective "prayers" while their "heart went out" to the Japanese people. All of that is a lie. Most of the people who were most vocal on Facebook probably spent their lunch break doing something like this:
 | |||
| "And then Charlie Sheen said his salad was winning!" |
Meanwhile, on an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, this was happening:
 | ||
| "What does the asshole from Men at Work have to do with this?!?" |
And please remember that that being selfish doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you a person, a member of the human species whose main goals are survival and reproduction. But in the future, please spare the rest of us the guilt-ridden inner thoughts that drive you to update your status with "OMG Japan is fuuuucked...I feel so bad for them :(" when ten minutes later you're asking whether you should eat a grilled chicken salad or Indian food when you go to lunch.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
All I Want for Christmas is You (to Shut Up)
I'm more than a little angry about this one, so if I curse, you'll have to accept it and move on. I've been an atheist for almost a decade now, so the concept of Christmas as a religious holiday means very little to me, outside of the fact that the Grinch is on TV fairly frequently. So when I hear this talk of the "War on Christmas", (a term I believe to be copyrighted by Bill O'Reilly), I don't put much stock in it. Apparently, there are actually people in this country who care whether or not a Christmas tree has a star on top of it and a manger underneath it. Even worse, there are people who care whether or not a menorah is on display next to the Christmas tree. Don't you have anything better to worry about? I hear there's a couple of wars happening, with one brewing. Also, shouldn't you be looking for a job since you probably are one of the millions of Americans without one?
Now, I can barely stand religion as it is, but my disgust is particularly poignant during this time of year.
For all you lax-Catholics who think that going to church for midnight mass, Palm Sunday, and Easter Sunday makes you closer to the front of the line for the Rapture Express, stop kidding yourselves. Going to Church three times a year (excluding weddings and funerals) doesn't even give you the RIGHT to be offended, let alone the OBLIGATION to be offended, when the Staten Island ferry removes its manger scene.
Want to know what offends me?? As an atheist, I'm offended by your claiming the country I live in was founded on "Judeo-Christian Values" (a term I believe to be copyrighted by George W. Bush), because it wasn't, no matter how much you want that to be true. Unfortunately, that's how facts work. There is a pile of evidence that Thomas Jefferson himself was an atheist, and the oft-quoted statement, "The government of the United States was in no way founded upon the Christian religion," is attributed to none other thanCaptain America George Washington. Instead of getting mad, how about you take that anger, turn the other cheek, and head to your local soup kitchen and experience those Judeo-Christian values of charity and selflessness first hand.
In New York City, there are countless letters being written to countless editors by countless Christmas curmudgeons who are offended, outraged, incensed, and (one would assume) hopping mad that such-and-such a store didn't say such-and-such a thing but instead said some other thing that wasn't the thing they wanted to hear. How about this solution, chuckles: the next time someone says "Happy Holidays" why don't you just fucking pretend they said "Happy Hanukkah" or "Merry Christmas" instead?
On the flip side, if someone says "Merry Christmas", don't start crying that you're Jewish or Buddhist or an atheist and that the person speaking to you should be sensitive to your particular situation. There comes a point when this whiny sensitivity nonsense needs to stop and we, as a country and as a species, have clearly passed it. Did it really hurt you that the cashier making minimum wage said "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas"? Did it really hurt you enough to complain and get him or her fired? Stop making issues out of things that aren't issues. Trust me, you'll live longer.
And speaking of longer, since when did Christmas start before Halloween? This has been well-documented so I won't dwell on it long, but riddle me this: who buys the most Christmas presents? Christians. Who are the most easily offended by the stores at which they purchase those presents? Christians. You can't have your faith and wrap it in a box to give to your wife too. If the stores offend you that badly, hit them where it hurts the most and stop shopping there. Besides, you really shouldn't be buying your spouse a $10,000 diamond for Christmas unless you ROYALLY fucked up this past year. I thought this season was about celebrating the birth of Jesus (who, by the by, was probably born in the spring)? If you want to get back to the true meaning of Christmas, you need to stop thinking like a capitalist and start thinking like a Christian. When that happens, remember what I said earlier about soup kitchens.
At the end of the day the "holiday season" is whatever you want it to be. Personally, I just enjoy the lights, the decorations, the occasional snow, the TV shows, the hot chocolate, the trees, the ornaments, the stockings, the candles, the colors, and the idea of spending two days with people I love. So why should I care what you call it? Call it the holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, whatever. And wish me a happy whatever you want, because odds are I will be happy, and whatever sentiment you extend to me, I'll return in kind. Remember that the next time you yell at me for wishing you a Merry Christmas because you're Jewish.
