06/23/2001 - The Way Things Work
Shaktipat upon the third eye of all those who rsvp'd my last posting. Your
mostly encouraging, heartfelt, articulate responses gave me a lot to think about.
The one common misapprehension, due I am sure to my murky prose, is that I was,
in a roundabout way, asking y'all's permission to use profanity. Although that
might be a logical assumption, what I thought I was doing, perhaps in retrospect,
was investigating just how much latitude I may have in this venue before I hit
whatever boundary exists, the 'here's where I get off this bus' stop for this site.
Knowing me I wouldn't just cross the line, I'd obliterate it. Solution: Soon
barrycarl.com will be a reality, thanks to Bob n'Ann, and anything that I feel
is inappropriate for this web site, whatever that turns out to be, will be
available there.
The Way Things Work:
Every now and then I try to explain some small piece of arcana surrounding our craft.
To the uninitiated ours probably looks like an idealized sort of existence dominated
by bonbon eating, indolence, block-long limo's, kowtowing minions, and interrupted
by occasional flurries of vocal magnificence. It's not, except for the vocal
magnificence part. And although we try to maintain a firm collective grip on the
tiller of the wallowing scow of our career, we are far less captains of our ship
than we are swabbies in the boiler room, urging the leaky, barnacled tub forward.
We've been getting a lot of mail lately from folks who are actually offended that
Rockapella hasn't concertized in a nearby location. They think that we've done
this on purpose; that we're ignoring our fans, that we choose when and where we
sing, and our choices are driven by whim and personal preference.
That's not at all how it works, darlin's. Not at all. If it were, we'd have our
own concert series at Carnegie Hall. I'd see to that. To explain the concert
conundrum, I have to involve the music business, that shuffling, salivating,
eternally voracious hydra. My apologies to all.
The Deal:
Concerts are put on, for the large part, by promoters. Promoters, like everyone
else, are in business to make money. When they put on a concert, they are taking
a financial risk. They are paying for the venue, the advertising, staffing the
place for the night, and various other costs associated with putting on a show.
They want to know that by the end of the night, they've recouped their nut and
made a handsome profit. As a group, they are risk-averse. If they don't think
that a group will draw a crowd, they won't book them.
The Catch:
Now how does a promoter know if a group will draw a crowd sufficient to fill his
club/theater/concert hall/arena and thence his pockets? He does not go to a
tarot card reader. He does not say to himself, 'Hmm. I like them. I think
I'll call them and see if they'd like to put on a show in my place'. He looks at
what's playing on the radio. He looks at who has the hit videos. He looks at the
music industry rags to see what flavor of pop is being dished out and who is sucking
it up. And we already know from other little bits of The Way Things Work that radio
play, video play, and Hype In General are bought and paid for by the Big Labels.
If a group has a big radio hit, the promoters stand in line and beg and plead. No
radio hit, you stand in line and beg and plead with the promoters. Get it?
The Image:
A note about Big Hits: They are industry confections, whipped up in plush offices
by teams of marketing and p.r. people. They've studied what you wear, watch, eat,
think, and buy. They have had focus groups, opinion polls, demographic studies, and
statistical analyses. They have figured out exactly what they think you'll go for,
and their job is to take whatever artistic putty their label has signed and mold
it into a megabuck franchise. The music side of the industry takes it easy on
these teams of fluffers by making most of its output interchangeable. The groups
look alike, sound alike, have the same dance moves, hair designers, and merchandise
tie-ins at your local grease mart. So all the fluffers have to do is figure out
which cookie cutter band has the best chance of going platinum in the first
twenty minutes of shelf time. If they miss, well, a few pony-tailed heads roll,
and the next band is served up.
