Synova Attacks (She's Never Done That Before)

My friend, Synova, challenges me on Althouse:

At what point, Crack, are we supposed to enforce "good" on anyone?

Now - try it now - it's not like you've tried it before. You never know - things just might change for the better.

What do you want us to do about crappy Brittney Spears music?

Ignore it. As Frank Zappa reminded Tipper Gore's PMRC, there's other music. You don't have to do this.

What do you want us to do about silly 20 year old boys?

Do what my friends and I did with one today: educate him.

Perhaps we can appoint a committee to approve music?

That would be communism.

Do you think that your music would get approved?

Hell no, I destroy communism.

We could approve books, too.

Funny you should say that while misreading me.

Do away with something as vacuous as a NASCAR romance.

What? You got a problem with NASCAR? Don't put it on me.

We could have a committee to approve books and do away with all the outright damaging new age self-help crap.

I'll settle for prosecutions for fraud, and other related crimes, thank you.

Maybe the committee will enforce good Christian morality in everything.

I don't know where you got this committee thing, or where you're going with it, but I'm glad it's your idea and not mine.

Instead of reporting a blog the citizens don't like so it gets flagged, maybe it will get shut down instead.

This blog has been taken down twice, and now flagged as indecent, so you don't think getting it shut down isn't already the intent?

We could pass laws against fast food, since fast food is bad for the masses, the poor and minorities who need protection, and if it's illegal maybe they'll eat more vegetables. Sound like a plan?

If you're a liberal.

Do you just want us to agree that Brittney Spears sucks? Yes, she sucks.

A little louder, please.

But at this point you sound a little bit like the whiners who complained that Joe the Plumber got a slice of the finite publishing resources that someone else deserved... someone with the right opinions instead of the wrong ones... someone worthy.

I "sound a little bit like" that? That's probably because you spent this entire post putting your words and viewpoint in my mouth. The only thing you said that sounded even remotely like me is "Brittney Spears sucks". I never asked or demanded a committee for anything.

One of the biggest problems I have talking to people, online, is their assumption they can read my mind, sort my thoughts, or interpret my meaning, without asking me for clarification. Setting up a bunch of straw men and then knocking them down yourself is your and Obama's tactic, not mine, so it doesn't surprise me you're confused as to where I'm coming from:

Like Obama, you don't care where I, or anyone else, is coming from or you would've asked and not gona on and on, charging me with this made up committee nonsense.

That, too, is a much too common problem today.

But not as common as thinking such behavior constitutes fair play, good citizenship, or debate. Your whole line of attack strikes me as silly. Too silly for me to seriously reply to it. I will say this much, though:

Maybe if we did start listening to people who are worthy - you know, not those who will claim "He is risen" while knowing anyone who says that is committing a fraud - we might be better off.

Way, waaay, better off.

Sir Bob Geldof: It Takes One To Know One

It sounds (and looks) like Bob Geldof and I have been sharing the same sippy-cup:

The irony of some of keynote speaker Sir Bob Geldof’s remarks on Thursday morning at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, were palpable. As thousands of musicians of all sounds, shapes and sizes converged on the festival to sing, rage, bellow, croon and dance, inside the Austin Convention Center, Geldof, the singer, songwriter, humanitarian and honorary knight of the British Empire, complained about the sheer volume of music being produced today, comparing the combined output to “the half-witted mutterings of the village idiot in the dark corner of the local pub.”

Given that a majority of bands over the five-day music showcases are, quite literally, performing in dark corners of 6th Street pubs, it was hard not to make a connection, and that Geldof was there to rain on everybody’s parade. Over the course of his hour-long keynote, the singer, who’s best known as the organizer of the 1985 Live Aid concerts for African relief, looked the music of today straight in the eye and found it severely lacking.

Expressing outrage at the economic inequality that's permeating the lives of the many, Geldof wondered where the voices are to convey that feeling: “What’s music got to say about it? I don’t hear it. Maybe I can’t hear it. Maybe this hyper democracy of the Web simply gives an illusion of talent. You can download a studio. Download any instrument. You can pick up any instrument for nothing. You can make, cut and paste to create fab artwork to make your CD. Everybody has got the means to say anything they want, but nobody has anything to say. We need to talk about it."