Now, I can barely stand religion as it is, but my disgust is particularly poignant during this time of year.
For all you lax-Catholics who think that going to church for midnight mass, Palm Sunday, and Easter Sunday makes you closer to the front of the line for the Rapture Express, stop kidding yourselves. Going to Church three times a year (excluding weddings and funerals) doesn't even give you the RIGHT to be offended, let alone the OBLIGATION to be offended, when the Staten Island ferry removes its manger scene.
Want to know what offends me?? As an atheist, I'm offended by your claiming the country I live in was founded on "Judeo-Christian Values" (a term I believe to be copyrighted by George W. Bush), because it wasn't, no matter how much you want that to be true. Unfortunately, that's how facts work. There is a pile of evidence that Thomas Jefferson himself was an atheist, and the oft-quoted statement, "The government of the United States was in no way founded upon the Christian religion," is attributed to none other than
In New York City, there are countless letters being written to countless editors by countless Christmas curmudgeons who are offended, outraged, incensed, and (one would assume) hopping mad that such-and-such a store didn't say such-and-such a thing but instead said some other thing that wasn't the thing they wanted to hear. How about this solution, chuckles: the next time someone says "Happy Holidays" why don't you just fucking pretend they said "Happy Hanukkah" or "Merry Christmas" instead?
On the flip side, if someone says "Merry Christmas", don't start crying that you're Jewish or Buddhist or an atheist and that the person speaking to you should be sensitive to your particular situation. There comes a point when this whiny sensitivity nonsense needs to stop and we, as a country and as a species, have clearly passed it. Did it really hurt you that the cashier making minimum wage said "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas"? Did it really hurt you enough to complain and get him or her fired? Stop making issues out of things that aren't issues. Trust me, you'll live longer.
And speaking of longer, since when did Christmas start before Halloween? This has been well-documented so I won't dwell on it long, but riddle me this: who buys the most Christmas presents? Christians. Who are the most easily offended by the stores at which they purchase those presents? Christians. You can't have your faith and wrap it in a box to give to your wife too. If the stores offend you that badly, hit them where it hurts the most and stop shopping there. Besides, you really shouldn't be buying your spouse a $10,000 diamond for Christmas unless you ROYALLY fucked up this past year. I thought this season was about celebrating the birth of Jesus (who, by the by, was probably born in the spring)? If you want to get back to the true meaning of Christmas, you need to stop thinking like a capitalist and start thinking like a Christian. When that happens, remember what I said earlier about soup kitchens.
At the end of the day the "holiday season" is whatever you want it to be. Personally, I just enjoy the lights, the decorations, the occasional snow, the TV shows, the hot chocolate, the trees, the ornaments, the stockings, the candles, the colors, and the idea of spending two days with people I love. So why should I care what you call it? Call it the holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, whatever. And wish me a happy whatever you want, because odds are I will be happy, and whatever sentiment you extend to me, I'll return in kind. Remember that the next time you yell at me for wishing you a Merry Christmas because you're Jewish.
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Metal Master Class, Part 1
I get lots of comments from my students and coworkers regarding metal. "Adam, how can we be as metal as you?" "Adam, why are you such an arrogant prick?" "Adam, what the hell is your problem?" "Adam, can you please turn down your amp? I'm trying to teach 'Frolic' in here."
Heavy metal is quite possibly the 3rd most pretentious form of music behind classical and jazz. Its fans are as rabid and knowledgeable about its artists, and are more than willing to put down every other form of music. But the difference with metal is that the majority of metal fans can (and do) actually attempt to play it with minimal training. So without further ado, I present this metal primer, largely inspired by a future angel of metal. Use your new-found powers only for evil.
METAL 101
1) Everything sucks.
2) It wasn't fast enough.
3) It wasn't loud enough.
4) They're playing it wrong. If they're playing it right, you play it better. And faster.
5) There weren't enough guitar solos.
6) Megadeth is better than Metallica. No exceptions.
7) Do as Manowar says AND as Manowar does.
MANOWAR COROLLARY A) Rock, don't pose.
MANOWAR COROLLARY B) Do not wear cracker-jack clothes.
8) There is no middle voice. Your vocal options are Rob Halford or Chuck Schuldiner. Anything else sucks.
