The relative and ever-evolving world of the weird

December 12, 2013August 24, 2015 RilalyLeave a comment

Everyone’s definition of weird is relative and evolving with time, but the Idiots in Jeff Garland’s Dealin with Idiots appear too weird, at times. At times, they appear Hollywood weird, funny weird, and weird for the sake of being weird. These Idiots don’t display the same urgent need to be normal that appears almost indigenous to extremely weird people, and they don’t go overboard trying to convince Garland that they’re normal either. They don’t try to hide their abnormalities, in other words, and they don’t appear sensitive about them when they’re on display. The Idiots are funny, and fun, but they just don’t appear organically weird.

One has to have some sympathy for Garland, and any involved in the process of making movies, for the constraints they have in their art form. We demand that most movies hurry up and get to the funny, and we do not allow them the same amount of space for characterization that is allotted, say, authors. In depth characterization, of the type I’m calling for, usually ends up on the cutting room floor when a movie is being edited for time constraints, so one has to excuse Jeff Garland’s Dealin’ with Idiots for having his Idiots get too weird too quickly.

Weird has come a long way in Hollywood. It started out in black and white with a crazy woman muttering softly to herself, until she progressed to a stage modern movie goers would most closely associate with demonic possession. This crazy lady’s leading man would see this descent, put a cloth on her forehead, and tell her that she needed rest. Weird then progressed in Hollywood to the lip trilling depiction put forth most famously in the 70’s movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Garland’s version of weird matches the modern, and less judgmental, version of weird that is a lot more organic, but it’s still the screen tested, Hollywood-approved weird.

The plot of this movie involves a Max Morris (Garland), getting to know the colorful parents and coaches of his son’s Little League Baseball team for the purpose of putting a movie together. He tells these people that he’s putting a movie together, and they start to get weird.

That’s mistake number one, as I see it. You don’t tell people your documenting them in anyway for fear of having them get noteworthy. They’ll start acting less candid, different, and quirky in a manner that has nothing to do with their personality, because their personality is not weird to them. It’s funny to watch people act like idiots, but to get to that vaunted, hilarious level one needs to get more authentic and more organic. It’s difficult, of couse, with all of the constraints on movie makers, but it has been done.

I’ve often found that to get people to act weird all you have to do is prompt them. These prompts can range from leading questions about the weather, “What do you think of this weather we’re having?” to questions involving geopolitics on some level—usually the conspiratorial level—but the best prompt I’ve ever found is to ask them about the local politics that the two of you share. “What do you think of that Janie?” or “What do you think about the way our boss treat us?”

Once they start in on their rants, your job, as a writer, is to simply take a step back and act as a stenographer, recording everything they do or say from that point forward. You may want to agree with them, to show them that they have an ally, but be careful. If you agree too much, you’ll diffuse their sense of righteous indignation, and you’ll cost yourself a treasure trove of material. The weird person may even turn on you, without any sense of objectivity, and tell you that you’re crazy.

Weird people do not have a club, or clique. They’ll eat their own. They’ll take every opportunity they can find to point out the weird to you. They’ll ask you to join them in mocking the weird. They’ll tell stories about them. They’ll hope that each instance they point out provides them the distance necessary to land in the center with you, witnessing all of the weird people of life. If you are able to convince them that you’re one of them, they’ll tell you everything that you want to know about the weird. You walk a tightrope when attempting to extract the weird, and the best method I’ve found, to get the best material possible, is to simply play the role of active listener. You don’t get there, in my experience, by telling them to you’re writing a piece about them, because that will prompt them to start acting weird… screen tested, Hollywood-approved weird.

If you do get there, you’ll realize that most weird people don’t know that they’re weird. Most weird people don’t think weird thoughts, or act in a weird manner, unless those acts and thoughts are screen tested, Hollywood-approved weird. You may think that they’re a weird person, but who do you think you are? Why just last week, you said, or did, something weird. You’re one of them, not one of us, they’ll say, and that’s why we like you.

