Wednesday, March 12, 2008

American Idiocy

The Idiots Are Alive and Well and Feeling Their Oats
I didn't watch American Idol whenever it was on, why would I, an American, and an American musician, watch that shitty show?--a show conceived by an Australian asshole who wants to control all means of communication including revising and corrupting cultures by infusing them with not just Brit thinking and attitudes but an Aussie-infused Brit thinking, a Brit thinking that still considers this country as a British colony--everything conceived in this country by no matter whom but especially that conceived by Black slaves whose African culture was folded into the white US culture, Black slaves brought to this country while it was still a Brit colony though the Dutch who settled NYC for the white man brought African slaves to New York City--they built through forced labor the famous "wall" of Wall Street, they built the first homes and laid out the first streets and they dug the canal Canal Street is named for (it still runs deep under Canal to this day)--

I don't get nowadays Americans whatever their color or leanings constantly giving credit to British musicians for the current state of any kind of music, music all over the world, including so-called "Western" or "European" classical music--only a Brit can explain rock and roll for instance--any time you see the media going to a rock expert you find it's always a Brit--ever notice that? Even way back in the early days of when I was learning jazz the leading expert on jazz was a Brit fop half-ass musician named Leonard Feather--and Leonard Feather had enough power in the jazz world that he made a definite effort to pull US jazz musicians away from bop and free jazz back into "dixieland," which Brits can more easily understand than they can bop or Afro-Cubano bop and all the polyrhythms and polymetrics involved (African music)--dixieland was dominated at that time by white guys who truly and passionately believed they were the inheritors of the original "dixieland" music of New Orleans that they heard when Kid Ory, King Oliver, Louie Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton came to Chicago to escape the racism of New Orleans and Eddie Condon, Bud Freeman, Jimmy McPartland, Gene Krupa, a bunch of white high-school guys from Chicago, and these guys came to New York City with that attitude and had pretty good success, so much so that for years Eddie Condon's nightclub was the place to go to hear old-timers like Pops Foster, George Wettling, Joe Sullivan, Edmund Hall (no, not all white guys at all), Ralph Sutton...though, yes, Feather did respect the Lester-Young-type swingers, boppers like Bird, Dexter Gordon, Herman's Four Brothers (Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Serge Chaloff, Lee Konitz), Ben Webster (Lester's father taught him how to play the sax), Paul Quinichette, Sonny Stitt, even Sonny Rollins--playing new like Lester taught 'em, but Feather mostly put them down as deserting the true jazz in favor of a phony jazz, real jazz being his version of dixieland. Yes, Leonard Feather gave us the famous Downbeat magazine's Blind-fold Test where all kinds of jazz musicians listened to records and tried to identify the musicians on the records. That was a cool idea and all jazz aficionados read Downbeat just for those blindfold tests.

And what brought all this revisionist jazz history on?--I love ironies--like American musicians invent a unique music that the Brits can't understand; yet, the Brits end up being the experts on that music--well, what brought this growling spell on was a music clip I saw this morning accidentally on one of the "mornin'" shows on one of the all-the-same networks--there were two cool teevee glam babes there and this one talkin' head pretty boy and they were talking about the latest bullshit on the latest bullshit among American Idol contestants, usually homely looking white girls or big fat hamburger eatin' black men, and they said the whole panel (that's a Brit fop, a has-been disco queen, and a black man who no one knows and who came out of nowhere--at least, I think, he's black) was stunned by how amazingly good this black guy was. Then they showed his clip from the show. Here was a Black man wearing a weird whitey sweater with a voice obviously trained in the Black church and he was doing a Beatle's tune (all the contestants had to do Beatles's fop tunes in this competition--Rupert letting us know that the Beatles invented true rock music). After the clip, the glam babes were all giggling and oooohhing and awesoming all over the place. Then one of the chicks said something that really pissed me off. She said, basically, "He was so startling because he took that very difficult Beatles's tune and he moved it from the Beatles style all the way to end with a really hot r and b version of the tune. Isn't it amazing how the Beatles wrote music that fits all forms...." "IDIOTS!" I was growling. "IDIOTS!" Numbskulls. Sure the Beatles wrote music that is easily played in other genres because they stole most of their ideas from American black blues and r and b artists (their first album was all covers of US black tunes) and then when they got famous they learned Indian ragas and they were taught a lot of classical scoring by that guy George their musical director--sorry, I've avoided the Beatles as much as possible during my life--so sure they're adaptable! All this Black guy did was start this Beatles tune off in its original white church-mode that all Beatles music is formed from and gradually he moved the beat into a syncopation that the Beatles never found--white musicians can't play off the downbeat--like Blacks naturally clap (give emphasis) on the weak beats--that comes from African music, the most difficult music in the world--a music that Black Americans have naturally in their collective inherent memories--the understanding of the polyrhythmics and polymetrics of African music where 4 or 5 drummers are each playing a different contrapuntal line, women clapping on another line, women ringing bells on another line, women playing rattles on another line--the Black man, all he did, was "swing" the boring Beatles church-modal simple-European-noted lines.

And, wow, Madonna and John Mellonhead are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Isn't Madonna more disco than she is rock? What do I know? I like Madonna as a chick and a singer though I think she's a really lousy actress, though who the hell cares, so's Bette Middler a lousy actress, so are most singers who become actors lousy at it, that includes going back to Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, June Allyson and coming up to date with singers or rappers like Coolio or Queen Latifah (amazing how this woman has moved from homegirl rapper to now a beauty and fashion expert--she's still fat, so I guess that's the market she's BIG in. Punning takes me back to my old advertising days--but I've said that already--I hate repeating myself).

