From Red to Blue

Song written and performed by Billy Bragg

Pittsburgh still managed to support one of those massive warehouse-sized record stores in the waning days of media that could be held in your hand. They shared a plaza with a post office and dwarfed the federal government. For reasons that remained elusive, you entered on the ground floor, but the public space was all upstairs. Surmounting the final step, the rows ran off into the distance.

If you ventured far enough, then you discovered various audio equipment available for sampling the wares. THis was standard back in the day, but not so common outside of a couple bookstore chains who dabbled in compact discs. Besides, these actually worked and the staff was amenable to letting you listen to anything they sold. Of course, this worked in their favor. I walked out with the Waterboys, for instance.

Then, there was this album with the play on words about William Blake. As it turned out, the artist had more of a folk music reputation, but what did I know?

Realistically, I skimmed a few songs before buying the disc, so I did not absorb the political content. I probably had registered the artist’s name from some mentions in the music press, but had no definite associations. Ahh, naivete.

Bragg has quite a bit more in common with Woody Guthrie than, say, any pop star. His politics and willingness to stand up for what he believes, as well as the wide range of musical interests, strike me as the modern setting of the dust-bowl troubadour. The similarities are obvious enough that Bragg was invited to collaborate with Wilco and Natalie Merchant on two albums of Guthrie’s lyrics set to their music.

None of this is surprising to fans.

What amazes me is the resilience of the type. Speaking truth to power, with or without the art, is a challenge beyond most of us. Perhaps that is why we react so disdainfully when our artists express opinions that appear to be outside their areas of expertise. (On the other hand, unvarnished stupidity does not improve with fame. I rather appreciate a considered opinion from an open mind, whatever else characterizes the source.)

Listening to Guthrie now can be difficult for ears trained on musical production of the past fifty years. Even early pre-electric Dylan sounds miles more polished. That’s meant as an observation. I have commented previously on the prevalence of so much work by past artists, especially as that presents a challenge to new artists. Yet, listening to the difference between Bragg with his guitar and voice compared to Guthrie with the same, it’s like listening to a Victrola.

Ultimately, there may be a cut-off for just how far back we are willing to dive into the archive. Current artists may always have to take up the mantle of re-presenting older material in new fashions. Of course, that will be dependent on the continued interest in a lone voice backed by a guitar reminding us of those who have had their voice silenced elsewhere.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 86 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Skeptic, author, magician

Who knew that a good BS detector would become such a necessity in life? As it turns out, pretty much everyone knew.

For some brief period of time, I stayed up with my Dad and watched the Tonight Show as was his wont. They always announced the guests during the opening. One night, they announced James Randi and it seemed like my Dad was pleased. He definitely thought I would be interested. Or perhaps he thought it was just someone that I ought to know about.

This was the time that Randi performed psychic surgery. As you might imagine, I was not really expecting what I saw at that time on that program.

Like dinosaurs and comic books, I went through a magic phase in my youth that never entirely left. I’m still up for a good magic show most any time, though they are hard to find. Naturally, I studied up on our most famous magician, Harry Houdini. Along with his various feats, Houdini was a great debunker of spiritualists and others of their ilk, popular at the time. Other magicians have used their knowledge in similar fashion, doing all of us a great service, but Randi (and Johnny Carson, as well) revealed that this need had never gone away.

When I finished reading about Houdini’s efforts, I naturally assumed that the forces of ignorance had been defeated. After all, it was a good book written for juveniles. It had a happy ending. Who knew that a good BS detector would become such a necessity in life? Apparently Johnny Carson, James Randi and my Dad knew.

We used to travel

from Ohio to New Jersey frequently when I was young. My parents would buy the newspaper in the morning wherever we happened to be and then spend breakfast complaining about the quality of the journalism. This was forty years ago, so one can only imagine what they would say now.

At some point, I interrupted their conversation with some pointed queries. I was the mouthy as well as the indulged son- surely a joy. In response, I received a lesson in how to read a newspaper. Nothing was what it seemed. First, every newspaper had an agenda put forth by its owners.

The editorial pages may be the easiest place to see that agenda, but the rest of the articles contained various types of bias also. That could start with self-censorship where they protected their readership from uncomfortable facts by use of euphemisms or the simple expedient of omission. Then, there was the limitation of space that required heavy editing of stories about faraway places, since local news mattered most to people. Of course, we would never know what the editors and publishers chose not to tell us.

Lest we forget, you needed to develop a fine eye for reading the newspaper in order to decipher the entire story. Most good reporters told you between the lines what they weren’t telling you up front. And that was the magical phrase: “between the lines.”

A host of sins could be buried in there. Those damn psychic surgeons didn’t need to lie to your face. They just buried truth and more lies in their spiel. Life got a little harder after seeing James Randi. I always had to pay attention. Life also got a little easier as maybe it became a little easier to recognize that eternal product, BS.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 87 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Foucalt’s Pendulum
Novel written by Emberto Eco

If you find yourself attending PAX West, East, South, Aus or Dev, then one of the things that you will notice is the warm welcome. Conventions, be they for yarn, drugs, lawyers, etc., tend to leave the attendees feeling wiped out after a few hours. When I was younger, I definitely had better staying power, but the other lingering feeling was this weird sense of being an outsider.

Really small gatherings managed to avoid the us vs. them break by being too small to exclude anyone. “Hey, you showed up- come on in. You say you just wandered in because you’re staying in the same hotel? Well, have a look around!”

Too often though, you have this sense that by walking through the doors then you have become part of this quasi-world that exists for people with a unique obsession, perhaps an unusual world view. That can be strange enough. Then, you realize how many people actually attended and start noticing that they have broken down into smaller groups. There are the top tier sellers. Those are the aloof people judging the rest of us. Look at the ones who know how to purl sitting in their circle.

At PAX, they flew their freak flag proudly. Many spoke about how online interactions had reassured them that they were not the only people in the world who liked what they liked. Hugging occurred.

Nowadays, popular culture has made it a lot more difficult to say that you can’t find anyone else that likes what you like. People know who Deadpool is, for crying out loud. I could make a side-comment here about a wizard school and no one would look askance. Be all that as it may, a significant difference remains.

We all spend a lot of our day thinking.

Some of that thought is shallow and some of it can get down to the minutiae- you know- I want pasta as opposed to I want a nice orecchiette with cherry tomatoes, arugula, olive oil and hints of black pepper and garlic.

Excuse me while I eat something.

Okay, I’m back.

Never living inside someone else’s head, I will never know if I obsess over things more than anyone else. My limited experience of semiotics suggests that some people do obsess about details more than me. Yet, I like that world. I enjoy thinking hard about art and culture.

But I’ve never been entirely at home at the conventions. At some point, my patience discussing this one part of my life runs its course. It’s not that I don’t think there is much to be considered in the writing of Robert Sheckley or all the episodes of Buffy or saving ancient COBOL programs or…, but that there is so much more out there in life.

Umberto Eco seemed like a wanderer, also. He wrote beautifully about packing awkward items for travel, his experience of student protests, and about conspiracy theories. Breaking through to popularity with The Name of the Rose, he even became a subject of reference himself.

Before Oliver Stone and the internet made it commonplace to be curious about weird stuff- essentially letting your mind go where it wants- Umberto Eco showed me that it was okay to wonder about stuff. You could be just a little or a whole lot weird and still go out in public and behave yourself.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 88 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.