I don’t care too much about how a corporate service classifies the art and culture I partake of — much of it’s too difficult to classify anyway, so it’s only mildly annoying that someone at iTunes would classify, say, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” by Wilco as “Country” (a classification that no one who had actually listened to the disc would ever make).

Looking at how my iTunes folder is automatically categorized by the system, it would seem that almost everything I listen to is “alternative.” Alternative to what, I don’t know. Frank Zappa is “rock,” and the Brian Wilson version of “Smile” is “pop,” while the Beach Boys versions of the same songs are “rock.” Huh?

But what I really enjoyed — and what propelled this line of thought — was how the system classified the Brian Eno tracks I’m listening to:  “unclassifiable.” That one they got right.

—————-
Now playing: Brian Eno – No One Receiving
via FoxyTunes

This week’s New Yorker has an excellent appraisal of Philip K. Dick by Adam Gopnik. You can read it here.

Dick, for those who’ve only recently tuned into this blog, is a writer whose work I’ve been following closely for 30 years. I’ve read almost all of his books (I’m still trying to get through the excruciating mainstream novel “Voices from the Street” — if “trying to get through” means “allowing it to collect dust on my nightstand.”), as well as a few biographies. Gopnik does a good job of looking at Dick’s body of work, correcting some strongly held bad judgments or misperceptions by Dick’s ardent admirers, and placing him where he more aptly belongs. Among other salient points, he:

• locates Dick as a satirist, alongside Swift, identifying “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” as a take on middle-class escapism, “Clans of the Alphane Moon” as a take on the Johnson-Nixon years, and “Ubik,” most hilariously, as a perverse cultural wish-fulfillment dream, one where people can actually speak with the dead, “but, when you go to speak with them, there is static and missed connections and interference, and then you argue over your bill.”
• downgrades “The Man in the High Castle” (“the book that made Dick famous”) in favor of “his masterpiece,” “Ubik.” I concur, but would add a masterpiece: “Confessions of a Crap Artist.”
• corrects the notion that Dick was somehow neglected in his lifetime. “You can find unfairly neglected writers in America; Dick, with a steady and attentive transatlantic audience, was never one of them.” Let me just say that, somehow, in a house in the woods of southern New Jersey far from any bookstore and in the early 1970’s before the creation of Amazon.com, that house somehow had dozens of Philip K. Dick books. So he couldn’t have been that obscure.
• and, finally, he concludes that while “all this remains thrilling and funny … the trouble is that, much as one would like to place Dick above or alongside Pynchon and Vonnegut — or, for that matter, Chesterton or Tolkien — as a poet of the fantastic parable he was a pretty bad writer. Though his imagination is at least the equal of theirs, he had, as he ruefully knew, a hack’s habits….” While I disagree that Dick won’t be ranked alongside Vonnegut (he already is), or, for some of us, above Tolkien, I will repeat what I said years ago to a friend: “Nobody reads Philip K. Dick for the writing.”

Perhaps Gopnik’s most salient point, in an essay that is overall very smart about its subject and filled with insight, may be this, from his opening:

“There’s nothing more exciting to an adolescent reader than an unknown genre writer who speaks to your condition and has something great about him. … The combination of evident value and apparent secrecy makes Elmore Leonard fans feel more for their hero than Borges lovers are allowed to feel for theirs. … Eventually, enough of these secret fans grow up and get together, and the writer is designated a Genius, acquiring all the encumbrances of genius: fans, notes, annotated editions, and gently disparaging comprehensive reviews.”

Guilty as charged, your honor. But… what is the downside? All readers hope to find writers who “speak to their condition.” In adolescence it may be Philip K. Dick; in college it may be Chaucer and Beckett. In middle adulthood, heaven help us, we may light a pipe and start reading Updike seriously. If we want writers who don’t speak to us, I’m sure we can find them. Personally, I could start reading Mitch Albom, or all those people who write books about their dog.

Philip K. Dick never believed anything directly in front of him. I don’t know why, but neither have I. I wish the bad writing were better, but I can overlook it because the rest of the view is so eye-opening. I’m glad Gopnik doesn’t hold Dick’s science fiction genre against him. As I remind my students, Samuel Beckett, darling of existentialist artists, was a fan of detective fiction. Just because it’s genre doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy.

If there’s a consistent message I hear from those in the writing profession, it’s that all too often we’re begging for scraps and ought to stand up for ourselves. That’s the message that Gary Garrison puts out from the Dramatists Guild (and, indeed, in his most recent editorial he advised playwrights to “stop kissing ass.”), and that’s what goes on behind the scenes with the writers’ guild, and that was the subject of Frank Miller’s opening comment during the Petco Park screening of “300” during Comicon.