Few would contest the notion that movies have gotten weirder in the last couple decades, but a question that a weird movie maker might ask is “are we weirder”? Do movies reflect this change in our culture, or has it played an instrumental role in its change? Being different, or weird, used to be anathema in the culture, if artistic interpretations in movies are to be used as a barometer. Black and white people did anything they could to avoid being associated with such terms. Modern culture has it, now, that being different carries with it some virtue. Normal is boring, they say, and your parents are normal, and look how they turned out, but have these ideas been reflected in movies, or refracted by movies? Those that think that movies bear the brunt of these cultural changes dismiss the fact that all movies are screen tested, and a movie does not pass these screen tests if they’re judged to be so odd, weird, or out of the norm that people can’t relate to it. Movie producers put a lot of weight behind these screen tests, and a movie won’t receive those crucial, greenlight investments if they are deemed too odd, or too weird, by the normal people participating in these tests.

Movies, and TV shows, can also affect how a weird person perceives their weirdness, in that if a weird person finds one of their characteristics expressed on screen, they’ll know that they’re now perceived as weird, and they’ll adjust accordingly. Most truly weird people don’t enjoy being weird, until they’re shown that their version of weird is deemed weird by society. Weird can be interesting, funny, and entertainhing if it’s cultivated and pruned properly, but in the truly weird it grows like a weed among their prized vegetation. The truly weird don’t have the advantage of constraint that those that engage in the short bursts of weird for entertainment purposes do. It’s who they are.

If you’re as interested in the weird as I am, you’ll have to cultivate a relationship with them to get them comfortable enough to open up to you. They may volley some weird thoughts up to you to see if you’ll spike it, and this will prove to be a crucial moment in a relationship with the weird. If you want to progress through the dark caverns of their mind, you’ll simply put another forkful of peas in your mouth. If you want this whole disturbing trend to end right then and there, you’ll laugh, make a face, and say something like, “I hope you know that’s weird.” At that point, the weird will recede back into its shell, and the otherwise normal person will conceal their weird thoughts from that point forward in your relationship.

Are you one of them? The weird? Don’t know? Most people don’t. Consider having a child. Your child will imitate and emulate everything you do. Your family won’t see it for what it is, for that child’s oddities are likely theirs. Your friends may not see it either, because they’ve either adapted to your eccentricities, or they’re too polite to tell you that you have one odd kid on your hands. Other kids will though. Other kids will ostracize your weird kid with no compunction, and they’ll tell you—in the most brutal fashion imaginable—where your kid, you, and your people sit on the psych line.

I know some truly weird people. We all do. Some of them are fun, and some of them are funny, but most of them have been plagued by a fundamental, from birth, freakdom for much of their life, and they’re not going to purposely display that weirdness just because someone screams “Action!” It’s pointless to tell these people to act weird, and you can’t force them to be themselves either. You just do whatever you can to get them to open up and reveal their weirdness while you furiously scribble it into your memory for future documentation.

Secret Chiefs 3 Book of Horizons: Folio A

November 19, 2013December 13, 2023 RilalyLeave a comment

“This isn’t Westoxification, this isn’t Drupad — it’s not Ram Naryan, its ROCK!”—Trey Spruance

Anyone who attempts to review a Secret Chiefs 3 (SC3) album has their hands full. How does one describe such vast music in a short article, and keep it concise enough to maintain a reader’s attention? Is SC3 classical? No, but it does contain elements of classical music. These elements may not be recognizable to fans of Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, but they do carry the same revolutionary spirit that followed those composers in their era. Will SC3 remind a listener of Arab, or Middle Eastern, music? Yes, but as the guitarist (and leader) of SC3, Trey Spruance, will tell you, if you played SC3 in any Middle Eastern country, “They would consider the music as foreign as your mother and father would.” Is the philosophy of SC3 based on Spruance’s interest in Persian philosophy? Yes but not directly, as Spurance stated:

“It solved a philosophical riddle that I had always needed to find an answer to, and Secret Chiefs is the musical expression, the exploration of those thoughts.”

Is the music similar to the type of music Ennio Morricone used in the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Yes, but we cannot listen to SC3 without hearing the evolution, and personalized interpretations, of Morricone’s general ideas.

