Michael Jackson- an open letter to the Haters.

            Defending a Michael Jackson memorial is like defending air or water—anything so utterly and horribly over-exposed certainly needs no defense. It’s everywhere, like it or not, unavoidable, ubiquitous. But I feel the need to do so.

Strongly.

            Our modern culture is split, fractured, divided amongst languages, factions, beliefs, politics, religions. Cultural pundits across the aisles have consistently bemoaned the loss of “water cooler moments” that unify our culture, that make us “Americans” or simply, “humans.” These events, in the age of three television stations and two newspapers, used to be as simple as Carol Burnett’s new show, or the crrrrrazy new Procter and Gamble advertisement. But, as more stations and websites and magazines take over a cultural landscape, as we’re allowed to find our own niche and not simply slot into the 4 or 5 boxes available, we fragment, we splinter, we separate. And that’s… okay. It’s a necessary by-product of progress, an ironic attribute of connectivity.

The tragedy is that our unifying moments as a people, our cultural touchstones, become few and far between. Occasionally, we are brought together by tragedy, like 9/11. Sometimes, we are unified in hope for the future, like Obama’s inauguration. But rarely anymore, if ever, do we get together to celebrate a common cultural wellspring, a history, a connection to an ineffable human feeling. And those of you that have spent the last week harping and moaning about the over-coverage of Michael Jackson, well… I agree with you. The manner, tone, and ludicrous coverage hasn’t been perfect. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater (I searched for another image there, but ah well).

Those of you who mock, spurn, and shout have missed the point. Quite frankly, I suggest that you have no idea what the rest of us are mourning, that you have no conception of what it is that has brought us to our collective knees. On the surface, visceral level, it is a celebration of a complex cocktail of emotions cued by something as simple as the first chord strike of “Smooth Criminal,” or the rush of blood and racing pulse that always accompanies the sneaky opening bass line of “P.Y.T.” You may not feel that, you may not relate, you may not understand. And that’s… okay. But to shout about your ignorance is nonsensical.

Yes, there are complex, horrifying tragedies facing us every day. Iran is sitting on a knife edge, waiting to tip towards the loose capitalism of China or the aggressive communist dictatorship of North Korea. Kim Jung Il is a four foot ten ticking time bomb. Gays can’t marry and if the economy goes much further, we may belong to Japan. I understand this. Many of us understand this. But if we are not allowed to recognize the importance of a man with the courage (not ignorance) to speak in platitudes, the relevance of a body of work that defined our relation to that complex interaction between our bodies and external sounds, the sheer overwhelming amount of hope contained in a trickling disaster of a life, then our culture has lost something beyond a superstar.

            This is a water cooler moment, and not a mockable one. We are mourning a man, yes. We are mourning incredible, moving music, yes. But, more importantly, we are mourning a common bond, one that we fear is broken. Michael Jackson’s death comes at a precarious time in American culture, and so many of us feel connected by his music. He affects us all differently, but for many of us, that effect is very, very deep indeed, and though our bodies feel it uniquely, we feel the connection equally. For those of you who can’t see what the hoopla is about, I’m sorry. I truly am. But to publicly deny a common emotional wellspring to millions of people out of misguided political arrogance, or an odd sense of public duty or a feeling of uncomfortable exclusion, well, you’re wrong. This is meaningful. It is important. Maybe not for the reasons the pundits say. Maybe not for the reasons you’ve heard. But millions of people around the world were punched in the gut and are desperately uniting through webs of tears, reaching out to each other in the name of love, in the name of music, and in the name of a hope that some of us feel might not exist anymore. To deny them that, even out of ignorance, is offensive, it is wrong, and it is horribly, utterly selfish.

         Go listen to whatever music moves you. Dance. Sing. Cry. That’s enough. Not only will you start to understand what’s going on, but it’ll keep you off the web for a few hours.

Barack Obama

The morning after the presidential election, I sent this e-mail out to some of my friends who work in the arts:

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Dear Friends,

As artists, we spend much of our lives reacting, be it to overly authoritarian power structures, mistreatment of the less fortunate, or worldviews we find to be corrupt and disingenuous. It strikes me today, after surrounding myself for the last twenty-four hours with like-minded individuals who shared their hugs and their fears and their tears, that we have another opportunity to consider.

