Words are failing me, and I'm not going to take up more space spinning here. It's terrible. People shouldn't have to mourn the untimely death of students (or anyone). It's easy to sit comfortably and ponder and pontificate about this. But I'm not connected to it directly, and it's just disrespectful to those who lost their lives for nothing. So while I'll read, and I'll think about it, and I'll fret over the unfortunate thoughts that people have around possible backlash... I just can't talk about it much right now. Stay tuned into the brother at Angry Asian Man, who's doing a good job of revealing some of the craziness on different angles of this tragedy.
It's just infuriating that people will use this human tragedy as fodder for their personal agendas, from gun control to anti-immigrant rhetoric. Have some respect for the families. Shut up for a while. Just reminds me of what I was feeling about September 11th and New York for a long time. Too many voices, not enough silence, at least outside of NYC. Inside, we were all silent, broken, together.
Apr 17, 2007
V-Tech.
Apr 12, 2007
Hightstown, NJ and the Know-Nothings.
Check out this story in the Washington Post.
I heard the mayor of Hightstown on an NPR show at the same time as the Mayor of crazy-land Hazleton PA. It was a world of difference, and i have to give the Mayor of Hightstown a lot of credit. He's standing up and saying "these are new members of our community, and we're not going to ignore that." What the know-nothings and isolationists don't want to understand, or what they don't want to agree, is that citizenship or immigration status is not suddenly a clear indicator of worthy and unworthy people. They don't want to even use words that recognize people as people. What the fuck is an alien? I'm sick to tears of people using that stupid word to talk about humans. I mean, take your ass to Roswell if you want aliens.
But we've seen this before, haven't we? The know-nothings, and I'm using that deliberately, of course, may not want to recognize the clear line that we can draw between the language of "aliens" and "illegal people" and the terminology used to describe black people in this country, the fractions used to designate their "white man equivalency." Treating people like chattel was the past - now folks are being characterized as not even being part of this world. Whatever dudes.
Anyway, the Hightstown mayor had it right, recognizing that people want to be active members of their new communities, but it's not so easy when there's so much hate in your face. And these folks who take it upon themselves to write and call in talking about the "rule of law" in this country and how important it is to follow the law are so full of shit it's coming out of their mouths. The vast majority of people are not law-abiding in some way, shape or form. How often do you speed, Mr. Crazed Caller? And how is it that you want such stringent law enforcement in this and other particular issues, but all that cable you've been stealing, or income you're not reporting, or workers you're hiring to fix your roof off the books, well you don't really talk about that, do you? Law-abiding my ass. As if the people in power are following the laws any more than the average crook in a CEO office.
You are anti-immigrant. And you don't care what the "legality" of the situation is. Do you really have such moral indignation about someone breaking the law? Why do I find that so hard to believe when you don't take similar time out of your "busy" schedule to call out the United States government for breaking its own laws over and over again on the domestic front AND internationally? Do you think that the Feds don't know the laws? Didn't they write them? Don't you think they should be held to a higher standard than people who don't have the fancy educations, the million dollar trust funds, and the ability to have a defacto poor people's draft to support the military-oildriller complex while their kids are living it up in private schools? Why doesn't that piss you off more than people trying to make a better life for themselves? Why are you so stupid?
Somehow, you think you own this country, and that you have some important say in what happens to it - as if the government gives a shit about what you think. And some of you realize that, and that's why you become libertarians - not only because you believe you should hoard your own gold, but you don't believe in creating a society that moves beyond the name-calling and intolerance that makes the U.S. the laughing stock of the industrialized world ("oh yeah, well here's a nuke in your direction, France/Canada/whoever else is laughing at me behind my back!"). Libertarians just want to check out of the "civic nation" altogether. With the Dems and Elephants as they are, it's hard to blame them sometimes. With all our money going down the drain in war and energy efforts, sure the common joe wants to blame something. But the situation isn't going to improve until he says "you know what? Pedro and Prakash aren't my problem - it's Georgie and Dick."
But the head's stuck in the sand, and all you can do is gather yourself up in a bold dash of writing, or a rally once in a while, to say "damn you, immigrants! you're the reason life is hard!" Sorry buddy, but if you're so comfortable (and you are), you don't know what kind of a fight we're talking about. You're not really in danger of losing everything. You and your supersized fast food meals, your supersized vehicle that you drive everywhere, your supersized ass because you don't exercise anymore... who do you think is going to be taking care of you when you keel over with your health issues? Who's going to be the real working backbone of this nation when you retire? Do you even understand how social security works? People have to pay into it, idiot. Maybe you should stop pissing them off.
Pledge.
I'm so tired of hearing the overwhelming polarization in this country around issues of race, class, political party (it's not even real debate on the last of these - just name-calling, dug-in positional disputes, and people talking over one another). Anyway, so not that I'm helping with this post, but I was doing some research, and came across this photo of American kids using the "Bellamy salute" during their pledge of allegiance.
The practice was ended during/after World War II for obvious reasons, but the irony can't be lost on too many people. It's just another in a string of weird parallels and unnerving places where the "admiration" or just "independent" convergences are quite uncomfortable... such as Hitler's modeling of concentration camps and strategies on the American attempted extermination of the Indian tribes...
America: Freedom to Fascism
Okay, so this dude, who produced such fine hits as "The Rose" and "Trading Places," is a bit of a libertarian, so I'm not fully on point with him, but I have to say, the income tax stuff and definitely the REAL ID stuff is pretty crazy. This is the full movie, but you can check out shorter versions or trailers on YouTube.
