Thoughts @ 31

Turned 31 a couple hours ago. Some nice plans for the b-day: a show - one of 4 in a week(!), a planned "craaaazy" afterparty.. rehearsals, friends, music. stuff I like.

Had written a post on my 30th which I'd evidently forgot to publish (a little late now, so.. never mind), but in it I tried to describe major changes from the previous year, or just stuff that was on my mind at the time. Let's have a go this time round! So:

The first major change this year was the regular exposure to what had previously been relegated to a status worse than "false" - it had been plain uninteresting to me: religion. Nope, still the same atheist I've been for a while now, but found religious people, as well as the bible, interesting, for the first time. This through a group of friends who meet round the "parshat shavua" once a week, which I stumbled on pretty much by chance. Rather than being the pathetic-bachelor club I suspected it would be, all awkward and transparent, it proved to be a remarkably varied, interesting and intelligent group of people.

So first of all, I was making new friends. This on its own was a novelty because, though I hadn't thought about it, my core group of friends had remained staunchly rooted in my high-school years and my musical exploits. That was it. So the dynamics of becoming friends when you're older, more self-aware and more self-defined, proved interesting on their own. Won't bore with details.

The second aspect of these meetings, as I mentioned, was that religion as such suddenly became interesting. For one thing, just the wildly varying shades of observance and strictness, a terrific quality in Jerusalem, was fascinating. People modern in every way but...; people who look more closed but are actually budding open-ists; and of course people who just genuinely are who they are, different from me in some ways and so similar in others. Combined with this culture of ours, this man-made tradition that for me contains so many clues, pointing at a melting pot of historical circumstance, human psychology, economics, politics and, well, more human psychology, it becomes quite fascinating. The religious text we cover each week with tremendous variety in approach and appraisal, is in itself fascinating for its own circumstance and, yes, its constant drawing power. So that's one thing that's changed.

What's stayed largely the same is the existential realization that hit me so strongly just one year and two days ago. What are we doing here and, more importantly, what am I going to do about, remain in one way or another a preoccupation informing a lot of my perceptions of this world and my life. I'm fascinated by people, what drives them, their follies and their genius; but in all this I still can't formulate a cut-and-dry path that feels right for me.

Something that emerged a little more strongly this year was the focus on the individualistic (as opposed to the universalit) viewpoint. Anyone who tries to hammer out a single, one-size-fits-all doctrine for living - or what is "right" - will earn my immediate suspicion. We are all different people, with very different needs and even basic characteristics. There are totally different mentalities, interests and perceptions amongst people. The breakdown in cultural narratives (believe it or not, I'm not a sociology major), something that always felt a little bit of a shame, now seems more inevitable and plain sensible in today's world. Like it or not, we're no longer the small, nomadic tribes we once were. In fact, every nation on earth has gotten a little too big to be held together by cross-cultural dogma.

I don't say this angrily or with a chip on my shoulder. I'm not trying to violently tear down anything. I personally am not in any way a misanthrope - on the contrary, outside of some private music, pretty much all my lasting, deep enjoyment or contentment comes from people. So it pains me a little when these statements get pigeonholed and somehow make me out as a contrarian, rebel or heretic. I'm just saying - blind beliefs don't work for me. I'm trying to improve our collective future just as much as any socially-minded believer might, in saying these beliefs have to be tailor made. I'll cringe as much as anyone at the shallow, materialistic mentality so often on display (anyone seen the tv-series "Mechubarot"? kvetch kvetch kvetch! geez, when did whine replace personality?) but I'm a firm individualist.

Relationships? Mmm.. Had a few nice shorts, but if we're talking about thoughts and realizations, let's see... what's new, what's new.. Nothing, I think. Just as mystified as ever. Probably a bit more confused, if anything. No sweeping statements or ideas to be made this time around.

And another random update for posterity - this year got me more intellectually interested in trying to characterize and correct the tremendous amounts of plain bull in common economic, social and political thinking. I'm not talking about our leaders - everyone knows what they're full of. I'm talking about regular, otherwise intelligent people: I'm plain bewildered by all the hip-shooting, snap judgment, opinion-as-fact, dramatics-as-evidence, revisionism for its own sake, conservatism for its own sake, and willful ignorance of counterarguments that I come across in ordinary, web-bourne and face-to-face conversation. It's like "reasoning" isn't even in the lexicon...

Mood-wise it's been up and down, but at the end of the day, I'm still more up than down. Thank ? for small pleasures. ;)

50 Years of True RAWk

(literally)

Can't really give a context for why this came up, nor claim there's any desperate need for this in the universe, but - I've just always felt there's been a line of true Rawkers; bands that, for their period, represent the true spirit of r'n'r, and that any given point in time, just frickin' ruled.