            History is dotted by periods of hope and prosperity, intermingled with long stretches of fear and doubt (Fortuna’s Wheel according to The Confederacy of Dunces). The “role” of the artist in these periods is remarkably consistent – we inspire, we create, we paint pictures of the core values as we see them, we mirror society back to itself so that it can fix its hair, straighten its tie. But last night, listening to Barack Obama give as stirring a speech as I’ve heard in recent memory, rubbing the chills away from my arms, I felt that I wanted to redefine my work. That, instead of railing against social injustices, pointing out the lack of clothing on the Emperor, or howling to the moon about the corruption, greed and intolerance shaking society’s fabric, I would try and lead from the front. That maybe, with history on our side for once, we should all try and lead from the front. For now, hope is a good four-letter word. For now, education is a good nine-letter word. And intelligence is an asset, not an attackable offense. For now, change is in the air and tolerance is sweeping the nation (Prop 8 aside). For now, artists can speak about the world we wish existed and not waste brain cells combating what we see to be the dominant power structure. Maybe, after all, it’s us. Maybe it’s been us all along. Progressive groups thrive on persecution – it’s how we identify the other, how we know who to rebel against. From the second century Christians to the Beatnik poets, small, subversive groups are where change (good or bad) is initiated. We’re all used to it. We all expect it. It’s how we wake up in the morning and put ourselves to bed at night. But maybe, for now, we can let gross, ridiculous optimism trickle down from the top in an equation even Reagan couldn’t have predicted. Maybe, for now, we can act like this is OUR world, and force the corporations and business-minded to conform to OUR rules. Maybe, for now, we lead by example and stop sniping from the hilltops. Maybe, for now, our art means something different than it once did.  Maybe, for now, we stop acting like we’re the minority, stop acting like we need to shout to have our opinions heard. Maybe, for this moment, we can try something new… after all, we have the rest of history to topple the corporate beast. Right?

Peace and Love to everyone out there following your dreams… you were the real winners last night. (well, you, Al Sharpton, and MSNBC…)

-Travis 

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I’ve been thinking more about this issue, partly because the letter was unsatisfying – I only managed to hint around the edges of what I was attempting to say. The problem with letters and blogs is that they are free, unedited, briefly lighting upon issues that, upon revision, would be highlighted, fleshed out, made clear. My last post, for example, only discovered what it was really about in the final paragraph – the notion that some groups mean their votes more than others… and that doesn’t show up in simple polls or elections. That is something we only find out post hoc.

What I meant in my letter is this: It’s easy to be an artist for hire. The path is clear when you’re forced to write to put food on the table. Even the reactionary path, though more complex, still has clearly defined subjects, targets, and concepts that are begging for rebuttal. But what I find horrifically challenging are those times in your life when you are beholden to nothing and no one. When, for a second, you aren’t worried about your next paycheck. When the world seems to take a breath. When you are confronted with the sheer awesomeness of the subjects available to you. This is when it’s difficult to be an artist- when we also have to be leaders. And I think that now might be one of those times. We blasted open the illusion of workable socialism. We’re seeing the widening cracks in the free-market capitalist system. We know that we want equality, freedom, fairness and progression, but we don’t know how to get there. Some books (The Shock Doctrine, for example) help us to re-envision the past in a more rational light, help us to see that maybe there are workable alternatives to the dominant economic structures of our time. But art has a role here as well. Fiction, music, fantasy—the acceptable paradigms are shifting, and I truly believe that as the “radical” artist becomes “mainstream,” that society is pulled along with him/her. The “centering” of America has been dragged towards the right by media figures like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity- men who repeat talking points enough that they begin to seem reasonable. We forget that humans are creatures of habit, creatures of remarkably poor psychological construction. What we are familiar with is what we find comforting… even if we are made to be familiar with hate, bigotry and isolationism.

       I’m rambling again, but there is a reason Hollywood is called “liberal.” There is a reason that novelists, artists, musicians and poets vote with the Democrats (Mamet and Frazier excepted). It is our voice that pulls society back towards progress, away from pure capitalism, away from the sterility of an economically-defined world. Perhaps I am overstating our responsibility. After all, we’re just story-tellers, right? But wouldn’t you rather err on the side of incredible light than passive mediocrity? Isn’t it more exciting to imagine that what you create affects the world, changes society, empowers people? It’s like a less-lame Pascal’s Wager. Let’s assume we’re responsible for the direction of the world, take those keys, and turn the whole damn thing around.

       This is what frightens me. The thought that this could, even in some miniscule way, be true.

