Pop Writing

Here are some pop essays I've done:

MUSIC/ROAD MOVIES:

For a lot of bands life on the road is the norm, touring is their main source of income, and the way they stay motivated, it validates why they do what they do. When you’re on stage the parts of you that are a musician, a showman, an entertainer are at the forefront, the part of you with a home and quirks and embarrassing stories can’t go on that stage and be the superhuman that the crowd is clamoring for, and the further you are from the people that know the latter the bigger the former gets. John Oxenberger, fictional bassist of the eponymous band in Hard Core Logo, waxes philosophical on the stage persona early on in the film, “Why the hell are two grown men still calling themselves Joe Dick and Billy Tallent? When they gave themselves those names they were 16... 17. The question is, when do they stop using them? Forty? Fifty? Sixty? You wonder if they remember their real names. Joe Mulgrew. Bill Boisy. Then there's Pipe... can't even remember his real name. I used to want a punk handle too... just couldn't find one that fit. It was always John. John. John Oxenberger. John. John. John, the bass player. John from Hard Core Logo. Maybe I never had a real self to throw away like those guys.” Indeed, interesting things occur when that invented version of you is always present.

Two of rock music’s most aggressive subgenres are punk and heavy metal. They’ve informed each other vastly in certain ways (speed, dark imagery, heavy distortion, unconventional clothing, anti-social/anti-establishment lyrics, etc.) and in other ways are often at odds (technical musicianship, fanbase, vocal range, soloing, etc.). In the late 70s punk served a deconstruction of rock music, easy to play, abrasive, and minimalist the idea was that anyone could do it, that authority only had a place if you gave it one, by the 80s punk had morphed into an even faster more violent subgenre known as hardcore, taking the idea of the amateur man on the street as entertainer to new levels. At the same time metal was experiencing a golden age of sorts, between 1983 and 1984, heavy metal went from an 8 percent to a 20 percent share of all recordings sold in the U.S., it was the music of choice for much of the western world’s youth, metal bands were selling well into the millions and receiving frequent airplay on radio and television. The over the top stage shows, sophomorically sexual lyrics, and man-child musicians were begging to be lampooned, so in response to the then on the rise movement, Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer respectively created fictional director Marty DiBergi, and fictional rock stars Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls, or as they were collectively known Spinal Tap, subjects of the mockumentary (or rockumentary) This Is Spinal Tap. The movie follows the British metal band as they attempt a comeback tour of the United States, they’re plagued by cancelled tour dates, low ticket sales, censorship of their album cover, and rising tensions between primary songwriters Tufnel and St. Hubbins, as well as band manager Ian Faith (Tony Hendra). Spinal Tap are past their prime and in denial, still throwing the same fits from back when people were listening, through their rose colored glasses they can hardly see that the ship they’re on is sinking, they blame everyone around them as they continue to make mistake after mistake, mislabeling a the specifications Stonehenge replica for a stage show, getting lost backstage at a Cleveland venue, and using wireless amplifiers at a show in an air force base, and catching herpes. Things reach their boiling point when St. Hubbin’s girlfriend, a composite Yoko Ono/Linda McCartney/Nancy Spungen, joins the band on the tour and hurts the situation by trying to help it, Tufnel and faith leave only to be reunited by the discovery of the bands strong Japanese following.

Hard Core Logo, based on the pictoral novel by Michael Turner and directed by Bruce McDonald wouldn’t exist without This Is Spinal Tap and the characters reference it a couple times, but is a far more difficult piece. McDonald (who plays himself in the film) having made Roadkill and Highway 61 prior, knows his way around a road movie, and Hard Core Logo makes references to several other road movies, an acid trip with a split second cut foreshadowing a characters death, straight out of Easy Rider, and a good looking grifter who takes the bands money after a sexual encounter with one of the members as in Thelma and Louise (and a literal reference to the film in passing). This mock/rockumentary follows Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon), Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson), and Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson) as the eponymous Canadian punk band, reuniting for a benefit show for punk legend and recent gunshot victim Bucky Haight, lead singer Dick convinces them to head out on a reunion tour, lead guitarist Tallent is reluctant due to a potential opening as the guitar player for a popular alt-rock group called Jennifur , but goes along out of feelings of obligation to his old friend. The tour is a downward spiral for the group, they’re robbed, Oxenberger who has a history of mental illness loses his pills and relapses, a venue is shut down o the coldest night of the tour, Tallent’s Jennifur gig is cancelled and he descends into an alcoholic stupor, Dick comes back to his coke habit, Oxenberger reveals that Dick once sodomized Tallent to a heartbroken lifelong fan who Dick claims to have had sex with and named her daughter after Billy, they stop at Bucky Haight’s farm to find him with both lesgs intact, Dick admits to having made the story up and using the charity money to fund the tour, and Billy’s Jennifur gig is reconfirmed leading to a fist fight between him and Dick at the bands last gig while a white pancake makeup covered Oxenberger mumbling free-form poetry into the microphone, later Dick has a toast with the director on the success of the tour and shoots himself in the head directly afterward. Hard Core Logo is all Joe Dick has, Jennifur makes him admittedly jealous, It’s clear throughout the film that he loves and favors Tallent over the rest of the band, he pulls quite a stunt to get him back but coming to the realization that his best days are behind him, he saw only one solution. How long had that gun been there in his coat? You have to wonder.

