The Thaddeus Gazette

'Tis the season to be jolly. That's jolly -- J-O-L-L-Y. Got it? If you don't, there are about a godzillion tv ads anxious to clue you in. And good on them -- 'tis the season to be mopey, dopey and poleaxed from days that seem to last about five minutes and nights that stretch out to the nearest Oort Cloud body. Anything to distract the less-than-limber limbic system is probably welcome, even if it's some gawdawful decomposed corpse of a toilet paper ad.

But there are more positive distractions as well. 'Tis also the season of Christmas lights. Or Yule lights, Hanukkah lights, Kwanzaa lights or what have you. Pretty colors, flashy shiny things, a little festivity to cut the hideous crud-brown and ashen gray of the year's droopy drawers. Whatever your spiritual proclivities, 'tis the season to darned well get off your dead ass and up on your dying feet to have at it.

We did our best to not get grinched out this year -- I actually sent a few dozen real paper holiday cards, climbed up into the attic to haul down the tattered remnants of xmas past, and we even broke into a round of "Deck the Halls" in a grocery store, with half the listening audience joining in. And I took advantage of pre-12/25 discounts and picked up a few strings of Chinese lights, clambered up on a ladder and hung them from the house, the porch and the calculated scalloped fence. Take that, mister darkness. Blinky blinky!

In a way, the mishmash displays of electrical overuse that show up this time of year represent what's best about the winter holidays of whatever flavor -- the desire to drive back the bleak, to share with one's neighbors the notion of good cheer as a conscious, disciplined activity in the face of the looming visage of Old Man Winter, that Old Man Winter, he just keeps freezin' along... That unified purpose is enough to justify an awful lot of excess (but not plastic rocknrolling Santas. Nothing justifies plastic rocknrolling Santas). And awful is the word and a lot is the amount that you get in the annual cavalcade of Contemporary Plastic Xmas Decks.

S and I gave in to our childhood training and went out lookylooing at lights this week. It was quite a show. Our own block has a suitably varied range of installations in keeping with our status as a United Nations neighborhood (more varieties than Heinz, dude), though the ostentatious was gently reined in by the guiding hand of financial prudence, West Seattle not being Bellevue. It got us interested in seeing what everyone else had done. Plus, it was an excuse to go out and cruise, which we always like.

At home and throughout the city, we saw motifs in the photonic sculptures. There was an obvious contrast between the yards designed with the aforementioned prudence and those seemingly benefiting from a nearby dotcom baron or trust fundie, a contrast usually measurable in kilowatts. But even within this range of effects, there were other considerations -- canny use of space and height, multicolors versus pure white or clear, novel objects such as luminous creches or outlined reindeer, and of course the everpresent quandary: to preach or not to preach? There were examples of artistic vision, clean highlighting of trees and bushes and tasteful use of line and cluster, while some simply rioted in the brilliance of the medium, dazzling the eye with great amorphous multihued masses. Others took the infamous descent down the slippery slope into the Day-glo swamp of unconscious kitch, paving their yards with such clotted bulb thickets and bounties of internally-lit Marys and Josephs, sometimes two and three at a time, as to cause us to exclaim our personal thumbs-down: "Over-extended! Lost credibility!"

None of this detracted from our enjoyment. In fact, the gawdier the rig, the more we whooped. It was the highest form of color therapy, every hue presented without favor for the seeking eye to absorb as needed, a smorgasbord for the troubled spirit.

In our excursion, though, we both noted that there seemed to be fewer houses involved than we remembered from our shorter days. Perhaps time and sentimentality morphed our recollections of that admittedly ideal state of childhood when Santa Claus is real, toys are sentient and the entire world blooms in a rainbow bouquet for the celebration of the season. Perhaps in those simple naive times there really were more Norman Rockwell-esque households purveying peace on earth and good will towards the power company. More recently there's been a trend towards anticonsumerism in a significant portion of the population, a revolt against the kind of excess that showed up at the height of our tour on Candy Cane Lane ("A Tradition Since 1947") with its cul de sac full of gingerbread and flock excess thickly crusted with lights and a constant flow of tourists with the requisite cameras and action. Such festive overkill would be enough to send Tiny Tim back to the hospital and Scrooge back to his old beancounting ways, and might account for the number of houses discreetly and reservedly devoid of presentation.

