Dresden Dolls (or how I seemingly betrayed a higher ideal).
The Dresden Dolls were fantastic, as I knew that they would be. (For a full analysis of the show, see my separate post tomorrow in the music section) Their performance was among the best I've seen all year, and yet I felt miserable after seeing the show. Why? Long story.
I originally bought the tickets for a small venue. The Dolls were the opening band, and the headliners (Panic! at the Disco), are a band that I really can't stand, a group of corporate rockers cashing in on the end of a popular trend. Panic! at the Disco is the crusty scum at the bottom of the retro barrel of which the White Stripes and Interpol were the creamy top, retro-pop without any comprehension of the history which it supposedly evokes, an eighteenth generation Xerox copy of an illustrious initial text.
I reasoned that I could suffer paying for the tickets for fourty-five minutes of Cabaret Punked out Dresden Dolls bliss. I justified this expense when the tickets went on sale four months ago because I knew that I would see the Dolls in their native setting: Small Venue. Capital S. Capital V.
Then the tickets sold out, and the venue changed: The Expo center. I could now look forward to a barn with terrible acoustics and a small army of girl-pants wearing fifteen year olds and the girlfriends who had dragged them there. No matter. I would suffer thus to see the Dresden Dolls, and so I did. The show was brilliant. I left immediately after the Dolls' set in order to get to work on time. As their set was ending, Amanda Palmer asked how many of the audience was there to see them, rather than Panic!. A few strangled yells rose from the noisy ocean of pre-pubescent acne in which I was swimming. Palmer then went on to say that anyone interested could leave the show and follow them to a second, small venue Dolls show downtown for a longer set for $10, a show even better than what I had hoped to see in the first place.
Did I follow?
No.
I went to work.
At another time, I would have ditched work and gone straight to the show, no questions asked. Last night, instead of supporting people doing underappreciated work which I respect completely, I decided to go back to work supporting a store in a chain in a corporation in a conglomerate which serves as an outlet for one of only three major food distribution companies in America. I would make the same decision again. I have priorities to which I must now apply my efforts. Make no mistake. This is not the specter of responsibility creeping in. This is not maturation, or age or what-have-you. It's not. Really. Heh.
I originally bought the tickets for a small venue. The Dolls were the opening band, and the headliners (Panic! at the Disco), are a band that I really can't stand, a group of corporate rockers cashing in on the end of a popular trend. Panic! at the Disco is the crusty scum at the bottom of the retro barrel of which the White Stripes and Interpol were the creamy top, retro-pop without any comprehension of the history which it supposedly evokes, an eighteenth generation Xerox copy of an illustrious initial text.
I reasoned that I could suffer paying for the tickets for fourty-five minutes of Cabaret Punked out Dresden Dolls bliss. I justified this expense when the tickets went on sale four months ago because I knew that I would see the Dolls in their native setting: Small Venue. Capital S. Capital V.
Then the tickets sold out, and the venue changed: The Expo center. I could now look forward to a barn with terrible acoustics and a small army of girl-pants wearing fifteen year olds and the girlfriends who had dragged them there. No matter. I would suffer thus to see the Dresden Dolls, and so I did. The show was brilliant. I left immediately after the Dolls' set in order to get to work on time. As their set was ending, Amanda Palmer asked how many of the audience was there to see them, rather than Panic!. A few strangled yells rose from the noisy ocean of pre-pubescent acne in which I was swimming. Palmer then went on to say that anyone interested could leave the show and follow them to a second, small venue Dolls show downtown for a longer set for $10, a show even better than what I had hoped to see in the first place.
Did I follow?
No.
I went to work.
