I’d give today a solid 3.  Didn’t sleep enough, accidentally destroyed someone’s weird metal sculpture before 0600.  There was a pretty wicked storm over the entirety of Anhedonia raging today, so my hair was a ludicrous and chaotic mess by 0700.  Beyond repair.  It still looks ridiculous now.  I’m supposed to meet a friend for drinks in a bit and I’m considering wearing a hat.  A hat.  That’s how bad this is.

Anyway, I was just reading some headlines and saw a couple of things that made me sneer and growl.  The first was about the documentary on Netflix now called “Abducted in Plain Sight.”  If you haven’t watched it, go do that…there be spoilers immediately ahead.  The headline that pissed me off was this, in The Telegraph:

The director of Abducted In Plain Sight on her shocking documentary: ‘Why are we blaming the parents rather than the paedophile?’

You idiot.  The working of the question is the issue.  If she had asked, “Why are we blaming the parents as well as the pedophile?” I could deal with that.  I’d still think the asker was an idiot, but at least the wording of the question would reflect reality.  I’ve spoken with a number of parents about the documentary, and exactly no one is suggesting or even thinking the the pedophile is to blame.  But that goes without saying: of course “B” is the causer of the problem and the direct inflicter of the damage.  But he’s a pedophile: that’s what he does.  That’s his job.  And according to this documentary, he did shamefully little to disguise that fact.  But the reason viewers outrage is not focused on him is the same reason people aren’t outraged at a shark that takes a bite out of a swimmer in the ocean: it”s conduct is not “outrageous.”  The shark is very clearly a shark and it is simply doing exactly what sharks do, which is eat animals it finds swimming through its kitchen.  I can understand being very angry at the shark if its lunch was your legs and you’ve gotta roll around in the chair for the rest of your life.  That really sucks.  But you can’t find the conduct of the shark to be “outrageous” by any standard.  But as understandably angry as you may be, deep down you know that by getting in an ocean that is full of man-eating sharks, you were basically offering yourself to the shark.  So it is with the pedophile in this documentary.  He made no real false representations about who he was.  He wasn’t a priest or a 5th grade teacher.  He was pretty much the next door neighbor who came over and fucked his way through the family until he could get to his real target, the barely teenage daughter.  No one is excusing or forgiving that at all.  But that’s not what is outraging viewers of this movie.  The outrage is save for the parents, and, for me, at least, the father.  To carry the shark analogy over, imagine if the shark-bite victim was a child who had no interest in swimming in the ocean, but her parents threw her into the sea anyway, where she was immediately bitten by a shark.  But she survives and somehow manages to swim to safety.  So her parents throw her in again.  And the same shark again, instantly, of course, bites the child.  Is the shark the problem in this equation?  No.  And if a sexual predator shows up making open overtures and leering at your wife and children, the youngest child in particular, you do not respond by giving him a hand job.  My viewing of the documentary was sort of landmarked by the various points at which I would have killed B.  That is blaming the pedophile.  No outrage necessary: he did what he was supposed to do, so I did what I was supposed to do.  The outrage would be warranted if I failed to protect myself and the fam.  And that’s what’s going on with the response to your documentary.  You dolt.

The other article that irked me was about Panera Bread stupid socialist idea for “pay what you want” restaurants has failed (as it inevitably would) with the closure of its last “Panera Cares” restaurants, where people were promised “a loaf of bread in every hand” and encouraged to “take what you need…leave your fair share.”  The board members had to be high as the cost of living in California to think that letting people what they wanted for food (or any product) was a sustainable business model.  Giving your product away is not a business model at all.  So now that they;re shuttering this stupid restaurant, is it fair to say that Panera Doesn’t Care?  No, of course not.  They just had a lesson in economic reality.  They’re a successful company that can afford to throw away some of it’s money on doomed socialist experiments.  But they quickly learned that they would no longer be a successful company if they continued to not charge for their product.  Radiohead and Trent Reznor conducted similar experiments, but for very different reasons.  I’m not too familiar with the Radiohead situation (other than knowing it didn’t work and they stopped the practice), but Mr. Reznor’s motivation had nothing to do with socialism but rather how to make money in a market where everything is already available for free (pirated music),  So he released an album on a “pay what you feel like” basis, and made something like $47.  After that debacle, he quickly went back to the more traditional business model, which he summed as, “My album costs $9.99 or you can go fuck yourself.”

N.P.: “She’s A Beauty” – The Tubes

A productive enough day, dear reader.  But you know what’s kind of a pain in the hole?  Being friends with Prince or his estate on social media.  Every goddamn day, there’s Prince: “Today in 1986, Prince recorded Kiss.”  I don’t care how productive of a day you had, you didn’t record fucking Kiss.  You didn’t even record Batdance.  To make matters worse, though, Prince was such a prolific guy, every day there will be numerous entries, each for different years.  For example, on the same he recorded Kiss in 1986, he recorded Lovesexy in 1988, and Take Me With U in 1984.  I barely completed a thought today, and this little shit recorded an entire song he’d likely written in the previous 48 hours, playing every instrument, singing every vocal and mixed the whole thing to finality in the same amount of time it took me to figure out what I wanted for lunch.
Anyway, I thought today was a productive day.  Until Prince showed up.  Pthththt.

