Dear Big Content,

I love your movies. Especially the ones that are all s’plodey and where stuff flies off the screen. And I love your records, the Led Zeppelin catalog in particular. I’ve always been a good customer: I don’t infringe, and I’m loyal to a fault. But I do have a few questions for you.

First, why do you treat me and my friends like punks? We buy your stuff. But you make it really hard to do it in a way that fits with our digital reality. I’m looking at you, movie and TV peeps. You really want me to accept the violation of a decades-old consumer compact whereby we could rent a movie on the same day it was available to purchase? Do you really think that making me wait TWO MONTHS to be able to rent Mars Needs Moms on DVD (I’m not even talking streaming) is going to drive me into Best Buy to plunk down for the petrochemical disc? Do you secretly like piracy? Because that’s exactly what you’re encouraging.

And music guys: how come you create the conditions where there are only three companies that can afford to offer your wares? Do you know how much fucking money you’re leaving on the table by clinging to your prehistoric licensing terms? Once upon a time there was this disruptive, infringing technology called radio. Completely freaked song publishers out. They wanted to force every broadcaster to pay an individually negotiated amount for every spin. In hindsight, that seems not only inefficient but imbecilic. Maybe the government needs to step up and prod you goofballs towards more internet-friendly terms. I bet you could even keep your car service! Now, I know that you fought the phonograph. And the CD. And the MP3. But you don’t have much fight left in you. So the time to get your shit together is probably now. And yes, me and my friends will be paying VERY close attention to make sure that the artist splits are fair. Because frankly, I’m not all that convinced that you’re providing much value anymore. Consider this your opportunity to be cut into the future while you still have a chance.

And would you please get a basic grasp of how the internet works? Why are you so keen to demonize an entire class of technology? Let’s take search for example. I can look up a recipe to make hash brownies. Or I can look up a recipe to make regular brownies. Now, we all know that those criminal scumbags offering the former must be dealt with in the severest possible manner. But what you’re proposing is like blowing up the entire library because you don’t like that the card catalog system tells you which shelf has the book on hash brownies. Are you really this boneheaded? I get that you’re jealous about Google making bajillions from search. But is that a reason to compromise a mechanism upon which millions of global internet users rely? I guess it’s true what they say: the entertainment industry isn’t all about the money — it’s about ALL the money.

Also, could you please stop pretending that the SOPA/PIPA debacle was about Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood? (Or, as you prefer to characterize it, homespun creators vs. Google.) Literally millions of internet users — many of them copyright holders — had issues with your overreaching bills. They didn’t jump into a controversial intellectual property debate because they wanted to. They felt compelled to, due to the fact that big-money industry lobbying groups like yours were attempting to speak for them.

So kindly cut it out.

I want to be your friend. But you don’t make it easy. The arrogance, belligerence and outright bullying that you employ is hardly endearing yourselves to an entire new generation of creators and rightsholders. If I wasn’t so goddamn genteel, I’d go ahead and list some of that stuff. But unlike you, I have a modicum of class.

Consider this a friendly bit of advice from someone who cares. The road you’re going down leads to disaster and heartbreak. But it’s not too late to turn around.

Your pal,
Casey

And by demons, I mean demons.

According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, Patel murdered her two daughters — four-year-old Piya and seven-year-old Jiya — with a hatchet. When her husband returned from work, he found his daughters hacked to death and his wife severely injured; she attempted to take her own life by repeatedly hitting herself in the head with the murder weapon. According to Patel, a “ghost” was responsible for the slayings.

Clearly, Mrs. Patel suffered from problems far more serious than a murderous spirit, if ever such a thing existed. Her situation doesn’t necessarily say much about the paranormal craze of recent years, but it might tell us something about the pharmaceutical treatment of mental illness. In Patel’s case, such treatment is likely justified. But what about those who aren’t as disturbed?

Let me state that I do not know Mrs. Patel, nor am I familiar with her condition prior to this grisly incident. However, I’m not just a paranormal nerd, I’m also a high school teacher, a job that gives me a certain insight into how medication affects people — I’ve seen the before and I’ve seen the during and I’ve seen the after. Often, one is no more or less scary than the other.