This kind of film owes so much to Michael Moore that it's hard to watch it without thinking "seen it." But the question of the personal income tax, and where the mandate has come from is a good one.
Apr 9, 2007
Permit me, this morning, a little mush. I have the best life-partner in the world. She's patient with all my noodling, my ability to feign adult ADD quite convincingly, and the occassional (?) bouts of hardheadedness, mood swings, neurosis, and egomania that take over. And she does it with grace. I know I haven't been the most attentive, and if this log is any indication... well, this site is another of many seemingly competing things, all vying for my attention. Well, you're not a thing, and you don't need to be in the competition with everything else. That's silly. And I realize that. So here's a big-up to my partner, my dear friend, my road buddy. Time will open up for both of us, and though I may not be writing about much of it here, life will be as bright as the sun on this cold April morning.
Read More......Apr 6, 2007
Kill a Scene: The Hipster Dilemma.
Permit me a bit of a rant. I can't stand hipsters. I feel like they're infecting all the places that I like to go where I think I'll be able to escape the faddism of general pop culture and all the fakeness that comes out of it. But of course, this fungus has spread into so many spaces that it's killing me. I've been asked what I think a hipster is. Well, to me, it's someone who dresses very particularly to look like s/he isn't trying to achieve a particular look, which I guess isn't as rigid of a definition as the requisite uniforms of folks who actually commit to a genre.
And maybe that's the thing: hipsters are ultimately people who are so noncommittal, to anything and everything, that they shift from fad to fad, playing it off as if they are at the "edge" of the cool, while fucking up the vibe for the rest of us in our respective "just around the corner" spots. How do you chill in a spot where people are trying so conspicuously to seem like they're supposed to be there? Especially when the race factor comes into play, though a friend made the observation that the "people of color on stage to hipster ratio is like, 1 to 5." But still, there's this weird dynamic when you have people coming to events because it's alt.pop, and that means that it's either political, "ethnic," or in some other way underground.
These hipsters, the folks with the wardrobes carefully chosen and hair tossed just right to make them look disaffected, nonplussed, and casual, must either be massively networked to come out to shows and events in such brute force nowadays, or it's just that some events are clear magnets for their ilk. Wow. I just found this article, which much more succinctly sums up many of the elements of what I hate about hipsters. They are not counter-culture or post-mainstream. The piece actually makes it out well: they are the new mainstream, especially in urban spots like Brooklyn and San Fran. It's this commodification of "cool," or trying to be cool, that really annoys the shit out of me. I like people who go deep in things. I enjoy conversations with folks who are actually really into something, and have been with it for a while. There's a harmonic vibe I feel from that, and if the person is talking about fly-fishing but seems to love being able to share it, well, that's awesome, and I do my best to keep along.
But what do hipsters talk about? I mean, do they have much depth? And is what I feel true: that they're mainly just a bunch of well-off white kids trying to create a "bohemian" lifestyle without any of the passion, ideals, or at least "I don't give a fuck" attitude of past (and current) groups? I just don't get it. I love hanging out with true bohos. Because they just don't care about what everyone else is doing. It's sort of the East Village of the not-so-distant past, when you just felt more free to express and explore who you were, and you had this loose community of people who were doing the same thing, and finally didn't feel like freaks for liking stuff that was non-mainstream and out there. It wasn't a "Scene"... it was just a bunch of micro-scenes that people went in and out of, but it wasn't as faddy as hipster "culture" (I cringe at giving hipster tendencies any cultural significance). It's just weird. I mean, if you seem to eschew the mainstream, you should be thinking about capitalism and marketing and what elements of "cool" are being marketed to you and what you're just reinforcing with your actions.
But that level of consciousness is completely lacking in the hipsters I've come into contact with. It's epic narcissism, with white kids looking at themselves and thinking that they're creating some kind of new tribe of the cool. I don't see hipsters as being a real community, but I may be wrong. I mean, I think it's ultimately every dude for himself. And "I think I'm cooler than you." It's like high school all over again. But in this weird way where instead of just keeping away from the metal heads and the brown and black kids and saying "look how uncool," the popular clique is coming to our events, getting up in our spaces, and making that their playground as part of their coolness.
Hipsters seem like just another weird outgrowth of white privilege, fucking up the vibe in vibrant subcultures as they go, essentially asserting a right to be there and leave there with no respect for anything. Basically - anyone should feel free to step into a scene, but not just to be seen, know what I mean? And that's what annoys me more than anything. Just freakin' commit already. I guess their apolitical nature also bothers me - there's nothing less counter-culture than just sucking up to the materialism that's around us, and not having anything critical to add to the dialogue. I mean, at least the Marxists sitting in their coffee shops talking about the revolution are still engaging things in some way. Hipsters are just mold on the food that is our culture.
I almost feel like skipping the stuff I'd rather go to, which has become infested with hipsters at every turn, and just going to something so over the top that they wouldn't be caught dead there for fear of being branded uncool. I mean, isn't Genesis touring again? Or is Yanni around? Suddenly the hyper-commercialized becomes so anti-hip that it's hip?
Is that the game we have to play? Fuck it cousin, I'm just unplugging if this is how it's gonna go. I'll cook my own food to stay away from them in the cheap eats around town. I'll start my own band and play in my head for hours, safe from the hordes. I'll visit folks and skip consumer leisure culture all together. And when those mofos catch on that it's the next movement, I'm locking my door behind me.