Proposition 8

Protests are always a crapshoot. The weather could blow, the turnout could suck, the keynote speakers could fall flat, the donated sound system could break, or, even worse, the protest could be a raging success. The disaffected people, the proletariat who have left their houses, traveled in solidarity for a common cause, they could be whipped into a chaotic frenzy, marched to a second destination, then… left to disband. This feeling of isolationism and confusion that drove them to seek out a group, that forced them to have a voice, it’s now worse before, now that each protestor has been exposed to the notion that there are OTHERS like him, that there are OTHERS who feel the same, that there are OTHERS willing to fight against the preservation of the status quo. But those others are riding the subway home. Those others are at Whole Foods getting lunch. Those others, whose names you don’t know, whose phone numbers you don’t have, they’re hitting the 3:15 showing of Madagascar 2. That dissipation of energy is the comedown off the heroin protest high, and it’s an all too familiar feeling for the modern dissident.

            I remember in 2003 attending the largest anti-war protest in the Pacific Northwest. A sea of people rivaling the nearby ocean. Shouts, cries, speakers, energy, posters, tears. Change. And the rally happened, and I got chills, and I got angry, and I shouted along with the man holding the bullhorn, just as I was instructed to do. But that night, I went home and I sat with my friends and we searched for what we had changed, what we had done. And the war happened. And people died. And we forgot.

            Today, I took part in a protest against the passing of Proposition 8 in California, along with thousands and thousands of like-minded individuals. It was an ingenious idea— organizing simultaneous protests in every major city across America. 10:30 in Los Angeles, 1:30 in New York, god-knows-when in Alaska (for the 8 people who wanted to be there). The power of the internet had been harnessed yet again for social action. The turn-out – amazing. The signs – hilarious, touching and resonant. The speakers, aside from a few shrill voices – measured, intelligent, honest. It was a good rally, a meaningful protest… but I found my body reacting in a strange way. I wasn’t angry… I was… something. Tears sprang to my eyes at the echoing chants and beating drums. I was caught off guard and quickly yanked my sunglasses down. Tears? At a protest rally? This was a time for militant action, for shouts of anger, fists of fury. And I looked around me. And I saw a sea of people protesting for equality, yes. But more importantly, I saw people protesting for love. The gay rights movement is, at its base, about equality for men and women of all races, creeds and color. Yes. But this particular movement, this protest filled with 60-year old lesbians holding hands, terrified that their marriage was going to be voided by the state, by lifelong gay partners who simply wanted their love sanctioned… it was different than anything I’d ever witnessed. They were people protesting in defense of basic civil liberties, yes, but all under the umbrella of a simple, yet indescribable, human emotion. The signs showed wedding pictures, the banners listed names of couples with the length of their unions beside them. 16 years. 25 years. 40 years. These couples, these unspeakable loves, they finally had voices, and they were loud.

            Protecting innocent life, granting equal educational rights to minorities, denying NAFTA’s inexorable approach into our political system—these are rallies filled with righteous indignation, with anger, and with drive. Today’s protest… was different. It was tinged with sentimentality and sadness… the notion that men and women had to fight for their right to love another human being was strange, shocking. The facts and figures and arguments curled up and blew away in the face of these elderly couples fighting, not for themselves, but for their partners, their friends, their lovers.

            And we marched. And we dissipated. And we rode subways, bikes, cars back to our houses. And we sat down and we thought. Today’s protest wasn’t just about rabble-rousing anger. It was about showing our numbers. All votes are counted equally, sure… but I think we just might have meant our votes a lot more than the opposition. When I arrived, there were about fifty anti-gay protestors waving signs and Bibles and hollering slurs at anyone who walked past. And I entered the crowds of couples and I forgot about them. An hour later, I realized they were gone. And that’s when it struck me that today really was different. Because hate and anger, they’re just two sides of the same coin. They fade. They dissipate. They lapse. But love… well, that lasts a lot longer.

            

One Year Later. And Mute

So this blogging thing is taking a while to catch on. Everyone bear with me.

I had an interesting experience last night concerning mass silence. For the second time in my life, I’ve torn a vocal cord and am on doctor-ordered silence for at least six weeks. Besides the obvious positives a condition like this offers to my writing career, I also find that it creates a strange, disconnected existence. When I venture into the “real” world, people (for some reason) generally assume I’m either deaf or retarded and speak verrrry slowly and loudly to me, even after I make it abundantly clear that I can hear and comprehend just fine. The obvious discomfort on people’s faces when they realize I can’t converse back, the quick closure of social interactions… it’s amazing how much we rely on non-verbal sound for conversational feedback. I’ve begun traveling everywhere with friends, just so they can explain my temporary condition, but strangely, it doesn’t appear to help. Strangers are just as uncomfortable around me, and most even keep eye contact to a minimum. Perfect opportunities for people watching, but a less than opportune time to make new acquaintances.

