Ok i have another post written but i’m still deciding if i should post it, so in the interim here’s another old Xanga one.

I saw Johhny Cash this morning. He’d lost a bit of weight and turned German but he seemed well…

I Strongly suggest, given the opportunity, that everyone walk home drunk at least once in their life listening to my ipod. Admittedly this is a goal very few of you, if any, will ever achieve and i am sorry for this.

I suppose i have to give a bit of background information if this story has a chance of working.

So i have a new ipod now after my old one didn’t survive the journey home. A lot more memory to play with this time so i don’t have to be restrictive in what i throw on there. Anyways, i went through a phase once when i tried to ‘acquire’ as much of Mike Patton’s work as possible. Basically i would google and read as much as i could and try to find it. Similar to the endless search for the Nine Inch Nails Halo’s…i digress…So now i have several hours of Mike Patton’s finest and indeed worst creative moments scattered about my Ipod.

This is a good thing!

I think it is a sign of someone’s genius when their good stuff is sooo good it makes you overlook how bad their bad stuff really is. It’s the same with Trent Reznor, Maynard etc. They have all released some really really really bad stuff. Yet if you were to float an mp3 out there with a description “Rare recording, Trent Reznor, Mike Patton, Maynard James Keenan collaboration” it would move like hotcakes. Apparently hotcakes move really fast in America. Actually, probably add Bowie or Nick Cave in there as well for a bit of obscure credibility, Rick Rubin as producer and you have a hit on your hands. Pretty much they could fart in the general direction of a microphone and people would try to ‘acquire’ it…i digress a little further…

So during the day, my ipod is not that bad really. Bit all over the shop, but generally good enough that i don’t have to take it out of my pocket to skip through something. But at night, particularly when under the influence, it appears to take a life of it’s own. Do you remember the first time you saw the video to Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy? Now i like my horror flicks, and possess a good consitution when it comes to gore and violence etc. I found Dr. Gunther’s Anatomy for Beginners quite amusing and interesting, not shocking. Remove the skin from a cadaver and hang it on a giant hook next to the exposed cadaver flesh…good idea! Have a naked live chick standing next to it so the geeky guy with better English than Gunther could point out what we were looking at…tops idea! Having a bloke with his bits out so the geeky guy could do the same…not so necessary.

How far can one digress and keep it within the realm of a digression as oppose to a loss in focus? Is there a difference?

oh yeah, come to daddy…this was truly shocking to me. The flashes of clips proving to be slightly more suggestive than subliminal…the little girls with his face. It’s truly chaotic and horrific…welcome to my ipod. One minute you have Foy Vance tip-toeing through a melody and then suddenly Mike is screaming in 7 different tongues at you, and then he’s gone… magical!

That was really a long explanation for such a small point…I think i have contracted Squires…is it treatable? :o)

Basically i have just tried to namedrop as many alt-rock (insert cool dark music alternative sub-genre here) people into this entry so when google sweeps over it i should get a few more hits from Internet Goth fiends…

Something..something..something..generic darkness…..
Something..something..something..bleeding…..

The only, and I mean ONLY reason there should have been a concert for Michael Jackson passing, is if – and this is not a great leap of faith – he was truly destitute when he passed and left his kid(s) with a crap load of debt, and the ENTIRE proceeds of the aforementioned concert went to his dependents. Case closed. If that wasn’t the case here, then I am sickened by each one of those people who took to that stage. You want to show your appreciation? Sing him a song in your fucking room. I am ok with a public memorial service or something if you need to be seen showing your grief, but how can you possibly justify getting on stage and all singing ‘We are the world’ or some bollocks? What, you are musicians as well, so you can only express your true selves musically? Fucking write him a song. You want to celebrate his music? Put out a tribute album, and still put all the proceeds towards a trust fund for his kids or a charity or something. You were merely using this as a launching platform to reignite your careers in a circus of glorified name-dropping. Yeah i was a friend of Michaels. You weren’t publicising this when he was touching kids were you.

