It was worth watching the Grammys if only to watch Robert Plant:
"I'd like to say I'm bewildered," said Plant. "In the old days we would have called this selling out, but it's a good way to spend a Sunday."
Raising Sand is one of the best albums I have ever owned, so last night's five presentations were well worthy. As was he. Instead of stooping over to speak into looking the microphone like the doofus every other stooped over award winner looks like, at one point he lifted it in front of his face so he could stand erect, the aging man in the leather jacket damning the needs of the TV cameras. He didn't look like an old man. Can he ever as long as that hair is attached to his head? He made a point of taking a few extra steps to cross the stage after the departing Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus to briefly neck with the nearest available teens before returning to the mike and accept the first award he and Alison Krauss received. It reminded me of the 2004 interview on Fresh Air when Terry Gross gushed a bit over the ripe sexuality of Zep lyrics like "The Lemon Song". The man is alive.
Paul McCartney looked even more like a muppet who has sat too near the fire and melted a bit than he did five years ago. McCartney was never my favorite because in large part he seems to be a sell out before he sold out. He was needy. The comparison to Plant is worthwhile. Plant still seems to be exploring his voice and his ideas while "Paul McCartney was joined by the Foo Fighter's Dave Grohl on drums for I Saw Her Standing There". A magic moment, no doubt. It is true. There has been much sold out. "Pump It Up" has been played at NHL games for years despite its layers of underlying misery. The Who sell TV shows and even The Clash and Zep sold cars. But what was "not selling out" and when did it die? Do we look back at the times between The Battle of Seattle and the global Ponzi scheme and ask ourselves whether being so gullible was so necessary? Why were we so eager to take the advice to go shopping?
Think about it. At the heart of the credit default swap debacle is the risking and maybe losing western economic dominance for the next decade over investments in nothing, owing money to no one but everyone at a scale that is theoretically represents multiples of the value of everything. Isn't that what not selling out was warning against in some respect? Materialism taken to the nth degree where there was no longer any associated material?
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Comments
Jay Currie - February 10, 2009 3:37 AM
I think you missed out the obligatory reference to the "kitchen sink" which would have tied this all together.
I've seen Plant a few times live and he always looks like he is having fun. I have never seen Madoff live but his pics suggest he was having fun too.
Oddly, I was far too poor to take the advice to go shopping and, a decade later have largely lost the habit of enjoying retail. Fact is that they have next to nothing I want. Bunch of tat from China. You can't buy Hogarth Press firsts at retail. Nor Noddy, nor retro lingerie or 60's A-line coats. These are things which I or my wife want. So "going shopping" does not mean quite the same thing to us.
To be gullible requires, at a minimum, a buy in to ideas and values which are essentially false. From plastic surgery to particle board furniture, we spent a couple of decades embracing the suck convinced that the fact one's bookshelves deflected under the weight of actual, well, books was somehow only to be expected.
I read, somewhere on the net, that there are 50 million storage lockers in America - I rather suspect the number is inflated by a factor of 10 - and that the stuff in them is worth exactly nothing. A lot of virtual money has been borrowed and spent on virtual goods. Stuff which will be in the landfill in five years, a decade tops.
While the hedgies see their billions go to "Money Heaven", the folks who bought into mall culture have racks of Rubbermaid plastic containers stuffed solid with last year's new things. Which will be going to the "Big Landfill in the Sky" just as soon as they have to downsize their house and dump their storage lockers.
This cheque will see the boards and the topsoil for the veggie garden. Potatoes will be dug under the grand wasteland of the back lawn. Buy real assets, get your hands dirty, kiss all the teenagers you can...knowing full well that they are real and the future. Robert Plant has dumb amounts of money but he has come by it, more or less, honestly. He's worked damned hard. Which is what is what we will all be doing as the golden crumbs cease to fall from the deal flow.
Alan - February 10, 2009 8:49 AM
Just because I haven't figured out my point at the beginning shouldn't sully the experience. "Kitchen sink" indeed. How about "revelation" or some such thing.
I suppose my shopping habits are similarly unhelpful, though I really should get some sort of credit back from the US Federal government as I save up clothing, book, and sports equipment purchases - not to mention beer and BBQesque condiments - for my US trips. Heck, I bought my canoe in the states...and it was made in Canada! But the big house and stuff have never thrilled me either. My only regret is there isn't the acre out back there used to be. I really liked growing about 40% of my food. There will be more pots of herbs out back, however, and I may make a spud crick.
Hans - February 10, 2009 8:57 AM
Once again, the integral role of Alison Krauss is under-appreciated. If ever there was an exemplar of not selling out, she is it. All this recession talk reminds me of the late 80s/early 90s when we transitioned from Reagan to Rae. The boomers had all sold out in 80s and left the economy in ruins for we in the next cohort. We didn't have a chance to sell out even if we wanted to (and we didn't want to sell out cuz that's what the Boomers did). My parents virtues of "waste not want not" were tansliterated into the modern goals of efficiency and environmental sensitivity. In short, I've seen this movie before and I still blame the boomers. Finally, after almost 40 years of ambivalence I am now becoming decidedly pro-MacCartney.
Alan - February 10, 2009 9:15 AM
Well, I think she is an exemplar of how all of bluegrass is analogous to punk. Sure it is hard to be that angry and play the banjo but there is a purity and a lack of financial reward that makes it compelling for me.
I just blame boomers generally and McCartney is the anti-Pope of boomerism.
Seanie - February 10, 2009 2:36 PM
I tend to avoid any and all mainstream awards shows because all the smiley boomer-esque backpatting irks me. As far as selling out goes, what the hay. If you make it mainstream, feel free to sell my favorite song to Swiffer, I don't care, it might coerce you to make more music. If you are indie and trade in your style that I like for top 40 pop, thats selling out and you may lose me as a buyer while gaining others, but who am I a mere consumer to question your want of a new car and to not have to play dingy pubs. Who am I to ask you to remaining poor so I can pay my $10 and feel good supporting your "habit" of being a starving artist.