The industry operates much like the Army Corps of Engineers. They look for
projects that fit neatly into a formula, which can then be packaged on an assembly
line and shoved up your ass as quick as they can stamp CD's. There's no room in
there for groups that don't fit the box. This means that a lot of good, original
music is relegated to the 'fringe' of the biz. The consequence of this sort of
pre-apocalyptic corporate-industrial extrusion is the inevitable homogenization
of popular music. Or more simply put; This is why there are so many xeroxes in
every major category of pop music: Your basic sixteen-year-old butt-wiggling
spandex-encased virgin diva, your basic four- or five-guy calisthenic boy-band,
your basic pierced, tattoo-encrusted, goateed garage band, your basic pierced,
tattoo-encrusted, goateed, leather-sheathed bad-boy metal munchers, your basic
sexy-to-the-max, shrink-wrapped slinky girl trio, your basic good-'ol-boy/girl
in a big Stetson and anything with fringe, and on and on ad nauseum.
The artists who rise to the top of this infernal doggie pile represent a small
fraction of the spectrum of music-making in our fair land. A lot of really
quality stuff goes begging (ahem). I am well aware that this sounds like a vat
of fermenting grapes. It's not. It is The Way Things Work.
Our much-beleaguered agent and his staff have worn their designer jeans straight
through to the bloody knees, begging promoters to take a roll of the dice on us.
Our concert itinerary is a pastiche of hard-won dates, eked out of flinty,
battle-scarred promoters by people with gifted tongues and the crazy courage
that comes from having been to too many of our shows, seen too many smiley faces
and standing o's.
Therefore, knowing what you now know, you can't possibly hold a personal grudge
against us for not having come to your neighborhood - yet. Just remember that
it could still happen. Our entire career has been one unlikely lucky break
after another, and we still hold the hope in our collective heart that it will
continue. We have managed to sustain ourselves even with the industry giving
us a very frosty shoulder. Before we are consigned to the oubliette of history,
we will have tried every back door, trap door, rat hole, secret passage, detour,
and slightly ajar window in and around the biz. Some bands get MTV videos. We
get commercials. Some bands perform at the Grammy's. We have a concert on PBS.
Some bands appear on SNL. We had CSD. Our manager's forehead is, by now, nearly
perfectly flat from continually smacking it against the brick wall of the biz,
but as soon as the scabs from his last encounter heal over, he'll be back at it
with a vengeance.
The Switch Up:
I am a man ahead of my time. Unfortunately I'm only about six months ahead of
my time, which, given a Nostradamus-ish reference point, doesn't give me much
time to appear prescient. Remember when I advocated the fusion of WWF wrestling
and politics? About six months later, on the cover of the New York Times Week in
Review, was a picture of Dubya and Al as wrestlers going at it in the ring. I
think they called it something like 'political smackdown'. It sure took ya long
enough, folks. You know how it feels when you're five minutes into a movie and
you have the feeling that not only could you have written it, you can tell the
person you're with everything that's going to happen, and to whom, for the entire
movie? I see life that way.
Admittedly, six months isn't much lead time. I often feel like I'm squinting
through a pinhole into the very near future, and more often than not the Lady
sidles up to the other side of the pinhole and nonchalantly sticks her can in
the way, totally obscuring my divination. Occasionally she realizes that it's
more entertaining to watch me freak, and steps aside. Lately she's moved her
JLo butt, and her little boon has been rewarded with the sight of me rolling on
the ground, tearing my hair and babbling in tongues. I do that when the things
I see stop making sense.
The Forecast:
Through the summer, I see gas prices gouging strip mine-size divots out of
the American psyche. Detroit responds by building larger, less fuel-efficient
cars. We tear up half the planet prospecting for another weeks' supply of go
juice. Gas prices go higher anyway. As motorists become poorer, surlier and
more frustrated, I (on my eco-friendly 50 mpg pony) will be invited more often
by jealous SUVers to have coition with myself as I cruise by gas pumps and
through hopelessly stalled traffic. Now although I can see all of this, I am
frustrated at not having been given the gift of understanding any of it.
I don't know anywhere in the country that has a posted speed limit greater than
75 mph. Most places it's less. Nearly all of us drive cars capable of going more
than twice the maximum posted limit anywhere in the USA, yet the cars we buy are
getting ever larger, more powerful and gas-hungry, and that despite a fuel
shortage. Are we in a bigger hurry than anyone wants to admit? Or is there
something else going on here?