Apr 1, 2007
I for India: On Lata, Leaving, Longing, and Losing Our History.
I recently had the very good fortune to see I for India - a family documentary that touches on the emmigrant experience of a particular family that settled in the U.K. If you can see this film, I highly recommend it. It's a very personal look through the eyes of the family itself, because they used the medium of film to keep in touch with the family they left behind in the United Kingdom. The loving arrangement of these fragments was made by the youngest of three daughters and interspersed with amusing and illuminating BBC and other clips, as well as present-day segments with the filmmaker's parents, the emigrants who straddled two worlds in their quest for a new life, and even tried to return to India.
I'm not going to go into the play-by-play on this one. Just check it out. However, there were a few scenes that really touched me. There's a scene that has the filmmaker's father in the present day, going through his morning routine (and at other times going through mundane, home-owner chores like property maintenance) with his headphones on. The filmmaker smartly takes us inside the 'phones, and gives us a blast of old school filmi music from the greats of Bollywood. I couldn't name the song, but I'd heard it countless times before while growing up, and as the images on the screen segued from a small town in the UK in the 21st Century to older 8mm film from India, I felt like I was traveling down the winding road of memories with him.
And it was at that point that I started to think about my parents, and by extension, many emigrants from India and Pakistan who left bright-eyed and ready to study or work in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I don't know a lot about their stories beyond the touchstones ($8 in my pocket, going to Chinese markets to get Indian vegetables) that we always take for granted. But I do think that there are some things that lie just beneath the surface about their big trip out here, into the unknown and away from their loved ones and the reassuring feeling of belonging just because you look like everyone else.
It's nothing like what immigrants to urban areas in the UK and the USA face now. Even though the earlier generation was well-educated and/or relatively affluent, I imagine that the predominantly bachelor population had a bit of a shock having to do many of the household activities for themselves. They didn't have the option of going out for food and conveniences from home that most H1-Bs take for granted now, and had to either cook, or adapt to the new environment (with many bringing a less than climactic end to the countless generations who preceded them without taking drink, cigarette, or meat).
Nor did they have the regular communication back home in the years predating low-cost and accessible internet (or even international long distance). Forget that, getting the news of back home was probably quite difficult in the UK and nearly impossible in the United States of the 50s and 60s. So they were on their own, and left to their own devices to survive, to make a home for themselves, and find some comfort in what was likely a cold place. Imagining that time, and thinking of how much was changing in the United States, especially with Kennedy's election, his assassination, the war in Viet Nam, and the growing importance of political protest in the culture of the time, I just wonder what it was like for that generation of people who came to the U.S. to study or to work. What was it like for folks who came from inherently conservative backgrounds to be in the United States at the time when it was arguably at it's most liberal? When revolution was actually something more than the rhetorical exercise its become in the States. Many of my friends speak of the 60s and even early 70s as the time they wish they were around, and active, because of how many things were coming up at that time, and how much (at least in our looking back at their history) it seems like people were actually engaged and willing to be more engaged. But it seems that many of us forget that we likely know folks who were here during all of it. Our parents, our uncles and aunties, a family who we've been in touch with through our many informal desi networks. But have we ever asked them of their impressions, when Watts and other urban centers were burning... when the 4 students were shot at Kent State... when Fred Hampton was killed by the FBI? Or do we fear that nothing beyond the big assassinations really registered?
Anyway, aside from the context in which they came, they were probably met with curiosity in the U.S. (or downright racism), and I can't even imagine the range of reactions in the UK where the scar from the colonial "umbilical cord" was still fresh. Still, as curiosities, they were probably spared the virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric that bleeds into most mainstream media in the present day. But without their own media outlets, the earlier wave of desi immigrants missed out on more than just the news: they also missed out on music and the simple comfort of turning on the radio and hearing songs that would remind them of growing up, of their parents, of home. But for whatever reason, and in whatever way, their connection to that music is incredible. Songs that they haven't heard in decades come flooding back when happen upon them, and their memory of when they first heard the song, or when they first saw the movie, is often impeccable. Somehow, the ability to recall the year of release seems to be very prevalent with a particular generation, and it's not limited to just the men - the aunties can bring it too.
Perhaps their separation from their homes and the music that enveloped them through much of their formative years (whether consciously or not), and the shock of arrival created a more developed connection with that music. But is that explanation sufficient?
When I think of my family members and uncles and aunties I know from India, and their depth of recognition of popular songs from Hindi films, and the emotional ties they have to that music rivals anything I know from my friends or myself. The music and love of the songs from that particular time (40s, 50s, 60s) is not a casual exercise for many of these folks, even though they did not own much of the music while growing up. It was radio, maybe more than the movies themselves, that soldered the songs to their memories, creating a link that has stayed with them through the great journey over the ocean and into America.
