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Current mood:  flirty
when i go to the store and buy orange juice, i generally will buy the one with lots of pulp. ingesting pulp flakes makes me feel more alive; it makes me feel like i'm getting more bang for my buck. as i make a cursory sweep of my front teeth with my tongue, finding little surprises from my juice makes me feel like a kid again. and then it makes me feel like an idiot. but i smile, anyway.
sometimes, when i play air guitar at my computer desk, i get way too into it, and smack my hand on the desk super-hard. i'd like to think that when an artist plays air-guitar to their own music, they do the same thing. and then it makes me feel like an idiot. but i smile, anyway.
at most every job i've ever had, there's always at least one person who tells me i'm going to be famous. courtney love, quite a ways before she became a legitimate basketcase, described her legendary late husband as having what is called "the rock star gene." i suppose it's that x-factor that separates hollywood celebrities from perrenial waitresses who frantically search for open casting calls in the paper on their lunch breaks. some of my message board buddies and i were having a discussion about stephanie mcmahon's remarks that hulk hogan was a terrible wrestler, which is a moot point, considering that he's widely considered the greatest wrestler of all-time. some people are made for this shit, which separates hulk hogan from the legions of literally faceless masked luchadores in mexico, or those guys in canada who know every different kind of submission hold, or dudes who fell through tables wrapped in barbed wire on a nightly basis for ECW. in the performing arts, whether it's doing leg-drops or typing in PLU codes, charisma beats skill any day of the week.
i was reading an interview with okkervil river's will sheff, and he rhapsodized on the appeal of david letterman: "i've always been really amazed by letterman because he has this wonderful power that i think a lot of late-night hosts have, where he synthesizes the feeling of just hanging out with somebody. if you're lonely, you can turn on letterman and feel like you're with your funny friend... there's something very sad about that, but it works! it gives you this genuine warmth... part of the reason guys like that get on TV is because they have this special ability to make people feel special."
that was a pretty long aside, but bare with me: the interview with sheff made me think of what lis (better-known to my blog readers as "my dear glaswegian friend") wrote to me about the appeal about my blog (i'm liberally paraphrasing, here): "it's an extention of your personality; it makes me feel like we're having drinks together and talking about music." i'm not as nearly as good a writer as jeff weiss; i don't have the widespread appeal of largehearted boy or the zeitgeist-grabbing tastemakerism of gorilla vs. bear. i'm an unprofessional, off-the-cuff music writer who specializes in what i've referred to as "barstool criticism." i suppose that's why people like me. maybe only a few people like me. but those few people are immensely important to me.
despite the "rock star gene" or charisma that others say i posess, there's a specific reason why i won't become a pop star, neither in the worldwide level of a kanye west, or an underground level, like a lot of the bands i admire: it's because i'm too focused on challenging my listeners. not to say that an artist like kanye west doesn't make challenging, substantial music, but he's also a fairly populist person. i'm too idiosyncratic. i'm too self-indulgent. i'm too cerebral. i'm too... fucking weird. maybe being a pop star isn't in the cards. fuck it. making the type of art that i'd like others to make (but, i guess aren't weird enough) is.
i suppose there's a reason why i have such appeal, though. charisma beats skill any day of the week.
pulp gravitas,
martin douglas martin, esquire.
 | Currently listening:
Loveless
By My Bloody Valentine
Release date: 1991-11-05 |
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5:32 PM
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