At another time, I would have ditched work and gone straight to the show, no questions asked. Last night, instead of supporting people doing underappreciated work which I respect completely, I decided to go back to work supporting a store in a chain in a corporation in a conglomerate which serves as an outlet for one of only three major food distribution companies in America. I would make the same decision again. I have priorities to which I must now apply my efforts. Make no mistake. This is not the specter of responsibility creeping in. This is not maturation, or age or what-have-you. It's not. Really. Heh.
posted by Q. at 8:53:00 AM
4 Comments:
Don't take this as me being judgmental, as that's something I would never want to be.. I'm impressed and surprised at the same time. Whereas once you would have ditched it in a second, now you work toward what is considered by many to be the greater good. I know I've had to do it so many times.. Gah, what I wouldn't do to ditch this place and go to the Tool concert at the Gorge. But ultimately, it's the reality that you need money (and thus a job) to survive, instead of music. You're right. It's not maturation. It's getting bitch-slapped by economics. One of these days, when I find a way to create my own clones, I'll hook you up, and then we'll never have to fret about it again.
still, i'll always miss seeing that part of you that just didn't give a crap.. lol
Slave to society? I'm not sure that following the whims of the music establishment and band performers is exactly casting off the bonds of society, here. Seems like a pretty big segment of society gets into that rag and then sits around feeling good about themselves for "following their bliss" when they're really just being drones of a different color...
...
which is also partially due to all the chemicals they're dumping into their bodies.
Hard liquor will make you a different color, too, you know. Usually "jaundiced yellow" or "violent vomit green".
...
... just an extra 10 bucks man. I'll give you a real good hit a smack for it. Fill up your spoon, like. laugh, the music establishment.
Anyway, my point is, be yourself, not a groupie, and don't do drugs. And certainly don't mix liquor and pills.
Feeling bad for not being a groupie and not emulating a bunch of acne-filled teenie boppers. laugh This is what we call having an unbalanced self-image. Maybe rather than living life flitting along after one desire to the next, a guy should live life chasing after what he wants himself to be.
...it's sort of like not eating box after box of Mike and Ikes because you know somewhere inside that, really, they're just empty calories.
...which is an example from my real life just a couple of days ago. It took a lot of willpower to resist that strange, weird, almost supranatural desire to consume Mikes and Ikes the other day, but my will conquered my taste buds! That's the kind of guy I want to be. The kind of guy who can say NO to candy. Yeah. Willpower. Will-to-power.
You get what I'm driving at, here?
...
So, I guess if you want to be a groupie-band-chaser, go for it. Can that many Grateful Dead fans really be wrong? laugh
Beware, beware! The ghost of Jerry Garcia is but the first of three spirits that will visit you tonight!
Man, speaking of liquor, I thought I had this scotch to put myself to sleep. Usually this works. Scottish Grouse, some of my favorite stuff.
sigh
-M
P.S. And is society really such a bad thing? It stocks those supermarkets you use, you know. Let's see you go hunt down your own food every day. Society is comfort. People who reject working for society are mostly people who've been comfortable their whole lives and have no clue what they're letting themselves in for. Sometimes we call these people teenagers. Sometimes we call them freeloaders. Either way, we don't want them stealing the beer from our frige.
P.P.S. The refrigerator. Brought to you by the cool goodness of electricity and the hot works of welding manufacture, both fine products of society.
This series of exchanges reminds me of one of the reasons that. in retrospect, I don't care for the movie ending of Fight Club. The movie muffles the message that indulging in self-aggrandizing, self-destructive fantasies is ultimately a hollow pursuit. Your job may well be a soul-sucking, pointless mess but, as the story tells us, "You are not your job". Your job is just what you do, and, as I've said before, sometimes maybe the best you can hope for is a job you don't hate. So in the end you did your own cost/benefit analysis. Is it worth getting fired (even from a job you hate) to see a band perform that you just watched perform? Obviously you made the right decision. When you listen to that part of your brain that says that you would have chosen a different path when you were younger you are falling for the big youth movement lie that tells us that the instincts of the young are superior to the reason of the older. That sort of "reason" is insanity that cuts reason off at the knees. It lies to you in your youth then makes you feel bad for doing things that makes sense. It is the suburban white version of that "keepin it real" bullshit that tells black kids that if they try hard in school and try to make a better life for themselves that they are sellouts who just want to be white.
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