The relationship between Tallent and Dick is not at all unlike the one between Tufnel and St. Hubbins, two friends start a rock bands at very young ages and never really grow up. They continue to battle for dominance on stage and in life, never realizing until it’s too late that without one the other is nothing. Underneath both stories we get the impression that for both of these bands the point of cultural relevance has come and gone, not only by the dwindled enthusiasm of the fans but by the looming presence of younger acts, Jennifur in Hard Core Logo represents the alternative scene that was in favor at the time the movie was filmed (1996) and in Spinal Tap a young up and comer named Duke Fame who still has young fans, limousines, and all the things he probably sings about he passes them by, barely recognizing his predecessors and promptly breezing past them without a word.


PUNK & MAJOR LABELS:

The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and The Clash all signed to major labels, they didn’t all find major label success, and they didn’t all change their sound to gain mainstream appeal, but they all signed to major labels, so we can safely assume that any Punk band can sign to a major label and not be a sell out. A lot of people call the Clash sell-outs for making Combat Rock, but that’s probably because those people only remember the singles from that record and the bands high profile tour. That album is a trip, as is The Ramones’ End Of The Century, and the Pistols’ Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle soundtrack.
These albums had nothing to do with major labels, they were just evidence of good punk bands that didn’t want to be repetitive and/or were falling apart in very interesting ways that miraculously managed to get recorded.

Of course in those days record companies just wanted a piece of the scene they’d sign anything in tight jeans, a leather jacket, and Chucks in order to capitalize on the trend, he band got make records and the label got to make money. But once the bands stopped selling a lot of them were dropped or cleaned up. I’ve noticed that these days, the difference between a bands pre-major label and post-major label catalogue is a lot more discernable, production gets cleaner and song structure tends to be more conventional.

While the record companies are doing their part by exposig new music to the masses they also took away it’s bite, it wasn’t new asnymore, it was just aanother thing to latch onto. For a lot of early fans, it just isn’t their band anymore. It isn’t fair to assume that your favorite bands have to remain starving artists for the remainder of their careers, but it can be frustrating to find yourself in the middle of a fad out of nowhere. It may seem childish but being over exposed to something you like, something that you feel is yours and that there aren’t a lot of people who can say that, it’s frustrating, it’s selfish but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

The internet has made finding a music scene a lot easier, and a lot more difficult for labels to pin down. Around early 2007 NME dubbed an emerging style of dance-punk/electro-clash music “nu-rave”, and while it did spawn a visual style of dress, it was almost universally denounced as a proper genre of music, in other words the only people lumping these bands together worked for a magazine. I think that’s proof that consumers aren’t listening to what record companies and music press tell them so much anymore, that they can discover and acquire music their own way.


KENNETH ANGER:


Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising is a turning point in the art of film. It pretty much invented the music video and the notion of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Modern ideals of coolness owe a staggering amount to this half hour of pop inanity. Anger took the motorcycle (a giant, loud, mechanical beast, placed between the legs) and exposed it for the phallic idol that it clearly is. He made connections between things like, Christianity, homo-erotica, Nazism, and the occult before it was a cliché, he invented that type of loaded imagery. Scorsese, Tarantino, MTV, all of them have a debt to pay to Anger and Scorpio Rising.