The Shell Game:
To begin with, cars are not sold. Images are concocted (just like for rock
bands), and abstractly linked to vehicles. You buy the image and the car comes
with it for free. This car will make you young, sexy, handsome, single, potent
and rich. This car will take you to the exotic, romantic, uninhabited ends of the
earth. This car will place you high above the masses, with wind in your perfect
hair and a radiant smile of eternal satisfaction displaying your perfect
orthodonture. This car will show everyone your impeccable taste, adventurous
spirit, and genius IQ. Although, in reality, you are just some poor schlep
being tormented into spending way more than you want to for transportation,
sitting behind the wheel of your fantasymobile will magically morph you into
the sleek model/stunt driver (do not try this in real world
conditions)/yachtsman/gigolo/starlet/adventurer/banker/athlete pictured in the ads.
The interior is real leather with burled walnut paneling, the ride is smoother
than caramello and the speedo peaks at an impressive 160mph. Wow. Half of that
will land you in the pokey anywhere but a race track, but by now the speedway is
rooted in your mind. Or: This thing is so rugged it can climb halfway up Everest
without snow tires. Zowie! Or: Everyone will gasp and drop their drawers when
you pull up in this one. Oooooh. Meanwhile, you've fallen for a very expensive
rolling appliance that loses half its inflated value the second it leaves the lot,
is ten times more machine than the rational person you fancy yourself to be needs,
is guaranteed to break, and sucks gas like a sot sucks booze. But the image, the
image!
I see a lot of images unraveling like a hand-me-down sweater in the next six months.
As our auto makers gradually awaken and start to frantically backpedal on the
ecodisasters they are rolling out of their factories, images will begin to shift,
and yesterday's proud owner of the latest, largest icon to our collective hubris
will be tomorrow's penitent, looking for something more economical than his
bloatomobile, something more in line with his real life, rather than the image
he's purchased, hoping to become. Who said that 'magical thinking' starts to
disappear around age 8?
Dontcha think that the Lady laughs her throatiest, sexiest tee-hee when you're
sitting in a traffic jam in your crate, and the guy in the quarter-mil V-12 next
to you is doing the same 5mph as you, swirling in his own little fog of greenhouse
gasses and quivering on the edge of a well-earned coronary?
Now, how ironic is it that this spew is coming from a gearhead? I'm not slamming
cars. I love 'em. I grew up in the hard-core car culture of LA, where You Are
What You Drive. Perhaps it was a prolonged gestation in that absurd environment
that made me aware of the moronic transubstantiation we attribute to our vehicles.
The Revelation:
My tiny, tightly circumscribed future-view shows me another facet of this
absurdist dramedy. It will shortly be revealed, after years of study, why
cars are built, on purpose, to exceed all posted speed limits by wide margins.
The answer is ridiculously simple, and it's not what the toothy, avuncular
salesman is whispering in you ear. It ain't 'passing speed', and it ain't
'safety', much as you'd like to think it is (what with roll-overs, explosions,
and such). In a time of virtue largely gone to seed, it makes us feel exceedingly
virtuous to drive at (or near) the speed limit, knowing that we can leap into wild
lawlessness at the touch of a pedal. Hey - before you snort derisively and get
snot all over your keyboard, check this out: When was the last time you drove
at the posted speed limit? Last time I tried, I ended up at the head of a long
line of honking, bird-flipping, exasperated motorists, but boy did I feel virtuous.
I mean, hardly anybody drives the speed limit. Which, by the way, means that most
of us are breaking the law most of the time, but we've all agreed that it's ok
(unless we get caught).
On the road I drive the most frequently, the 'consensus' speed limit is twenty-five
mph over the posted limit. Driving the posted limit is an open invitation to
getting run off the road. I've seen it happen. But one's virtue grows in proportion
to the factor by which one can theoretically flout the law. If my fuel-sucking
behemoth is capable of 150, I am, in principle, more virtuous going 55 than the
slob going 55 in the lemon that can only do 90. That makes me a saint at the
wheel, until I lose my meager patience and want to get somewhere fast.