9) There's no crying in metal, unless your tears are made of blood (your own or someone else's).
10) Those that try and don't survive don't hit, 'cause they're wimps.
11) It's not a "venue". It's a "hall". And if you're not into metal, you can leave it.
12) The proper stance for metal musicians watching other metal musicians is arms folded across your chest, with a smug look of disdain on your face, especially during a solo by whatever instrument you play.
EXCLUSION CLAUSE: Rule 12 does not apply if you are a drummer watching Richard Christy, a guitar player watching Marty Friedman, or a bass player watching Steve Harris.
13) Emphasize T's in words, especially meTal.
14) BE ABLE TO READ MUSIC. In case someone tries to prove that old joke about a rock musician and his or her volume, you can shock the hell out of them when you rip through a single-voice "Ode to Joy" with both the gain and volume on 10. And the metronome on 208.
15) Be able to hold your liquor (21+ only). Puking is NOT metal, sobbing is NOT metal, and trying to lead a slurred sing-along of "Sweet Home Alabama" is CERTAINLY not metal.
16) For all situations not covered by this list, refer to rule 7.
If you follow these rules, you will succeed in your dream of becoming meTal, and in so doing add to my ever-growing army of the undead. Feel free to suggest additions, even though they'll suck.
Heavy metal is quite possibly the 3rd most pretentious form of music behind classical and jazz. Its fans are as rabid and knowledgeable about its artists, and are more than willing to put down every other form of music. But the difference with metal is that the majority of metal fans can (and do) actually attempt to play it with minimal training. So without further ado, I present this metal primer, largely inspired by a future angel of metal. Use your new-found powers only for evil.
METAL 101
1) Everything sucks.
2) It wasn't fast enough.
3) It wasn't loud enough.
4) They're playing it wrong. If they're playing it right, you play it better. And faster.
5) There weren't enough guitar solos.
6) Megadeth is better than Metallica. No exceptions.
7) Do as Manowar says AND as Manowar does.
MANOWAR COROLLARY A) Rock, don't pose.
MANOWAR COROLLARY B) Do not wear cracker-jack clothes.
8) There is no middle voice. Your vocal options are Rob Halford or Chuck Schuldiner. Anything else sucks.
9) There's no crying in metal, unless your tears are made of blood (your own or someone else's).
10) Those that try and don't survive don't hit, 'cause they're wimps.
11) It's not a "venue". It's a "hall". And if you're not into metal, you can leave it.
12) The proper stance for metal musicians watching other metal musicians is arms folded across your chest, with a smug look of disdain on your face, especially during a solo by whatever instrument you play.
EXCLUSION CLAUSE: Rule 12 does not apply if you are a drummer watching Richard Christy, a guitar player watching Marty Friedman, or a bass player watching Steve Harris.
13) Emphasize T's in words, especially meTal.
14) BE ABLE TO READ MUSIC. In case someone tries to prove that old joke about a rock musician and his or her volume, you can shock the hell out of them when you rip through a single-voice "Ode to Joy" with both the gain and volume on 10. And the metronome on 208.
15) Be able to hold your liquor (21+ only). Puking is NOT metal, sobbing is NOT metal, and trying to lead a slurred sing-along of "Sweet Home Alabama" is CERTAINLY not metal.
16) For all situations not covered by this list, refer to rule 7.
If you follow these rules, you will succeed in your dream of becoming meTal, and in so doing add to my ever-growing army of the undead. Feel free to suggest additions, even though they'll suck.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Don't Yous Gets No Idears
Unfortunately for pretty much every single person that knows me, two of my favorite discussion topics are politics and religion. Now, everyone knows the taboo regarding such discussions. Apparently it's something that shouldn't be done, even amongst friends. When did this development occur? I'm fairly certain that America exists because a bunch of rich men, including an author/inventor, a slave-owning tobacco farmer, and a career military man sat around one day smoking hemp and discussing the current political structure of their little system of colonies. So why, when I bring up the current political structures, do I get a sea of nervous faces, or, occasionally, angry rebukes? It seems to my somewhat-paranoid brain that this social taboo is part of an effort to reduce intelligent debate that may or may not be critical of entrenched world power structures. Or, to cleverly reference my own title, "they don't wants us gettin' no idears."