As Greg Prato, of AllMusic.com, writes, “(SC3) is a combination of Ennio Morricone movie scores, world music, experimental noise-rock, and heavy metal.”{1}

Blake Butler, of Allmusic.com, described SC3 as, “Indian/Asian-sounding melodies overlaid with wildly cavorting, techno rhythms and a tiny bit of metal, infused with a sense of mystery and paranoia from the thematic artwork based on number theory and assumedly Hindu belief systems.” He has also basically said that he didn’t think there would be much of a market for this kind of “skewed version of Indo/Pak music.”{2}

As with most artists, when Trey Spruance is confronted with anyone attempting to classify his creation, he finds such attempts limiting to the scope of SC3 music. He prefers to refer to SC3 as technologized music, that is contemporary Middle Eastern music, combined with a discernible western influence.

Spruance, as indicated by this War and Peace length explanation of the totality of his vision, has as much difficulty describing the music of SC3 as any reviewer, or blogger. He is either being sardonically complex, when describing his philosophical approach to music, or it is so infused by a multitude of influences that cannot be condensed to a simple chapter … of War and Peace. {3}

The History

For those unfamiliar with the band(s) Secret Chiefs 3, they arose out of the ashes of the late great Mr. Bungle. They are, basically, Mr. Bungle without lead singer Mike Patton. They are, largely, the work of Mr. Bungle’s guitarist and keyboardist Trey Spruance with the assistance of two other Chiefs, formerly of Mr. Bungle, bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Danny Heifetz.

The reports of the Mr. Bungle’s demise have it that Mike Patton could no longer deal with the work ethic of some of the members (see Spruance) of the band. The reason we can specify Spruance, in our interpretation of these relatively vague Patton complaints, is that Patton worked with Dunn and Heifetz soon after Bungle’s breakup. On that charge, history has vindicated Patton, judging by the number of bands, and the total number of projects Patton has involved himself in in the intervening years, versus those of Spruance.

Spruance, for his part, has argued that while he considers most of Patton’s post-Bungle works interesting, quality works, he thinks some of them sound rushed, and that they probably could’ve been perfected with time. Thus, it could be said that, at the very least, Spruance’s approach to music is more methodical and patient than Patton’s. One has to hope that the breakup of one of the best American bands wasn’t as simple as that, and that doesn’t appear to be the case with Spruance, as he stated that Patton was an egomaniac who wanted everything done his way:

“Patton’s subsequent resentment towards me is a fairly predictable outcome. You don’t stand up to him and stay off his (dung)-list. A bummer, yeah, but it’s essentially a self-protecting reflex action – something I don’t really feel a need to hold against him too much. He has his way. It won’t change.”

That having been said, it appears as though time does, indeed, heal all wounds, as Mike Patton is the vocalist on one of the best tracks of Book of Souls: Folio A: La Chanson de Jacky. This song marks the first time that Patton and Spruance have worked on a released track together since Mr. Bungle’s demise in 2004. It is a cover song of a 1965 Euro song that has a feel –or to use an old, hippie adjective– a vibe that would have fit in quite nicely on Patton’s Mondo Cane.

The wait

Those who loved the SC3 album The Book of Souls: Book of Horizons later learned that it was the first of a trilogy that we assumed would be available later that same year, or soon thereafter. Patient fans soon began to think that they may not live long enough to see the completion of that trilogy, started in 2004. It appears as though that day has finally arrived, as Folio A is the first part of a two part release that will be followed by the release of Folio B, which Spruance declared to be soon to follow. Longtime fans hope that soon to follow does not amount to another ten years.

“Time scales don’t really apply to Secret Chiefs 3,” Trey Spruance.

Between the two Book of Soul albums, SC3 fans have been treated to a greatest hits album, Path of Most Resistance, a couple EPs, a brilliant soundtrack for a movie-never-made called Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini, and an interpretation of John Zorn work’s Xaphan Book 2—The Book of Angels Volume 9. The latter work put to rest any speculation that Zorn and Spruance were still feuding over The Weird Little Boy session. Spruance claimed there was never a feud between the two of them, but that he didn’t care for Zorn’s free form jazz, and that he simply preferred to work in tighter arrangements. This begs the question, had Spruance never heard Zorn’s work, or his style of production, before this project? (Note: Zorn produced Mr. Bungle’s 1991 self-titled debut.) Weird Little Boy was released in 1998, and it is exactly what Spruance complains about: free form, unfocused, and nonsense, music that is John Zorn (and jazz in general) at his worst, in this author’s relatively informed opinion.

