Brainjackin: Kafka Good

There are things I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for my husband. I was broadly aware of Franz Kafka and his works, aware of what people meant by “kafkaesque,” but that awareness meant I wasn’t actually reading it. I’m just sunshine and lollipops over here. Unfortunately I am also horney on goffs, so I ended up married to one, and ended up reading some Kafka for myself. Now I know – Kafka deserved the fame. It’s absurd to say he’s really good actually, but he’s really fucking good, actually.

On my husband’s thirtieth birthday, he got the dying words of Franz Kafka character Josef K tattooed on his arm – “Wie ein Hund,” in the handwriting of Kafka himself. My dude must be more goth than anybody in alles die deutschsprachige welt, because google image search for that quote comes back with nothing but cutesy inspirational dog pictures. Yes, we know that means “like a dog,” but c’mon. Sort yourself out, Deutschland.

One time I mentioned Kafka to a German lady and she had no idea who I was talking about. Yeah, he was Jewish and lived in Prague, but he’s the most famous writer of the German language in much of the world for a reason. Sorry, Goethe is cheesy. Mann is lovely but I never heard of him until I was cohabiting with a goth. The disregard for our boy feels antisemitic. Do you like your own language or not?

So. What’s good about Franz Kafka? He owns your ass. As an author, you want to communicate a feeling to somebody, make them experience it, and if it’s a feeling that cannot easily be expressed in words? All the more impressive. People will talk about the absurdity and futility in his stories, but they don’t mention the humor and the pathos. It’s dark humor, the emotions are sad as hell, and when you’re experiencing both of these things and more, all at the same time, you are spellbound.

Unless you’re immune to art, which is a trait we can add to DickDawk‘s laundry list of character defects. At least he has the courage to never delete his history of incredibly embarrassing tweets.

So far I’ve read The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and The Hunger Artist. I know, I haven’t even read The Trial. Fake Kafka fan. Despite my high praise for him, I would not call myself a fan. What he did as an artist was basically perfect. Sometimes I can think of a quibble with even some of the greatest literature of all time, and I have no such criticism for Kafka. However, did I mention my sunshine and lollipops? When it comes to dark art, I am a tourist. It isn’t for me, for who I am. But it’s absolutely worth reading, regardless of who you are. Just once. Check him out.

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Brainjackin: Renaissance Cuties

We’ve all heard the names of various renaissance artists before, right? Not being Italian, it’s easy to miss that some of those guys are known by nicknames. Davinci, Caravaggio, Raphael, Tintoretto, Botticelli, and Bronzino sound similar enough to anglophones, but that list is the equivalent of Anglos being named Stratford, Carmichael, James, Spunky, Reginald, and Prettyboy.

In particular, Tintoretto’s nickname meant something like “little painter boy” and Bronzino’s “tan boy.” There was a military dude from back then, who is best known now from being the subject of art – a sculpture bearing his nickname, the Gattamelata. That shit means “honey cat.”

I suppose history will remember Cherilyn Sarkisian as Cher and Louise Ciccone as Madonna, so maybe we’re still at it. But regarding those renaissance cuties, I didn’t know about it until my husband told me this information he had picked up in Art History. Thanks, man. I’m turning this tidbit into blog content. The essence of brainjackin’.

What other historical figures are known by a nickname?

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Brainjackin: The Normal

There are some things in life I only know about because of my husband’s evil influence. Once upon a time he got on a jag of listening to a musician known as Fad Gadget, aka Frank Tovey. Good lookin’ guy, passed too young due to a congenital heart defect, made wacky art-influenced electronic music. While he was digging that guy, he told me all sorts of other adjacent things.

It starts with a guy named Daniel Miller in 1978 releasing an indie electronic track called “Warm Leatherette,” for his solo project The Normal. That song did well for the indies, inspiring Grace Jones to do a more successful cover of it in 1980. “Warm Leatherette” is very basic, even crude, and has lyrics that are just basic bitch fanboying about J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash. You know, the one that was portrayed in cinema some years later, with James Spader and Holly Hunter getting their rocks off by experiencing car crashes.