I’ve seen bright and intelligent students with some fairly obvious personality quirks walk into my classroom one day tense and easily agitated, then dull and near-unresponsive zombie within 24 hours. I’ve seen highly violent students quick to do harm to themselves and others be transformed into apathetic beings with emotionless eyes. I’ve see kids who dart around the classroom with the energy of a chihuahua but the grace of a dancer become immobile and stationary, a shadow of their former selves.

I’ve seen kids with intensified, but typical teenage problems become twisted entities of their former selves, and seen those same kids, when taken off the pills, self-medicate through drugs, self-induced violence, or worse.

I’ve also seen students personifying heartache — kids who can take these feelings and turn them into beautiful expressions — become cheerful and engaging people at some sacrifice to their creativity.

I don’t know what “normal” is. I don’t know how to feel it and I don’t know what it feels like. It does seem to me that our society has chosen to excise portions of personalities deemed irregular by capturing them in pill bottles with the hope that it produces this elusive state of being.

And like I said, I don’t know Mrs. Patel, or her situation. She is confused to a degree well beyond anything I can imagine. She may indeed require pharmacological intervention to deal with her inner demons. In the days of yore she would be considered possessed and put to the stake, today she remains medicated.  I simply have to wonder if this is the case for all of the kids I’ve encountered whose energies may not be so sinister, simply misdirected.

Hi there. My name is Casey, and I’m the proprietor of this here den of iniquity.

And I’ve got a problem.

I’m in the midst of a fallow period, creatively. Well, that’s not entirely true — the music-making continues apace, as do the dumb ideas for movies and TV shows. I’ve just not been able to write. OK, fine, that’s not true either. I write all the time. In fact, I’m in the middle of a law journal article that should serve as a grand unifying theory for music-tech-policy issues. (How cool is it that I get to write for law journals? I mean, I’m not even a lawyer.)

That’s the kind of stuff I find myself writing these days. Federal comments, legal briefs, position papers, testimony, market and policy analysis, talking points… all very wonky product, and all stuff I enjoy composing. I suppose that’s why I’m having such a hard time finding things worthy of posting here: my intellectual capacity is nearly expended. If only I was smarter and required less sleep!

I suppose I could use this site as a platform to continue my exploration of issues in the content and technology space. (Actually, sometimes I do.) But then I just feel like I’m at work, and for someone who already has a tendency to over-identify with career, that’s probably not healthy.

I could also start serving up regular political tirades. In the past, I’ve certainly done my part to keep our cupboards stocked with outrage. But living in Washington, DC and seeing the dysfunction up close has soured me on the whole game, at least temporarily. I’m sure I’ll bounce back before the campaign season begins in earnest.

I used to write about music, professionally and for pleasure. I sometimes still do, but only out of a kind of grim perseverance. It’s tough to shed aspects of yourself that were once key to your identity. What was that I said about over-identification with career?

I could write about personal matters, but that’s not what this rag is all about. This is probably as close as it gets.

Sigh. Maybe it’s time to motivate our contributors. Where did I put that goddamn cattle prod?

I have invites to the new social Google thingamabob, but I can’t use them because, once again, the company launched a highly-anticipated beta and couldn’t manage demand.

The following are my favorite features in Google+, with the caveat that I still haven’t gotten a chance to use it.

• Huddles — where you play fantasy football while betting on how long it’ll take for Google+ to go the way of Wave and Buzz
• Circles is an accurate digital representation of Dante’s Inferno
• That little button that gives Mark Zuckerberg direct access to your bank account
• Image widget turns Lady Gaga into a normal human being
  
• You get a ten percent share of MySpace just by joining!
  
• Automatically syncs with Baidu in China
• The only social network allowed in Supermax prisons
  
• Cawker: Celebrity penis pic section powered by Gawker
• New Prince album available exclusively on Google+
  
• Unpopular? Biomechanical algorithms “grow” friends for you
• RFID chip knows where you are at all times
  
• Pays third world children to do your homework for you
  
• Girls worldwide enter contract to ONLY go wild on Google+
  
• Free pet sitting
  
• Sparks: Google Alerts for caffeinated alcoholic beverage discounts

Well, he’s back and I’ve got nothing. Not because I’m lazy or devoid of ideas, but because during his time abroad I started the Masters of Education program at Georgia State University. It’s not that the work is difficult, but it’s certainly time-consuming. Currently my penis-envy sized desk is buried in mountains of books, articles and other texts, framed by a “due date” list that requires an extension to my new dry-erase board.

