My Jesus Hits like the Atom Bomb. . .

"It's when I'm not workin' things get weird. Start draggin' around the damn house, your attention gets side tracked. It can easily happen, son. Hell, for damn years mah attention was wonerin' everwhichway. I was strung out all over the damn universe . I didn't know what the hell was goin on.

"I'm coming back. Now, I've said it, it's for me to prove it. That's my job. . . but i'm only still doin' it cos I can, and cos I want to. Don't have to prove nothin' to nobody! I just likes to kick ass is all."

Multiple choice quiz- are these the words of

A) Jesus Christ, or

B) Jerry Lee Lewis

A weird week, wherein I make peace with Jesus and Paul Mccartney, and Fall out with the White Stripes.

I. Musical Valium.

Well, It took some reading to help me out, and it was Elvis Costello interviewed by Nick Kent that straightened me out - to the effect that when we put down sir Paul, it's a question of who are we comparing him to? To whom next to is he not a giant? To Audioslave? To Maroon 5? I guess I've been holding him to the Jim Morrison's, the Hendrix's, and the Dylan's of the world. Notice that there is a fulcrum point of illusion there - the line between legend and shit. Look for those spots if you want a greater understanding of Maya. That leverage is the foundation of all our arts.

I heard a White Stripes' song off the new album, and I thought it was the Darkness. Which can't be good. I think it is the duty of every single musician on the earth today to make tracks that could not be mistaken by anyone, no matter how inebriated via strong liquor or stronger curves, from the Darkness. No more, this indescriminate looting of the decades! ! !! ! ! That bulllshit radio format of hits of the 70's , 80's, and 90's has become so widespread that the NEW music is falling into step with it! ! ! ! ! It's Zappa's apocalypse via nostalgia.

Is it me? Is that what you have to do? ? ? Alot of kung-fu guys say you need to master one existing style to create a new one. . . . I dunno -look at Miles Davis' nemesis, Wynton Marsalis . He never moved beyond the skinny tie era. This whole problem is eating my brain [actually, I just heard a white stripes song called the big 3 killed my baby and I love them again.]

-Rob, I feel ya [re:Writing] in a different medium. I think I need some thinking. I'm through with all music that is essentially dickless. With the songs I'm doing with Sarah, our bywords are 'where's the Dick in this song. Where's the Pussy? ? ? ' It can be musical or lyrical, but if it wants to be rock n' roll it has to be there. Elvis didn't die on the toilet so we could have generations of eunuchs follow . . . .

which brings us to that other savior.

I'm quits with the whole thing. I guess I always thought I could use logic and reason to talk to the jesus-ites, and one of them would say '-wow -I see what you mean!' That battle doesn't take place on the planes of perspicacity. You can't use the tools of curiousity to fight the tools of need. I saw this years ago, in Last Temptation, where Jesus, his own damn self, is explaining to St. Paul how it really went down, and the artist formerly known as Saul decides it doesn't matter anyway. . . .'You know, I'm GLAD I met you ' Paul says '- cos MY Jesus is a hundred times more important than YOU.' - and lest we start laughing, let's be wary of this place, for it shows us what poor tool reason really is. If I ever fight again, it's gonna be dirty, up close and personal and prey upon the imaginations and superstitions of the afterworldly.

To any of you who still want to fight that good fight, let me commend to you a book {besides 'the Worlds Twelve Crucified Saviors'} - 'Jesus: the Evidence' by Ian Wilson, (isbn 0-06-069433-5) - alot of conversations degenerate into 'well, experts say. . . . ' This book names all the experts. And their primary sources. It also names the experts who've interpreted the original experts. The real deal, not all this vague DaVinci Code stuff. You can 'quote chapter and verse' if you will on the whole debate. Nobody agrees with Anne Rice, however. . . . . .

II. Crazy Night at the Brothers - man, there were a couple hundred people there. I made myself at home and shot some pool. Our pal Jen was there - something strange happened- we were talking about Rob, and she said 'one thing you can say about Rob -he's never an asshole. ' and I didn't quite get her gist - was that to mean 'unlike you jon, who is famous for it' or was there some falling out, and this was earth sarcasm? ? ? maybe it was the booze talking. At that moment, the jukebox played 'bitch' off the stones sticky fingers, and in the spirit of repartee I said 'look, they're playing your song!' and beat a retreat. There were some drugs present, none just the quick tokes in the ladies room; I walked into a snowstorm on the street, and I really got a feel that I didn't want to be on the road with this crowd. The Kid came in with his new 'ain't love grand' gal- she's a 'woman' , 32, and it's all funny to see. It's good for the kid, who never does anything halfway - his heart is open to the whole earth now. George sympathized, and gave him one chance per game to make a good impression.