And the amount of music that they know off the top of their heads, and the connection between those songs, their memories, and who they are is astounding. For a long time, as an American/British popular music enthusiast, I scoffed at the relative paucity of music in India that was independent of the film industry. The link between the movies and the music, though, is making more sense to me, especially in the context of immigrants who are removed from the lives and worlds that they remember. While folks listen to songs/music many times, especially when linked to their emotions or memories, there's something more profound about the way that songs from Indian films end up having both a very personal connection for our folks, and also a visual element because of the films in which they were housed. It's difficult to separate the soaring duets by the famous singers from the actors/actresses who were likely in mind when the songs were conceived for the films in which they appeared. Take the interplay between emotional weight of the song from within the film, and then the emotional pull of that song within the listener's own life, and suddenly, you have emotional content that's far more potent than most pop music in other contexts. I guess the best analogue we may have is musical theater in the United States, for the folks who have the privilege of seeing really good shows and being affected by them - Rent is the obvious choice for me, but I have similar feelings for songs from Les Miserables, Sunday in the Park with George, and a few others. It's the combined effect of the music, the lyrics, the delivery, and the context. And getting context beyond the song itself is helpful to bond your emotions to those songs.
I remember going through my Dad's records while growing up, and just passing right by all the desi records to get to a Muppets 45 that we had, or later on, to discover the copy of Abbey Road that he'd bought, which now hangs on my sister's apartment wall. But I went back home recently and dug out the records that Mom had stored carefully, even though we hadn't had a working record player in the house for well over 15 years. I was amazed at what was there - more than just for the retro-cool of having Bollywood paraphernalia that didn't reek of the new schmalzy palette of the 21st Century, but because these records represented, for folks who were pretty modest in what they bought and kept, some kind of connection to home, to belonging, and perhaps even to their childhoods and adolescent years. I was suddenly filled with more regret that I didn't take the chance to go through these records and garner some of their stories when I had the chance.
Maybe some of the 45s actually came with my Dad from India when he first came here in the early sixties to study, though given how little money he had, that's pretty unlikely. Maybe they came with his brother, who he sponsored in the early seventies. Some of the 45s are in thin plastic sleeves that have a record store's name printed on them - a store from Bombay. Maybe some of the records were part of some prized collection that he took care of when he studied in Bombay. But that's incredibly unlikely as well, because he wouldn't have had a record player in India.
But sadly, the possibilities of where these records were from, and how they fit into the puzzle of my father's life in India and in the United States are not comforting to me. They are pieces of a relationship that I didn't put together quickly enough, when the time was in front of me. And I don't want to create fiction about something that is so hardwired into who I am. I want to collect and understand where these things fit in the past. I want to recreate what really happened. I want to see my father eye-to-eye through the few things that he left behind of who he was.
Ignoring our own histories in the effort to emphasize the injustices felt by newer economic migrants doesn't really help them. It just makes the middle class activist more likely to ignore stories of early immigration, acculturation, and resistance that don't fit the mold of "the most oppressed" group within the community or direct action or organizing. The motives for their resistance to discrimination and misunderstanding may not comport cleanly with our goals for critical analysis and desire for a break from the capitalism that brought them here to begin with. Their "making it" (economic assimilation, if not cultural) after initial difficulties may seem to argue against the whole project of discussing their history to begin with.
But denying their history or its personal import makes us somewhat rootless. Rootless in way that is unlike those people in poor communities with whom we want so much to identify, to work with and on behalf of (for non-organizers). We deny these stories from within our own families because we perceive that the minor injustices and difficulties that we think our parents faced register as less immediate, less pressing than what people are dealing with now. But I'd argue that we need to ask these questions. We need to document these stories, if not for some larger movement, then at least for our personal histories and to pay the proper tribute to our parents who made it through cultural upheaval in a way that few of us will ever experience. So even when we're talking about middle class privilege, and while we keep their experiences within the broader context of the different waves of immigration and the difficulty that poor and uneducated immigrants have in this American society, we should keep in mind that the stories of our parents are still interesting, affecting, and part of the mosaic of our communities in this country.
And I think that more than anything, I for India really recognized this, without overemphasizing their struggle in the UK or anything else. It was clearly a labor of love to her parents, and it made me think of how much time I've lost without asking some of these questions. Some of which I will never get to ask.
Giving Up Liberty for Freedom
This is quite telling. And it flies in the face of Michael Moore's hopeful assertion that only the United States was "shoot to kill" crazy. I guess it's okay to give up people's liberty when you aren't as at risk to be chased and shot in the head 8 times because you happened to be an immigrant and tensions were high around "national security."
Mar 29, 2007
Kenyan Diaspora and a New Politics of Culture/Identity
I found this 3-part article on African Path to be a good read, especially because while looking at matters of the global Kenyan diaspora, it asks more interesting questions about national identity and the role of nationalism in the shaping of a new cultural/political identity back home. Check it out.
Read More......Mar 28, 2007
The Bay.
Planning out a trip to the Bay Area for the first time in my life. At first, I didn't really think I'd have a lot to see - I know some folks out there, but not that many. Then I started to think about how so many strands in my life seem to come together on those winding streets, and I can't wait for when I can visit and explore some of it.
For example... my favorite genre of metal - thrash - has many of its standard-holders coming from out of the bay.
Asian America, the movement and the arts scene, were born on the streets of San Francisco. It's hard not to think of Wittman Ah-Sing or his inspiration, Frank Chin or the Kearny Street Workshop when you think "Asian American art," actually. Or the I-Hotel. Or the Ghadar party, for that matter.
The Summer of Love, and so much of the music and hope of that heady time all trace back to San Francisco. When we wish that we lived in the 60s, which so many of the idealistic set do (I guess, thinking that race wouldn't be an issue there, which is of course, stupid), I don't think we're thinking of Chicago, or Boston, or even New York. It's all about the Bay.
