The Official Hog Blog
Thursday, January 30, 2003
I got my lid chopped last night, and man....I'm ready for the world.
Someone give me a job! I have an interview with the SfZoo tomorrow and I may be thenext monkey house manure remover. sweet, right?
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Are you hip to this record?
I bought it through the suggestion of my good friend, Vinnie at the Groove Merchant in San Francisco. But you can buy it at Dusty Grooves, out of Chicago via the internet. The record melds perfectly the sounds of cool jazz that was coming out in the early sixties with an afro-funk, reggae tint to it. Go buy one.
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Friday, January 10, 2003
Awrighty, kids... gather round the stage lights and lets listen to ole Hog give you an ear tug, cuz today is one'a them days when I seent or heard enough about marketing and commercialism and I read enough bad record reviews to have to say something about it... so, if you know any of the names that have not been changed to protect shit, well let em know ole Hog aint such a bad guy, he's just incensed. Besides, any publicity no matter how bad or how unimportant the writer is.... is good publicity.
Have you pulled in close enough? are you wrapped up ina big blanket to hear Uncle Foji tell you the tales that make yer heart stutter, make your ears hot, and make yer asshole itch? I'd like to begin with a few things about ideas.
Good ideas come once and a while, but bad ideas are everywhere. Take for example, canned vanilla coke. Mass-produced for your drinking enthusiasm, and curosity as the ads have made you believe. But I'm not so curious. No, I'm not curious about it at all, for I know you can't create a coke and vanilla mixture with just enough of each syrupy flavor without the help of an honest to goodness soda jerk. Can you remember the soda jerk? Had you the leisure of such a thing? He was the guy at the soda fountain who had a number of levers and spritzes and whips and canisters, and tricks up his sleeves, that were eloquently rolled up to about his elbow....
Coca-Cola has attempted to buy into the Americana that is the soda jerk, canning it into a marketable proposition, even going so far as changing the identity of what it is to enjoy a vanilla coke. I can remember the fizzey softness of the first sip of it, biting at my nose. It was better than sneezey Vernor's. And a cherry coke was just too sweet. But, this charade... this facade... this foolish mimicry of the original is outlandish.
Augh. Coke makes so much money anyhow, they kinda rule the world. Dont they?
So, I guess in ruling the world they can do what they please.
Are you still with me, here? I know... I know... I aint makin much sense, but bear with me, cuz I'll tell ya something....
This coke phenomenon's affect on culture trickles down to the fringes of society. It trickles into the parts of our culture that seem to be counter culture, but it aint and dont let any hippy, punk rock bullshit fool ya...
For example... This new rock thing that is going around with the kids today... Hot Hot Heat, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture, The Hives,Interpol.... These are all great bands... well, they aint all great, but you get my point that each has talent of some kind, or at the least, something redeemingly entertaining. Each also has a flash in the pan image. That is, they have images.... branding, so as to create a connection to their listeners. Okay, maybe I'm losing you, but dig..... here is a correlation with the way that the "counter culture" seeps into our mainstream and by doing so invalidates said "counter culture."
The Hives wear skinny ties. Avril Lavigne wears skinny ties.
The White Stripes use specific colors to differentiate themselves. Stryper used colors to differentiate themselves.
( Stryper was a hair metal christian band in the 80's)
SEE? Do you see? Cant you? Please say you do.
These examples are few, sure... but it goes without saying that this commodification of culture even affects the Bay area indie scene. There are bands out t here that wish to capitalize upon the new rock thing as much as the major record labels want to capitalize upon Justin Timberlake's taut tummy. As much as they want to get Ben and J-Lo on camera together do we want to see the cameras pointed at San Francisco. Take a look at the cover of a magazine one-time... it says "San Francisco Rocks."
It does, really, San Francisco rocks so I cant deny that part of it..... but do the bands they've featured rock? Or do they only look good in vintage clothes and pouty poses. Rock and roll is volatile, and rebellious. It looks like the only thing SOME local rock bands are rebelling against is cold and foggy weather, talkin' about keepin it real but wearin' shorts on the ocean front.
Its great exposure and all the magazines want to talk about is how cool the sounds are and that the fog is inspirational and The Rolling Stones are SO influential. And Pink Floyd were misunderstood. Who the fuck cares if anything rocks if it dont mean shit? Sure, I'll shake my ass to it, or I'll bang my head cuz heavy metal drives you mad, but who the fuck cares? I think San Francisco bands need to de-construct themselves to fully access the potential of this moment in time. Break it down to build it up again. And we need to create noise that makes more of a ruckus...
Wars, unemployment, pollution, crimes against children, crimes against the elderly, gunplay in the ghetto, business folks screwing the public, political luminaries trying to control the world....
I guess we could argue the state of fashion...
I guess we could deliberate the importance of the mullet...
I guess we could play disco...
I guess we could paint our faces like injuns...
I guess we could eliminate the bass player...
I guess we could learn the dance moves...
I guess we could add a deejay to the mix and have him scratch ill beats....
fuck, I dunno.
I guess I'll listen to Sam Cooke.
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
"I'm not sure why it looks like this," I said in a half drunken stupor, squinting my eyes against the blinking lights of North Beach, "but Merry Christmas anwhose..."
I leaned into James, caught myself on his shoulder with one hand before falling off'a my stool. Tis the season to be jolly, I guess... and James and me aint had the money, nor the gumption to spend it with family. Augh, it was better in a bar anyhow. I got me a great big check for 80 dollars to spend. It was a bonus cheque from the office. The office gave it to me and told me they had enough work through the year, but not for me, and I was being laid off. Thanks alot. Layoffs always look better through a martini glass, or through the copper tones of a neat single malt.
I've become quite adept at dealing with the startling rush of emotions that come with a layoff. It happened to me a few times in the last year, but never before the holidays. Never during a time reserved for sugarplums dancing around in my head, a jolly ole saint nick looking to bring me the newest contraption, eggnog and rum served near a roaring fire, near a library of books with hours and hours to peruse and pontificate over. I dont know who I'm fooling. Anytime I get laid off is a pain in the neck. This time, though, had nothing to do with insurgent behaviour. I was always on time, and I had always procured the finest of work from my day, making sure that everything was filed properly, everything was collated accurately. My dress was always casual, but dressy, and my shoes were never, ever sneakers. Nope, this time I was laid off because they built a machine that could do my job ten times faster and, according to the firm's research, more accurately.
I paced back and forth in my cubicle when I found out, just a few days before Christmas, which is to say I paced four feet, then turned around to another four feet, and so on....
I did that for a good twenty minutes and Charlie Parker played on my radio. Helps me to think. Not like Coltrane helps me to think. Coltrane sounds like the howl of an oncoming train in the subway, each train another escape route, getting me outta the hustle and bustle of downtown and into the dirty streets of the Mission and into night clubs filled with music and broads and good liquors. Bird, on the other hand, is more frantic. Like the crowd boarding the trains, struggling to get on, quickly, quickly and tight so tight that bodies are pressed uncomfortably against one another, blue collars curse at white collars for stepping on toes, and women clutch their purses for fear that shifty kids might steal some of their shit.
Monday, January 06, 2003