Still, holiday lights criticism is a field that's clearly DOA. This is an artform that is by definition amateur (though certainly there are career opportunities available at large department stores and municipal plants), without prescribed formalities or esthetics to mar the level playing field. In fact, it's one of the few truly democratic areas left in this age of ever-burgeoning professionalism in creative pursuits. Bad or good, vulgar or tasteful, screamingly over the top or as quiet as a single row of lights around a window displaying a small, sparsely-decked tree, anything that glows in the dark is a blessing this time of year.

And to top it off, it's a show that in all its raucous bombast and timid sentimentality is available for view without charge. Free. Gratis. A tender and egomaniacal gift we all give to each other, whether with wires and staple guns or with watching eyes. Along with carolers in grocery stores and all the other exchanges of this season of giving and receiving, they're a part of our culture that evades the demands of commerce and stands quite nicely on its own. And that, pilgrim, is a mighty thing.

12/15/03

This past weekend was Klez Fest, a happy event where musicians and fans gather here in Seattle to celebrate the goofy yet sober music that is klezmer. With a third wave of revivalism in full swing, yiddish music is branching out in numerous directions. Our living-room warrior band the Klez Katz shared stage with two fully pro groups, one from here, the other from Vancouver. S and I arrived too late to hear the Canucks, but the local boys, Shawn's Kugel, did everything from smooth jazz to rumba and still made it tretz. Their chops and musicianship were downright frightening. For our part, we were sloppy and exuberant and had a fine time, and the audience seemed perfectly pleased with us and line-danced merrily amongst the chairs.

We were cooling down in the green room while the crowd filed out when I ran across two of the contingent from up north, congratulatory and thoughtful enough to make me sorry I'd missed their set. We fell to talking shop as musicians will, traded cards, and then they announced they had to leave, that they were in a hurry to get home.

"Worried about getting back before they close the border?" I teased.

They had the decency to laugh, but they still looked a little nervous. We all admitted a certain edginess over the current state of politics, and they politely acknowledged their allegiance to the standard non-US view with alarm of our foreign policy.

And then they asked that million dollar (a million three Canadian) question. "You live here -- what's your take on all this? What do Americans really think?"

You don't know your own thoughts until you're fronting to other people. I've been teetering on the brink of some foul, unnamed depressive syndrome for months over the political situation in America (gee, y'think?), near-obsessing over the grotesque range of views of the subject from the litter of mutant pundits spawned by the twin strays of the internet and the media. The rabid barking of the How Dare You Criticize Our Sacred President right and the Hang The Liar left has my ears ringing so bad I can barely keep up a reasonable conversation.

What came to me then was something like this:

We live in a country with deep ideological divisions fueled by any number of incongruities, intolerances and injustices, social, religious, philosophical and economic. Right now, the administration is roaring down a path they feel is vitally important to our national security, although they cannot or will not articulate with any honesty or coherence what that importance is. They're willing to use whatever wretched logic-chopping trick they can to hard-sell their position, like used-car salesmen trying to unload a clunker on an inexperienced but suspicious chump. They have the unswerving loyalty of a core constituency of protestant fundamentalists, political and social conservatives and hard-core patriots for whom the President is always right and full speed ahead.

Against this group, which seems to comprise about 30% of the population, is mounted another mixed crew of unionists, mainstream liberals, hardcore radicals, intellectuals and a lotta just plain folks who are fed up with what to them seems a laughably obvious get rich quick scheme perpetrated on an international scale. This team also comprises roughly 30% of the population.

