A Critique of Modernism

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion. 

TS Eliot

Julia (part I)

I started reading the book "Catcher in the Rye" a few years ago.  It's about a young dude (Holden Caufield) who eventually goes crazy.  But before he ends up in the looney bin, he decides to leave his life......  Check out...

Basically he just gets up and walks out.

Its a Great read...  A classic...  Also a little creepy.  Not the story itself but the fact that at least 3 different people (Rebecca Schaeffer...Ronald Reagan... John Lennon) have either been shot or killed by men (crazies) who say that they were reading the book while they were stalking their chosen celebrity.

The book, itself, has nothing to do with killing or murder.

("rational"..... Is not how crazy does things).

But that's the problem with crazy.  It's chaos (in the brain) causing chaos in (real life).  It's like a conversation I was having with a friend from work (her name is Julia).  

I remember we were sitting in the break room.  The television was on, and the crazies were yelling at me from down the hall.  There was a window across the room with a view of the park (and the psych hospital..... Parkside), and Julia was sitting quietly eating a whole-wheat muffin. 

The Today Show was running a story on Anne Rice who had evidently just developed a faith in God (or reignited an old faith.. -formerly catholic...).  And I was waiting for my lunch to be interrupted by some kind of chaos... or by one of my crazies walking down the hall naked (happens all the time).... when suddenly Julia looked at me and said..  I don't believe in God....  And she added.... And what's the deal with Santa Clause?

I have to admit that for a second I thought I was hearing the random thoughts in her head...... like maybe I was a mind reader..

But then she asked me if I had heard what she said, and with a mouth full of food, as I looked at her, I just nodded for her to continue talking (which I totally knew she wanted to do.... proof Im a mind reader) and she continued to talk.

I don't understand why any one would let their children believe in Santa Clause and God both, she said.  It's a lie.  If Santa's not real.... maybe God's not real.

Julia was a science girl...  She was a nurse... A good nurse..  But between the two themes most common in nursing (pastor/scientist)... Julia leaned heavily towards science.  In fact she liked all the sciences... Chemistry... Physics... Biology...

I wanted to respond to Julia but everything I thought of sounded like Forrest Gump...

I believe in Jesus.. Lieutenant Dan...

so I just asked her the first question that popped into my mind.  

Why don't you believe in God? I asked....

God's not really all that accessible is he?  She asked.  If there were a God.... Don't you think he would be a little easier to spot??? There's too much chaos in the universe, anyway...  randomness.  She said.  She was talking about physics. quantum particles... and stuff.  There were sounds coming from the hallway.  Shrieks.

How could there be a God with so much chaos?

I was about to speak when a call came from over head.

Jamie...  One of your patients needs you in the hall.

When I stepped out of the break room, I saw my patient.  A small grey wrinkled woman, saggy and deranged... heading quantum like down the hall towards us......... all wild eyed and naked.

As I walked towards her... I started trying to "sugar-talk" her back to her room....
(prepared to pick her up and carry her if necessary).

After securing her in bed...... (Posey vest)..... I returned to the break room.. But Julia was already gone....
No where to be found.

So I just sat down with my sandwhich, and began looking out the window with a view of the park (and Parkside)..... I was thinking about what it would be like to check out of my life like Holden Caufield from Catcher in the Rye.  But then Julia walked back in the room, sat down...... and then she asked me a question......

How bout you? She said.  Do you believe in God?

I thought about it for a long time before I spoke.  The answer to that question wasn't as easy as it once was.  And after a few seconds (that felt more like minutes), I looked at Julia and then I began to speak......

Getting Marilyn

The religious world has always had a hard time accommodating what some call "secular" art. 

The division between the two runs deep  through the years and carries itself into all genres of the art world, but none so much as with popular music.  The truth is that the churchies had a problem with Rock-N-Roll from the beginning....  They called it devil music.  But before Rock-N-Roll.... the devils music was the Blues.
   
The problem with the Churchie world-view on art is it's tendency toward oversimplification.  It's a shallow view because it can only be seen at face value.  Good and Evil....  Black and white.

(not talking about shades of relativity....  That's different)....  

But for artists....  it's more complicated than that.  Artists tend to use the raw things of life to reach for bigger things.  Their could be a face-value.... chip on the shoulder... of motivation.....

say someone like Marilyn Manson..... abused and mistreated by churchies as a young man.... might take on a devil persona in his art just to piss-off the churchies of his world....

But the music could be saying something else entirely...... Something on a deeper level.... Maybe even something that's true. 