The film begins with greasers working on their bikes with little kids plying with toy motorcycles intercut with the footage, set to the songs Fools Rush In and, appropriately Wind Up Doll. This is followed by footage of greasers, one of them in a blue shirt, readying themselves for a party to the songs Blue Velvet My and Boyfriend’s Back as these shots all have heavy homosexual overtones, especially the one where a traffic cone is shown between the legs of a shirtless biker in a leather jacket. Then at one of the most poignant moments we see the greasers at the party intercut with scenes of Jesus, and occasionally Hitler, all to the song He’s A Rebel. This scene is a stew of irony, it reassigns the meaning of the song into something that actually comments on the status quo, and similar themes reoccur to the tune of I Will Follow Him.



It’s rough trying to find a modern piece that’s worthy of comparing to Scorpio Rising. Everything worth note since its inception has borrowed from it, and nothing has been as revolutionary. I decided to choose a piece that initially broke ground but has since been taken for face value and little more, Quentin Tarantino’s: Pulp Fiction. This movie equates homosexuality, religion, and ‘badass’ stereotypes in it’s own, far more subverted way, as well as reassigning the meanings of several pop songs. It’s longer, it has dialogue, is less shocking, and is commercially accessible, but its connection to Scorpio Rising is undeniable.

Take the use of pop music, Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Stay Together plays as Marsellus Wallace and Butch discuss throwing an upcoming boxing match. The song suddenly means nothing about the strength of love in a relationship, it’s about the weakness of a man who can’t pull himself away from organized crime, but it’s presence gives the scene romance, eerie, cryptic romance. The scene where Mia Wallace is dancing to the Urge Overkill cover of Neil Diamonds Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon, is foreshadowing of the traumatizing event (accidentally snorting heroin) that will soon take place.

In Scorpio Rising we have music telling the story of the bikers and their connections to the other imagery used in the film. It’s pretty evident what most of these meanings are throughout the course of the film. Hearing I Will Follow Him as the lead greaser (Scorpio) pisses into his helmet in a church alter, intercut with footage of Jesus and Hitler, we’re clearly being told that all leaders are failures because the idea of leadership itself is a failure. Same as the use of the song Whipeout used as the violent conclusion of the piece as a motorcycle crash is alluded to.

Both films also contain a constant reoccurring symbolic visual elements. Pulp Fiction contains a MacGuffin of a briefcase that has a heavenly glow and a combination number of 666, often theorized to be the soul of mob boss Marsellus Wallace, or possibly the diamonds from Reservoir Dogs. Scorpio Rising contains several skulls, skeletons, all representing youth culture perpetually burning itself out.

Scorpio Rising’s themes of homosexuality are very strong. At the biker party there are numerous lightning fast shots of playful man on man sexual exploration. Things like polishing bikes are likened to masturbation, and even the previously mentioned traffic cone pointing straight up at one bikers crotch are a tad more subverted, but still spelled out pretty clearly. Also Scorpio’s room is shown covered in pictures of James Dean as he watches Marlon Brando’s The Wild One on TV. He attempts to strike a match with his teeth and light a cigarette, but struggles unlike Brando, who performs the task with fluidity on the TV screen. This makes things a little more real and shows us where his obsessions lie.

Pulp Fiction manages to at least address the notion of homoeroticism in the American standard ‘buddy flick’. There are crude visuals, where the protagonists (Jules and Vince) are covered in blood must strip naked, and get hosed down by a man who calls himself the Wolf, then change into matching t-shirts and hot pants. However in Butch’s story we get the humorous and chilling origin of his fathers watch where Captain Koons states, “…when two men are in a situation, like me and your dad were for as long as we were, you take on certain responsibilities of the other.” Koons had to carry the watch “up his ass” for years in a POW camp. Butch becomes worthy of this watch and all of its history when he saves Marsellus Wallace from being raped by a man named Zed regardless of previous disputes with him, and we are agin presented with this idea of their eerie, cryptic romance. In a much less noticeable scene we’re given subliminal messages much like the flashes in Scorpio Rising, where we can see Butch’s wife (Fabienne) in the reflection of a TV screen as motorcycles and gunmen dive into her crotch, this scene taking place the night after Butch and Fabienne have had sex.

Another common thread that occurs in both films is sexual Frustration that leads to violence and clouded judgement. Scorpio Rising is really all about being pent up and needing a release, we get sexual release, violent release and a couple of mixes between the two. The comparisons to Nazism and Christianity work in this way, seeing as sexual repression is one of the countless arguments against these groups. Not only that but Scorpio himself seems so pent up because he’s only a leader in his group, and this is the only place where a character like him, can be accepted as a homosexual (in 1962).