Courageous stuff, delivered as it was from a podium from the smartly dressed, witty, eloquent Irishman who, 36 years earlier had defiantly introduced himself to the world with the line, “The world owes me a living.” The song, "Looking after Number One," wasn’t about selfishness per se, but about the feeling of a perfectly able man standing in line for his dole check and wondering what the hell he ever did wrong to deserve such a fate.

Music, he explained, is the best tool to deliver this message of outrage, and throughout the address Geldof walked around on stage, comfortable and in his element, citing the musical heroes of the past who transcended individualism to speak for entire populations, from Howlin' Wolf to Mick Jagger and John Lennon to the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Ramones. He drew a distinct line between "good" music and "bad" music, and suggested in so many words that we're currently living in a world with a lot of bad music, and that somebody needs to step up and overthrow the proverbial institution that rock 'n' roll has become to send shockwaves across the world.

It's hard to argue with his point that we lack unifying voices, and that the music world is so fragmented and saturated that it's hard for anything to be heard. And that in times prior, music has helped frame political conversations in ways that artists never imagined, and that it has power to impact not only individuals but entire constituencies. The problem, he said, was complacency. "I don’t hear the disgust in music, and I need to. It doesn’t have to be literal. It has to suggest it."

He then declared music to be "the most powerful cultural tool that has been invented in a dozen lifetimes. Music is dangerous." That being the case, Geldof concluded, "We need someone to pause, to reflect, to consider, to be wise, to make decisions, or to interpret, to stop time for a moment, and suggest. And that seems to be the function of the artist."

I've been saying I'm that person, and - down to the details of "good" music and "bad" music - delivering that very same speech, for years.

And that's all I'm going to say about it now.

Pow! by The Crack Emcee
Me & My Friends by The Crack Emcee

Click the "soundcloud" tag, below, for more of my music.

And Now We've Got To Do It All Over Again,...

"Most interesting fact about punk that you weren’t expecting?

I had no idea how hostile they were to the hippies. You look at the Ramones and they all had this long hair and what I didn’t realize is how in England, New York and Los Angeles, how they were all breaking with the hippies. Johnny Rotten hated the hippies. Both the Ramones and the Sex Pistols saw the hippies as an unfortunate detour from the heart of rock 'n' roll. They said: We are going to reject peace, love and understanding."

-- Nick Rombes, author of The Encyclopedia of Punk, kind of explaining why so few turned out to be NewAgers, in The Los Angeles Times.

Joseph Nigro: On Being A NewAge Sucker

"Falling into 'sucker-dom' can be an impulsive, stand alone act.

You knew better at the time but were compelled by greed, potential gain, or ego.

These emotional drives were given priority over critical thinking and common sense, and a desired outcome was rationalized and projected onto the unlikely.

It should be a lesson that emotions have no intelligence, but many, unwilling to admit a lapse in intelligence or even a simple mistake, psychologically defend themselves by adopting the folly as a way of being.
 
Like stepping on a rake and proclaiming to everyone who saw it 'I meant to do that', and then to save face, stepping on rakes for the rest of your life.
 
This is where "sucker" morphs into "stupid."

Whether it’s the idealism of a young, uninformed mind, the buried hostility of a defiant youth, or the desire to jerk-off the world instead of growing up, not giving it up at the right time is the essence of stupid.

The keystone of NewAge.
 
In the absence of physical brain damage, being a sucker is only a bad choice, but being stupid is a willful condition. If they wanted to, the stupid could stop being stupid in the blink of an eye.

But they’d have to admit their long running error, and that’s not an option."

Spit And Polish

"A revolutionary, but he was an accidental one, the product of a glorious coincidence of casting, talent and timing. Yet, I realise, for this street urchin surviving would have been victory enough. The rest may not even be a bonus."

-- Andrew Billen, figuring out Johnny Rotten, for the Times Online.