I was thinking about that while I was laying on the table trying to get my tattoo done and my Tattoo artist... Mel D.... was playing some hard core scream metal music... But as the music was playing and we were talking.. I  was thinking about Robert Johnson. 

There's a mythology of sorts (Faustian) in the old blues world that says that Robert Johnson (real blues man)... Once took his guitar down to a crossroads at midnight and there.... sold his soul to the devil for the ability to play the guitar like no other man...

No one knows for sure exactly where the legend started but it was always confirmed by his living peers that on a trip to Arkansas once.... when he left... he was little more than a novice... And after he returned.... he was playing guitar like he was the king of the blues.

Now as interesting as the story is... I suspect (higher criticism.... no evidence...) that the legend perhaps might have been built around the mystery of his life....

(2 recording sessions ever.... 28 songs.... 2 survivable photos..... allegedly killed.... poisoned... at the age of 27)...

Or perhaps, it could have been built around the themes of his songs as well....

Hell Hound Blues
Preachin Blues (Up jumped the devil).
Me and the Devil Blues
Crossroad Blues.  etc...

But the themes of his blues music... aren't anthems to his new found satanic faith... Rather... they're sad, real and raw..... sometimes startling images of what it's really like when someone lives on the dark side...  Some of his songs are dark expressions of the blues..... a suggested spiritual source... And a (terribly ugly) physical manifestation.

ex. Lyric:
Me and the devil... was walkin side by side...
And I'm gonna beat my woman.. til I get satisfied.

They're part of the wandering blues character that he created (artists often create characters.... ie..Alice Cooper.... David Bowie.... etc..)... that had once been free of the sordid things of life.  Now explaining why evil comes as it does.....

ex. lyrics....
Early this mornin... When you knocked upon my door... I said hello Satan... I believe it's time to go...


It sounds a lot to me like the words of a famous saint who once said....  the good that I want...... I don't do............. but I practice the very evil I don't want........ who will rescue me from this body of death???

(Or 1980's... INXS....  ........every single one of us.... the devil inside"... Ha!!)


In fact..... if you think about it... if it weren't for the very physical nature of us... (people).... the very spiritual nature of him (the devil).... would never make an appearance in this world at all.... 

(Could that be true???)

My train of thought came back with the piercing sound of a needle digging into soft, sensitive, supple, fatty flesh..... 

My Arm!!! 

I think they're missing the point. 

Mel D.  my tattoo artist was talking.  Marilyn Manson is not the devil... people.  Get over it. 
He's a character.  He's the outrageous thing that people fear. 
(mainly ourselves)...


The controversy's all because people need someone else to point the finger at.... so they don't have to point it at themselves

He's not the devil anymore than you or I am the devil..

(could that be true???)


That's ultimately the point of Marylin Manson...  all be it from a jaded- angry- "all the churchies suck"..... kind of perspective...  But I suspect that that was something of the point of Robert Johnson as well.  That sometimes it's us.... me and you.

Sometimes we're the devil....

That couldn't really be true.... could it????

Boogie Chillen': A Blues Parable

Once there was a  boy who lived in the Mississippi delta south.  His daddy was a music playin man.  But his momma liked to run around.
Before the boy was conceived, there were plans for them to head up  north to Detroit.  But instead his woman left the music man for a devil named Jim Crow.

That was back in the day when white folks in power couldn't take untamed "black folks".  And so, they made bad laws.  Laws like curfews (imposed only on African Americans).  Laws that allowed white folks to "pick up" African Americans for "loitering", simply if they weren't working, or if they were merely walking down the road.     

After just a few days the woman got pregnant and the blues they made was a bastard son.  A real unruly boy from the devil seed of Jim Crow.  But just like a heartless devil, Jim put em out.  And with no where to turn she returned back to the music man and he took the both of em back in.

It's a bitter pill, what that devil'l make you swallow.  But his daddy loved the blues.  He loved that blues made from the devils seed like his own.  And so he moved em all up north stoppin off in Chicago and then up to Detroit.  

It was there that his daddy took a job playin at a nightclub.  A nightclub on Hastings street called the Henry Swing club.  And when the music man played, all the towns people would start to boogie.  

Born on the 6th day of the week, they called that boy the blues.  And on the 7th day his Daddy spoke.  And he said "let that boy boogie-woogie, cause it's in him, and it got to come out". 

Boogie Chillen' !!


-(inspired by the lyrics of "Boogie Chillen'", by John Lee Hooker).