So, dear readers, I give you one of my first response critiques for my graduate’s degree — specifically my EPSF 7110  course. It’s for my Multicultural Education and Society class and asks for me to evaluate and interpret a song that reflects the feelings of modern teenage students. I chose “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats and was shocked to learn that the story of the song’s origin come from my own university’s radio station!

Oh, and keep those Contrarian paychecks coming, please. They help cover my weekly whiskey bills.

——

Christopher S. Parizo

Song Lyrics and Society

EPSF 7110

June 25, 2011

“The computer chip inside her head gets switched to overload / and nobody’s going to go to school today, she’s going to make them stay at home.” With these opening lyrics, Sir Bob Geldoff of 1980s New Wave stalwarts the Boomtown Rats, begins the tale of a teenage female murderer.

Geldoff wrote the song while sitting in the radio station at Georgia State University in 1979. A telex machine printed the story of a 16-year-old student in San Diego named Brenda Ann Spencer, who openly fired a handgun at an elementary school, killing two children and wounding nine. The event marked one of the first school shootings in American history. But it wasn’t the tragic events that sparked Geldoff’s imagination, but rather the apathetic response Spencer gave to police and reporters when asked why she committed such a heinous crime: “Tell me why! / I don’t like Mondays.” This exchange is repeated throughout the song’s chorus.

Although the Boomtown Rats had a good deal of success overseas, “I Don’t Like Mondays” was the sole American hit for Geldoff and the band, only reaching #73 on the Billboard charts. Despite the song’s relative lack of U.S. impact, it has regularly featured in American media, such as in episodes of “The West Wing,” “House MD” and the movie The Breakfast Club.

The song’s speaker blames a technological flaw within the shooter herself (she happens to have a computer in her head instead of a brain). Beyond this device, the song’s lyrics describe a shift towards apathy that critics of American youth have trumpeted for generations. This is based on a common observation that the more society moves away from organic, human connections and towards technology, the greater distanced we are from human emotion. Geldoff himself comments on the irony of this in the song’s second verse by stating how the news came to him: “The telex machine is kept so clean as it types to a waiting world / And mother feels so shocked, father’s world is rocked and their thoughts turn to their own little girl.” Here, Geldoff imagines the response of the shooter’s parents, having heard the same news via the same cold telex message.

Geldoff continues his search for meaning in apathy with the third verse, which describes the schoolyard following the shooting. Geldoff writes, “All the playing’s stopped in the playground now / She wants to play with her toys a while / And school’s out early and soon we’ll be learning and the lesson today is how to die.” Geldoff tells us here that there is no ultimate truth to be drawn, no moral compass to be re-calibrated — the violence is merely random. This is reinforced in the song’s close, which concerns the thoughts of the police captain who takes the shooter away: “… the problems [with] the how’s and why’s / And he can see no reasons because there are no reasons. What reason do you need to die?”

Ultimately, “I Don’t Like Mondays” concludes “there is no reason to be shown.” Geldoff follows this logic by not explicitly stating the cause of teenage apathy; the listener needs to draw their own conclusions. Nor do the lyrics depict the actual school shooting. We do not get a retelling of the events of the tragedy, only the emotional reactions (and lack thereof) to the events. Still, Geldoff does hint at the cause in his references to our modern world. We live in a technologically-oriented culture of computer chips and telex machines — or websites and text messages — and each expression that employs these technologies becomes severed from its emotional tether. When the “human” aspects of human communication are replaced or superseded, it engenders apathy, which makes violence easier. Deeper meaning is eclipsed by the mode of transmission; the ultimate reasons behind violence are forever obscured by easy catchphrases and purely mechanical interactions.

[Editor's Note: This article is clearly inspired by my recent Facebook rants about new bands like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Silversun Pickups. Also, it pretty much captures my feelings about those sad and tired clowns Jane's Addiction. Thanks to Arthur Adams for making me feel like even more of a curmudgeon.]