Meanwhile, Miller established the soon to be ultra-successful Mute Records. One of his other projects there was a silly little album of classic rock and roll covers as The Silicon Teens. According to wikipedia Miller provided the vocals, but they do sound rather like his friend Frank Tovey, who posed as the band’s singer. Who actually sang? Dunno. But Mute Records had all sorts of interesting artists.

Of primary interest to my man, Frank Tovey’s Fad Gadget, who had several cool songs, most famously “Ricky’s Hand,” “Collapsing New People,” and “Lady Shave.” Did Collapsing New People make you think of Einstürzende Neubaten, whose name means Collapsing New Buildings? No coincidence, that band was also on Mute, and the song was about them.

That’s not what made Mute a gazillion dollars. That would be Depeche Mode. I love those guys. Once upon a time they were young men, and there’s a picture of lil’ Dave wearing a Fad Gadget T-shirt. At least, I remember seeing that somewhere. Might be misremembering it. Anyway, the world wouldn’t have all that great Depeche Mode music if it wasn’t for these weirdos, and if it wasn’t for The Normal, and if it wasn’t for Warm Leatherette.

Join… the car crash set.

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Brainjackin: Abbott Handerson Thayer

Another type of post to add to the rotay, so I don’t run out of birdposts and dreamposts and discposts: Thunks I Stole from My Husband, aka Brainjackin’. These won’t necessarily all be original thoughts or observations of his, run thru the filter of my misunderstanding. Sometimes it will just be Things I Wouldn’t Know About if It Weren’t for Him. Like this post, about Abbott Handerson Thayer’s hot idea.

OK, this idea might have crossed my horizon before, but it didn’t take root in my memory until my husband mentioned it to me one random evening. Early 20th century painter Abbott Handerson Thayer was very successful in his own time, a man of letters as well as visual art. Seems like everybody had to have big opinions about everything, and he put forth an idea on the topic of zoology, which may have been a good example of people talking outside their expertise. According to Thayer, even boldly colored animals were actually adapted for camouflage. After all, predator or prey, you have good reasons to wish to remain unseen.

In support of this idea, he used his exceptional painting skills to illustrate a book. Very beautiful pictures of not-at-all cryptic (camouflaged) animals, in just the right circumstance that they could fade into a background. Por ejemplo,

I think this guy was more famous for paintings of pretty girls, but this stuff is a lil more memorable in the scheme of things. At least, to me. Were peacocks adapted to blend in with bushes and trees? Probably not, but the idea was at least good for producing some very cool art. Thank you, Hander Thaybotson Randers. Aw shit, I’m losing it already…

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These Gay Antics

Hey, what’s the deal with the gay antics out here? Lookit that guy up on the stage, kissin’ the other guy on the stage, and nobody says nothin’ about it like we all get it, big joke, they get the no-homo pass because they’re rocksters. That ain’t fair.

I’m thinkin’ about the boys in Nirvana back when they were all alive, makin’ out on Sunday Night Live and whatnot. But also about Bruce Springsteen kissin’ that one guy from his band, and didn’t some of those hairbandmans do it too? Like Bon Chovies or David van der lee Rothe or Motley Poisons? Why does nobody think any of them suck wieners? That’s kinda weird.

Rap guys can’t get away with it. Every time they wanna say something nice about gay people they gotta backpedal into the depths of hell to keep their street cred. I feel like one of those Mobb Deep dudes had to do it. It’s kinda interesting tho, some rap bands are cocksucker this faggot that, and others don’t use those slurs at all, like, mysteriously absent from their vocabulary.

And however hardcore that rapper is, when I notice that about them, I have to wonder, who are they being nice to? Themselves? Their friends and relatives? Some of them even stay sorta vaguely respectful to women. Can you imagine? But they can’t make out with other rappers on stage and get a pass. No permiso.

Gay antics tho. Dire Straits using the f slur in Money for Nothin’. Probably about Duran Duran, but he did go on to say Duran man gets his chicks for free. As opposed to Dire Straits who have to pay for it? Or do they get their dudes for free? Reverse reclamation maneouvre? I don’t get it.