I think of the beat generation, of cafes with people reading, writing, thinking. I feel like SF is the logical sibling of NYC, and that the distaste that NY'ers have for LA is probably pretty analogous to what Bay Area folks feel for LA. Though looking at it from a distance, SF seems like it may be a bit more pure than NY, if only because NY has its superstars and Fifth Avenue to match the Sunset Strip and LA's artifice, but I don't know whether that's the case in SF.
My friends have told me that the boho experience that I remember so fondly from mid-90s East Village (still after the real wave in the 70s and 80s), would comport nicely with SF. That there is a good possibility that I wouldn't want to come back, though learning another city that has so much history seems daunting, and at my age, a little unwieldy.
I've heard from others that folks don't let too much phase them, and while I get annoyed sometimes at everyone being on edge in NYC, there's something about the edginess that keeps me awake and vibrant, and I don't know if the activism in the Bay Area is as grounded in hyper-reality. Still, it may be easier to sustain the work if you're not fighting against the neighbors, the weather, and the system as much as you seem to be in NYC.
So with all the art, and community, and history out in the area - with the ability to check out Kearny Street, and Alcatraz, and Angel Island, and a Chinatown that I can finally give some respect to, I'm definitely excited about a prospective trip. Let's see if it all pans out.
Mar 27, 2007
Afro-Punk & Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
I've been promising, among other things, a quick take on the really interesting documentary Afro-Punk that I picked up through NetFlix. I've not gotten around to it until now, and in the interim, I checked out Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, which definitely merits some airtime as well.
There are two very different docs, but both take on genres and subcultures that are altogether unknown to the mainstream. Afro-Punk isn't trying to be a retrospective history of punk - it's really looking at the intersection of race and the genre, primarily through a bunch of interviews with a bunch of young and long-time fans, as well as a few punk veterans. For someone like me, who is so new to the genre, and not a convert to punk, though punk elements in the metal that I love definitely appeal to me (early Maiden/NWOBHM, etc), it was an eye-opener.
Also, because the film kept race front-and-center, I found the questions, approach, and gems that they uncovered incredibly interesting. The filmmaker had a light tough, enough so that you didn't feel like he was trying to make some profound statement from the film. It asked a few questions, found a bunch of interesting people, and just gave us a brief introduction to their place in a genre of music that's so often associated with unhappy white kids that you forget that some of the real trailblazers, like Bad Brains, like members of a bunch of groups, were actually black.
My favorite part was when he had a bunch of the interviewees, in rapid succession, saying that they were the only black kid at punk shows growing up. It's just awesome to hear like 10-15 people say the same thing. And you think "I wish I could have them all meet each other!" There's also something refreshing about the do-it-yourself aspect of punk - I was pretty inspired to see/hear folks talk about it - the race didn't really matter - it was the attitude. And finally, one sister was really deep because of the way that she identified the music, and the culture of punk - from the haircuts to the tattoos and piercings, with specific traditions in Africa. It was quite powerful to hear her talk about it, and talk about how much she was mocked or told that she was "acting white" by folks in her neighborhood, when she flipped it and said "actually, I'm getting closer to a culture that we lost."
It's pretty powerful, and I appreciated her take on it. Regardless, the film moved smoothly, there was enough cool stuff that was known and stuff that was unknown (at least to me, a neophyte to the culture), and I have to say, some of it was damn funny. Not to ruin the film, but there's a moment when the guys from TV on the Radio are asked to name all the groups that had black members, and they went through a list, and eventually said "The Clash... because they *had* to be black" and quickly followed it up with, "the whole scene is full of them!" I guess you have to see it.
So with that rave review of Afro-Punk, which was very satisfying as a film, I have to move on the Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, which suddenly found itself high on my Netflix list and in my DVD player quickly thereafter. What can I say? This is my genre, my first love in music, and the first true community that I felt like I was a part of while growing up. The filmmaker is an anthropologist who was a metal-head while growing up in Canada, and he has an easy, welcoming style of narrative that draws you in.
The film starts with shots from Heavy Metal Parking Lot, a short film taken during a Judas Priest show in the heyday of crazy metal fans (sometime in 1984, I think) and just showed a bunch of kids waiting for the show to start. I rented that DVD, was not really impressed by the film itself and less impressed by the dozen or so extras, most of which were quite a bit longer than the actual film (though I have to say, the filming of the demolition of the arena where the show had taken place, as well as the metal fan who went through a quite detailed LP-by-LP review of each of the Judas Priest albums as he showed off his collection were precious).
Anyway, so the filmmaker, Sam Dunn, a fan of the music, went on an exploration of metal culture and history in his film, and I thought that it was well done. He looked at the roots of the music, without talking about it for too long, interviewed people like Alice Cooper, Ronnie Dio (who kept making fun of Gene Simmons), Tommy Iommi, Dee Snider and a number of other respected folks from the beginning of the movement. He also did a one-on-one with Bruce Dickinson, in the Hammerstein Ballroom, which was pretty incredible, and a mind-blowingly funny interview with one of the most controversial black metal bands in the genre.
All that said, because I know the music fairly well, I wanted more. I thought that his exploration of controversy, from the Norwegian church-burning black metalists (and the way that Alice Cooper laughed at them) to the PMRC and Dee Snider discussion, were great. He even dealt with gender (and gender bending) in the genre. But he didn't open the question of race - which may seem like a non-issue because it seems like such an overwhelmingly white male genre and culture.