In any case, a large group of my friends (all of whom are aware of my condition) threw a surprise party last night to celebrate my latest sale. The location for this was a Thai restaurant with a 5’2’’ Thai Elvis impersonator. This is even more incredible than it sounds, but strangely not the oddest part of the evening. The kicker here was that the table, when I arrived, was covered with pads, pens, post-it notes, colored pencils and markers. The rule they’d all decided on was that complete silence had to be maintained at all times during the dinner – if I couldn’t talk, then they weren’t going to either. After the initial dread drained out of my stomach, this experience became phenomenally entertaining. Even the wait staff (who, after the meal, admitted that they thought we were all deaf) began writing down notes to communicate with our table.

It is now my firm belief that a completely silent meal is something everyone should go through at some point in their lives, especially with a large group of people. A sort of instant intimacy is created, a necessity of language, a conservation of words. Cliques become highlighted, private jokes become focal points of table attention. Personalities become heightened, as some people grow increasingly impatient, using abbreviations, chopping their sentences short to simply get the gist across. Others, conversely, write incredibly long missives, taking 5-10 minutes before passing the letters on and then falling silent for a comparable amount of time. And, perhaps most interestingly, there is a written record of everything that is said. This bag of trash sits beside me now, and I can literally, at my leisure, recount every single word “uttered” at that meal. A random drawing from the bag brings out the phrases “I just WANT BEER” and “…the doctors figured out why my dad was collapsing, so that’s good news…” and “I ride my bike a lot and recycle – so hopefully, Mother Nature won’t strike me dead.” A strange, multi-colored bag full of serious conversations and Post-it notes with “Deez nuts” written on them. Numerous times throughout the 2 and a half hour dinner, I looked up to see an entire table full of people furiously scribbling onto notepads, not one of them looking up, all of them bypassing the so-called 80% of non-verbal communication in favor of words and symbols and emoticons. Expressions and hand gestures get me through 95% of my social interactions these days, but my friends didn’t rely heavily on these things. Perhaps that comes with mute experience? Who knows.

Any cohesive divergence from social norms results in a bonding experience for large groups, and this was no different. At the end of the meal, we all felt like we’d been through something, understood a tiny aspect of the world that had been hidden from us. Of course, as one of my scraps of paper reads “I feel like you all just put on a fat suit and walked around for a couple hours. I’m actually fat.” So they go back to the world of the speaking, and I continue my six-week experiment. On the plus side, there’s plenty of time for new blogs.

Paris Hilton. Yeah, I said it. Watch this...

I’m not even going to apologize for this one. Here’s the deal. I know why people are obsessed with Paris Hilton going to jail. I know why this is a bigger deal than Lindsay Lohan going to rehab. I have the scoop.

People are crazed over this story because it represents the gross refutation of the American Dream. That’s right. I compared Paris Hilton to the American Dream. It gets worse. Stay with me…

Interesting side story first—I was in Paris recently with my mom and step-father, and we stayed in the Hilton Hotel in the middle of Paris. My step-father found this hilarious (in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I giggled at least once or twice), and continually said things like, “Boy, sure is roomy inside the Paris Hilton. Pretty big in here, huh?”—And then would giggle. Or- “It’s much cleaner inside the Paris Hilton than I expected, don’t you think?” Or- “Wow, I never thought I’d actually get a chance to be in the Paris Hilton overnight. Pretty exciting, huh? Does it feel like you thought it would?” Then my mother would sigh in disgust, my eight-year old sister would agree wholeheartedly, and I would titter like a schoolboy. Anyway, back to the fall of man…

Here’s the deal. The American Dream is predicated on the fact that if you work hard enough and make enough money, that you can rise above the riff-raff—that at some amorphous point, the rules will literally stop applying to you. We see it all the time, with our movie stars, musicians, even politicians. Sure, we expect someone to go down for storing thousands of dollars in their freezer, or snorting coke in a Wal-Mart, but for drunk driving? On a suspended license? This is not how America is supposed to work! The rich don’t have to pay taxes—why the hell should they be susceptible to other regulatory laws?

This is the crux of the problem…deep down, we all know that we (or at least our kids) could be rich one day. And we want them to be rich so they won’t have to deal with the inane mundane aspects of life. Things like traffic tickets or jail time. It’s related to the reason we were all enthralled by Britney Spears’ first pregnancy. With so much money and power, shouldn’t she be above getting knocked up? I mean, shouldn’t a stork deliver a clean, non-bloody mess straight to her doorstep? Can’t money and power buy your way out of painful childbirth? Of course, the Britney situation has a great deal more schadenfreude in the mix… (and don’t think that’s not part of the Paris thing, I just think there are greater ramifications to deal with).

And yes, this is infinitely more important to write about than Tom Tancredo or Mitt Romney. That will follow as election season heats up.