Speaking of Idiots
Elliott "Client 9" Spitzer just resigned as guv of New York. What a dwork. What a hypocrite, though he's no different from any spoiled rich brat (and Elliott is a spoiled rich brat--law and real estate) politician or businessman (don't you think Trump's screwed a lot of high-class whores in his days of constantly catting around (what other kind of women are there to Trump?--at least he marries his ho's)?). Trouble is, Elliott got caught. And who caught him? The very bunch he worked so hard to convict when he was Attorney General of New York, the banks and the Wall Street den of thieves. First a bank turned him in to the ruthless IRS (an independent corporation incorporated in Puerto Rico and not an official government agency--it's the government's created collection agency)--a bank called the North Fork Bank. I wonder what "North Fork" that is? Recently in my neighborhood a Valley Bank opened its doors--wait a minute, I remember a Valley Bank last time I was in Phoenix. My favorite bank is Washington Mutual (they came out of nowhere about 10 or so years ago--probably owned by Arabs if you check) who are now trying to change their name to WaMu. What is that all about? Right across the street from my WaMu is the Woori Korean Bank--I thought maybe WaMu was to lure in the Asians but then I saw Wash Mut are changing their name on their television ads, too, so I guess it's a nationwide thing. So North Fork Bank turned in old Elliott's money transferring big sums of cash to the IRS. You see, back when Ronnie Raygun was president he decided 100-dollar bills were evil so he put a curse on them--people who had a big wad of hundred dollar bills and they tried to put them into their bank accounts got red flagged as possible drug dealers or money launderers. Raygun's legal beagles then came up with the "law" that anytime you transfer 5,000 bucks worth of cash from one bank to another or to a business the bank immediately notifies the IRS and the fiesty, overworked, and pissed-off IRS agents come after your ass. I remember one time I got a pay-out from a job I'd been axed from, it was 13 grand, and I took it as a check to my bank--but then I went and cashed out 10 grand of it and within a week I got a notice from the IRS asking me for details on what I did with that 10 grand--they demanded a paper trail or I would be subject to arrest on the suspicion of drug dealing or money laundering, they reported.

So cleancut fool Elliott Spritzer's dream world has come crashing down around him like his pants came crashing down fast when hot little college minky Kristin pranced into his luxury hotel suite in the buff. "I can't keep my god-damn dick down, dammit," Elliott was heard to bemoan.

So now Wall Street is applauding mercilessly Elliott's early retirement. Rudi "Mussolini" Guiliani is now too dancing with mad glee--Rudi's campaign finance man is a Wall Street money launderer who Elliott Spitzer went after as Attorney General--and Rudi has already spouted out how he wants to be governor--so here we go with more and more corrupt politics in the good ole Commonwealth of New York--the worst state legislature in the USA, the New York State Legislature--the crookedest in the US, too, totally ruled by MONEY--and it, too, today, is now jumping with glee, since Elliott Spitzer was their greatest enemy, too. All the crooked politicians and corporations in New York State--hell, in the world, are smiling big corrupt smiles today. Spitzer got spritzed. His own hypocrisy turned on him.

Look soon for faithful wife to divorce Elliott for most of the money he stole from the State---and to take the three really kind'a pretty daughters with her. Elliott will soon admit he's really a homosexual--or like Jimmy Swaggert, he only masturbated while Kristin did dirty stuff to herself. Maybe Elliott is a masturbation nut!

How stupid a man is this guy? He's definitely an IDIOT!

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler
http://www.vfa.us/FloKennedy.jpgAnybody remember Flo Kennedy? Coyote?

4 comments:

Marybeth said...

Beware of the Ides of March, a day you like to celebrate when it isn't. Thewomantrumpetplayer is coming back to NYC again to deal with stuff related to her father's death and to spend Easter with her mother. Have no fear, I'll never get off the big ancestral stomping ground of an island (Staten) in the south to get to the little ancestral stomping ground island (Manhattan) to the north. But I may not get to read the Growler for a couple of weeks, what with my mother's antiquated computer and time demands, but I'll be back reading and commenting in April. Keep laughing through that growl.

The Daily Growler said...

womantrumpetplayer,

If you are in NYC on April 3rd, the Daily Growler's own ryefarmerfromqueens, Bob Guida is his real name, is performing with Lady Mike and the Passion at a Lower Eastie place called Via della Pace--it's on 7th Street just off 2nd Avenue--you just might see some Growlers there--no guarantees, but...

thestaffreplyer
for The Daily Growler

Anonymous said...

All I am going to say is that if someone can't pick up a REAL instrument (drums, GUITAR, bass guitar, cello, violin, harpsichord, piano-although you can't pick that "up") then they have NO buisness calling themselves a "MUSICIAN". MICROPHONES DO NOT COUNT. I could care less about a "phat" beat or a voice synth.
Learn a chord, a solo, a rhythm section, an octave, a scale or any thing else besides a repetitive sound mis-labeled as a "hook". You want a REAL hook? Try the FFCF progression in "crazytrain".
That is ONE example upon millions.
Thank you

Anonymous said...

Hello. And Bye.