N.P.: “17 Days” – Prince

When I complained once that “life is hard,” to a Buddhist friend, he replied, “Compared to what?”

He had a point. And that perspective has helped me a great deal in the last several years, especially recently. But no matter how many Taoist truisms or positive affirmations or sincere compliments from friends you get, there are some days when it seems the only possible human reaction is to say, out loud (but to one’s self), “To hell with it.”

Which I did. I’m going to go to bed early and just hope tomorrow is better, but today was an unexpectedly troubled one. . And I don’t mean to be my typically stupidly coy self by not elaborating…I’m just not sure what to say. But damn.

And to hell with it.

Fear not…progress is being made.

N.P.: “Three Days” – Jane’s Addiction

Apparently the Grammy’s are on.  Needless to say, I am not watching them.  The last time I watched an awards show was in ’89, and I turned that one off in the middle in disgust.  That having been said, I am aware that Ghost has been nominated for two awards: Best Rock Song for Rats, and Best Rock Album for Prequelle.  I think winning both would be appropriate, but also unlikely, as the Grammy’s traditionally, suck and wouldn’t know good music if it fell out of the sky and wiggled about.  Whatever.

N.P.: “Year Zero” – Ghost

Even though my Chinese Action Jacket was assembled by communists and is made out of dog fur and asbestos, it keeps me pretty toasty in sub-freezing temps, and it makes me look like a hit man with a case of the Mondays.  I think it basically intimidates the cold away.

N.P.: “Inheritance” – New Model Army

Happy Birthday, Axl.

A lot has changed since last we saw each other. I live in exile now, much like the Dalai Lama except when the shit hit the fan, he went south to India and I went north to Seattle.

Seattle’s a weird place. Maybe not India weird, but, well, you know…you were here not long ago.

It was recently the 25th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s album Nevermind, and people around here were simply shitting themselves with a sort of weird collective, somehow connected congratulatory attitude, all searching for new superlatives to describe Kurt Cobain and his music. As has become quite typical, when everybody around me is saying or thinking one thing, I’m likely thinking quite another. I got in a number of boisterous arguments with groups of people who disagreed when I listed the order of the Holy Trinity of Seattle Music as Jimi Hendrix, then Sir Mix-A-Lot, and then Nirvana. Truth be told, I didn’t even want to place Nirvana in the top three, but I also wanted very much to not start a bar fight, so I threw ‘em in there. Sometimes I just do things because I’m so nice.

Anyway, I was reminded of some liner notes I wrote for my friend’s metal band’s first release a few years back. I thought you might dig the opening. Check it:

Kurt Cobain was like that shithead kid who came in at the beginning of first grade and sanctimoniously, precociously, and arrogantly announced that there was no such thing as Santa Claus, and did it with this super-sneery attitude, as if to say, “I can’t believe you cretins haven’t figured it out yet…you were fools for believing it at all.” But then, rather than telling that kid to fuck off, everybody just said, “Oh,” and quit enjoying Christmas for the rest of forever.
I bet Kurt Cobain was the kid in first grade that ruined Christmas for the rest of us. Probably fucked up the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy too. That’s sure as hell what he did to rock music. Just when the rest of us were having a hell of a time wearing all black and having complicated, asymmetrical hair and snorting cocaine and standing around clubs looking cool and at each other, in mopes Kurt, bedecked in flannel and denim, trudging up to the mic.
“Uh…rock is not supposed to be fun. Assholes.”
The members of the audience looked at each other, then back at Kurt, then back at each other. And there we stood in our spandex, hosed down to the point of flammability in Aquanet. We put our beers down and shook our heads: Wow. Shit. Kurt’s right. Rock is not supposed to be fun. We’ve been doing it all wrong. Wipe that smile off your face. Let’s go to the mall and buy a bunch of flannel.
And that was that…for many of us. But in some parts of the world, some bold souls stood their ground. They got the memo…they just didn’t give a fuck. Never mind what some malcontent junkie in the Pacific Northwest says. Who cares? He’ll be dead in a couple years anyway.

Which he was. Deader than shit. A damn shame, but I didn’t kill him, and neither did you, Axl. It’s Not Our Problem. I’m not even sure why I brought it up. I guess the moral of all this is don’t fuck with Santa Claus. And don’t give depressed people shotguns. You and I know these things, but I don’t know about the rest of these people. But they’re not our problem either.

Anyway, happy birthday.

N.P.: “Double Talkin’ Jive” – Guns N’ Roses

What it is, dearest reader.  And Happy Chinese New Year.
Today wasn’t the greatest day,,,long and extremely taxing.  Buncha weird and difficult shit going on.  I think I’m going to call it a day and try to reset tomorrow.  I hope you are doing well.  

N.P.: “What We All Want” – Gang Of Four

The last three days have been disappointingly unproductive.

It’s funny: as soon as I typed that, I got an idea for one of the things I’m working on, picked up my phone, wrote a half a page on that, was pretty pleased with myself, and then came back to this.  “Oh yeah…I was bitching about how unproductive I am.”  It’s kind of like that right now.  I’m writing a pretty impressive amount of words every day, but they are all being spread across many disparate projects, so it seems like I’m writing a lot (which I am) but the projects are not moving forward fast enough (which they’re not).

N.P.: “Every 1’s A Winner” – Gun