The rest of us, the 40% that outnumbers either side, has been bombarded with so many lies and melodramatic uproars from both camps that they've simply pulled the plug. They're entirely unwilling to engage in anything remotely resembling politics. The well of national discourse has been so poisoned by decades of ever-increasing hypocrisy and ever-cheesier manipulative discourse from the leaders of government, business and media that this group is off the air. Ask them about the national situation and they'll offer you a beer and turn on Friends.

But it's this last group, the self-sedated giant of the electorate, that is our greatest, indeed our only hope. As the debate mounts shriller and ever shriller, as the accusations and counteraccusations and countercounteraccusations fly, and as the bodycount and prices rise, sooner or later this invisible population will turn over in their slumber and the entire landscape will be reshaped. The change might be less than fully satisfactory to any or all the ideologues currently running the derby, but at least there'd be a change. The kind of gutbucket populism that puts wrestlers and movie stars in gubernatorial mansions is capable of doing all kinds of mischief.

The problem is, these guys aren't concerned with issues. They aren't swayed by ads. They don't care about debates. They're about as far from political principles as you'd ever want to get. And there's no telling what will bring them up for air.

Anyways, that's what I said. And for the record, I believed it. Then. Now, I'm less willing to assign either percentages or motivations to what's happening in Hail Columbia, Happy Land. More and more and ever more, I'm watching a political process systematically undermined by shite advertising and corporate sponsorship. It's as if what happened to organized sports is happening to government -- a simple, relatively pure process eaten alive by commercial interests.

No, that's not it either. Politics has always been a tetch corrupt -- the compromises and ambiguities of the greasy real world are pure murder on moral principles, and once your ass is grinding down that slip'n'slide slope, it's no big thing to acquire a fat enough checkbook to ease the bounce. It's that what used to be embarrassing and hidden is now displayed in front of gawd and everyone without shame enough to redden the cheeks of a ten year old. Whatever principles may have been espoused in the past, today they seem to be replaced by the toast Jack Sparrow gives his companion in "Pirates of the Caribbean": "Take what you can! Give nothing back!"

Any too much more of this and there'll be mischief to pay with which the mischief of former times cannot compare. And those canucks had better just leave a light on for me.

12/8/03

During the 80's, S and I spent many a dreary night earning our gas and groceries warbling cover ditties in clean but sterile hotel bars, accompanied by inexpensive audio aids and fueled by the constant monitoring of the Top 40. Our job description was to mimic as best we could the most popular recordings of the period.

To be charitable, it wasn't exactly us. While we did our best, neither of us could imitate either Michael Jackson or Lionel Richie worth pork and beans, which led us eventually to prefer cranking out stupid loud rockish dance music in smoky taverns instead, and more eventually to give up bar music entirely for the sake of whatever the heck it is we do now.

The Curse Of The Lounge that was visited upon us, along with all the other performers in those venues of that or any other period, was the fate of being gainfully employed in our chosen profession -- but without any of the esthetic rewards which that profession would normally bring. Our job wasn't to express the beauty of our souls, but to reproduce the linings of other people's wallets.

Those luxuriously horrible experiences left me ever-increasingly allergic to commercial music, an allergy that peaked in recent years with the coming of Britney Spears.

Why should I hate Britney Spears? What has she ever done to me? I mize well hate the next ten squawling babies I meet. Generally I tell squawling babies "Hey, things could be worse -- you could be all grown up and paying property tax." That shuts em up. At least it gives their harried parent a laugh. So what's wrong with Britney?

First off, I should admit that I'm not nearly as familiar with The Brit as I could be. I couldn't unambiguously identify any of her music by ear -- as near as I can remember, she sounds like a young Madonna Wannabee with production so slick bullets slide off it. I had to google her name to find out if it's spelled with one "t" or two. Mostly I've sensed her as a series of images presented in the media for my perusal and/or worship.