As i am writing this, more footage is coming up on the screen of the circus, and there is a little girl crying into the microphone…presumably his kid. Is that really necessary? Really really? Now that she doesn’t have to wear a veil around and live at Disneyland may mean she has a chance at a normal – and i use this in the sense of ‘non-celebrity’ – lifestyle, you go and put her in front of the world crying. We know she’s hurt, her Dad just died. Who’s fucking idea was this? I doubt she woke up and said…can someone put some concert thing on so i can go in front of the world and cry…i think Dad would have liked that.

And now it’s back to the non-stop interviews of people with their thoughts on this. If everyone who was putting their 2 cents in actually gave 2 cents, we wouldn’t have had to had the circus/concert. I’m just as bad. I tried for a long time not to put my 2 cents in but the concert thing just got to me.

To be honest, i didn’t really care. I don’t mean it in a hurtful way, but his passing just didn’t strike me. People die all the time. Just because he’s famous doesn’t mean anything extra special. I admit yes he has touched my life in some way and probably influenced it somehow. One of the first tape cassettes i had was Michael Jackson off the Wall. The first CD i had was Michael Jackson Dangerous. I later sold it to Soundgarden record store in Hurstville to pay for me to get drunk at schoolies (Spring Break for Australians). I had Moonwalker on VHS and loved that movie man. He was always there in my childhood. Did i know him personally? No. So why the fuck would i expect it to change my life in anyway that he is gone? Does it mean i like him any more / less now, because i didn’t feel anything? No, it doesn’t change anything. The guy hadn’t created music in years and even when he did it’s been ten years or more since there was something good. He was getting old, it’s time to move on and live out the rest of his weird life out of the spotlight.

Of course it would be remiss of me to say i feel this way about all musicians/celebrities. I don’t. It was weird as hell when Kurt Cobain passed, and Layne Staley passed, Andy Wood or that guy from Blind Melon. Michael Hutchence, was a bit different cause of the controversy – kind of took the edge of it. Admittedly these were all people’s whose music and talents i admired, but i think the key point is that they were taken at their prime when they were still creating and still enhancing our lives. None of them were set to embark on a greatest hits tour in the near future. Much like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Bon Scott, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Buddy Holly and everyone else that passed before my time…You feel let down or cheated almost because you know what they were capable of, and you wanted to see them bloom. Their death means no more than Michael Jackson’s, don’t get me wrong – just because they were still creating and he wasn’t… but the associated feeling of depravity is there with their passing when it is not with Michael Jacksons. Thriller was a great album…doesn’t mean he’s immortal people. He was going to pass at some stage, you’ve had a fair amount of time to prepare for this.

If people will argue that he was the king of pop and our generation’s Elvis, i think it is weak. James Brown died a few years back and there wasn’t this much of a song and dance, no pun intended. He was the Godfather of Soul! He had just as much, if not more of an influence on music than Michael Jackson, in my opinion. And his death was handled respectfully. The right amount of tributes, memorial services etc.

Johnny Cash passed, and i was just getting to adore his music. But similarly, albums full of covers – as great as they were – is just a symbolic greatest hits tour. I was saddened by his death shortly after June’s because the whole idea was sad. He’d spent his whole life going after her, and when she left, he left too. But did i mourn or change my ways in any? No. I probably listened to his music more which is probably what any recording artist would like.

I wonder if it is the timing that caused this public outpour. Is it because of the sudden nature of it – as Squires would say i didn’t even know he was sick? Combine that with the upcoming world tour – i mean i don’t remember hearing about him for years before that, since the kiddy-fiddling cases. Maybe that is the sense of depravity and cheated feeling i was talking about before. Your chance to see him shine / or conversely fail (depending on which team you bat for) has been taken away. My ambivalence towards his passing is probably due to me not being in either camp. I really just didn’t care.

This explains my lack of empathy, but does not mean his passing should not affect you. If you’re sad, be sad. You just don’t need television cameras in front of you why you do it. Drugs or Religions are fine if that’s what you are into, just don’t force other people to do it with you.

In conclusion, i barely watch tv and would like something non-Michael Jackson related on it when i do…so the rest of the world should cater to my needs :-)