Rick sent me some music and I wanted to write a song, so I wrote and recorded the vocals last night. Here it is. It’s called Dangbody Alexander. The music is awesome, and I think I’m pretty funny, but whatever, maybe not.

Here’s the lyrics:

alexander integrated macedon
with a pale horse he brought greece
and the great greek homer knew it all along
an achilles heel is all you need

he could fight tigers without getting bit
statues of him everywhere in roman architecture
his heir was never named by judicial writ
could have been poisoned by the sons of antipater
but was probably done in by by bye malaria

Have a great weekend!

Basement.org just posted Mass Media, Mass Murder And The Narcissistic Web; and it’s interesting on a few different levels. The irony of it all is that you’re reading about all this on a blog I’ve had for 6 years, and I’ve never deluded myself into thinking it wasn’t completely and utterly narcissistic. In fact, a few years ago I decided to completely cease talking about myself on the blog in an attempt to combat this. It didn’t last long.

Last Friday I went to see Thomas de Zengotita talk about his book, Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It, and he spoke specifically about the Virginia Tech shootings and the media’s running of the photos of Seung-Hui, and how that quickly turned into a mediated response by anyone experiencing the event through channels that were not necessarily their own reality. Method acting (more on this in the interview linked below and his book).

He touched on a lot of the same subjects mentioned in the lastpsychiatrist.com’s post, Time’s Person of the Year Is Someone Who Doesn’t Actually Matter, which is particularly poignant. De Zengotita also feels that self-flattery is behind the Social Web (Narcissistic Web) and also behind the Virtual Revolution that is fueling it (think Marx and the proletariat).

Self-flattery is only part of it, though — de Zengotita thinks flattery is less relevant than the simple basic human need to be addressed. And this is ubiquitous, think about how you feel when you get a voicemail, e-mail, link to your blog, snail mail addressed to you, a nod in the hallway.

I haven’t read de Zengotita’s book yet, but I’m still thinking about everything he said and the content is painfully stimulating. Salon has a great interview with him from a couple years back.

It’s important to note that de Zengotita (and if you read the interview, you’ll know this) isn’t condemning mass media as “all bad,” but also provides fodder for prescribing a solution to the parts of it that are. A few more points from the talk:

• Just a few decades ago, the innumerable life options didn’t exist for over-developed (de Zengotita’s term) countries — Your grandfather never said, “I’m a cat guy.” Never had the option to be your grandmother instead. This adds to the “mediation” of life.
• We create our own identities through materials but also through media, whereas previously, people just existed without that type of consciousness. Being vegetarian is an expression of self, not a health concern.
• Practically all marketing these days capitalizes off creation of self and utilizes “you” in its ads. News, too.
• His story (here it is — in language; “simulacra” in reality) about where he was during the JFK assassination, is terrible and discomforting (psychically) and fascinating. I think it’s in the book.

One last note on “right,” as mentioned in thelastpsych’s post. I’m not sure how this is all connected to the virtual self as signified through symbols, avatars and such, but the feeling of entitlement is rampant, and I’m curious: How does this entitlement to physical manifestations of status and celebrity eventually transform itself into freedom from responsibility?

We went to Montauk over the weekend, because six years ago, Owl and I went on a date. Here’s a slideshow of our weekend; music compliments of Jon Brion. Notice I have the same expression in every single picture, and that 3 seconds is the perfect amount of time to see each picture.

Look at the slideshow at flickr, because the embedded one was too big.

This is one of the classics of the classics. The crunch on Rebecca’s guitar is perfectly subtle, and Scotty’s drumming is oh-so tight. The most outstanding part of this song is how the snare just pops every time it’s hit.

It’s a pop gem and still sounds really good more than ten years later.

This is what I consider to be the very first Accustomed to Failure (ATF) song. ATF was formed when Tim and Josh played songs for each other in Tim’s basement. Then I said, “I can play good pop drums,” and a few days later, Tim said, “We’re a band.” This song is recorded superbly, and the breakdown at the end calls to mind the very best prog-rock bands of our generation.