Perhaps my most persistent exposure to her has been in a relentlessly dreadful television soda commercial in which she culminates an energetic, over (and under) -dressed dance sequence by extending a pointing hand, cocking her head on one side and evincing an expression so lacking in anything resembling humanity that it could be mistaken for an alien's unsuccessful attempt at communicating sexuality without a clue as to the mechanics of it. Far from provoking any desire for the product she's flogging, or for her either for that matter, she incites in me (and from what I can ascertain, in numerous others) a revulsion close to religious in its intensity.

But again, so what? There's no revelation here. We can all recite the Hunter Thompson assessment of the music business, or substitute our own if we're imaginative and bilious. BS (initials don't lie) is a creature so totally manufactured that any human being under all that surface is probly about as alluring as what lurks beneath rocks in the depths of the swamps. You can't expect androids to do reality -- it's just not part of the job description.

Could the disgust I feel for this benighted creature be sublimated lust and shame? Oooooh -- kinky! I dunno -- any time my antiquated ductless glands get up the getup to activate I'm inclined to cheer them on, sans as much cryptoxtian guilt as I can scrape like algae off the interior surfaces of my mental aquarium. Madam Spears just ain't my cuppa, though apparently zillions of XY bearers (and notably Madonna as well) disagree.

The problem I have with the entire antemillenial tootsy popstar trip from Material Girl right down is that it seemed to be the final triumph of the grinding engines of commerce over every innocent or even honestly purile instinct of that hydra-headed preposterosaurus, pop music. Nobody ever said pop wasn't about bringin' in the sheaves, but in the past at least it had a modicum of human interest, however shallow, to go along with the marauding piggies. But in the corpulent corporate 90's the final triumph of the 80's will to profit by any means resulted in the banishing of any emotional underpinning at all to the art fed the masses in ever-greater amounts.

America has a problem with morality. In spite of our being at least nominally religious in our origins, the constituted separation of church and state demands that in matters of jurisprudence we ignore notions of propriety written in large tomes of uncertain antiquity and authority, a notion recently and laudably upheld in a Supremes decision regarding gays' right to have sex. But this leaves the law and us in a stinky little pit: where is the touchstone for good behavior -- for moral behavior?

My horror with one underclothed bimbo isn't just at her obvious artificiality, it's at the culture that sets her up on her little tin throne, that canonizes her transparently phony balony willingness to do anything to keep her good-paying job, that in effect says "That's right -- we live in a bogus society, we're all ho's to the system, and all we're looking for is a better class of action. Bring on the johns!" -- not just the acknowledgement of that trend, but the legitimation of it. The opposite of "moral" isn't "immoral," it's "amoral," and the sociopaths who increasingly run things are completely okay with that.

And the stomach churning climax of this whole process is the Roman spectacle that is American Idol and its mutant offspring, the chance for you the average clod to become just as amoral and privileged as The Big Guys! Yeaaaaahhh!

Whew -- time for your pill, Gramps. Old farts like me have been predicting the decline and fall of practically everything for a while now. It's a genuine comfort to reflect that, in spite of our keen vision and razor-wire insight, we've all been wrong. So far.

12/1/03

The phrase is meaningless to you, is it? Fool. Little do you realize the range, the universe of resonance, of implications fraught, simply fraught with ramifications and details of the squirmy art of intercommunication trapped like similes within two innocent-looking words.

Go ahead. Say it. Invoke its magickal calibration. There is more in heaven and earth and the Internet than is dreamt of in your puny human philosophy. Here is the alpha and omega, here is the world held in a grain of sand.

Hey, I'm serious! I'm a Googlewhack!

Pitching my grubby little fakir's tent as I do by the vast oceanic expanses of the web, I'm forever amazed at the flotsam and jetsam that drifts up on the tide. Okay, in the instance of spam, maybe "amazed" is too strong a word, but still. It's just an offshoot of complexity. The unformulated Law of Unintended Consequences clearly indicates that when something gets complicated enough, you never know what's gonna crawl out of the spaghetti. Okay, maybe that's a little too vivid an image, but still. Odd abounds online. And that suits me just fine.