In Pulp Fiction Butch kills a man in a boxing match, and proceeds to go home and pleasure his wife, violent release is trivialized suddenly by sexual release. On the other hand, Vince becomes evidently sexually frustrated with Mia Wallace and never learns from his Mistakes, he ignores divine intervention, he continues to get into progressively worse trouble involving unfamiliar bathrooms, and is eventually killed by Butch (who received sexual gratification the night before) whilst coming fresh off the toilet seat.

These are just the strongest similarities, I could go on based on the minutia in these two pieces alone. Scorpio Rising has had this kind of impact on countless other works in popular culture and is rarely mentioned outside of art school. It was essentially the ushering in of post modern cinema. But as a great man once said “if you do something right people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”

Jack Hunter, Moonchild: The Films of Kenneth Anger (2002), pgs. 28-38, 74-83, Creation Books
Bill Landis, Anger: The Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger (1995), pgs. 102-113, Harper Collins
Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising (1964), Pluck Films
Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction (1994), Miramax

HIPSTERS:

Occasionally when standing outside of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s MacLean Center, you’ll hear a passer by commenting on the students as they stand at the potted plants and smoke, there’s a very evident disconnect between the students and the tourists that walk up and down Michigan Avenue, they can’t put their finger on it but they know something’s up with these young people, something in how they dress, how they carry themselves, it’s even present in how they smoke, indeed the motives, attitude, and aesthetic of the aspiring post-modern artist are meant to give off this sort of feeling, they want you to know that they’re different but they don’t want you to know that they want you know. I’ve heard people call them “weirdos” or say something like “man, life is so miserable” in a mocking tone, and this is what the students want for the most part, being understood by mainstreamers isn’t a goal at least. There’s a word being thrown around a lot in relation to these art-school types: hipster. Some people think it’s a useless label that doesn’t really mean anything, but everyone generally seems to know what one is, and art-school is a definite signifier of being one, so at a recent loft party I asked the students themselves (all of whom I considered to be hipsters) what a hipster was in the designated outside smoking area.

“Well skinny jeans, skinny jeans is a big thing” says “Kate” a fibers student, “they’re starting to get to everybody but people still associate them with hipsters”. Indeed, When I asked SAIC students what a hipster was, skinny jeans, whether the interviewee was wearing them or not, was a popular characteristic also often referred to as “tight pants” or “girls jeans” (specifically in relation to boys wearing them). Skinny jeans are really just the tip of the iceberg, a small but noticeable piece of a much larger communal aesthetic, “They all wanna look retro, like 50’s or 60’s or 80’s, but not 70’s or 90’s”, says “Paul” a painting and drawing student, and he’s onto something there, skinny jeans were at their height in popularity in each of these decades, closely associated with the rock scene in several eras, and even the early hip hop, gangsta rap scenes, the idea is to recreate a now defunct idea of danger, to deconstruct what was the epitome of cool in a bygone period and appropriate it into a modern context: rocker or bomber jackets, sunglasses, baseball or trucker caps (often with the bill flipped up), Converse Chuck Taylors, motorcycle boots, and skinny ties are all clothing items that are either timeless or positively reflective of their time. On the other end of the spectrum is post-irony, or roughly the act of appropriating and embracing things that were at the time of their popularity or are currently seen as unfashionable or embarrassing by the general public: tacky sweaters, fanny packs, jump suits, loud prints, and oversized glasses are among some of the most common post-ironic clothing choices.

These rules don’t only apply to clothing but music as well “Kate” had this to say on hipster music “(points up to window that local band is playing out of) stuff nobody’s ever heard of… and old stuff”. On iTunes there’s a section for shared music where you can view the libraries of other people in your network here at SAIC a few common artists seem to be French electronic duo’s like Air, Daft Punk, and Justice, 60s staples like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys, 80s post punk like Joy Division, Gang of Four, and The Smiths modern indie-rock like Beruit, MGMT, and TV On The Radio, and more recently soul/funk music like Otis Redding, Etta James and Sharon Jones. Among these designated “cool” tracks you’ll also find plenty of scattered kitsch, like Brittany Spears, Ace Of Base, Electric Light Orchestra, and T-Pain. The serous music suggests an understanding of the art-form and an eclectic taste while the post-ironic music seems to suggest that the listeners don’t take themselves too seriously and is just out for a good time. Also the bands playing at the party were of the indie-rock, noise-rock, and electroclash genres, all of which are often associated with hipsters.

