Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

 I particularly hate it when “rebels” die — there are already so few of them/us. Sometimes it seems like virtually everyone you meet these days in the world is a slave to the profit motive/capitalist imperative: “What’s the meaning of life?” “To make money!” J.G. Ballard, and another of my relatively recently deceased role models, W.S. Burroughs, both refused to prostitute their writing, and they both refused to shmooze and “network” merely to further their “careers.” Both had a hatred of bourgeois hypocrisy and phony politeness, while at the same time being deeply polite and courteous, almost to a fault …

But for now, let us think of ways to publicly mourn one of the greatest thinkers and poets of the past century. By some irony, “The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard” is reportedly soon to be published in the United States, complete with two additional stories not included in the U.K. edition. Short stories, more than novels, may appropriately suit the trend of the increasingly shorter attention span of the human populace, who demand more flash ads, tiny videos and music quotations as they read their two-minute, two-page articles on the Internet. I suggest that for the next month (or year), readers shut out everything else and read ONLY J.G. Ballard novels, short stories, essays, interviews and reviews. Your mind, language, and outlook are guaranteed to be permanently altered…

“Death always presents the face of surprised recognition,” wrote William S. Burroughs. He also advised all of us to “Stay out of hospitals,” and “Avoid Doctors.” Well, even though I had been concerned about J.G. Ballard’s health after hearing two years ago that he had been diagnosed with “advanced” prostate cancer, I still felt a kind of unthinking complacency mixed with my concern: “Almost every human male has prostate cancer when he dies; it acts very slowly and can take decades to kill a man.” To be honest, having seen him recently in October 2008, I really didn’t think he would die THIS SOON. And when I found out he had died — I had arrived home from a 9-hour bus trip today to hear the news on our answering machine — well, my first thought was, “There’s no thinker left alive that I can totally trust. They’re all dead.”

For the past two or more years Ballard had been undergoing state-of-the-art, high-tech treatment from a young doctor who reportedly was trying every new medical breakthrough remedy or procedure which promised “hope” for Ballard’s condition. Recently, however, Ballard had been rushed to a hospital, and after sustained care there had returned to the home to his longtime (40-plus years) companion, Claire Walsh. The latest word was that he had recently required around-the-clock care by visiting professional nurses, which sounded somewhat alarming. Still, I maintained calm. Now I wish I had tried to telephone him and talk one last time, even if just for a minute. I think I expected Ballard to live at least as long as Burroughs, who reached the age of 83, even after having been “a junkie” for years of his life. By a strange logic, I felt that since Ballard hadn’t been a junkie, he should live even longer than 83. Well, I was wrong. And now the world will miss his unique, witty, and sometimes acerbic commentaries on itself. We miss him and are grateful for his dark sense of humor and generous output.

– V. Vale, RE/Search founder back in 1977, San Francisco

Our French intern Elie Sanh-Ducos emphasized the importance of writing a blog EVERY DAY. I told this to Gee Vaucher (who is visiting during her big art show at Track 16, Santa Monica) and she said, “He knows something you don’t know. He understands how this new world of Internet communication works and maybe has a bigger picture.” Since Elie knows how to make a website and I don’t; obviously he knows a lot that I don’t know. But: writing a blog EVERY DAY?!

Now, various writers throughout the years have complained about how “hard” it is to write; Hemingway and even J.G. BALLARD fueled their earlier writing by heavy doses of scotch or whiskey which perhaps decreased inhibitions, making it easier to just pour forth one’s thoughts and imaginings “bottled up” inside oneself. The biggest challenge about writing about one’s personal life experiences is self-censorship. (If your wife/mother/sibling/husband read it, they might be shocked, appalled, hurt, et al.) Which is why diary publishers over 100 years ago started making diaries with a little lock and key on them. Well, maybe to completely tell the truth will always be a bit shocking (although, to me, these days the cart is leading the horse: the writer tries to shock first, and tell the truth second).

It makes writing easier to try to focus on ideas — especially the kind that might provide inspiration. Actually, to me that’s the ONLY purpose of writing: to provide inspiration to others, so they are more creative or more “themselves.” And this morning I was talking to Gee Vaucher about how the imagination is the most under-utilized machine in the brain. I said, “I can look at you and imagine you dressed in bright orange and instantly you LOOK like you’re all in orange, even if you’re not” (Gee, like myself, usually dresses in all or mostly black every day). I said, “You have to use your rational mind to REMIND yourself to use your imagination; a simple exercise is to try to daily remind yourself of what J.G. Ballard said, “Every day when I walk down the street I try to re-invent it in my mind.” Imagine it a hundred years ago, imagine it a hundred years from now, imagine it as The Drowned World, The Crystal World, The Burning World… And it’s FREE! And anyone can do it.