What reasons, aside from the need to differentiate one's self in some superficial
way from the rest of humanity, the need for escape, and knowing that you could do
something truly wicked but you're just holding yourself back, could there be for
buying something you don't really need, has performance parameters way beyond
anything any of us with a class I license are allowed to do, costs more than
most of us have on hand, and that could have adverse ecological consequences?
Well, there's the 'luxury motorcar' angle. You've worked hard. You've earned it.
Your exalted status is confirmed, your conspicuous consumption has been sanctioned
by the Work Ethic, a favorable lease program, and heck, Sting/Tiger/Michael did
the ads. There's the 'new car smell' thing, which you can buy in an aerosol
can and spray on any jalopy. There's the 'trouble-free' first few years.
Yeah, right. The most recent reasoning; Geez, everyone's driving one these
days, and I don't want one of those leviathans crawling up my trunk so I better
get one, too. Let's make a case for paranoid, recidivist, knee-jerk thinking.
It's like the advertisers have achieved their pernicious satori; to get us all
conceptualizing in one-word ideograms: 'big', 'shiny', 'fast'. Duh. Pass me
a new drool bib.
Of course there's the 'mine's bigger' angle, too. Since we appear to be obsessed
with the 'bigger is better' philosophy, most of the planet has smirkingly stamped
that as being stereotypically American. Maybe we should put the phrase on our
dollar bills, replacing 'In God We Trust'. We seem to have more faith in Bigger.
I'm pretty sure that many of us secretly worship Bigger rather than our religion's
concept of the Deity. It's as if we think that by building bigger cars and homes,
our egos will magically inflate to fill the spaces we've created for them. It
actually happens, but the sad part of that equation is that we've mistaken ego
for sense of self, which, because of the spiritual equivalent of a starvation
diet, stays shriveled and miserable no matter how large a space we create for it.
We have bought into image at the expense of the self. Ouch.
The Tawdry Truth:
A lot of us, myself unfortunately included, just like to go fast. Our lives are
so carefully regulated and legislated that it's hard to find a daily adrenalin
rush worth spit, and this one is generously proletarian. The biggest problem
with this is that most simple-minded acceleration junkies are not trained to
drive at extralegal speeds, so when oops comes to crunch they fall back on
their panic reflexes, which make them do all the wrong things, causing them
to mangle their bodies and turn their bright chariots to scrap.
But in our minds, ah, in our minds we're highly-skilled drivers with razor
sharp reflexes and icy-calm dispositions, and knowing this to be our cherished
image, motoworld happily sells us mightier machines. The feeling of hundreds
of ponies thrumming under the hood is enough to launch most of us into a Walter
Mittyesque Formula I hallucination. For that moment, even idling at a stop
light in a 15mph zone, we are puissant (ironically the diametric opposite of
pissant). Pulling three g's away from the light, the pressure on the pedal
whipping the whinnying beasts that are pushing us deep into our race-molded
contoured bucket seats, the tach jumping to the redline, a pair of smoking
black streaks on the concrete and a miasma of uncarbureted fuel in our wake
is the spike in the arm that keeps us turning out our pockets at the fuel
pumps, the credit union, and searching for the reggie when we've been painted
and busted.
The Admission:
Obviously I know it's stupid. But take the adrenalin rush and quadruple it
for bikes. Say what you will about bikes making up for their owners' deficiencies.
In my case you'd be right. I have a deficiency and I use my motorcycle to
compensate for it. I can't go that fast without it.
I don't create solutions. I just foretell the soon-to-be present, and that
doesn't take too much talent. Our persistent and annoying rejection of
substance in favor of form, our addiction to image as opposed to reality
leaves us very few options when it comes to action. That makes divination
a snap. Present trends indicate that we are approaching a cusp at which point
we will have a choice either to continue feeding our addiction to image,
thereby denying what is in front of our noses, or to take the painful
step of acknowledging the chasm between form and reality, thus initiate the
process of healing the schism in our thinking.
From the way things appear through my pinhole, it looks as though we'll opt
for image when the moment arrives. Collectively we'd rather play pretend
than face what we've created. I wish it weren't so. Please remember not
to shoot the messenger. Thanks.
Yo Diehards!