The Music and Philosophy of Book of Souls: Folio A

For those familiar with prior Chiefs’ seven releases, Folio A has the vibe that was originally unearthed in most of the songs on the landmark, Mr. Bungle release California. Spruance, of course, states that the artistic impulses behind SC3’s music began years before Mr. Bungle, but those who are used to reading artists describe their productions, know that very few artists will allow a simple description to go by without, at least, attempting to add some form of complication to it. If the impulses began before Mr. Bungle, it’s safe to say that they saw greater maturity, and probable fruition, during Mr. Bungle, particularly the California sessions.

Longtime listeners hate to admit that they enjoy the familiar sounds on an otherwise complicated barrage of music hitting you over the head, but there are times when a listener needs some sort of familiarity as an introduction to the music. SC3’s version of the Theme from Halloween, titled Personae: Halloween is such an intro for uninformed listeners, and those having a little trouble digesting the complicated Folio A album may want to consider listening to this song as an intro. All of the SC3 songs on the Foilo A album have the IndoPak/Euro feel to them, with an ever present Ennio Morricone feel attached.

There are six short tracks on Folio A that provide elaborate radio station identifier sounds, but it’s the other seven that will probably form the base of long time listening for any fan.

Trey’s careful, methodical approach takes what could be discerned as chaos on first listen, but the music eventually grows on you, until the careful structure comes out on repeated listens. Folio A has a base sound, in other words, but each song depends on the varying approaches brought by each sub-band within the band. As Spruance describes:

“UR is sort of a rock version of Western tonality, and Traditionalists is more of a cinematic, soundtrack thing, whereas FORMS harks back to an earlier age of Western music, sort of a late romantic era being played by automated machines, band organ, that kind of thing.

“Ishraqiyn is more the quasi-Pythagorean tonalities, referring to the more Eastern tonal system. Holy Vehm is sort of crushing those things together in a violent collision, and Electromagnetic Azoth is actually the center of the whole thing, distributing all the different tonal systems and sometimes coming out seemingly chaotically, but it’s actually very structured. Electromagnetic Azoth is the band that takes the seed motifs and distributes them to the different bands. So the different band’s tonal approaches are used to reinterpret each motif.”

Seven different bands (six sub-bands), seven different ideas, and seven different approaches to seven different songs, (Ishraqiyn and UR each have two songs on the latest LP) for a unified whole. This could lead to chaos, but as described earlier, Spruance has carefully, and methodically, worked them into a structured umbrella.

Spruance described this approach to Progsphere as such:

“There might be one motif, or ‘theme’ for each of these (songs), a philosophical concept that gets tossed around in the music. It gets redistributed around, think of it like filters or a prism; how a prism reflects different colors, but takes in one force of light that gets refracted, it’s like that. Scattering the lights into different modalities, that’s the best way I could describe it.{4}

In an attempt to describe how he approaches the instruments that he plays throughout all of the SC3 albums, Trey said:

“I’m not really an instrumentalist. I’m more of a composer, so that wasn’t going to be fulfilling to me (to simply play, and progress, with the guitar). So I started studying the musical systems of antiquity to try to understand what made them tick and what they were invoking.”

I don’t know if I’m alone with such concerns, but in the last couple of years I’ve found it relatively depressing to learn how little some of my favorite artists had to do some of their best works. With some artists, it’s obvious how little they had to do with the work that happens to carry their name, but there were others that I always believed had near-dictatorial control of their projects. I found it relatively depressing to learn that some of them came into the studio at the 11th hour and wrote some lyrics, and put some cherries atop the pie. I could list names here, but that isn’t what this is about. It’s more about celebrating the standards set up by those few micromanagers who say that if my name is going to be on it, I’m going to micromanage this thing to death, until it reaches my definition of artistic truth. Spruance, Patton, and John Zorn (other than most of his over 20 Book of Angels projects) appear to be these types of artists.