Are these liddle old men trying to appeal to fujoshis? Scare republicans? Is it a homophobic joke like “wouldn’t it be funny if we were gay lol u losers”? I remember high school jocks being on that tip, but doing very overt gay things in pursuit of that “joke” and leaving one wondering. Or jacking it, depending on how hot you thought their homoerotic display was. A few of those situations may have entered my “spank bank” as it were…

Rocksters explain it. I’m at a loss. How u do these gay shenanigans and get away with it?

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Minphis Don’t Play

U might not be aware, but several US cities have rap scenes with a lot of local pride. One particularly infamous local rap scene which intrigues people to this day: Memphis, Tennessee. Or as people with that accent call it, “Minphis.” When I say “Minphis don’t play,” I’m quoting a random loudmouth I overheard on the bus a very long time ago. As I recall, he also claimed that city invented pimping, for what that invention is worth. I’ll accept this as truth. Moving on…

I’ve mentioned the biggest success story from the Memphis scene a few times, The Triple Six Mafia. And what did that success bring them? A great number of Memphis rappers, famous or otherwise, are dead from drugs or violence. Bad times, but maybe that has something to do with the intrigue. For some reason, hipsters out for the “realest” music have latched onto the Memphis scene as Tha Source.

Why I am I fucking with it? Isn’t rap homophobic and misogynistic and glorifying of violence and irresponsible use of chemical recreation? True. Some of it is worse than others. Well, Memphis tapes are about as bad as any. Call it a problematic fave. I won’t justify it to you and you don’t have to justify yours to me. I’m not the world’s biggest Memphis rap fan, but hipsterism hath perked up my ears to it.

I think it’s funny because this could just as easily been any city and any genre. In my hometown of Auburn, Washington, we had a number of punk bands with moderate local success. Some of them put music on CD, cassette, even vinyl. Where are those albums now? Will they ever receive this kind of love? I really would like to see all the art of the world given that respect, no matter how pathetic or retrograde or disposable.

I’d love to see the internet become a true archive of the whole breadth of human experience, and of art, which was the cry of some nowhere people against the void – I matter right now. Hear me make music about it. But we can’t. You literally can not find everything on the internet. Even very recently created art has been lost forever. As everything ultimately will be, so it’s not a cosmically big deal. But it is kind of sad.

We don’t even have all the Memphis tapes – and mysteries abound. Check out this blog post wherein a guy was researching the strange story of how one rap dude released some tapes with his voice pitch shifted, playing a lady rap persona seemingly inspired by an ex, and never copping to it. Why did he do it? Maybe we shouldn’t push the question, knowing one possible explanation is being trans, and you don’t want to push people out of a closet – especially now. But that doesn’t seem likely to be the case here. It’s just kind of funny seeing a guy named Skinny Pimp release a Chipmunk-styled song called Where the Big Dicks At?, then duck when people ask him about it later.

Maybe Minphis do play, after all.

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Lostwave

You might not be aware, but there is a whole internet subculture bent to the task of investigating cultural obscurae. Presented with an image or a snippet of audio or a video clip, they try to find the origin. This is not always possible, because despite idealistic dreaming and much human effort, you literally can not find everything on the internet. Much of humanity’s artistic and intellectual output, even from the internet age, has been lost forever, or was never recorded in the first place.

With regards to music, they call this “lostwave,” a genre defined by what you don’t know about it, and nothing else. There were a number of lostwave songs that people had just about given up hope on having their origins revealed, when recently they came to light. Check out the reddit community to see a lot of interesting stories of independent research, and observe some odd bits of culture that were nearly lost forever.

