In Which Shantzy Pantz and also Shantzy Pantz go hiking...

Hey People I sent this link to, here is the trip Steve and I took to the Adirondacks.

We drove past this field on the way to the Adirondack Loj (not a typo) from whenst we embarked upon our most excellent adventure...

This was the 'backyard' of our campsite that we accessed from a little trail out the back. Its where did our cooking and kept our bear canisters, also where we killed a lot of time shooting the shit in our own particular manor as we are want to do. Lovely little stream drifted past.

 Campsite...

Typical trail, with a stream running down the middle. Almost every step we had to choose wisely as we hiked. Water down the middle was actually less of a challenge than some of the low-laying swampy areas where we had to do some rerouting. We never felt it was unpleasant though. Just one way for things to be.

It rained the last night we were there so hiking out posed some challenges since the rivers were higher. Steve ponders...

We had decided our route by this point but I wanted a picture of myself looking stoic and naturey. Have to say I'm pleased with the results.

 Steve starts across...

 Forget the name of these falls, will post soon...

 We thought the scenery could be improved by inserting our faces. We were wrong.

 For those not paying attention, this is the same field on the way out.

The Future of Digital Music (boring title but I really believe this is going to happen so I'm making the claim)

(Upon reading this post back to myself I noticed a significant number of platitudes. I think this has to do with the large topics being discussed. These kinds of topics are discussed so often in life that platitudes often accompany them like pilot fish. Pilot fish have a symbiotic relationship however with the sharks they follow around.)

There exists an age-old challenge for musicians since we need to make dollars (or whatever currency exists in our respective countries) but the same personality traits that make one a good musician also steer one away from being a good business person. Business people rightly want something predictable. Musicians rightly want something unpredictable. Business people rightly seek to express themselves objectively. Musicians rightly seek to express themselves subjectively. Business people rightly need to assign ownership to things. Musicians rightly borrow, share and give things away.

Like boys and girls (even gay boys and girls) as we grow up we see the benefit of learning the ways of "The Others" but the less than fully mature musician and business person are going to look at music from opposite sides. Its the subject, its an object, its my baby, its my property. These view points equip musicians and business people to handle music differently: to actually produce it in the case of musicians and to sell it in the case of business people. Its really a partnership made in heaven if it can be worked out well. But like a successful marriage it requires boundaries and power sharing. (See that platitude was like a pilot fish rather than a parasite I think) Musicians need to spend all their working hours making music and business people need to spend all their working hours doing business. Musicians need help selling their music. Business people need something to sell.

Goose/Golden Egg:

Music and all arts are essential for human well-being and as such have a shelf life as long as there is human society (so basically another 80 years or so at the rate we're going). This is our saving grace and also the starting point for the exploitation of the arts. Why not try to exploit something that you can't kill right? You won't have to worry about it not being around. Its a great temptation in a fearful society. People seek out enduring things to cling onto - artists themselves do this too of course.

What isn't appreciated is that even if something can't be killed can still be degraded beyond recognition, to the point where we loose touch with its true place in our lives. Goose/Golden Egg, etc. (platitudes/pilot fish, etc.)

Part II coming soon

Miley Cyrus and the Two Basic Types of Racism as Applied to Music

So I'd heard plenty of commentary on how distasteful Miley Cyrus' VMA performance was but what made me feel the need to actually suffer through the whole painful thing for myself was when people started characterizing it as racist. Whereas accusations of distastefulness require avoidance, accusations of racism require investigation.

I come down somewhere between agreeing with the worst accusations I've heard and calling it "not racist." The overarching problem was that it was a complete failure as entertainment on so many levels with appreciation of historical racism being one of those levels. Its going to get extra ugly if you start with a super distasteful performance and then mix in some racially ignorant undertones for bad measure.

There is 'Knowing Racism' - purposefully seeking to dominate another racial/ethnic group- and 'Stupid, Clumsy Racism' - not meaning to but still demeaning another racial/ethnic group. Category B is only slightly less of an offense than Category A. Miley Cyrus and any of the higher-ups who green-lit her performance are guilty of Category B Racism, not Category A. In the world of music people like Pat Boone or the Original Dixieland Jazz Band are prime examples of Category A Racism: direct appropriation of African-American music while trying to hide its origins. This sends the message: "What's yours is really mine because I'm more powerful than you." Miley Cyrus' message was more like: "I crave attention and twerking is a thing and I want to use it and I don't care enough to acknowledge the issues that accompany my choice because then I would have to give up my idea." That is the logic that lead her to cross into the realm of Category B Racism.

If Miley Cyrus could actually pull off a proper twerk and she threw it in very minimally then that is fair game. White girls - or any girls - or boys - with the proper anatomical qualifications should be allowed to twerk freely. The way in which it became racially problematic - but fortunately stayed less visually problematic - is that she didn't actually try to twerk, she left that to her black backup dancers. This had the effect of pawning off the riskier dance moves on these women. By "risky" I am referring to the extremely fine line between making use of one's body for positive, constructive attention - done tastefully dances like twerking are sexy and genuine sexiness is empowering not degrading - or negative attention - the destructive, degrading kind. These women don't have star power and were relatively faceless and personality-less in the context of this performance and thus Miley Cyrus' choices as the star pushed them over that fine line into degradation.

Miley Cyrus then intensified this imbalance of power by putting her face in the butt of one of the dancers. I assume this was a wildly misguided attempt to co-opt/send up - a la Madonna and many others - stereotypical male sexual roles in a sort of "whatever, girls can do that too" way but ultimately it had the effect of further objectifying a faceless black dancer.

The kicker to me is that while this is a genuine problem the reason we're all spending so much energy discussing it is that we don't have a genuine movement for racial equality these days. If we could look around see concrete things happening to address the worst aspects of institutionalized racism - hardcore stuff like the entrenched problems in the justice system, educational and employment opportunities, vigilante violence against black people, immigrants or religious minorities, etc. - we would shake our heads at people like Miley Cyrus and not have to worry so much about the exact nature of their stupid crap.