Oh man, what’s up with that thing that people like now? It’s so terrible and transparent and derivative! I can’t believe people think it’s so cool. Remember the thing we used to like and think was super cool back in the day? It was so original and meaningful and genuine! The thing that people are so into now just steals from that older thing, and acts like it invented it.

Back when I liked that original thing so much, nobody else had even heard of it! It was totally obscure and dangerous and revolutionary! I didn’t even mind so much when other people started to like it, too. It was kind of thrilling to see that thing written about by Thing Experts — people whose opinions I respected in all manner of things (most of which I liked as well). I became friends with a bunch of cool people who were all into that cool thing. And we’d hang out and talk about that cool thing all day long. It was awesome. But then everything started to change…

After a while, more and more people liked that thing too. What was up with that? It wasn’t like they were cool people. I don’t think they even GOT what the thing was all about! I started to hear idiots rambling on and on about the thing that I LOVED, and they didn’t even know what the fuck they were talking about! What’s worse, as the thing grew in popularity, I tended to be less and less enthusiastic, surprised and challenged by it. The greater the mass appeal, the less I loved it. The thing was also starting to change. Soon it was almost unrecognizable to me. My friends and I lamented the decline of that thing we once loved so dear. This thing we had practically grown up with!

A silver lining: the nostalgia we felt for the way the thing used to be inspired us to make our own thing! And when we did it people would come up to us and tell us it kind of reminded them of the thing we all loved so much. We were so psyched! That we could continue doing this fresh, meaningful, unique thing that it seemed barely anybody understood like we did!

We met a lot of other folks who were just as into the way the thing used to be, all of whom were attempting their own version of it as well. Some were more successful than others, but we all had a common love for that amazing, obscure, original thing and a total hatred for what it had become and all the dumbasses who loved the new lame version of that thing. God, they made us so mad! We’d try to educate them about the way the thing was when it STARTED. When it was real. When it moved and inspired us.

But it was no use. They just wanted their safe, recycled bullshit thing. The thing we liked wasn’t anything like that! It came from a place of real honesty and humanity. It wasn’t just some regurgitated crap, like the things are today! No sir. These things today are either tired clones of things that were never as amazing as the thing we loved, or worse, ripoffs of what the thing we loved became when it started to be bad. Or even ripoffs of the ripoffs of the thing we loved. What a bunch of posers!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I realize that the thing I loved so much wasn’t made up out of wholecloth. But that thing — OUR THING — was inspired by only the best, most original things that came before it and a reaction AGAINST all of the worst, most conventional things in the world.

I wouldn’t have liked anything else!

That’s why I’m struggling with this year’s SXSW. I had a rough first night due to some peripheral nonsense, and it really hasn’t gotten much better. I love music, but not the live rock ‘n’ roll version, which for me, provides little payoff to go with the disorientation and fatigue. I also don’t like crowds of people, unless I’m in front of them. But not while performing music — I gave that up some time ago. I understand why most musicians feel the need to play live, because I’ve been lucky enough to have had some enthusiastic (and sizable) crowds. It’s a powerful feeling. Still, it was never enough to make up for the innumerable associated annoyances. Just ask my former bandmates.

I could blame a lot of this on my high-functioning autism, but I’m wondering how much of it is also just my personality. I wish I’d pursued an academic track, that way I could “perform” and engage intellectually, albeit in a controlled setting with fewer variables.

I’m frankly embarrassed to be saying any of this here, because I feel tremendously guilty for not “having fun” with all the other party people. I also don’t make it my business to “piss on hospitality,” to quote Troll II. I like public speaking and brainy debate. I just wish it didn’t come with all this crowding and noise.

For John Briggs of Berkeley, California, the realization came a few months ago at a downtown nightclub. “I was out at a bar with some friends. The DJ dropped that Justin Timberlake track and boom — we were all immediately out on the dance floor.” The joy was quickly replaced with embarrassment though. “I turned around and suddenly I’m face-to-face with an old friend from the swing dancing scene. It was really awkward at first. I stopped going to those dances, gosh… five years ago or so. And that scene used to be like, my life. These days I don’t even own a decent zoot suit. Frankly, I don’t think I’d have the strength to throw a girl in the air.”

Briggs’ story is increasingly familiar nowadays, as 1990s hipsters who revived old styles from the dustbin of history are now giving them up in record numbers. The reversal of this trend is leaving the remaining stalwarts in the awkward position of being, well… forgotten.