“I feel like I have to take on all of the burden myself; micromanage everything. If you’re going to be putting in a million hours into making this record, if your heart’s not into it, then it’s not going to have any power to it.”

As I said, it’s difficult to review this music. As with most other music, a reviewer can say that when one listens to this music I’m reviewing, they’ll hear a dash of artist A, a mixture of artists B and C, and a heavy dose of artist D. A listener just can’t do that with the Secret Chiefs 3, if their frame of reference is largely western rock. I suppose if one grew up on Morricone, Persian, Arab, and other Middle Eastern music, they could say that it’s derivative, but I would find that surprising. Trey has said that his audience is all over the map, logistically, and demographically, but I have a hard time believing that young westerners, who prize rebellion from parental concerns for their musical identity, will find much appealing in SC3’s music. I’m guessing that the majority of Sc3’s demographic is composed of forty-somethings who are tired of all the typical music out there. For it’s not music that will tick off anyone’s parents, but it may cause them to worry about their child’s mental stability after the kid closes the door and cranks it.

{1} http://www.allmusic.com/album/second-grand-constitution-and-bylaws-hurqalya-armarillo-mw0001016363

{2} http://www.allmusic.com/album/book-m-mw0000591048

{3} http://www.markprindle.com/spruance-i.htm

{4}http://www.prog-sphere.com/interviews/an-interview-with-trey-spruance-of-secret-chiefs-3/#sthash.7E1f9dF5.dpuf

Andy Kaufman lives! Long live Andy Kaufman!

November 16, 2013April 16, 2024 RilalyLeave a comment

Andy Kaufman is alive! “Who?” Andy Kaufman. His daughter just said it, and his brother was by her side when she said it. Andy Kaufman is alive. I just knew it. I knew it all along. “Who’s Andy Kaufman?” Andy Kaufman? Everyone knows Andy Kaufman. The guy who sang the Mighty Mouse theme on SNL… The guy that used to purposely anger audiences with his da da antics… Tony Clifton (allegedly)… The guy that wrestled women? The guy that wrestled Jerry Lawler? The guy that played that foreign guy in the show Taxi? “Oh! Latka Gravas! The guy that Jim Carrey played in Man in the Moon! He died?”

Those of us that have, at one point in our lives, entered the inner sanctum of Kaufman fanatics find it hard to believe that most people have either forgotten who Andy Kaufman was (other than the guy that played Latka, the guy that R.E.M. sang about, or the guy that Jim Carrey played), or have never heard of him.

This may be due to the fact that Andy Kaufman died (allegedly) in 1984, nearly thirty years ago, and that an entire generation has been born in a Kaufman-less world. This may also have something to do with the fact that he was more of an irritant than a comedian, or entertainer, and irritants usually don’t achieve the kind of popularity, or longevity that comedians and entertainers have. But, you argue, Kaufman may have been the most popular, most successful irritant of all time. True, I would say, but even the most successful irritant’s act is going to get old soon after everyone gets on board.

A career comedian, like a Steve Martin, or a Richard Pryor, learn to adapt and evolve throughout their careers. Even an entertaining funnyman, like a Tom Hanks, learns that one-act careers in Hollywood do not last long. The cynical can say that these three, and others like them, adapted their act for financial reasons, but Steve Martin would tell you that the whole white-suit, arrow-through-the-head thing simply got old on him after a while, and he wanted to branch out artistically. Kaufman, it should be said, by any die-hard fanatic that watched In God We Tru$t, or Heartbeeps, simply didn’t have the chops to make such a transition. It’s a tough admission for any Kaufman fanatic to make, but repeated viewings of these movies, and some of the other less-than-successful things Kaufman did, will cause even the most die-hard fan to admit that even if he had lives, his career was not long for this world.

The current, most popular irritant, Sasha Baron Cohen, made one successful movie, but that appears to have only let the world in on his act, and he has yet to make the impact he made in that first movie. Kaufman enjoyed his time in the spotlight, and he made the most of it. He did things, bizarre things, famously irritating things, throughout the course of his career, that are transcendental. Some could say that the makers of Jackass, the aforementioned Cohen, Pee Wee Herman and Chris Elliott have Kaufman to thank for their careers. Some have said that Kaufman opened the doors to the bizarre, in an individualistic fashion, that can never occur in the same way again.