I think this conclusion is best illustrated by the rampant anti-intellectualism and gradual dumbing-down of people in the United States. We rank below the top 20 in world-wide education, and that includes K-12 Math and Science (48th, USA Today 9/26/10), Literacy (21st, UN Literacy Report 2009), and Medical Science (37th, WHO 2000). Even scarier is the fact that, ranked above us on these lists, are countries including Cambodia, Colombia, Malaysia, Slovenia, Chile, Indonesia, etc. These are countries with notoriously restrictive political regimes, and, in our supposedly free society, education is apparently highly discouraged. Or, more precisely, the application of education to question/critique the government in a public setting among strangers or friends is highly discouraged.
Of course, I'm not saying one need be highly educated to discuss politics. In fact, the opposite is true. If something the government is doing feels wrong, then it probably is. Yet the taboo prevents us from piping up amongst our brethren. It stops us from attempting to organize! If at a bar I decide to say, "You know what bothers me? This whole stupid healthcare reform bill that Obama pushed through Congress instead of creating jobs. It doesn't even work!", the most common response will be "Yeah man, it sucks but what are we gonna do? Besides, we're drinking, there's no room for that kinda stuff now." Then we return to watching the Yankees or Giants while I sit there seething.
My politics are no secret. If you're reading this, you probably know where I stand on most current issues. But for posterity's sake, let me say this: I love the Tea Party. I'll repeat that in case you fainted. I love the Tea Party. Now, I hate their message, and I hate their leaders, and I vehemently disagree with almost every single person who belongs to it. But they organized. They were unhappy with the government, and they all discussed it, and they all organized. They ignored the taboo because enough was enough in their eyes. They rallied behind common leaders and a semi-common message, and managed to get their candidates through a primary against comically-entrenched incumbent Republicans.
That's the kind of thing that happens when people discuss politics. They tend to organize and group under a banner, which is a scary thing for an entrenched power structure to witness. After all, governments are, ideally, beholden to the social contract. If a government's people aren't happy, that government shouldn't be happy. I'll go one further and say that if a government's people aren't happy, that government should be scared. The unwritten social taboo that forbids discussion of politics in public settings, with friends or strangers, needs to go the way of other, similarly-dangerous social taboos, such as women working or men being allowed to hit their wives or people with AIDS being forbidden from drinking at water fountains. It's common sense that politics are important in each of our lives, and the free exchange of ideas via political debates amongst friends shouldn't fall victim to the culture of stupidity.
Then again, a big part of what I seek rests on people's ability to agree to disagree sometimes. Maybe this isn't such a hot idear after all...
I think this conclusion is best illustrated by the rampant anti-intellectualism and gradual dumbing-down of people in the United States. We rank below the top 20 in world-wide education, and that includes K-12 Math and Science (48th, USA Today 9/26/10), Literacy (21st, UN Literacy Report 2009), and Medical Science (37th, WHO 2000). Even scarier is the fact that, ranked above us on these lists, are countries including Cambodia, Colombia, Malaysia, Slovenia, Chile, Indonesia, etc. These are countries with notoriously restrictive political regimes, and, in our supposedly free society, education is apparently highly discouraged. Or, more precisely, the application of education to question/critique the government in a public setting among strangers or friends is highly discouraged.
Of course, I'm not saying one need be highly educated to discuss politics. In fact, the opposite is true. If something the government is doing feels wrong, then it probably is. Yet the taboo prevents us from piping up amongst our brethren. It stops us from attempting to organize! If at a bar I decide to say, "You know what bothers me? This whole stupid healthcare reform bill that Obama pushed through Congress instead of creating jobs. It doesn't even work!", the most common response will be "Yeah man, it sucks but what are we gonna do? Besides, we're drinking, there's no room for that kinda stuff now." Then we return to watching the Yankees or Giants while I sit there seething.
My politics are no secret. If you're reading this, you probably know where I stand on most current issues. But for posterity's sake, let me say this: I love the Tea Party. I'll repeat that in case you fainted. I love the Tea Party. Now, I hate their message, and I hate their leaders, and I vehemently disagree with almost every single person who belongs to it. But they organized. They were unhappy with the government, and they all discussed it, and they all organized. They ignored the taboo because enough was enough in their eyes. They rallied behind common leaders and a semi-common message, and managed to get their candidates through a primary against comically-entrenched incumbent Republicans.