I take pride in thinking of myself as a weird person. Really. I do. It was engrained into me at an early age that weirdness, or "creativity" as my folks called it, was a good, nay even great, thing. And of course, as a free born native son of the good ol US of bygawd A I inherit from my parent class a nice big hunk of don'tfuckingtreadonme personal freedom {citizen.thaddeus.freedom.individual == weird} (that's magic) (no it's not, it's OOP) (I think). I make it a point to stay as far away from the norm as I can as often as I can, living and loving out beyond the first standard deviation in the skinny, low ceilinged section of the bell curve.

As you might expect, this particular source of self-esteem has exacted its price in times past and even present. In discourse with others I'm constantly faced with that expression my similarly weirdly-endowed sister refers to as "trout face" -- eyes staring, mouth gaping. Cool Hand Luke had it easy. I'm even faced with reverse weirdness (ssendriew?). Cultural artifacts like Joe Millionaire and Rush Limbaugh leave me scratching my head in bewilderment, wondering what the fock my fellow citizens are thinking, or if.

That I have a dear sweet wifie who not only tolerates but even encourages my abnormality is a blessed balm to all the stupid bruises life on the Planet of the Apes sends my way. And occasionally one of the various creepy art things I do squeezes through the filters on the public swimming pool of mass communications and finds a scrawny but receptive audience, usually responding "Boy are you weird! Thank gawd!"

Here in the future, we even have tools to expedite the dissemination and disclosure of the strange and unusual. The authors of said tools don't necessarily intend them to be used in this fashion, but flexibility in function is always worthy of exploration, or what's a technology for? One of the most useful, and most exploited, of these accessories is the search engine Google. Apart from doing a crackerjack impression of the omniscient guru on the mountain top, Google is the subject of any number of fun little games, chief among them Get the Highest Ranking, played by porn sites from Borneo to Timbuktu and back, but also including the aforenamed Googlewhack.

How it works: you choose a two-word search text, meaningful or not (a branch of the game is to ascribe meaning, Jeopardy style question-answers, to the target phrase), and punch them into a Google search. You win if you get exactly one response. That's all. As G K Chesterton once observed in a different context, "For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun."

By now, of course, the pattern is starting to emerge. Just the other day, I received, out of the blue or whatever color email is, a note from a total stranger in England, informing me that I was, in fact, a Googlewhack. By some impossible to decipher coincidental mystery, he'd punched two words in and gotten one of my tg archive pages as the single document in all the gin-joints in all the world where they both appeared. Did I think I was weird? I didn't think I was weird nearly enough.

My first response was swollen, Mr. Toad-esque conceit. Wow! I'm unique! One of a kind! While you don't get any points in Googlewhack for being the returned site (fur as I know), just the notion that in all the myriad ways of the web I'm the only fool who ever put those two particular words anywhere near each other is kinda cosmic, man.

My second response was darker. Big Google Is Watching You. Somewhere in a server farm, buried in amongst the lost socks and busted choochoos of a zillion kajillion other deservedly-obscure www.nobody.com's, is an index and probably a cache of my own nobody meanderings, suitably updated at regular intervals, a strand of digital DNA in the electronic Google organism. If I choose to use the internet, thus will ever be my fate. Not enough that I'm a nameless cog in the great machine of the human world, now I'm just another number on some hard drive. I am not a number! I -- am -- a -- MAN!!! A weird man.

And in a final ironic twist, if I actually referenced those two little words in this particular essay I'd eliminate my own uniqueness. Just by naming them, I'd create a second on-line document with that phrase. Googlewhack no more. Ah, fleeting glory, why do you never stay?

Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that one should never pause too long to ponder one's own singularity, lest by doing so they lose their status as one of a kind and become just another of an increasingly plentiful variety: the vain.