[audio:http://www.infiniteregress.org/bmp/Convincing.mp3]

Josh is on rhythm guitar, Tim on lead, and Brandon on drums. They might disagree and call I Miss Vanessa the first ATF song, but as that carried over into the MLB days, it doesn’t count.

I’m nearing the end of the semester again and am drowning in work (again), so posting will be light for a couple of days, unless bmp steps up to the plate. Also, I’m pretty busy watching baseball.

• I thought of two new nicknames for Monkey and Edgar Elephant: Monktada Al Sadr and Gar Gar Binks. I thought it was fitting, because Monk is a little like the Shi’a cleric in his ruthlessness. But then I felt bad about making light of a shitty situation in Iraq. I didn’t feel bad about the latter nickname, other than feeling like I would give Elephant a complex by giving him a nickname after a crappy Lucas character.
• Every time I see the poster for Perfect Stranger, I think of Balki Bartokomous and Cousin Larry Appleton (aPLEton). And then I realize it’s Halle Berry, and then all I can think about is the sketch in Conan with Halle Berry and Franken Berry cereal.

In no particular order. This has just been sitting in the draft box unfinished since the beginning of the year. Since I don’t have anything else to post, I thought I’d just throw out this list of songs. Right now, I think my favorite is the Of Montreal song. I heard a USE remix of it a while ago, too. I’m sure you can find it somewhere.

1. New York - Your Heart Breaks from New Ocean Waves

2. On The Radio - Regina Spektor from Begin To Hope

3. For Reasons Unknown - The Killers from Sam’s Town

4. Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby - Islands from Return to the Sea

5. Do U Wanna Ride - Jay-Z from Kingdom Come

6. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) - The Decemberists from The Crane Wife

7. Eyes On The Prize - M. Ward from Post-War

8. Can’t Forget About You - Nas from Hip Hop is Dead

9. The Blues Are Still Blue - Belle & Sebastian from The Life Pursuit

10. Smiley Faces - Gnarls Barkely from St. Elsewhere

11. Requiem for o.m.m.2 - Of Montreal from The Sunlandic Twins

12. The Man Who… - Josh Rouse from Subtitulo

I had a great time in Seattle. Not a wasted moment. I got back yesterday morning and spent every moment I wasn’t at work or in class, sleeping, so here’s the update:

Frozen static with nostalgia. We used to listen to this a lot in the Vanimal, bmp’s humongous grey van that you could live in and it looked like a child molester would drive it. Imagine that, and then imagine seeing bmp driving with shaded goggles on. He bought them off the side of the road in South Richland at one of those stands that sell sunglasses.

bmp says:

This is one of the songs that somehow reminds me of hanging out at
Little Caesar’s and Starbucks at George Washington Plaza.

We were sitting around and some guys walked up to us, one of which had a wrench in his pants that he kept showing us (no, that’s not a euphemism).

“Who the fuck flipped me off?”
“No one flipped you off.”
“That’s not what I heard.”

They talked hard and went away, and I think someone yelled, “I’m gay!” at them as they left.

I’m gonna be at the baseball game today, watching the Mariners take first place in the AL West for the last time all season, until, of course, we make a stellar trade with the Twins, who need some veteran leadership and right-handed sock in their lineup and wind up getting Joe Mauer and Johann Santana for Richie Sexson and the ghost of Edgar Martinez. Jose Vidro will take his mask off and actually turn out to be a young Rickey Henderson who traveled from the past to play with a team no one thought would be a contender just to prove he is the greatest baseball player of all time. This will explain why he’ll have stolen 73 bases by the All-Star Break.

So look for me on TV. It’s on ESPN. I’ll be the guy with the painted face yelling at how much the ump sucks and telling Dan Haren that he’s nothing but a belly itcher. Hey, if I make him cry, remember, it’s all about the game.