That's the kind of thing that happens when people discuss politics. They tend to organize and group under a banner, which is a scary thing for an entrenched power structure to witness. After all, governments are, ideally, beholden to the social contract. If a government's people aren't happy, that government shouldn't be happy. I'll go one further and say that if a government's people aren't happy, that government should be scared. The unwritten social taboo that forbids discussion of politics in public settings, with friends or strangers, needs to go the way of other, similarly-dangerous social taboos, such as women working or men being allowed to hit their wives or people with AIDS being forbidden from drinking at water fountains. It's common sense that politics are important in each of our lives, and the free exchange of ideas via political debates amongst friends shouldn't fall victim to the culture of stupidity.
Then again, a big part of what I seek rests on people's ability to agree to disagree sometimes. Maybe this isn't such a hot idear after all...
Saturday, November 13, 2010
"Do You Actually Like that Shit?"
The title of today's rather brief musings comes verbatim from a friend of mine who posed that question to me last night. He was wondering, in that slightly arrogant but unpretentious way of his, if teaching guitar was really musically satisfying to me. With the annual rock concert looming on the horizon (i.e., tomorrow), I can unequivocally answer that with an emphatic "yes."
One of the nice things about being pretentious is that you feel a sort of responsibility to back your mouth up. In my case, that involves being able to discuss French intellectualism while simultaneously ripping a guitar solo. Even better than that, though, is the fact that I get paid to teach other people how to rip solos too. How can that NOT be musically satisfying? The feeling I get when a student lights up with that "Eureeka!" moment is completely unmatched. It's the culmination of countless hours of lesson preparation and execution on my part alongside diligent practice on the student's part, and his or her ascension to the next level of musicianship is just the coolest thing ever. You can actually see the fire inside them burn brighter, and you know you've just created a monster.
Of course, it's not all happy-fun-sunshine-time when teaching. Let's face it: there are some people who have no business picking up a musical instrument, and they are only there to kill time or because their parents are forcing them to go. HOWEVER, the flip-side of that down-side is when you actually manage to break through to one of those lunatics and they start to get just how awesome music can be. When the kid who's hated music and lessons for 3 months all of a sudden improves by leaps and bounds and starts asking for more homework, I feel the same teacher-pride as when the naturals finally master that Bach piece or the bridge from whatever ridiculous prog-metal epic they asked me to transcribe.
And before you try to out-pretentious me and tell me music students shouldn't be learning prog-metal and instead should be focusing on classical/jazz/theory/technique/whatever stupid thing you think is most important, believe me when I say that music itself is the most important thing that a music teacher should teach. And that's why this job is so deeply satisfying to me. If I accomplish absolutely nothing else in my life (perhaps as a result of a tragic lawnmower accident), I know that I've inspired more than a few kids to love and share music. That isn't an arrogance thing either, just in case you were wondering. Both kids and parents have approached me and thanked me for bringing music into their lives, and unlike most other times I say this phrase, I can honestly say it was both my pleasure and privilege to do so.
One of the nice things about being pretentious is that you feel a sort of responsibility to back your mouth up. In my case, that involves being able to discuss French intellectualism while simultaneously ripping a guitar solo. Even better than that, though, is the fact that I get paid to teach other people how to rip solos too. How can that NOT be musically satisfying? The feeling I get when a student lights up with that "Eureeka!" moment is completely unmatched. It's the culmination of countless hours of lesson preparation and execution on my part alongside diligent practice on the student's part, and his or her ascension to the next level of musicianship is just the coolest thing ever. You can actually see the fire inside them burn brighter, and you know you've just created a monster.
Of course, it's not all happy-fun-sunshine-time when teaching. Let's face it: there are some people who have no business picking up a musical instrument, and they are only there to kill time or because their parents are forcing them to go. HOWEVER, the flip-side of that down-side is when you actually manage to break through to one of those lunatics and they start to get just how awesome music can be. When the kid who's hated music and lessons for 3 months all of a sudden improves by leaps and bounds and starts asking for more homework, I feel the same teacher-pride as when the naturals finally master that Bach piece or the bridge from whatever ridiculous prog-metal epic they asked me to transcribe.
And before you try to out-pretentious me and tell me music students shouldn't be learning prog-metal and instead should be focusing on classical/jazz/theory/technique/whatever stupid thing you think is most important, believe me when I say that music itself is the most important thing that a music teacher should teach. And that's why this job is so deeply satisfying to me. If I accomplish absolutely nothing else in my life (perhaps as a result of a tragic lawnmower accident), I know that I've inspired more than a few kids to love and share music. That isn't an arrogance thing either, just in case you were wondering. Both kids and parents have approached me and thanked me for bringing music into their lives, and unlike most other times I say this phrase, I can honestly say it was both my pleasure and privilege to do so.
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