This isn't easy to pin down. Remember, rawk isn't the same as "good". In fact, even just "really good", or "incredibly influential" aren't criteria (or obviously Low, and VU would be here, and about 5 trillion others). Unadorned, thump, energy, passion, a rebellioussness and/or dissatisfaction with the state of music (or life), highly original or forward thinking yet clearly indebted to what came before - those are what counts. An arty streak is ok so long as there's fire, but glam or self-obsessed whininess don't cut it. Nor do noise-for-its-own-sake or shredding if there isn't that creative spark to back it up.

The only "hard" rules were: bands can only appear once, and only one per year. This was tough. As much as possible, the year represents a particular peak of Rawkness for them. The one-a-year restriction means it's relative, since often someone else would peak so blindingly a certain year, they'd have to be "nudged" off their own true peak year. This table certainly doesn't indicate "improvement" over time, nor that one superseded the other (AC/DC, for example, still kill today!), just whomever peaked most strongly that year in a way that historically, you just can't mess with. A highly personal and emotional list, obviously!

What validates rawk for me more than anything else is that Jerry Lee Lewis (74), Little Richard (77), and Chuck Berry (82!) are still with us! Hell, even Bo Diddley made it until last year. It's a frickin' life force*, man!


1 1955 Bo Diddley
2 1956 Little Richard
3 1957 Jerry Lee Lewis
4 1958 Chuck Berry
5 1959 Ray Charles
6 1963 The Beatles
7 1964 The Kinks
8 1965 The Who
9 1966 The Sonics
10 1967 Jimi Hendrix
11 1968 Blue Cheer
12 1969 MC5
13 1970 The Stooges
14 1971 Can
15 1972 Black Sabbath
16 1973 New York Dolls
17 1974 AC/DC
18 1975 Rocket from the Tombs
19 1976 The Ramones
20 1977 Sex Pistols
21 1978 Joy Division
22 1979 Dead Kennedys
23 1980 The Misfits
24 1981 The Wipers
25 1982 Minor Threat
26 1983 Subhumans
27 1984 The Minutemen
28 1985 Husker Du
29 1986 Butthole Surfers
30 1987 Sonic Youth
31 1988 The Pixies
32 1989 Mudhoney
33 1990 Fugazi
34 1991 Jesus Lizard
35 1992 Kyuss
36 1993 Therapy?
37 1994 Soundgarden
38 1995 PJ Harvey
39 1996 Turbonegro
40 1998 Shellac
41 1999 Burning Airlines
42 2000 Fu Manchu
43 2001 Les Savy Fav
44 2002 Queens of the Stone Age
45 2003 Sleater Kinney
46 2004 Hot Snakes
47 2005 Deerhoof
48 2006 Boris
49 2007 Grinderman
50 2009 ?



* if you don't OD on something..

Dreams Vs. Reality, Round 9

Welcome to the boxing match inside my head: On this corner, weighing in at 300 pounds, pummeling anything in its path - it's Reality! And on this corner, weighing it at [intentionally left blank], looking like the most incredible woman I've ever laid eyes on, it's Dreams! And what a sweet talker she is.. sometimes she can bring reality to it's knees with a few suggestive promises...

I've had this for years, actually. Leave an incredibly loud, chaotic rock show, attended by people 5-10 my junior, at around 3AM, get up for work, And wonder what the hell I'm doing. The next day I'll be fine.. but every once in a while I'll come home, and feel a twinge of longing..

Right now, there are several Israeli bands touring somewhere on another continent. One of them has made a proper "career" out of constant motion - a good 200 or so shambolic shows a year, alternately touring Europe and the States. I seriously doubt they're financially all that profitable; in fact, once they finally take a break - 3+ years and counting of constant touring, those crazy bastards - I wouldn't be surprised if they come back more or less breaking even. But they will have lived; made use of their time on this earth. Their reality is my dream. and every once in a while it completely kills me.

I was on a tour a couple years ago, and just thrived on the change of scenery, the disconnect from "normal" life, the parties, the little stories, the nighttime stillness at a truck-stop in Montana. An incredible adventure.

Standing between me and this is my own rationality, and my own penchant for - how ironic is this? - stability. I'm well and truly split. I do the day job thing well. It's not my favorite thing in the world to do, and I certainly don't define myself by it, but I do do it well, and there's a degree of comfort I've learned to appreciate. Still, out there is this chaotic, crazy existence beckoning me, where you literally live off your music and have no idea what tomorrow brings. Brilliant. To do it, though, I would have to poke a pretty big hole in my reality - really make some fundamental changes, and some significant sacrifices to boot...

Dreams and reality. As time goes on, one seems more and more to preclude the other. And as I move into my 30s it becomes obvious I have to take some kind of stand, do a leap of faith. I've got two polar directions to leap and two voices in my head battling it out in a long, on-again-off-again, grueling battle.

So far I'm still watching, but this fight is getting ugly...