But it's not, the crowds around the world that turn out for metal shows is incredible (look at Brazil, Japan, and other places where metal shows can sell more than 75,000 seats easily), and even within metal, there are a good number of thrashers and others who are not white. Tom Araya of Slayer is Peruvian. Testament's Chuck Billy and Eric Petersen (at least) are American Indians. There are plenty of others. And the lyrics - from Anthrax's numerous songs to many others - also look at intolerance and hatred in interesting ways. [note, when posting this, I went to the website for this film, and realize now that Dunn is en route to making a follow-up that looks at the world metal phenomenon called: Global Metal. I'm impressed by this dude!]
I would say that the fan base in the United States is similar to punk - there aren't a lot of us, but probably more than you'd find at a typical country show. I haven't seen the extras from Metal but I'm not sure if there's anything there that looks at race either, and I think it remains an interesting angle for an aspiring filmmaker: "Gold, Bronze, Brown, and Red: The Many Colors of Metal"
Mar 24, 2007
Explosions in the Sky.
Texan indie-rock band Explosions in the Sky has quickly exhausted my free listens on Napster. I heard of them in a (gasp) Rolling Stone article, and was intrigued because instrumental guitar rock that I listen to is generally pretty abrasive or acrobatic stuff by solo artists with studio musicians. This is a band. And let me tell you - they are worthy.
Take Sigur Ros without the nutty vocals, but keeping the cresendos and dropping some of the orchestral embellishments, and you've got a decent idea of what these guys sound like. It's just good music - plenty of clean tones mixed in with more lively full band arrangements. It's a soundtrack to our lives, in many ways. Actually, for probably the first time that I can recall, I'm interested in seeing a movie because of who did the soundtrack (EitS did the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights).
I just missed them in the area, but I'm hoping to at least check out a few of their disks. I don't know what the live show would be like (shoegazing hipsters? Who knows). If you're looking for disks that can play that wonderful role of either being something that you put on in the background or something to which you are actively listening, Explosions in the Sky seems like a good fit.
Oh, and get this, one of the members, who's often the interview giver for the band, is brown. But the band is just the band. It's sort of like Soundgarden with Kim Thayil (though I guess they had a line in Spoonman about "all my friends are Indian/all my friends are brown and red" so he's not fully stealth.
Anyway, check them out.
Mar 19, 2007
So. Tired.
But will return in time (soon) to write about the world and all its infinite spinning. Some thoughts that are churning at this point...
I'm learning more about Transgendered identities and issues... just the tip of the iceberg, but it's got me thinking about gender privilege that moves away from a simple analysis of patriarchy. It's just tough for folks whose very identity is controlled by the state and state imposition, in a way that race, ethnicity, and even sexuality are not really touched.
I mean, you may not be able to get the equal treatment as others based on these characteristics, but the very essence of who and how you identify yourself is not being called into question or being defined for you (check that, sometimes that's not true, but generalities in this stream of consciousness, okay?). I can't imagine that feeling, or the feeling that you have no privacy at all every time there's some kind of alarm that goes off in the ID-checker's mind because the gender on your ID doesn't match what they think it should be, or how you want for it to be listed. I just feel like trying to find who and what you want to be should be your own journey, not one that the state gets in the middle of... but does that make me more of a libertarian? Or just someone who thinks that in some issues, self-determination is completely thwarted by block-headed state action.
Of course there's so much more, but so little time for me to write...
Mar 11, 2007
Genius Kid: Unhappiness in Slavery.
But if you check out Spellbound and watch the way some of the desi parents turn life into a competition, you start seeing the math and spelling competitions as the bane of these kids' existance. How maladjusted does your kid have to turn out for you to realize that you're doing him wrong? I don't know. I don't think your kids should be your show pet. If you like competition, grow roses or something. But let the kid be a kid. Read More......
Mar 10, 2007
Desi Attitude: Hardly.
A friend turned me onto DJ Desi's myspace site, from which I saw a link for Desi Attitude that I assumed was a rip of Rocawear or something. So I played along and clicked.
Ends up that DA is a non-profit that the DJ is involved in (i.e. founded?). Aside from a splash page that seems to have taken it's cue from myspace, at least in the number of photos it has on it, there was much to wonder about with this group.
Apparently, it's dedicated to the "hi-5s" - a list of five program areas that really kind of cover the whole spectrum:
Children
Poverty
Women
Literacy
Music & Arts
I don't know - it's a nice idea, and you can tell that he's sincere, I guess, but I'm skeptical about this whole thing - sorta the dude who takes himself a bit too seriously, and really, looks like he's all about the parties, but this "project" is his way to sell the other products.
Maybe that's a little cynical of me, but let me tell you, when you go to the desi attitude myspace, the wallpaper has "spread the desi virus" as the clever slogan. Wha?! Okay dude - I don't know what you're smoking, DJ "They-See", but that's not flying for me.
But the classic quote from your website is:
Money is not the only thing a homeless person is looking for. Sometimes they just want someone to ask, "How are you?"; sometimes they just need a hand to stand up, someone to listen to their story, someone to tell them a story, a laugh, an element of inspiration, just something to make them feel human. That's the attitude we want to bring to giving. And when you touch a human on that level, they get a lot more.- DJ Desi
Uh. Okay dude. Thanks for the lesson. I thought the second sentence would be "they want a home." But I guess the point is compassion, right? You take yourself pretty seriously for someone who's supposed to be throwing a bunch of parties. Regardless, while going through the site, and the model-like team that you've put together, I keep trying to find the punchline.
