Fads

I have no idea (well, a vague idea) where this will end up, but one problem which has lead to the current winding-down of any number of industries is the fad.

Thinking mostly of entertainment, here. What I mean is now the kids are getting (rightfully, mercifully) sick of American Idol. It was a fad, just like the 1999 mania for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The music business, however, goes ahead and assumes that this is the new thing, the new normal, and thinks how much money can be saved by just cherry-picking some demographically exact kid and building him/her/it up, as opposed to find actually talented people and nurturing them. It's HOT! It will always be HOT FROM NOW ON! Then the ratings slide and a whole business model predicated on this fad slides into oblivian and the music biz people all shake their heads and say what happened? ANYONE can see it is an expendable TREND! A FAD!

Or look at how everything is centered around Guitar Hero (already waning) and Rock Band (not sure what this is actually is, except that it sucks) and how all eggs are in this new flashy basket. "Hey! We'll center the new edition of Guitar Hero around AEROSMITH! My third wife's kids loved them in college [in 1987]!" Meanwhile, all the money flows into the gaming/music fad, until kids finally wake up that Guitar Hero is stoopid and is no more than a Simon with Metallica blaring out of it. And, like the Rubik's cube's quick demise after it was found to be readily solvable, the demise hastens along as the internet shows more and more six year olds from Korea or wherever flaunting their mastery...

Or Starbucks. "Hey, Starbucks! We finally got one here in Terre Haute!" Then one day everyone wakes to the fact that the coffee is a TERRIBLE, bitter, scarcely potable travesty. "What were we so excited about?"

I dunno, it just seems faulty to me. The Internet itself was a fad until it actually came along and overtook reality. But then the Internet's true purpose is to be George Orwell's telescreen and keep tabs on you. Duh!

STANDOFF!

Plimpton

Just read that George Plimpton oral history bio George, Being George. Kept waiting for it to start, actually. All sorts of people interviewed, but the man himself is not really present. Maybe that's the point? Sort of Warhol-ian, almost, and someone actually gets close to making that point, he was just always there, observing, sometimes instigating...


One highlight was someone mentioning how he did the old-school prep thing of just having the same carpets, sweaters, what have you until they just fell apart, because that's what one has always had and that's the way it just is. I want to remember to Xerox this page and keep it in my glovebox for when some nosy nogoodnik tells me my car (260,000 miles) is a filthy mess. Yes, maybe it is, but it's supposed to be that way.


One reason I like Plimpton is an audiobook I have where he reads "The Jewels of the Cabots," by John Cheever, and his Porcellian Club lockjaw fits the classy prose like a kid glove. See, and just look at the frowsy sweater Cheever is wearing on the cover of the new bio of him (coming in March), each pill on it bearing out the "fall-apart" philosophy [though maybe I make too much of this]:

Time out!

* "goes there"

* not caring about grammar/spelling

* imminent societal collapse being any of your business

* local weather dudes who say "as well" too much

* Watchmen speculation

* intersection of media's fawning over Luke Russert/undue public skepticism of same verging on black hole-style vortex that that Swiss atom smasher failed to produce

* Salinger bashing

* Corin Tucker and Eddie Vedder Cover John Doe (via Pitchfork)

Thelma Ritter - speaker of hard truths, part the second

"Once it was see somebody, get excited, get married. Now, it's read a lot of books, fence with a lot of four-syllable words, psychoanalyse

each other; until you can't tell the difference between a petting party and a civil service exam."

Thelma Ritter - speaker of hard truths

"I got a nose for trouble. Can smell it ten miles away. You heard of that market crash in '29? I predicted that."

"Just how did you do that, Stella?"

"Oh, simple. I was nursing a director of General Motors. 'Kidney ailment,' they said. 'Nerves,' I said. Then I asked myself, 'What's General Motors got to be nervous about?' 'Overproduction,' I says. 'Collapse.' When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country's ready to let go."

Love this 45 cover! See, now, 45s were blah blah blah...

This is the record sleeve for a single of "Mattress of Wire" by Aztec Camera. Oh, Postcard!

It came out in 1983 or so. Not one of my fave AC songs, either, but the chutzpah of saying "I'm Roddy Frame and I AM a boy king!" is fairly admirable.

I'd never seen this until the other day, so thought I'd share.

Roddy bums me out, actually. So many great songs and now he makes records with just him and an acoustic and a near-country edge, which then are released in Japan and other such collector-heavy territories. But if you can write "Oblivious," or "Orchid Girl" or even "Sister Anne" shouldn't you be made to sign a binding contract that you will continue releasing ace pop songs for eternity? Instead of trying to grow up or some cliche (to diminishing commercial returns)...I mean, it is his life, but I fear he's walking around Glasgow post-lunch right now and has friends who know him as Rod Frame and when they mention him to their friends in turn say "Oh? Rod Frame, the tennis player?" or something.

I mean, I'll send you our old Dr. Rhythm drum machine, if that'll help.