time comes undone

Last night I was of a melancholy mood, and found myself listening to a long time favorite, Dead Man’s Will, by Calexico with Iron & Wine. It’s the last and best track from their collaboration EP, about a man promising his gifts away to his loved ones after he has passed. This inspired my own morbid thoughts of death and love, and I wondered, as the song poses, will the people who I love and haven’t told know that I do, when I’m dead and gone?

May my love /
Reach you all /
Please say it’s not too late /
Now that I’m dead and gone

Some of them have been told but don’t know, some of them know but haven’t been told, and some of them just have no idea what a gift they are or were in my life.

But wrapped up in the morose thought was the same awestruck feeling I sometimes indulge when listening to music so deeply satisfying and yet so unassuming — music that is perfect without trying to be. And Dead’s Man Will and so many others are perfection in song, and they fill my existence with value beyond measure, even as I contemplate whether it’s worth anything at all.

The way that I came to love this particular song is that a certain local hero and radio DJ named John Aielli plays it frequently on his show. Just a short while ago, I got into my car in order to drive home for lunch, and I turned the radio to his show. I was instantly arrested by the sounds of vintage jazz, and I didn’t start the engine, and I didn’t return that phone call, and I didn’t release my fingers from the dial. I listened and savored the sounds of something unknown and beautiful to me, and waited patiently to hear the back announce of what this great thing was.

When John returned to the mic to talk about it, he said, “So many things in life are so terrible, and yet there are things like that that are so wonderful … just divine. That was Duke Ellington and Mark Strayhorn.” He echoed the essence of my ideas about the soul sustaining power of music, that I had been thinking to myself not even half a day ago.

This is why John Aielli is so beloved here in Austin. He has a passion for music that he communicates with such a plain, unpretentious sincerity that it is infectious. It’s also because music is lonely without the experience of sharing it. At the end of the song, when both listeners find themselves sighing in unison, it marks a kind of mutual intimacy that needs no words. The radio DJ and the listening audience can have this kind of relationship; and having been a DJ myself, I understand how rewarding it is to play a selection that sparks that kind of connection, whether you know for sure that you have reached someone or not.

Today I have reaffirmed my personal promise to announce my appreciation to all who have earned it, now, while I’m still alive and here. So to John Aielli, I wish to say that you are a treasure and a joy. I will continue to fuel my life with the musical gems discovered while listening to your show.

I just had one of those reality shaking moments in a bathroom not my own, when I looked at the counter and saw this:

Something about this plastic, faux-stylish JC Penney toothbrush holder made me weep a little, on the inside. Why do we buy this shit? Seriously, what the fuck is this for? And is it really worth a day's pay in China?

You know what this item is worth to me? Negative ten bucks. That's how much you'd have to pay me to show off both my relative opulence and absolute tastelessness by having it in my home.

I am reminded of this documentary Mardi Gras: Made In China mentioned in passing during some internet discussion. I've not seen it myself, but the poster described a scene of these Chinese factory workers who make plastic Mardi Gras beads being shocked by pictures of how the beads are actually used. Honestly, I would be disheartened too if I learned that my daily labors served only to adorn drunken revelers in a party of excess, debauchery and waste — especially if such a wanton celebration was so inaccessible to me.

Granted, I too exercise my middle class privilege to throw obscene amounts of money at baubles that tickle my fancy. I took these pictures with my iPhone, for example. I'd like to think that my iPhone adds more value than just bringing my toothbrush six inches closer to my hand when I reach down to grip it though.

Where is a link to that George Carlin bit about stuff when you need it. Or did he use the word shit instead of stuff? I don't remember. I just know that he talked about how our lives are full of this shit. It is such a strange, absurd, and vaguely suffocating time to be alive.

This little gem comes to me from my cuntacular net friend Keri. The original site is down, but I managed to clipmark it before the surge:

Bravo, Alex Kochno. You’ve managed to entertain and delight a couple hundred feminists while simultaneously legitimizing their cause! Maybe if I had a big male brain I could be doubly counterproductive too.

This presents a golden opportunity to talk about so many recent news items and experiences I’ve encountered on the topic of the gender wars. Just look at the letter. One has to wonder what moves this little republipig to take the time to send something so vicious. Is it backlash against perceived attacks on his values? Is it twisted emasculation fears? Is it hate? I’d say he’s just a troll, but trolls know better than to use their own email address.

I guess the most important feature of this letter to me is that he takes such satisfaction in belittling us stupid cunts. It’s one thing to assert female inferiority, it’s another thing to do so with glee. There’s a recent NYT blog post on “Misogyny vs. Sexism” that asks the question of whether the two can be separated. When we read articles like that describing acid attacks and stoning victims in those other sexist countries, we all get it: those backwards foreigners really hate women, with a ferocity that is hard to understand.

And yet we lack the awareness to turn the same scrutiny to our own culture. When Maxim runs pieces like “Get grossed out by the five unsexiest women alive” and the interwebs explode with cries of “Yeah, what an ugly bitch!” instead of cries of outrage, it smacks of the same stupefying hate that we decry everywhere else. That’s right, I’m drawing a parallel between literally stoning to death and symbolically stoning to death undeserving female victims; they are two points on the same trajectory.

And Sarah Jessica Parker did not deserve this culturally sanctioned hit piece, no matter what anyone says. No women’s magazine would dissect every physical feature of an average working actor. On the contrary, all the articles are about correcting their own appearance to avoid becoming target practice for the likes of Maxim and their readers! Parker is a beautiful woman who has never said anything to invite spontaneous criticism, but that’s besides the point. She wears what she was born with. What’s next Maxim? Get grossed out by the five unsexiest cleft palates? Look and barf at these mastectomy mamas? These are morally equivalent lists.

Granted, a rag like Maxim is written to appeal to human trash anyway: guys who read Maxim, measure female worth on a 10-point hotness scale, think warthogging is really cool, love to say “I’d hit it with a brown bag over her head,” and generally epitomize the lowest dregs of humanity. But Maxim is just an amplification of the pervasive objectification and brutal dehumanization of women in our culture. We accept it as common for people to delight in making women feel ugly, stupid, and worthless. It’s emotional and sociological terrorism.

I have so much more to say about this topic, but it’s time for all good little cunts to go to sleep.