But then I realize - I mean, your name is "DJ Desi." You don't have a single ironic bone in your body. For real. What about "DJ Day-Z." Not DJ They-C? How about DJ Daisy? Don't want to hate, brother, but I'm not a big fan of the shirts, the logos, the whole get-up. Come on brother. Is this for real? Read More......
Mar 9, 2007
Mos Def.
I know that a lot of white kids got into Mos Def when his first solo album, Black on Both Sides, dropped. But I have to say, I think he's pretty awesome. He's walking this interesting line between mainstream sound, because his stuff isn't unaccessible, and the progressive avant guarde in hip-hop (at least by my estimation) because he's not walking the typical path, is using celebrity, Hollywood, Broadway, and the rest of it to raise consciousness, he's not a hack in any of the things in which he's engaged, and he's not afraid to make some statements. For example, he put out a track soon after the tragedy in New Orleans that slammed the Administration, and he had the conviction to sing the song outside of the (AWARDS NAME) and get arrested doing it.
So I have to give Mos Def some props. On MD's acting. I think he's a great actor, actually, from the soft role in Brown Sugar, to his cameo in Lackawanna Blues (awesome movie that you should check out if you can), to his star turn on 16 Blocks, and I just saw him play a cop with enough nuance in The Woodsman to make you both hate and like him at the same time. Mos Def has acting chops. I haven't seen him as Ford Prefect in Hitchhiker's Guide, but I think my father-in-law even liked his acting in a medical history movie called Something the Lord Made.
I haven't heard his latest album, but I'm finally listening to The New Danger on Napster, and I don't know why I didn't pick this up when it dropped years ago. It's basically an album's worth of proof, taken from his song Rock N Roll on the first album, which said flat out that rock music is black music, and reclaimed some of it from the folks who got famous with the rhythms. Danger is brimming with different aspects of rock, blues, soul with Mos Def switching over to the styles in songs composed with enough conviction to keep you on board. It's not the most cohesive album, by any means, but Black Jack Johnson, which is in itself comprised of members of some of the top black rock/funk/pubk acts (including Living Color, Bad Brains, and Parliament/Funkadelic) can cook.
I have to end here - but I'll pick this up on a post I've been promising about Afro Punk, which definitely gave me more to think about in the race/ethnicity prong of subculture/counterculture analysis. Don't know if I'll be that deep about it, but whatever. It's relevant to Mos Def's ever-expansive performance of what is "black music." Hat tip to Mos. I'm feeling you, man.
Mar 7, 2007
Maiden India, Mashups, etc.
Okay - so as serendipity would have it, I have some great tidbits that seem to fit so perfectly into the little world I've created for myself in this blog (including my occasional reflections on South Asian diaspora, metal, critical and cultural theory, and whatever else) that you'd think I made this shit up.
First, I got an email from the Maiden camp about some new merch on their site. I thought "well, I can't get this in the U.S., but I might as well check it out." I didn't realize that Maiden's playing Bangalore next week. Wha?! Yeah. As in, India. And they even made a new shirt design up for it. Eddie blasting a cricket ball. How bloody perfect is that. But for 40 USD shipped, it's a shirt I can only admire on the internet. I cannot wait to hear about how many people went to a Maiden concert in India. There's a following? There are other brown Maiden heads (aside from the obvious freaks like Dave Baksh from Sum 41) out there? Who knew!
And on that tip - in recognition of this wonderful show (wonder if it's their first in India - anyone know?), Wax Audio, who has created some really interesting and cool mashups (read and hear the best of them here) created this mock-up called "Maiden Goes to Bollywood", with a funky, funny mashup to commemorate the concert.
Check it out. It's like all my worlds colliding (I'm not a Bollywood fan, but heck, even I like to get down once in a while). Avoid the Maiden/Public Enemy mash at all costs.
Finally, there's a discussion of "hipster metal" over at Invisible Oranges that I found fascinating. I wouldn't have thought enough to split out two branches to the kinds of metal (Dionysian and polished). I tend to follow the traditional view that most American thrash came out of a quest for a more aggressive NWOBHM sound, while Slayer's take on Venom led to the breadth of more extreme metal that's since followed. Regardless of its roots, IO's contention that hipsters are interested in the more extreme metal because of the discussions that can ensue. Interesting - read his words instead of my attempt to summarize here.
But I like his thoughts on Maiden - they are clearly not the most profound of the groups (though their use of historical figures and moments as fodder for songs is fun for the nerd-thrashers out there), but a Maiden fan is a Maiden fan. Sorta simple.
I'm going to have to come back to this soon with an eye towards the racial dynamics of metal audiences (fans and artists, really), in light of my recent viewing of "Afro Punk", a documentary with a pretty deep take on people who identify as black, and as punk/hardcore fans. I really liked it, but more to come. Meanwhile, check out those mashups!
Mar 6, 2007
Night classes in law school are a mixed bag. I think that the evening students at my law school are more conservative. I also think that while they have some interesting perspectives compared to the young uns in my school, I feel like they have little perspective about why being a gunner in a night class seminar seems a little silly.
I do think that evening students are more diverse than the day students at my school, and I'd assume the same in many of the other schools that are falling over one another in the race to graduate students with the highest total debt load. But evening students often get the short end of the stick. Even though I'm older than a lot of my classmates, I still feel like I'm part of a community, and though I probably spend more time thinking about building a student community that I want to be a part of than I should, it's one of those things that you only get to experience as a student, and something that I really enjoyed while an undergrad.