So we’ve established that there are people at SAIC deserving of the label “hipster”, and some of the rules that they consciously or unconsciously seem to follow. It’s important to add that the percentage of students at this school who fit these criteria outnumbers the percentage that you would find at almost any other type of school, every college has a group of hipster and hipsters are generally thought of as being college age but nowhere else but a fine arts college will you find hipsters as the accepted norm, possibly even the majority. Art is an important element of the hipster lifestyle “Honestly? They create the popular aesthetic, like how everything nowadays looks like it was drawn on scrap paper or how dinosaurs and cats and shit got big, and all that art nouveau swirly viney shit that’s all over everything” says “Jess” also from fibers. Hipsters work to set trends and in their art are constantly searching for new, thoughtful themes to incorporate. There is no such thing as hipster art but hipsters tend to work in postmodernism and deconstuctivism often referencing pop culture, a very love/hate topic with most hipsters. Hipsters are partial to the DIY (do it yourself) approach to art-making and the sometimes amateurish aesthetic that comes with it.

“Jess” continued to make the point that “… they’re all gentrifying Chicago”, this is another common association with hipsterdom and it stems from a need to feel otherness. Most hipsters white people, many are from affluent backgrounds and those who are feel the need to separate themselves from the negative stereotypes that come with being a rich white kid e.g. being spoiled, out of touch with minorities, and unable to take care of themselves. To disprove this they will often move to poor ethnic neighborhoods and “slum it” so as not to seem so separated from an actual poor person, otherness by association. However, the more hipsters move into a neighborhood, the higher the rent goes, eventually edging out the areas original populace. At SAIC this has ben the case with Wicker Park Bucktown and more recently Pilsen, the party I attended was fairly deep into the Southside, possibly a new spot for gentrification in the making.

Every post-war generation has had its counter culture: beatniks, mods, hippies, punks and the like. The current counter-culture is an amalgam of these and others, partly mocking partly in homage. The SAIC hipster is a prime example of what people mean when they use the term, which almost always pejorative, no hipster identifies himself or herself as a hipster though many of them are quick to identify others. Hipsters are mostly political leftists with heavy environmentalist leanings, appreciation for all things organic, rampant vegetarian/veganism , bike enthusiasm, and recycling. SAIC always offers a vegan option at school functions due to the high number of vegan students. In the end the hipster is a mostly harmless well meaning if not somewhat pretentious being who feels the need to separate themselves from the masses and the way they consume. At SAIC the hipsters are the masses however, and while it may negate their individuality to an extent, through creating and learning together at the school it seems to solidify the idea of hipsters as participants of a movement as opposed to a trend, it will be interesting to see which side history takes.

CARL ROGERS:

Carl Rogers on personal power is all about the idea of becoming person-centered. Basically what that means is never letting yourself become the boss or the leader of anyone and to instead treat everyone as a responsible person whom you respect and empathize with. Rogers applies this to doctor/patient relationships student/teacher relationships and parent/child relationships. Rogers shows the reader that leaders tend to make people dependant, and that in person-centered relationships; people can more easily accept themselves and others.

I had trouble finding an idea in his writing that I found to be dangerous. It was dangerous to the power structures that we live in today, but those structures didn’t necessarily have to crumble and be rebuilt as much as they could simply be phased out slowly under the new system, and we’d all be better off for it. There was however, the paragraph on Werner Erhard’s Erhard Training Seminars (EST) where trainers scream at patients and hurl obscenities at them for hours on end in order to get them to realize that they control, and have always controlled their destiny.

It seems to me that EST is a dangerous thing to try and change your life with. Being abused for several hours and then given a revelation about the way you live seems like a novelty act to me, and a hazardous one at that. The long-term effects of est may not surface until later but I doubt that you can walk away from such a staggering amount of ridicule unscathed.

Comics

I've been drawing fr as long as I can remember, here are a few more recent comics:





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Film/Video Work

I came to Chicago to make videos here are a few samples of my work in film & Video:











Also a link to a piece that was banned from YouTube:

"Coonature"