So this piece in Wired magazine caught my attention. It has to do with the WGA strike that informed sources in this town are predicting is coming in the fall. Interestingly, Nancy Miller seems to blame the writers for getting into this situation by being greedy and/or inept in their past negotiations. But most astonishingly, she quotes studio executives and producers (and, therefore, provides their point of view) — but not writers. This, in a piece written by a woman who, based sheerly upon the evidence, is a writer.

I don’t have any personal point of view in this struggle, except to say that the writers are due some participation if the actors and directors and producers are getting participation. That’s a fairness issue.

My primary point of view is that in a piece about writers’ negotiations, writers should be represented. That too is a fairness issue.

My plays fall into three categories:

• Those that are unproduced and better left that way (I have more than a dozen that I don’t like and don’t send out, but for which I still harbor the hope to one day “fix”)
• Those that are unproduced because either they are recent or I wrote them and kind of lost track of them (fewer than 10)
• And those that have been produced.

Last weekend I devoted a day to reviewing about 20 of the latter to submit them for further productions. And here’s what I discovered:

Even though they’re only between five and 15 years old, many of them have become period pieces.

There’s the play that references Johnny Carson’s show. OK, a while ago I updated that to reference Jay Leno. Now Leno is leaving in a few years. I could keep updating that one — or allowing directors to do so — but the play also references another show, popular at the time, that is long-gone and largely forgotten. Understanding that reference isn’t key to understanding the play, but it adds a large undertone throughout.

There are all the plays that seem to revolve directly around newspapers. Yes, I am an inveterate newspaper-reader. Or used to be — even I don’t read it every day any more. These plays for sure have to be staged as period pieces, because the newspaper is in some way crucial to the play and it is vanishing from our culture.

There is the play about the rock band, written before, believe it or not, “dude” became the preferred form of address between males of a certain age. The play also revolves around the Chapman stick, a cutting-edge instrument of, oh, the late 1980’s. And when the band has a fight with the bassist and has trouble finding a new one, the drummer says they have to find one because you can’t have a band with just one guitar and drums — something disproved by a little band known as The White Stripes.

There are many, many more such examples; plays that seemed to me so trapped in the moment of their time that I actually wondered if most of my “back catalog” had any further performance value. I started to understand how the Beach Boys must have felt, watching the British Invasion roll in. But here’s something that clearly I never foresaw:

In one of my plays, an unscrupulous vacuum cleaner salesman dupes a television-addled housefrau into buying a vacuum cleaner at a ridiculous price. I thought of this yesterday as I decided to buy a really good vacuum cleaner once and for all and be done with it. The ridiculous price of such a cleaner in my play? $400. The price of a good vacuum cleaner now? $400.

Here’s a show I wish I could attend (but can’t, due to a prior obligation):  Dweezil Zappa revisiting the catalog of his father, Frank Zappa, in a live performance. Dweezil says he spent a year holed up at home studying his father’s compositions so that he could not only learn the pieces, but also understand them and gain the skill to be able to play them. (Nobody has ever had to say anything like that about, say, the Ramones’ catalog.)

I had several opportunities to see Frank Zappa when I was living near Philadelphia, and never took them. Then of course I never got the chance again because he died. I also didn’t see Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band on that reunion tour of a couple years ago, which I regret. (Once, at the urging of a then-somewhat-friend, I did see a Hall & Oates concert, which I also regret.) I hope that Zappa the younger does this show again or takes it on the road.

Tonight I spent about 40 minutes trying to adjust these sprinklers. No matter how I set them, the head wouldn’t fully rotate. And yes, I tried “lifting the lever” as specified. Then I settled for letting it water an area, then picking it up and sticking it in the ground in a new position. I did this twice before it settled upon me how truly stupid doing that made me feel. Then I said, “Fuck it,” lit a cigar and took the dog for a walk.

Then I came back and did it all over again.

Then I turned it off and went inside and had a drink and told myself I’d fix this in the morning when at least it would be light outside. I refuse to be defeated.

It’s daily tribulations like this that keep me modest. That, and about a hundred other things.

—————-
Now playing: The Beach Boys – With Me Tonight
via FoxyTunes

 Former “Fantastic Four” and “Flash” artist Mike Wieringo died Saturday from a heart attack at age 44.

Evidently, he was in seemingly good health and a vegetarian.

—————-
Now playing: The Beach Boys – Sail On, Sailor
via FoxyTunes

 If you’ve noticed the “now playing” end tags on my posts lately (and sometimes on my emails), they are courtesy of FoxyTunes, a free download for Firefox.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple comes up with something similar for Safari and calls it JukeBox or something. And the Windows version will be called, um, LinksToMusicYouWereListeningTo.

