Yeah, I haven’t really been blogging too much here of late. It’s for a couple of reasons: 1. I haven’t really been in the rantacular kinda place recently, where a morning’s angst is translated into an epic blogpost either pro or con something on this Earth; and 2. I’ve been doing most of my micro-blogging on Facebook, thus the drastic cutback on the quick posts (YouTube videos, funny pictures, etc.).
But every once in a while, something on the internet is so glorious that I just have to post on it. Often it’s the beginning of a wonderful new meme that will seem old, stupid, and crusty in about 3 weeks time. Well, it’s not then yet, so enjoy!
If you were at the awesomely wonderful New Music Bake Sale in April, you may remember a horror ballad of mine I sang with Ensemble de Sade, called The Exaltation of Grace Budd. Well, thanks to the recording expertise of Amir Khosrowpour (who was also rocking out on piano), you can hear it again (or for the first time!). Here you go:
The Exaltation of Grace Budd by Matt Marks:
The text is from a famous letter by the 1920s serial killer, Albert Fish, to the parents of one of his young victims.
I’ve often wondered if Shepard Smith’s recent un-Fox News-worthy attitude was a result of his legitimate differences with the network – which seem to be growing – or simply a case of moral posturing, as I believe the case to be with Glenn Beck. It’s tough to believe in its sincerity (I mean, he was the host of A Current Affair…) but this outburst seems to be free of pretense. He ends up looking a little foolish in this clip, but I sympathize with him. Torture is just fucking wrong, ok? Sometimes the debate beyond that – especially a biased one – does not really help matters. There have to be some things that are simply taboo in our society despite their inevitable gray areas.
In the torture debate, people often bring up the Alan Dershowitz argument: a bomb is set to detonate in a large city in an hour, we have the terrorist, does it make sense to torture him to find the bomb’s location? Probably. Does that mean we should do it? No. This is a completely hypothetical question with no basis in history. Hypotheticals could be drawn up to question any one of our values, that doesn’t mean we should base policy on fiction. Example: Is is ok to punch children in the face when they’re naughty? No. But what if, this one time, this child was actually not a child and he had the Gary Coleman disease and you didn’t punch him and then he stabbed you. Yeah, good point. Open season on punching kids? No. Punching kids is fucking wrong, case closed.
There are always opportunities for relaxing our moral boundaries and there are always justifications, but it really just comes down to sticking by those decisions. I never cut in line. And I actually kinda consider peoples willingness to cut in line to be demonstrative of a certain sociopathy. Does it make sense to cut in line sometimes? Of course. Would it benefit me on occasion? Yes. But I’ll never do it, I simply will not allow my brain to go there. It’s unfair and fucking wrong. That’s all there is to it.
Here is a very cool interview for anyone who is interested in new business models for making money in music. NIN has probably the most progressive attitude for getting their music out there than any mainstream group, and they’re still raking in the cash. It’s fascinating to watch Trent Reznor geek the hell out about the “NIN brand” and revenue streams and all that. He’s a pretty smart dude. Every musician would be smart to listen up.
Fox News thinks Mr. Rogers ruined a generation of children:
Yeah, um if there’s one problem with the kids of today it’s that they have too much self-esteem. Sigh… Is there really a need to argue this kind of psycho pseudo-social-darwinistic bullshit? Apparently there is, since Fox News is now instructing a generation of idiot parents to teach their kids that, what, believing in yourself is wrong?
I really hope the recent surge in crazy that’s been coming from the right is just the last gasp of a dying movement.
P.S. and I love how they vaguely link it to some “study” to add legitimacy. The conclusion of the “study” showed what? The young adults of today watched Mr. Rogers as children. The researcher believes the young adults of today have a sense of entitlement? Well then, case closed!
