It is neither skill nor even passion. Yinwe Malmstein is skilled. Bores people to death with skill. The number of passionate musicians is enormous. Most of these are just embarassing to watch,
The secret is the Spirit. You must find the Spirit. And then you must give it to the listener. You must be ecstatic about giving it away, to better someone elses life.
Because its easy to keep it to yourself and enjoy it. That mastuebation. Yet another mistake in music.

I could tell the two baristas could not get, along. He,whoite as the driven snow. From Brea,California, which is the new Dayton, Ohio. She, a ravishing Haitian beauty, who had been a sppoilt little girl. Oh they were not communcating.

Gen X Has a Midlife Crisis – NYTimes.com

there was a line in the print version that didn’t make it online – what’s up with that? did they run out of bits?

It should go without saying that a generation is a demographic fiction, and that a stage of life is something of a literary conceit.

I guess that will be my take-away from this article, from that book. instead of struggling along with the author, the reviewer, and all the millions of people worldwide who struggle with a notion of mid-life crisis, I’ll just say “no.” I’m saying, there is no such thing as mid-life. it’s a made up literary construct, akin to the middle of the story. we live  a lierary existence, we read our lives, unconsciously .  and we believe that there is a beginning, middle, and end.

of course, if you live this way, if this is they way you think, then don’t listen to me. to me, your life is fictionalized, by you, and by your culture, just so you don’t have to really think about what you are doing..another quote:

The sense that his life has been wasted — stalled by mysterious external forces rather than his own failure of will —

There it is – the author writing your character for you. The people in you hometown said you should act your age – and you listened to them! that, to me, is a waste of your life.

here’s another line that really struck me:

At a certain point, Dad buys a sports car, or starts a rock band, or has an affair or walks out on Mom or quits the law firm to make goat cheese. When this kind of thing happens to Mom, it’s not a crisis but an awakening.

Isn’t that odd?  It’s so true – it’s called a fucking crisis if your a man!  A crisis! The crisis is that you see how they’ve harnessed you and given you a feed bag (and a shitbag, behind), so that you don’t know what your eating, and your presence doesn’t get the streets dirty.  I’m glad women have awakenings – wouldn’t begrudge anyone an awakening. unfortunately, these awakenings, because they don’t get stamped CRISIS, can result in the flowering of narcissism.

your midlife crisis should be this: that you haven’t given back. haven’t given anything.

oh, you’ve “bent over backwards for those ungrateful children of yours”, or, you’ve “given, and given, and given, until you just can’t give anymore.”  But, really, you can’t evens start giving until you’re free.

my point is this: the use of satire requires a degree of intellectual sophistication-it’s not for dummies. with the understanding that satire is a literary tool, which can be used to engage the viewer’s mind to examine an ugly reality, for the purposes of then changing that reality for a better one – with that understanding, satire can advance humankind.

if the viewer does not have this degree of sophistication, then satire does not exist, regardless of the intention of the performer!

my other point is: the world has become too dumb for satire, although almost all art and commentary contains satire as a de facto element. so, the effect is actually NOT positive change, but rather ribald mockery of the weak.

you see, my generation, and the generation before mine (the 60’s!), grew up with satire. we actually read a magazine called National Lampoon, whose title is lost on subsequent generations, because they dont’ know the word lampoon (to my point). and our generation invented Saturday Night Live, for crying out loud.

for at least 100 years prior to the 60’s – I’m not being exact here – satire was virtually non-existent in the social mind. Beginning with the stark suppression of the Victorians, the order of the day was to avoid social commentary of any kind. of course, satire was invented by Plato, so there have been generations and generations steeped in satire.  just try the late baroque (Voltaire).

but that’s because satire is comprehensible in a time of social change for the better.  it must be for the better, however.  vacuous social change – the kind we have now – can not recognize satire.

I began to worry about this years ago when “The Simpsons” was discovered by prime time. Matt Groening was at that point the most brilliant satirist of our time (IMHO).  But, he was satirizing “in safety.”  In other words, the part of society he was critiquing would never see his show.  I mean, he is from Portland – everybody in Portland is a blithering intellectual (almost – once again, don’t get stuck).  When it started hitting the Tracey Ullman show in 1987,  I mean, c’mon – the people who even knew about Fox in those days you could count on Anne Boelyn’s right hand!

Imagine then that 10 years later, I’m sitting in a mobile home in Iowa, drinking PBR with a pudgy guy with male balding pattern, who works in a dangerous chemical factory, where he eats his lunch – and his laughing his ass off at Homer Simpson! Meanwhile, his skateboarding son is doing crack in his bedroom, and his wife is getting her hair done.

I mean, wake up dude!  That’s you on the screen, living the American <pipe> dream!  You are not supposed to laugh at that!

But then it got worse: two social savants appeared out of nowhere, to totally take the American society to a new depth of understanding: Tray and Matt. South Park totally scared me.  This was full-on, and nobody got the horror of it!  Do you see?  Everybody got the hate of it, everybody got the porn of it, the depravity.  But that’s not getting it.

My final point: it like taking the prophet for the comedian, and the comedian for the prophet.