III. the Great American Songwriter. . . .

Well, I've done alot of listening, and I'm ready to stand on Steve Earle's coffee table in my nike Vandals and tell him he and his buddy Townes have along way to go before the come close to the ghost of Warren Zevon. Somewhere I read a description of Fitzgerald, what made him the Cliche 'great american author it's so cliche to knock on' (- probably 65% of the last 75 years of masters thesi in american literature - ) it felt his writing 'blew the lid off our aspirations and delusion. Said it all.' -that seem like a requisite for the great american songwriter too, and I think Zevon is peerless in this regard. Everyone else seems kind of like a sweet kid in comparison. Maybe Randy Newman comes close to the bitterness of striving for, and in some cases the bitterness of acheiving, what used to be called the american dream.

On the subject of aspirations - It was the AMA who were so successful cos they could ' articulate and simultaneously mock the aspirations of todays young people.' -anyway, I brought all this up not to debate the merits of our songsters, but rather cos this is what I want out of you writers. Blow the lid off our aspirations and delusions!

IV. Fate Mocks Me. . . .

The little helpful links on the gmail have promted a 'Korn Vs. Slipknot- which band is more talented?' Maybe we need a new generation of critics. It's hard to understand that neither of those bands is important now -it's the music some people will look back on as the soundtrack to their college days. WE are already in AOR land -yikes! I don't know of any groups more important to the teenagers right now than the Franz Ferdinands or the My Chemical Romances, so we have to aim below THAT for the next thing coming.

I hear there is some great shit happening in chicago though. . . . there's a group called the Tossers that's supposed to be the new Pogues, and Qualo is getting some attention as a serious anti-propaganda force.

Our own music is what's important, though, and word to anyone who doesn't already know, get the lark in the morning catalog -[the catalog is more helpful than the website, because you can't really imagine the stuff they have. . . ] Need a build it yourself banjo kit? A flute made out of black jade? A hurdy-gurdy? A combination violin/trumpet? A folding suitcase organ ? ? ? It's just a sampling. . .

V. Spawn of Reaganstein I'm not in the politics this time - if anyone is interested, get me your snail address, and I'll send you a little briefing I'm calling the Playboy Papers. It's an element unto itself, [and perhaps, like franz ferdinand, we need to be looking behind it -perhaps it's also just a tool of the man] that we are perched on the brink of a conservative apocalypse- the country is going so far to the right we won't recognize it. . . .well, this indicates that it's just business as usual. If anything, we're going back in time to about 1970-74. I leave it to you which is more scary- the 'impending doom' school of thought, or the 'this more or less normal'.

One example -Abortion has become a cause celebre for a long time now, and do you want to know why? I was talking to some oldtimers about polio - and they said the kids today don't get vaccinated cos they don't see kids in the leg braces. Nobody knows anyone in an iron lung. With abortion, no one remembers what it was like to have 1,000,000 illegal abortions every year in the U.S. -And it'll probably take alot of preachers daughters to go through some rough times before it comes around again.

VI. A fresh green breast of the new world. . . .

For a sign of hope, check out this bastion of nonconformity in a punk ass rollover world! [thanx Dave!]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,5-2005540906,00.html

VII. A strange bit of synchronicity/ minutae/ Tales of the Future/ Memeories of Green

- I was reading some of John Sinclair's old newspaper articles, and he says that originally none of the Wayne State hipsters were into rock -they were all Coltrane-jazz guys - and that he was turned onto the Beatles by- Cecil Taylor! ! !

He used to sign every column off by saying 'See you in the streets!' -I recently read something [can't remember where] that remarked 'We are no longer a nation that comes together in the squares and markets' It seemed to feel that TV had taken the place of that. . . . Except now I think even that is specialized to the extent that it promotes isolation now too.

In an existential puzzle, isolation can only bring misery, but the thought of coming together is so uncomfortable to me, and also to a growing number of 'Social Anxiety Disorder' prescriptees. . . I think I'm understanding that Vow of the Boddhisatva now. (anyway, I'm angling for one of you WRITERS to make all these connections for me-I'm laying it out for you to play it out babe.)

It's creepy how as a drug, Media is worse than smack. . . . everyone is going around half in this CyberCeltic style other-world. Which brings me to my fear of Los Vegas. I was reading some trade magazines from the strip- And if LA is my model of the future of the american melting pot, and Detroit is the post-future undead city, then I nominate Las Vegas as the third, and perhaps most troubling city of the future. As a playground that provides a setting for a specific range of experiences It doesn't have that same ' anything' can happen that LA (or to a lesser extent Hamtramck) has - it's geared for certain things to happen, and there is alot of manufacturing behind that. It is the perfect living example of Boudrillard's theories of simulacrum -let's give you a little Paris without all the pesky French. . . . I've heard people who've been to both say the prefer the Vegas version. The whole world presented to you as a mall - albeit one helluva honky paradise of one. I'm afraid of it. That's my impression from the outside. Maybe I'll go undercover. Anyway, that's all for now - hopefully I'll see everyone in person real soon!

-Love,

-el pirata