“I thought it so cool that circuses were coming back,” says Emma Wheeler, on the phone from her cubicle in a Chicago call center. “Fire eaters, aerialists, all that stuff. It was so weird and old and totally ours.” These days her remaining friends in Cirque du Sinister, where she spent most of her 20s swallowing swords, are battling not only financial problems but popular irrelevance. “These days it all seems, I dunno… just weird and old.”

“I’m pretty sure our freakshow isn’t exploitative,” says Corneilius The Mystyrious, nee Justin Fox, whose Austin-based touring company Freaks! Unlimited has recently fallen on hard times. “But it’s getting harder to convince people with rare medical conditions they should quit their jobs, get in a van with us and go on tour. It’s damn near impossible these days to find a midget — ” Fox hesitated for a moment, “sorry: little person — who’s not gonna report us to some kinda advocacy group.” However, Fox does find his situation somewhat bittersweet. “It has put us in the position of being, y’know… legitimately obscure. Which is pretty ironic, come to think of it… which I guess makes it cool?” he says, looking uncertain. “Mostly though, it just sucks.”

The in-betweens are the most annoying moments in life. Waiting to hit the stage after sound check and two opening bands. Prepping for a performance review at work. That interminable period between first date and the second. The gulf between cocaine psychosis and, uh, WINNING. We know the feeling. Well, maybe not the last bit.

Things are about to blow up here at Contrarian HQ, and not in a freaky jihadist way. But for now, we wait. To kill some time, let’s look at links!

• They’re gonna ruin Blade Runner with crappy prequels and sequels! Maybe Shia LeBouf can play Harrison Ford’s character. Bieber can be the replicant.
• A Ph.D says that anyone who dreams participates in shamanism. Tell that to my stressmare last night about being late for moderating  a panel.
• The Berkeley Earth Project will lay waste to the politics of global warming with more data than anyone has ever collected. Don’t tell them that American conservatives are impervious to facts.
• Speaking of the lunacy that is modern American conservatism, this NBC/WSJ poll shows that Americans are wary of the GOP agenda. Wait. Didn’t they just vote for these clowns? FACEPALM.
• Dubstep mix of Charlie Sheen rants. Moderately WINNING.
• Hey Charlie, here’s how to go to a fashion show on ‘shrooms (crack, he’s got down).
• Cyborg DNA. Science aside, it’s fun to say.

Our good friend Shane of the Government tipped us off to this post from Capital Gains and Games about the religious underpinnings of the Tea Party’s deficit fetish. It’s grim stuff, but it does a good job of outlining why an agreement in Congress about such basic concerns as funding the federal government is likely to remain elusive.

The populist disdain for experts — marked in debate over evolution and climate change — has entered economics. “The fact that we may be completely ignorant to the process here, God bless us, because our ignorance has just saved the American people more money,” Tim Scott, a freshman Republican from South Carolina, told CNN. What we are witnessing is the rise of a new strain of politician: the budget fundamentalist.

“What you’ve got to understand is this is an emotional issue, not a rational issue,” says budget guru Stan Collender, a veteran of both House and Senate budget committees who puts the likelihood of a shutdown at 90 percent. “As far I can tell it has no theoretical economic underpinnings, which is why it’s so difficult for the budget these days to be discussed, because statistics don’t mean anything, equations don’t convince anybody. It is almost a religious belief.”

Viewed in this light, it’s easy to see why the GOP youngbloods are targeting, say, Planned Parenthood. Yet it’s also indicative of a larger trend, which puts Biblical Capitalism ahead of any form of social or civic advancement. This movement is subsidized by mega corporations like Koch Enterprises, which care nothing for the American middle class. Meanwhile, income disparity in our great nation puts us at the bottom of international rankings.  If you think you’re gonna strike it rich here, think again. The charts don’t lie, but the politicians — and their corporate paymasters — sure do.

One of these days, we’re going to publish an in-depth article about how Ronald Reagan — the Bill Brasky of the Right — sold America a shockingly effective fairy tale about exceptionalism, while simultaneously eviscerating the labor force and presiding over the greatest transfer of wealth in history. But we’re simply too sick to our stomachs at the moment.