Month: August 2018

I’ve heard so much music in my life, most of it fairly pedestrian in hindsight, and for the most part, there’s so little juice in most things of my own generation, and less so with even newer things. The power of the song just wears off after a while.

But for some reason, this song still works every fucking time.

For my own sake, I’m trying to parse the various kinds of behaviors that exist in the world, and put them on a spectrum. I think (not sure, but bear with me) it will help me understand the nuances of current politics / cultural trends.

I think I’m missing a number positions on the spectrum, and perhaps they’re in the wrong order. But I need to start somewhere.

My hope is by unpacking this more, I can start to make sense of the way people behave in public, something I regularly struggle with. Maybe it’s foolhardy? Who knows. But perhaps you can help me flesh this out? I really want to make sense if this.

Cultural Behavior Spectrum:

Chaotic Net Positive
Heroic / Altruistic
Positive Behavior
Only concerned with extended friend group / family
Only concerned with direct friend group / family
Passive
Neutral
Only concerned with self
Blindly pleasure-seeking
Passive-Aggressive
Asshole
Agressive
Illegal
Theft
Violence
Sexual Assault
Murder
Genocidal
Chaotic Evil / want to see the world burn

What’d I miss?

I’ve been thinking about the difference between things that are against the law, and the way people behave in public that is “illegal” but basically unprosecutable for a variety of reasons. This is certainly informed by the gun-in-a-bathroom event from the other day. I’ve essentially received a torrent of messages about what laws were broken that night, and what I should have done.

But in reality, what could we have done to get actual justice, short of trying to serve it in some way ourselves? Laws are abstract until enforced, and without a mechanism for enforcement, the law is pointless. Usually, police are left to enforce law, but without them around, what do we do?

There are a lot of laws being broken at every level of our culture, but as we have seen with our government, it is really hard to pin actual crimes to guilty people, even with evidence and the right mechanisms to enforce laws properly. Police and passing laws are only part of the equation. How do we enforce law the rest of the time, especially non-violent, non-theft scenarios?

I usually want to do the right thing, anymore because it is contrary to popular culture. How do we get everyone else on board?

Perhaps I have controversial or extreme opinions, make comments that are puzzling and hard to parse, and even my sense of humor can seem crude in comparison to things I feel deeply and worry about often.

But, consider who I am and what I do. I’m an artist and musician. I work in journalism and radio. I work with kids and in classrooms. I spend a tremendous amount of my life listening to people without mainstream voices. I take in the world around me and I try to synthesize it in some way that makes sense to me. I have to pass an ethics tests to work with kids in Oregon, so I would hope I’m not some sort of monster. But when it comes to divisive issues, it’s likely I’ll say something that will bother someone.

So, just remember: I’m some silly artist who once was seriously in a band called “Cathead.” Are you really gonna let my opinions get to you?

I was playing a show tonight and one performer found a gun in the unisex bathroom. The next person in the bathroom brought it to the bar. The owner – a drunk motorcycle enthusiast – started asking if anyone found anything in the bathroom. The bartender handed the gun to him in a paper bag, and explained that this was the third time, and because of that, he is not welcome in the bar. The patron, upset, left the bar, drunk, on his bike.

Welcome to Trump’s America.

Tonight: Mid-Valley Mutations is celebrating the music that our friend Nina loved so much. Tune in for two hours of Midnight Melodies For Nina Part II: The Beat Goes On, where we continue to explore the vinyl records from the Little Dork collection. The fun starts at 10 PM on KMUZ.org. Tune in!

When I lived in Eugene in the ‘90’s, the Fountain at the downtown mall no longer worked, and it was essentially a place for punks and homeless kids to hang out. Colin, Kiisu & I used to spend time there – late at night, occasionally on acid – where we would perform ceremonies for The Church of Blasphuphmus (Not Jesus), and in general, be weirdos for the sake of being young and bored.

By 1995, Eugene decided to get rid of the mall, by re-opening Willamette Street, which meant that the fountain was being torn down. The thinking was that this would save the businesses downtown, which had been in decline since the late ‘70’s. If the roads were open, and parking was easier, it might help revitalize the businesses in the area of the mall, and improve Eugene overall.

Flash-forward to now. The businesses downtown are still in decline, in-spite of Willamette being re-opened, which was a little depressing for the locals, who were hoping downtown would be cleaned up. (wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Mall) So now, 20 some years later, there’s still weirdos hanging out where the fountain was, getting high and talking about philosophy and politics.

Some things never change.