Which is why I hate “reality” and the fake reality shows on TV — reality is a prison. Reality is boring. What makes life interesting are almost any and all imaginative escape attempts from dreadful utilitarian “reality.” The kind that, for example, you see every time you enter the doors of San Francisco’s Hypnodrome and see real breathing living human beings just a few feet away creating a make-believe world blending the darkest humor, sizzling wit and repartee (like in their Noel Coward revival of “The Better Half” which my twelve-year-old daughter compared to the dialogue in her favorite film, “The Women”), and plenty of eroticism, plus dread (Christopher Holland’s “The Old Woman or A Crime in A Madhouse”), and my favorite little scorcher vignettes in “The Blue Hour” featuring the likes of The Indra (wheelchairs never seemed more appealing) or Audra the WolfWoman or a children’s book reading enhanced by strict disciplinary measures…

But this morning Gee Vaucher was talking about creativity, and how it depends on curiosity and — the drive to investigate the world and learn what you don’t know, do what you’ve never done before, never repeat yourself (Duchamp said decades ago, “Never repeat, despite the encores”).You have to aggressively try to keep inspiring yourself, and seek out what is “new” and change what you do, without, however, altering the core purpose of what you’re about. Change or stagnate. A complex issue full of questions.

Well, what do you do when most people don’t buy books full of long texts, like the RE/Search books. You look at something “subversive” which DOES sell, and think… BANKSY’S hardback book is selling very well, and it’s $35. It’s almost all color visuals, with a little text introduction at the beginning. Quite awhile ago somebody noted that we are shifting to a VISUAL CULTURE. So is it time for RE/Search to “go there”? We are pondering this — we, who love to read mystery books by the likes of Henning Mankell or Michael Connolly or Thomas Perry or Andrea Camilleri, and who enjoy “imagining” visually, utilizing our own imaginations, everything we’re reading, including what all the characters “look like.” Not to mention all the amazing writing by Surrealists and pre-Surrealists, which really do make you use your imagination. Try one of Mark Pauline’s favorite authors: Raymond Roussel (Impressions of Africa, Locus Solus) to really experience something which can never be turned into a movie or a collection of still photos. The imagination is that which creates the future, and which has become totally under-utilized in today’s hyperspeed society — we’re caught in a hurricane culture of corporate imagery. It’s an Imagination War: the corporate ad agencies vs humans. And who is winning? — V. Vale, RE/Search and Search&Destroy founder in 1977, San Francisco — you can write me at info@researchpubs.com

Sometimes — actually, every day — we get tired of “reality” and a certain amount of “escapism” seems necessary. If we were lucky enough to have had a lengthy dream, we might recall the imagery and do an amateur “Freudian” analysis of it — at the least, wonder what could have possibly inspired the dream. Sometimes we think of “projects” that may not necessarily make a dime but seem worthwhile anyway. Last night we wondered what the most **”beautiful”** songs ever written might be — at least, those suitable to play on a piano at a party like the one we attended last Monday night, where suddenly four people with quite good voices materialized around a piano. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much agreement as to which songs could be sung. Moral: maybe it’s necessary to carry a list of favorite songs around — you never know when you might be called upon to play the piano. Hindsight is always better than…