But to go through the school process without the fun element, well, that would embitter me to just want to become a soulless facilitator of injustice too. But how do you make that evening experience enjoyable? I can't imagine going through school without getting to know your classmates and engage questions of justice and the philosophical boundaries of ethical community-based legal practice over bad food and long nights. Well, that was my first year, I guess. Not involved, not excited, and not engaged at all.
So I'm not knocking the evening students, but maybe just questioning the whole legal pedagogical industry. Is it really getting people excited about this profession? Is it truly making itself accessible to people who are outside of the traditional "I want to go to law school" cult? Not feeling it.
Mar 3, 2007
MP3 Blogs: Get Peel!
I am a late comer to the whole MP3 Blog thing - basic concept is simple, though I don't understand how they get around copyright laws (i'm guessing that they don't): people who are really into music post up entries on music - reviews, reminiscences, whatever, and alongside the cover art, some random picture, and the occasional YouTube link for the obscure video, they actually post up MP3s.
Well, that's cool. So I'd started checking out a few blogs, and even through I use the syndication feature in Safari (Mac-only browser) that tells me when there are new posts, it was still a real pain to go to the site, download the song, figure out whether I want to keep it without having it get imported into iTunes, and then deal with the duplicate (because iTunes copies imported MP3s to file them away when you let it do the organizing for you).
Well, no longer. All music lovers + mac users, listen up! There's a tiny program that some beautiful people created called Peel that's awesome. It's basically an MP3 blog aggregator with a clean interface that goes online for you, checks out the blogs that you have identified as worthy, tells you if there are new tracks up, and gives you awesome control.
There are two tabs in the iTunes-like main window. One is Playlist - basically links all the tracks that have been on that blog in the last x days. It does not download the songs unless you set it that way. So you can just stream the music to hear it, and flip around to see what you like. Find something you dig? Just hit "download" and Peel brings it from the site. With back-end iTunes integration, if you just set up a couple of things (like having the files download into your iTunes music folder where all the artist folders are when iTunes is organizing your music), and you have iTunes organize imported music, the track will go into your library, get filed away nicely, and show up on a new Peel playlist.
The other tab is called "Web" and lets you read the text entry on the blog! It's like a mini browser in your music listening software - and sans the ability to hit links, will give you the context for the tunes you've been able to get your grubby hands on. I'm so hooked. It's the best of all worlds, cuts down my already ballooning site surfing, and gives me access to niche sites (I have 2 excellent metal sites for now, and deep soul cuts at Soul-Sides) as well as pretty eclectic stuff (looking for jazz now). The UI is clean, and updated regularly.
So Get Peel while it's still free! And if you're a peecee user, well, maybe you can find something similar with iTunes integration. I guess.
Mar 2, 2007
Rage: What's in a Name?
I've been thinking a lot about anger lately, and considering how sometimes, people equate the vocalization of dissent, unease, or disagreement as an instant escalation. (If anyone out there remembers I Was Born With 2 Tongues - they played this out on a track with voices asking "why are you so angry?" over and over).
Anyway, this has come up for me because I've been thinking about my adopted name on this site - just sort of fell into it, and it seemed cool at the time, but when we can be deliberate about these things, we should.
But do I really want to reinforce the habit of many people to immediately peg someone who thinks critically and opens his/her mouth as angry? Think about the way that a righteous black woman in a graduate level class has to say to herself "I don't want to be thought of as that militant/angry black woman," and ends up censoring herself to avoid getting pigeon-holed, and eventually ignored. But if she silences herself, no one can hear her - even if they're listening.
So do we take on these personas ourselves sometimes? For me, is it a performance to seem more menacing than the traditional image of a blogger? I mean, hell, I am angry about some stuff, but I also recognize that anger doesn't always equal constructive energy. And I'm an optimist most of the time, especially after I've eaten. So what gives?
There's something larger afoot about the danger of groupthinking less of the folks who think differently, of course, but maybe we can draw this out a little larger...
For example, why do we all use so much military jargon and turns of phrase, even as dedicated peace activists, and advocates of non-violence. I've "rallied the troops," "assessed my targets," fought "battles" and "dropped bombs" in settings that had nothing to do with aggression, violence or anything of the sort. But how does using that terminology help us in the work that we're doing, and how does it send mixed messages?
A friend of mine made a statement saying that she was "bitching" about something in the company of about 10-15 folks, some of whom are ardent feminists. My friend is progressive, and has a commitment to human rights issues, but she never really thought about how using the "shorthand" of that word to describe a particular activity was a covert oppressive act itself.
I can talk about language all day - yesterday, the city of New York decided to ban the use of the n-word. I don't think that the ban holds the weight of statutory law, but it's still a powerful message (I guess in light of the ban on smoking, trans fats, and blocking the box, folks might say this is the last straw, taking away their right to say what they want to say but I would probably want to beat the shit out of those people, so it doesn't really matter to me).
Which brings me back to where I began - anger... animosity...rage. Even if we really have this inside us that makes us escalate within, should we really advertise it with the personas we take on? More in the last year or so, I've felt things boil up quickly, especially while on the road. While I don't think I was ever passive, I definitely didn't care as much about little things before - is the excuse stress? Or is it some kind of slipping backwards into a less advanced consciousness? Or is repression of anger what is really unnatural, and what we should address?
Maybe we all need to vent, and yoga and meditation isn't the quick release that let's us get there?