—————-
Now playing: The Beach Boys – Add Some Music To Your Day
via FoxyTunes

 Former teen heartthrob has built a 1/5 scale model of Disneyland in his back yard.

This makes me think of “The Music of Chance,” by Paul Auster, in which a grieving man and his ne’er-do-well partner are forced into indentured servitude and made to build a medieval wall in the back yard of two lottery-winning yokels who, it seems, also have a mini-scale replica of their home town occupying an entire room of their mansion.

Whether or not truth is stranger than fiction, they are certainly on speaking terms.

—————-
Now playing: The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up
via FoxyTunes

Judging from the news coverage, yesterday and today seemed particularly bad for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

First, he was captured on cellphone video shopping at a mall in Encino with his mistress, Mirthala Salinas. That video was promptly sold to TMZ.com, where you can watch it. Theoretically it isn’t that interesting — just a highly recognizable public figure and his girlfriend, until recently a major local news broadcast figure, neither of them apparently smart enough to realize that everyone everywhere now has a cellphone with video capability, and that of course someone would capture them on said video and sell it to a sleazy website, where it would then lead off the local news. My understanding of witness protection is that it works only when one relocates, stops being a public figure, and doesn’t act stupidly. The video is also interesting because of the immediate distance the mayor puts between himself and Salinas as soon as he sees someone pointing a cellphone at him; I understand the impulse, but it’s already too late. (And actually, if he’d had better impulse control perhaps he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.)

Secondly, we were then treated on the evening news to newswoman Ana Garcia’s ongoing pursuit of Antonio at City Hall to release some sort of papers or others, papers that evidently James Hahn had released when he was mayor. If I’m remembering this storyline correctly, what Garcia and others are after is Villaraigosa’s schedule (no doubt, to fully establish how long he has been seeing Salinas on the sly). As part of this coverage, we are witness to Garcia’s passage through City Hall being illegally blocked by security, her being actively jostled (“Don’t push me! Don’t push me!” she cries out on tape), and Villaraigosa, finally cornered at some public event, lamely telling her on-camera that he’s just going to continue to focus on doing the people’s work. (Perhaps not realizing that he is the reason the focus has shifted.)

Finally, today there was a major rally downtown in support of state bill SB-840, which would establish single payer healthcare coverage in California. Hundreds and hundreds of activists and all the major local news crews were in attendance. Major speakers included Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, actress/comedienne Lily Tomlin, City Council President Eric Garcetti, and, a surprise turn-up, the always entertaining presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Who wasn’t there? Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Where was this rally held? Oh, the steps of City Hall. Tell me he’s not hiding out. Especially because, until recently, nothing got between Antonio and his limelight.

Given all this, I think I’ll share some advice for Antonio, advice I shared with two fellow Democrats in the car on the way down to the rally. I like Antonio, and I am rooting for him to pull himself out of his predicament of a 24/7 news cycle about his adultery which after two months so far just doesn’t seem to be ending. (And which he isn’t helping to end by going shoe-shopping with girlfriend in tow, thinking that those sunglasses actually hide his identity. Although this may be the first time in decades anyone has seen a mayor of Los Angeles in the Encino area when he wasn’t shopping for votes or donations.) A few years ago, when he was on the City Council and had not yet announced for mayor, I asked Antonio to do something about an issue I cared about; he did it, and I haven’t forgotten. Moreoever, although because I don’t live in the city proper I couldn’t vote for him, I don’t think people elected him to be faithful to his wife — they elected him to do a job. But now it’s the job that’s suffering.

So here’s the advice:

Antonio, stop sneaking around. You can’t avoid the camera crews, let alone the cellphones. Pick a moment (say, after a ribbon cutting), and give every news crew both professional and amateur the full benefit of your time. Stay an extra five hours if need be. Tell them that your relationship with Mirthala Salinas is an afffair of the heart, that you are a person of passion who got swept off his feet, that you ask for their understanding, that you are sorry that you hurt your wife and children, that you intend to keep seeing Ms. Salinas although you have made no decisions about marriage, and so on and on and on. You don’t need to share tawdry details, but you do need to be frank and forthcoming. In case you don’t get it, they’re chasing you because you seem to be hiding something. So stop hiding. And with regard to the papers that Ana Garcia wants: release them. If James Hahn released them, you should release them. Even if he didn’t, you should. You told people you were better than Hahn. Show it. And stop having security block her or shove her around, and give her a special interview as a make-nice.

Then, next time, you can join your compadres on the steps of City Hall for the news crews. And in a couple of years you can still run for governor.

p.s. Advice for Mirthala Salinas: your news career is over. Unless you pull a Geraldo and go tabloid.

—————-
Now playing: Echo & The Bunnymen – A Promise
via FoxyTunes