I just want to talk about one such story briefly. A guy posted a clip of a song and asked if anybody could identify it, then the poster disappeared. I forget what reason he gave, for why he had a clip but didn’t know the origin of said clip. Speculation was intense, the mystery lasted a few years. But at last, it was revealed to be a studio song used in the pornographic film Angels of Passion. You can find that moustache-tacular porn its entirety online, if you are so inclined. I skimmed it. Anyway, the guys that made the song published a remaster on yewchoob, so we can all check out this porn quality jam together…

The best part of this little tale is that you can tell from the clip the original poster had presented that it was carefully cut around the moans and groans of 1980s style fucken. He knew where he got it, set people up to get pink-faced about it, and bounced forever. Good one, man.

The song shows up at about 1 hr 7 min 30 sec into the porno, depending on which copy you’ve found, probably.

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The Herfy Diaspora

Fast food franchises in the USA. Megacorporation offloads some amount of liability and expense by making deals with small business fuckos, whereby the small business fucko owns and operates a restaurant with their branding, and varying amounts of their everything else. The big boys like McDoodoo and Gag in the Bag exercise a lot of control – everything has to be set up just so – which is a boon for food safety. Left to their own devices, small restaurants tend to cheap out on important elements of hygiene. In my county, there are little food safety scores posted outside all the restaurants, and fast food places are more consistently “excellent.”

Enter Herfy’s, or rather exit Herfy’s, which was a fast food franchise until a few years ago. Generally a burger and fry place, but with some amount of seafood on the menu. When I was security guarding in the lead-up to the subprime mortgage collapse, my fellow guard / homeboy would sometimes get lunch at the Herfy’s across the street, and always regret it due to foodborne illness. What’s up with that, Herfy’s?

It makes sense. Herfy sounds like the condition of being afflicted with foodborne illness. Oh man, think that fish sandwich isn’t done with me yet. Pull over, I’m gonna herf.

Thank you, Garth. Herfing accomplished, I proceed.

The Herfy’ses were always much more variable and independent seeming than franchises of the big boys. I have no idea why, but it had an interesting effect. When Herfy’s corporate went out of business, many of the restaurants carried on as if nothing happened! Due to IP law and whatnot, they had to change the signage, but many of them – such as “Cow & Cod” in Auburn, even kept the Herfy’s color scheme.

I think it’s cool because more active businesses is more jobs, more variety of places to eat. Cow & Cod is pretty great, by the way. The corporation went down, but the Herfing continued unabated. I’m guessing up in Seattle the exHerf that sickened my homeboy is still sickening other people’s homeboys to this very day, and classier ones like Cow & Cod are giving you an alternative to corporate fast food. Fantastic.

I don’t know if Herfy’s was just a PNW thing or if the situation looks similar elsewhere. Feel free to herf about them in the comments.

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You Dig on Multiverses?

Did you catch that reference? Apologies if you did. I finished all the Elric I’m going to be able to find, and have returned with my accursed demon blade Stormbringer to feast upon thy souls. Or tell you about it.

I kid, I kid. I really don’t have a lot to say about it. There were elements that aged very poorly in terms of cultural mores, and elements that aged poorly because the march of fiction has rendered them quaint and pedestrian, but nothing wholly outrageous on either count.

Moorcock may have coined the word multiverse. I could probably find out with a little googling but I don’t care enough to. While now it’s in service of bloating and bleeding film franchises, it once was a very literal homage to joseph campbell’s ideas. A victim of time, I don’t find those elements at all interesting.

Oddly, fiction from the 19th century doesn’t hit me like that. Maybe recency produces something like the uncanny valley in writing, I don’t know.

I don’t think I ever reached the end of the story, assuming it was ever written, but that’s alright. Tho it had more continuity than sherlock holmes, it was always written to be short stories for sff pulp mags, it seems.

In looking up interesting things about it, I discovered that Wendy Pini of Elfquest comic fame had attempted to get an animated adaptation done, and failed.

That info loops back on itself because Chaosium once did an Elfquest rpg with basically the same rules as Call of Cthulhu, and also for a time had Moorcock’s license to Elric rpg. Did that also use the same system? If so, it would make for an amusing combination…

Alright, I gotta jet. Tired as hell. Zzz.

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Life's a Gas

I Hope it's Gonna Last

Why are we persecuting immigrants in our democratic society?