IT’S DADA SCHMUCK

Finally saw the Dada exhibit at MOMA (Metropolitan Museum of Modern art) – all a bit much to take in. I was a bit disapointed that there wasn’t more showing of Dada as performance. At the café Voltaire (one of the birthplaces of Dada -Dada like punk just showed up all at once towards the end of World War One all over the place Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Paris, New York – It seems Zurich was the first place to use the word Dada to describe what was going on, but that, in the true sprit of dada, is a matter of extreme long loud and utterly pointless disagreement.) the first noise being made was performance. G. Marcus in a heavy and weighty book that I will this time finish (Lipstick Traces is the title) – makes a connection between what was going on at the café Voltaire and the Sex Pistols – it’s a big book cause it takes a lot of words to link Max Ernst and Johnny Rotten. But the performances were the key at the Café. One of the last ones featured one of the leaders of Dada bringing up a headless mannequin and then offering it flowers. He then sat with his back to the audience and insulted them in a poem until they rioted smashing the mannequin and the flowers.

For reasons known only to myself I’ve often wondered what the real difference between Dada and Surrealism is , they are close, but in the end it’s that Dada dealt with the outside world specially how the audience was going react – and getting them to riot was perfectly acceptable result. Surrealism was more interested in the subconscious dream states and the like. Not quite the same. Of course that is a crude generalization and in the end probably more wrong than correct.

My fondness for Dada, aside from its silly name, comes more from the idea, the ability or desire to cock a snook at the well thought of, the standard or the expected. You need nonsense every now and then or else you’ll go mad. Really.

But as works or art, well, as I said the performance works which can never really be duplicated are the bit I find the most interesting. Cause well, it’s what we try to do in the band. The humor in, say, Some One Else, depends on the fact that people, up until the chorus, have heard this song about 100,000 times before, so when we launch into the cut to the chase chorus it whacks the listener in the ear. Yes it is linked to the verse but it isn’t what you expected. And that can be very funny – granted women like it better than guys but that’s a thought for another time.

And we do try to do songs about things nobody else would do songs about. And to a certain extent we have succeeded. Now if we can just get a logo. .

And for now: Dada Adad and good night.

Random late night thoughts.

I was going to write more this weekend – a pledge for the fall I guess like lose weight and pay my bills and write more songs but I ended up getting side tracked and writing a back story for the Insect Girls alter ego in the City of Heroes on line game that she and the Enemy Below and another friend are all getting very deep into. I would probably join them but I’m still too broke to get off the dial up and I’m worried that I won’t sleep at all if I end up on it.

You would not expect me to be something of jazz fan but there you are. Of the giants of post war Jazz, Coltrane, Davis, Mingus et al, it’s Mingus that I find the most interesting to listen to these days. I suppose it’s just because he used bigger forces in his bands and could get more sounds as a result. I love Coltrane but he almost always plays in a quartet and it can get a bit stereotypical – song – improv on the song – back to song. The actual playing by John is always amazing but too much of anything make you numb.

I have – to wander away from the subject (and just how can you wander away from random thoughts is a bit of puzzle but I feel like I’m wandering) I find the two records I have of Frank Zappa’s guitar solos to be a bit of a tough listen. Again it’s the sameness of them that kills their uniqueness. Also Frank had these solos as part of a unified whole for his show so to just pluck them out of the their context is to lose something important I feel, - my rave fave Zappa tracks are from “Roxy and Elsewhere” it was the old side three for you who remember records – and it when from Cheepnis – song about loving bad monster movies to “Son or Orange county” to “More trouble everyday” there is a seamlessness to the playing and the solos – there are two of them in the mix – pull you along and then plop you into the next song. It doesn’t quite work as well with the guitar solo albums. Like I said you lose the context.

Anyway back to Mingus, musically I just find it very fulfilling. Don’t think I’ll ever write anything like that but I enjoy listening to it. He gives me a bit of inward looks and life observation while Coltrane is the starry eye questor.

Quick prediction for the football season: The Eagles will not win the NFC East because they don’t have Terrell Owens on their team. The Cowboys will not win the NFC East because they have Terrell Owens on their team.

I should have know better than to watch anything with Arch Hall Jr. in it but for some reason I ended up renting (I mean I spend money on this kids – I can’t stand it) The Nasty Rabbit. Don’t ever make that mistake. Bad Monster movies can be funny in their own right, you can find moments of true bizarre humor them – as I’ve noted. But bad comedies are just painful very very painful to watch.

While Arch Hall Jr. was the, if you will, marquee name on the film he doesn’t get a lot of screen time – which is just as well. Arch Hall jr. if you’ve never seen him looked for all the world like a grown up pudgy cabbage patch kid with a oily blond D.A. hair cut that stuck out over his face like the bill of a baseball cap. He wasn’t good to look at no. MST3K did one of his films (Egaah ) and their first reaction to his appearance on screen was to scream in terror. He could sing a bit and play guitar and for some reason his dad thought he could be made into a movie star. After making some of the worst dreck on the planet and apparently one strange but good film (the Sadist – very dark film) Arch, who much wasn’t into making movies anyway, retired and earned a living as a pilot. We are all the happier for that him and us - one more Eggah and western civilization would collapse into a heap.

Anyway this dog of a film about a rabbit is supposed to be some kind of comedy – the main idea is that the Russians have a rabbit with some kind of bio weapon that a spy was going to release on the continental divide and sweep a plague across America. You know guys; even in the early 60’s bio-warfare is just not a subject for light hearted comedy. Yucks about the death of millions are hard to come by even for the wittiest of writers. Unless you are going to go totally black i.e. Dr. Strangelove but this was not that kind of film. This supposed to be a high spirited slapstick comedy. It’s not – it’s desperate people being stuck in front of a camera and being told to “make with the funny” so they mug and fall and run around and you just feel sad, sad that they did sad and awful film and sadder that you didn’t resist the temptation to see just how bad this movie is.

It’s a mark of just how bad the whole thing is that Arch Hall Jr. comes off very well in his limited role. Compared to the hyperactive nonsense going on around him he comes off hip and cool. Then he sings and gets the girl. Not bad for a cabbage patch kid.

Oh yes they use the rabbit as a Greek chorus or wiseacre saying some bon mots that will have you wanting to just bang your head on the desk until oblivion hits. That that or trying to remember the recipes for rabbit that Daffy Duck would read to Elmer Fudd to get him to shoot Bugs and not himself “Louisiana buck bay rabbit with carrot sauce, ah drool, dool”.

bloger hates pictures again. Add them later.