Some of these songs might be as follows:
() Teddy Bears’ Picnic (A minor) — once J.G. Ballard listed this as Number One on a “favorite songs” list – the lyrics are positively Surrealist
() Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers) (key of C). This has to be one of the most spectacular performances ever, by Bobby Hatfield. (YouTube)
() “You Were Always On My Mind” (G) Pet Shop Boys version much better than songwriter Willie Nelson’s (YouTube)
() “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” – Platters’ Tony Williams has one of the greatest voices in history, and the female singer Zola Taylor is unique
() “Stand By Me” – Ben E. King’s lyrics are almost Nietzschean, or at least remind one of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
() “Winner Takes It All” – Abba’s lyrics are almost Nietzschean too: “The gods may throw a dice/Their minds as cold as ice/And someone way down here/Loses someone dear.”
() “Fernando” by Abba – a South of the Border-influenced classic celebrating “The Revolution” — the one that never arrives
() “Many Rivers to Cross” by Jimmy Cliff – a classic rite of Dark Passage hymn
() “Horst Wessel Song” — beautiful tune; don’t know what the lyrics are saying, but this one forbidden song may have subverted an entire nation to kneel to a George W. Bush type
() “Since I Don’t Have You” by the Skyliners — these song lyrics show how thin and insubstantial the reasons for living may suddenly become
() “Brown Eyed Girl” by THEM – in this case, Van Morrison’s vocal interpretation really takes this song (great lyrics to begin with) to the Olympean dimension
() “Your Cheatin’ Heart” (key of G) so simple, so classic, so vexatious, so eternal (DNA testing has shown that a surprisingly large number of children are not sired by the putative biological father)
() “Tennessee Waltz” — love is often not eternal, but can quickly be transferred to another
() “I Fall to Pieces” — sometimes the best cure for a failed romance is to simply move out of town
() “Tracks of My Tears” – Smokey Robinson’s voice is amazing
() “Up On The Roof” (G) – the Drifters takes every listener to another dimension, a better world
() “Dock of the Bay” – every artistic San Franciscan has probably felt the pain of this song, sometime…
() “Hey Joe” – Jimi Hendrix’s version much better than the Leaves” – beautiful music, deplorable lyrics not really suitable for children
() “I Still Miss Someone” – Johnny Cash’s lyrics are so poignant you can feel the knife edge of his pain
() “Stardust” by Hoagy Carmichael and lyrics by ___
() “Yesterday.” Beautiful. Longing is one of the most powerful emotions on our planet.
() “Jamaica Farewell.” Harry Belafonte, once a radical, wrote a melody worthy to be sung by an Outcast of the Islands…
() “Auld Lang Syne” – a chestnut but still replete with hidden harmonies that ensure its longevity.
Of course, what songs are missing from this list? — V. Vale, RE/Search founder, www.researchpubs.com

Vale’s Blog 2-5-08 Winston Smith, Charles Gatewood, “1984-type films” Catastrophism?

Ever notice how any encounter with an automobile fix-it garage is fraught with peril? Took our ’93 Saturn to Bob’s Auto on Columbus near Filbert and got an estimate for $40 to fix our non-working brake lights. Went back to get the car and the bill was $60! However, they claimed our brakes were “leaking brake fluid fast” (funny, we’ve driven it for weeks and didn’t notice any problem with the brakes) and quoted a price for $500 to fix the brakes, including the $60 brake lights repair. Well, don’t know about you, but to us $500 is like $5000.

I asked the guy if he would sell the car for us, and he brought over someone else … finally, they offered to just replace the leaking master brake cylinder(s)?? — wouldn’t replace the brake pads — and the bill would be $200. I said No, just sell the darn car, and the other guy said, “$180?” Don’t know why — surely logic wasn’t really being the operative principle here — but I agreed, and they said it would be ready tomorrow afternoon — they had to “order the part.” Of course, I have no way of knowing whether they really DO replace the actual part(s) in question. Mind you, I just had a major expensive brake job done about 3 years ago — and Bob’s claimed that the master brake cylinders had not been replaced, which of course were supposed to have been done: “It looks old.” Well, how do we ever know whether ANY parts had been replaced, including the brake pads? Grrr….

Went to the local cafe at the corner of Columbus at Filbert and asked the counter person if I could play the piano. She turned down the radio and I played a “flamenco” improvisation. The lowest “G” key was out, as well as a few critical keys in the top two octaves — guess this is “par for the course” for your average local cafe with a piano — but still, playing the piano got out some pent-up aggro I was feeling…

Charles Gatewood arrived at 5:40pm and brought the George Kuchar documentary on him titled “— Gomorrah” which we promptly watched. It was very funny and thorough, in an introductory way — a highly compressed, very funny, 20 minute small biopic demi-masterpiece. Content was x-rated, but not pornographic — all imagery made sense within the context of Charles being “America’s family photographer of the sexual underground … and also the tattoo/body piercing underground.” And more, of course — the sploshing underground, the blood sports underground, and anything else the urge for extreme behavior throws at Charles. I particularly liked the kindly face of the “Leopard Man” — a recluse whose face is completely tattooed like a leopard’s … (more…)

Diligent readers of this blog may recall that recently I printed a sentence: “J.G. Ballard said something to the effect of “Ours may be the last age of (book-reading) literacy.”

Someone wrote in saying: “Mr Ballard was wrong, thanks to the Internet, more people of all ages are going to Library’s because you think you could find every thing your looking for online, but then you find out you can’t find that book online that you have to get it from a library….Look it up there is a report about how Libraries are being used more now than they were in the last decade.”

Now, my response to this person was:
“Beware of reports, surveys, et al — “Statistics” can be tweaked to serve any agenda a human can come up with – there was a best-selling book ages ago titled “How to Lie with Statistics”! (more…)