MMM

Well, until about 2 weeks ago anyway. This week's podcast features music all drawn from my Recently Added Playlist in iTunes. Music I had never heard until very recently. Features music by the Magnetic Fields, Architecture in Helsinki, John Lennon (can you believe it???), Los Saicos, The White Stripes... Oh and an extra-special version of The Transformers theme song by the Rough Rider Brass Quintet!

Mafoo's Podcast 5/20/2007

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Part of the grand Paris Hilton news paradox is that the fact that she merits no news and makes the news is news in itself. You wanna read that again? The fact that she merits no news and makes the news is news in itself. Even though I respect the intentions of Mika Brzezinski and the AP, who recently instituted a weeklong ban on Paris Hilton (which failed), you can't help but view the attempts as futile. The more people that grow sick of seeing Paris on the news, the more people there are who agree with these actions. And the more press these actions receive, the more press Paris Hilton receives - repeat formula ad infinitum. Yes, in the clearest sense of the phrase, regarding Paris Hilton - resistance is futile.

Paris is celebrity in its purest form. Celebrity for celebrity's sake. Celebrity comes from the Old French word celebrité which means "solemn rite or ceremony". Paris Hilton is a totem in which our society manifests its aggression and disgust for itself projected onto a vapid, smiling blonde. Her powerful presence of aloofness was a major force is the creation of the ritual. Somewhere early in her career, one of her handlers or agents must have given her the simple advice of: "no matter what, keep a confident air on yourself at all times". So her career began as a mockery of the obsolete position of debutante and the people felt less than shameful about the parallel adoration and desecration of her character (character in the dramatic sense).

Her celebrity was, in the truest sense of the etymology, birthed as a ritual - a rite of sadism, however unsolemn. Society hated and loved her and treated her as the masochist in an abusive relationship. The problem was, she never gave in. She never showed her pain. So like any responsible sadist, we increased the abuse. She didn't give in. Finally, society demanded what any S&M sadist demands: restraint. For the masochist (or totem, because what really is the difference? Just look at Jesus Christ...) it might be ropes, chains, straps (a cross). For the iconic figure it was prison. Finally came the zenith (climax?) of her career, her celebrity: the moment when she cried and asked for her mommy while being sentenced. Society and the media went crazy. We loved it. This was the release we demanded. A moment where we could wash our personal pain in the tears of Paris Hilton. The completion of the ritual. This is not to say that we are finished with Paris. The ritual just completed a cycle. Most likely we will continue until she commits suicide. Dark? I know, but it's the truth. Just look at Anna Nicole Smith, who documented her fall from grace in a TV show, which we all watched to feel better about ourselves.

I've personally never viewed Paris as attractive, I've never viewed her as unattractive. She just is. The irony present in the clearest view into her personal life, her sex tape (which I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit I've watched), is that behind the cameras, smoke, and mirrors... she's really just some chick. She doesn't say anything offensive, belittle the poor and unfamous, she doesn't act conceited, she doesn't really do or say anything at all that's interesting, well aside from, um... the sex. She is American Girl X who happens to be wildly rich and famous, which is pretty much what every celebrity really is. Celebrities are our Gods and whipping boys. Some would argue that our Gods are our whipping boys.

One thing I know. Any attempts to flee the cycle of emotional deliverance that the Paris Hilton ritual affords us, the more aggressive and public the flight the better, will only serve to add flame to the fire. Maybe it's better just to enjoy the ride. Hop on the Paris train! The destination? Well, her eventual public death most likely. But the ride promises to be full of lots of ups and downs!

Here is a video from a couple of weeks ago of MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski tearing up her Paris Hilton script live on air. Unsurprisingly, ranking douchebag of the decade Joe Scarborough tries to stop her and downplay the incident. But she holds firm, refusing to lead with the non-news of Paris getting out of prison over Senator Lugar's defection on the Iraq War. At first she tries to light the script on fire, then tears it in half, and when given another copy puts it through the shredder. Now this could be a ploy, but judging from the uncomfortable reactions from Scarborough and the dumbass to her right, it seems pretty real. The look on her face when the two unabashed company men launch into the Paris story is priceless.
PS I apologize for the preceding commercial, but it's short.