The only reason a one-time Kaufman fanatic is detailing the man’s limits, and relative anonymity, is the line that his daughter (allegedly) delivered, at the annual Andy Kaufman Awards, that Kaufman faked his own death to “enjoy a life outside the limelight.”

My reply to this line, if I were there, would be that he seemed to be doing fine, in that regard, as it was. Other than some Letterman, and Dangerfield, appearances, it doesn’t appear that Hollywood was knocking down Kaufman’s door. His act appeared to be waning soon after he accomplished his personal dream of headlining Carnegie Hall, after he appeared in some B movies, after he jumped into the ring with Jerry Lawler, and after achieving the goal of accomplishing an inter-gender belt in wrestling.

Was he a genius? I think so, but I also know that his “irritant” act was limited. Could he have adapted, and progressed, and evolved his act? Possibly, but the groundwork he laid didn’t appear to be adaptable to evolution. The point is that Kaufman appeared to be sliding towards total anonymity as it was, and if that’s what he actually wanted, he would not have had to step too far to the left to achieve it.

If this alleged daughter had stepped to the stage of the annual Andy Kaufman Awards show and said, “Andy faked his own death in a desperate attempt to forestall the demise of his career, and when that didn’t work, he decided to call it a day and move on in life” I might have believed the charade. No one would say such a thing at an Andy Kaufman Awards show, however, for that would’ve cast Kaufman’s entire career in a negative light, and it would’ve made the act of faking his own death appear desperate and sad. The whole Kaufman schtick, that he didn’t care about his career, would’ve been dispelled, and his fans would’ve walked away disillusioned.

If his alleged daughter had been instructed, regardless of the light it cast on his celebrity status—something Andy was known to ridicule and personally damage for fun—to say something along the lines of: “Funerals have such a bizarre, romantic attachment to them that we all dream of dying for one day just to see how much people care about us. When Andy successfully faked his own death—through losing a massive amount of weight to appear cancer-ridden, and eventually achieving a depth of meditation only he could achieve where he slowed his breathing to a point that even fooled medical examiners—he realized the depths of cruelty that such a joke could have on his family and friends. After doing it, he saw the depths of sorrow he caused, and he knew he couldn’t reverse the joke for fear of spurning those loved ones that were in such despair over his death. The only reason he decided to come forth now, is that his father died this Summer. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Andy Kaufman…” He then walks across the stage.

If this alleged daughter had said such things that cast “his joke” in a desperate light, and then a remorseful light, and if Andy had actually walked across the stage, I might’ve believed it.

As Bob Thompson, a professor of pop culture at Syracuse University, is quoted as saying in a CNN piece:

“Andy Kaufman was often about doing an awful lot of stuff and enduring an awful lot of hatred and scorn before the punch line ever arrived, if it ever did.”

“Think about it: The setup comes in 1984 and the punch line gets delivered nearly 30 years later.

“You so want it to be true because it would be one of the greatest things to ever happen in the history of comedy,” he says. “It would be the longest joke ever told.”

It would be longest joke ever told, but would it achieve the longest laugh? Kaufman would surely land a spot of Piers Morgan for his accomplishment, but how many people would watch? Not even a Kaufman interview could get too many people to watch that show. He would surely write a book. He could call it the longest (or greatest) joke ever told, but how many people would buy it? The audience of the longest joke ever told would probably be limited to forty-somethings and fifty-somethings who grew up in an era where the name Kaufman made headlines, but even their participation in the story would probably be limited to clicking on the story. Most of them probably wouldn’t even finish the entire article. They might lift an eyebrow, some of them might smile when remembering his antics, and some of them might even guffaw for as long as it took them to finish the article, but their reaction would be limited to that which occurs with any passing fancy. It would probably be limited to a single exchange in the office: “Did you see that Kaufman faked his death?” “Yeah, I read that article.” How many people are just dying to find out that Andy Kaufman is still alive? It’s probably a lot fewer than one would think.