Imposed Permanence

Is anyone else concerned about the concept of permanence?

Here's the thing. We live in a society that is simultaneously decreasing and increasing in permanence, and it sorta bugs the hell out of me.

Because things "move faster and faster" as time goes on, because MTV uses jolts, because every weekend a new major blockbuster comes out, because our Vice President can shoot a man in the face and we stop talking about it after a week, because there is a new scandel, a new update, a new model, a new iPod version, things tend to have less significance as they happen. If you screw something up, chances are if you lay low for a week, all will be at least forgotten, if not forgiven (pretty much the same thing these days). This means that people can go on national TV and make a fool of themselves without worrying too much about lasting damage. Paris Hilton can reinvent herself every year, and anyone who complains can be accused of "living in the past". This is the present, things move fast, people change, life isn't static, get with it. So we're coerced into being less focused on the intentionality of our actions, less thoughtful, taught to think less before we speak. Stephen King is great and here and now because he puts out a book a year, but Salinger or Robert Pirsig, well, who are they really? So there's that.

On the other hand, there is this growing sense of digital media and this confusing Homeland Security department that seemingly has access to an increasingly all-digital environment. VH1 makes a living off of finding embarrassing footage of stars--gaffs, old commercials, that two-week stint on "Charles in Charge", the bloggers (which now includes me, granted) have time and attention to (at least for that day) call up old posts, e-mails, newspaper articles, "Smoking Guns" (.com) from years, even decades ago. So in that sense, we're responsible for everything we ever say or do. Mention you smoked weed in a high school newspaper, that just might screw your chances for Senate. Get a DUI when you're younger... it could make you Vice President. Wait, I'm off track. Does anyone see my point and share a general paranoia about interviews, postings, publishings, etc? Things only seem to bite you in the ass if you become famous, but then again, we're twenty-somethings, so I think the assumption is that we're supposed to be famous at some point, right?

It's like this weird conspiracy theory--no wait, it's like an episode of Elimidate where the producers keep telling everyone "relax, have a drink, don't worry," and then edit together the most embarrassing drunken footage they can find from a series of disastrous dates. Society is implying that our actions carry less and less weight--it doesn't matter if you vote, it doesn't matter if you recycle, it doesn't matter if you drive your car everywhere-- you're just one person, who cares? But meanwhile, there is this preservation of action that simply has never existed before. Our lives, for the first time in history, are pretty much on record from the moment we can elucidate our own thoughts either verbally or through writing, and they can be accessed at any time, by pretty much anybody. Kids are so damn good at the internet, I bet an 8 year old hacker could probably steal my identity and use actual quotes from me that I never knew were recorded anywhere. Am I crazy here?

Does anyone else think about permanence? About making a mark on society in only a positive way, and not having your prom picture with the mullet and the braces shown on E! Entertainment television? Socrates had it easy... if people could have seen his acne, he'd never have been the father of modern philosophy.

Ann Coulter

Beginning a blog is like picking out an outfit for your first day at a new school. A new middle school. Full of agressive, lunch-money-stealing hoodlums.

You must take absolute care to choose a strong topic. You must portray your whole self precisely, eloquently, succinctly.

It breeds contemplation, reflection, a search for some sense of uniformity and cohesion to one's life. And this is what I absolutely cannot get off of my mind.

I think I might hate Ann Coulter.

I feel like a bad person for even saying it, because I don't ever really hate anyone. Now, I realize this sounds reactionary and is precisely the type of sentiment for which she is searching. And I really am having some intense self-loathing for spilling more pseudo-ink over this she-devil. But I can't help it. She gets in my head like an earwig from Star Trek II. I truly believe that she represents most of what is wrong with America today. She's a bully, looking only to say the most outrageous thing so she can then mock those "prudes" who cover their mouths with horror at someone who actually "speaks their mind." She doesn't care about people, truth, ideas, or, quite simply, being a good person. It bothers me how much I dislike her, because, as the rumor goes, the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. Which means she's succeeding in her war to "alienate the liberal."

What really bothers me, truth be told, is not what she says, because there are bigots everywhere who agree with her. What bothers me is that people listen to her and give her airtime. That someone has decided hers is a voice to be listened to. That her books are bestsellers. She's become what she wanted to be--a figurehead, a celebrity, an idol. She gives all the racists, bigots, ignorant people in society a place to point and say, "See! That's how I feel! That's what I'm talking about-- she's smart, she writes books, that must somehow justify my opinions. Now I don't have to go learn on my own."

She is the soil that allows hatred to grow in America discourse. And I wish I didn't care so much about the whole thing.

Grrrr.