“Have you never been mellow?”
These epic words were the title of Olivia Newton-John’s 1975 song and album. My response to that question is well, yes Olivia I have, um... ever been mellow. And if you listen to the selection of songs I have up on this here Myspace page, well damned if every single one of them ain’t rather mellow. So I thought to myself, why don’t I up and get myself unmellow on a song for a change. Most of the people on here have never heard my screaming chops (here’s a vocal tip: you don’t have to worry about pitch and tone as much when yer a’screamin!)

So I chose a rather unlikely song to get my scream on:
Somewhere That’s Green from Little Shop of Horrors. It’s a gorgeous, cooky little song that I wuv lots and lots.
And for you too-cool-to-know-your-musicals IDMers and Indie Rockers, I thought I’d add a video of the song from the movie for your viewing and listening pleasure:



And while I’m at it, I’ll include the amazing Family Guy take on the song:




So give my take on the song a listen. It’s kinda different.
Mafoo

Every once in a while you have those mornings where you awake, and you have lost all sense of temporal and spacial perspective. This is all the more exacerbated if your sleep is less than at its deepest. This is kind of ironic – one would think that the deeper the sleep, the deeper the immersion into that false reality we call the dream world. As anyone who has ever slept with/near me knows, I am an incredibly light sleeper. A fucking baby batting an eyelash two buildings away will tear me out of the most fathomless drunken passout. Ok, a slight hyperbole there. But I am a light sleeper.
Now, anyone in NYC this morning must have noticed, and been awoken by, the apocalypse-sounding thunderstorm. I never read the weather reports (I'm from L.A…) so it sure as hell came as a surprise to me. Now somewhere in my formative years I had instilled in me the fear of the apocalypse (I wonder where…). But it occurred when I was young so I can't really break the fear, no matter how much logic I throw at it. This is not a conscious fear. I am not afraid of the apocalypse, rapture, armageddon... But I have these near-subconscious moments where that fear bubbles up to the surface. This morning was one of those rare times, but I was surprised to find myself greeting my impeding doom with more of an air of annoyance than mortal terror.
Really the only time I believe in apocalypse is in the middle of the night, when I am awoken by something loud. I remember living in Rochester during my senior year of college - this was just after 9/11 – and in my new apartment at East End, right next to the famous Hotel Cadillac, being startled awake by inhuman sounds like the clash of immortality just outside my window. Caia would always tease me about shooting up in bed and exclaiming, "Shit's going down!". This happened several different times.
The reality was that it was the police and fire dept screeching their sirens and blasting their horns as loud as they could at 4:30 in the morning in an overeager response to some ghetto shit at the Hotel Caddy. Dead prostitute, overdose, malicious case of AIDS… oh wait, that was in my building (seriously…).
Oddly enough, the depressing reality of the actual reason for the cacophony never kept me up at all. I could sleep like a baby knowing that messed up stuff was going on, it was the fantasy world that frightened me.
So this morning was a turning point in a way. I was up late working on a track, and spent most of the night thinking about the track, so I had only been asleep an hour or two when the (apparent) apocalypse hit. What is funny in retrospect was my reaction. It went something like this:

"Wha-what the hell is that?? Shit, that is really fucking loud! The end of the world? Goddamn it, I just fell asleep!"

For real. My clearest emotion was a type of sulking anger that I had just spent several hours lying in bed trying to sleep, and now it was the apocalypse, thus ensuring that I would not in any circumstances be getting enough sleep for the night.
Is this me letting go of the fear, or just me turning into a bitter, young curmudgeon?
It reminds me of Marv's final scene in Sin City. While strapped into the electric chair, he is being read his list of crimes. Interrupting the guard, he growls,

"Hurry up, I haven't got all night!"