I now understand the allure of pop culture

My roommate just rented Control, recently, the surprisingly moving biopic of Ian Curtis and his band, Joy Division, the band soon to become 80's pop icons, New Order.



I must say that, other than the elementary school fascination that I had with bands like New Order - New Order was one of the major bands of my youth - as an adult, I both enjoy pop music and have never really completely understood my friends' obsession with pop music, popular movies, popular television dramas and sitcoms, and other things that seem so completely mindless and mindnumbingly boring to me as a thinking grown-up.

But, I must say, that after spending an evening with Joy Division and New Order videos, myspace pages, audio clips, Wikipedia entries, and other lore, I think I'm finally understanding the obsessive appeal of pop culture for my friends.



There's always been the mindless escape. The wanting to be part of the crowd, to belong and do what all the kids are doing, these days. The secret wish for an opportunity to sell out, make big cash, and not care about anything else other than having a good time.

But, mostly, there's the music.



Just getting lost in it, as Ian Curtis clearly does in this video for "She's Lost Control."

There's the ambiguous melancholy and introspection of Ian's lyrics in this early Joy Division work.

For me, with New Order, there's memories of childhood in the 80's, a period that seems innocent as the morning dew compared to the blunt, crass, sexual, drug-glorifying, and commercial messages on contemporary radio and video play.

I remember watching videos for songs like True Faith



...and Bizarre Love Triangle



...songs that I was completely clueless to their meaning but loved, nonetheless, inasfar as anyone can love a pop song, and never understanding what the hell these videos or songs meant, and not really caring, particularly. As a kid, I would try to decipher lyrics of even mindless pop songs, like these, and get to the bottom of what that big, mysterious grown-up life was like.



And, tonight, I realize that their appeal, for me and I assume for others, is not just the musicality for its own sake and chance to take a break from the complexity of real life. It's not just the memories as a kid of trying to decipher what often seemed a dark and enigmatic life of grown people.

It is the ability to pull back from a world that is overwhelming, sometimes, in its mindless and endlessly complicated pressures, struggles, and conflicts with apparently no end and often for reasons that seem kind of foolish and not good for much and just enjoy some uncomplicated and minimally taxing entertainment, hoping for it all to blow over.

It's more complicated than all that, of course. Everything is, of course.

But, sometimes, it's fun to take a little time off. And, more often, it's fun just to not think about it at all and just enjoy the music.

As I kid, I did more enjoying without thinking. As a grown-up, I don't know how to enjoy anything without thinking. Even mindless entertainment.

Enjoy. Don't think about it too much. Or do.

God knows I do. I know. It's pathetic. I just can't help myself. I never have.

Time to shut my brain off, watch some mindless 80's pop videos, and fall asleep to the tunes of True Faith, New Moon of Monday, Lovergirl, and other meaningless pop songs of my childhood that I read all kinds of meaning into trying to understand a strange, uncertain world.

Maybe everything will all blow over tomorrow. Or maybe I just need some sleep and do my best to understand this still all too odd and mysterious world tomorrow as today.

Goodnight everyone.

"Fuck the revolution"

This is how you talk to Americans.



Goddamn, Bono can make a speech, can't he? I miss the days when these boys sang like this. I appreciate being a rock star and not wanting to seem so pious.

But I think it's a little late for that, don't you, boys?

And for God's sakes, fuckers, risk a little sanctimony.

In the meantime, I remember when U2 had fewer friends with power and made more of a difference.

No offense, fellas, but pressuring the President and G8 leaders to make donations they were already committed to making is hardly the stuff of political courage.

In that spirit, a clip from an excellent movie about the war this song was written to end.



After that self-righteous screed, you'll need a little dose of the indominatable Richard Cheese (the contrast between Cheese's cheese and Bono's ire could not be more brilliant or more hilarious).



Here's their more recent, shitty, garbled, acoustic version for the Clinton Presidential library dedication.



And my favorite cover by you know who.



But nothing really holds a stick to Bono's performance, back in the day, huh?



Get some testicular fortitude, boys. Risk some sanctimony.

Make music like this again.

"Caring educator"

A story, today, in my hometown paper, the Lawrence Journal World, is a nice reminder of what really matters in life.

Officer remembered as caring educator

Real men and women don't have to go around swaggering about, proving how tough they are all the time. It's the fuckin' poseurs who sit behind desks, and those too callous to the harm they inflict, who romanticize tough when better and less destructive options are available.

Meaning, it's the weak who romanticize tough when other less destructive options are available or when its really not their place, at all, to impose themselves. People like Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashaal, Osama Bin Laden, and Mohammed Omar. Plenty of people in the United States and all over the world too close to those examples to be proud of themselves.

And David Dillon is a nice reminder of that fact that compassion does not mean soft, except to the weak.

Compassion is strength. In fact, it is this strength that more solidly than any other distinguishes the efforts of the West and liberal democracies from the efforts of the more repressive forces of the world.

In a world where the weak and the insecure are always turning to tough and denigrating compassion to avoid facing themselves, it's nice to know that people like David Dillon spent some time here, if only for awhile.

That's what I want people saying at my funeral. I don't want some asshole talking about what a "tough sum bitch," I was. That will be apparent from my life, well enough.

I want people to remember what a big heart I had. And that I was someone who gave having a big heart a good name. And that I'd gladly kick the ass and anyone who said different, if need be.

Thank you, Officer Dillon. You'll be missed.