After having read David Sedaris’s current New Yorker essay “Pearl,” I thought it might be fun for me – and to a lesser extent you, invisible reader – to ramble a bit, stagger from topic to topic, to sprinkle and sling rather than weave.
For example, how bout some cool band names for free?
Chutney Grouper and the Crybabies. (blues)
Betty Wont and the Willie Makeits (three-chord rock).
The Narcissistic Namby Pamby Wannabes (emo).
Cry Me a Pipeline (whatever).
Confetti Penises (glam rock).
Of course, having a cool name doesn’t ensure the band is gonna be worth a damn. I think “Blue Oyster Cult” is the coolest of names, but I’d much rather listen to The Animals.[1]
Truth be typed, luddite that I am, I’m not at all into streaming services. I want my music on an LP or CD with the songs arranged carefully with a thematic purpose, like the Stones’ Beggar’s Banquet or Joni Mitchell’s Blue – in other words, tunes woven not slung.[2]
Pandora, for example, is aptly named; tune into the Tom Petty Station and you’re liable to be subjected to Neil Diamond crooning “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” Of course, Pandora’s a low rent platform; with Spotify, Amazon, and Apple, you can fashion your own playlists, but what retired beach-dwelling hedonistic retired English teacher has time for that?
The sad but not-at-all-shocking truth is that at the age of 68, for me, the current music these crazy mixed-up kids and thirty-something coke-sniffers and bling boasters are producing doesn’t, as Judy Birdsong[3] used to say, flip my switch.
No sir, not indeed!
The indifferent news is that Caroline and I haven’t, despite the pandemic, cashed in our Atlanta 2020 Stones tickets.
So, we’ve got our fingers crossed.
[1] By the way, today – 13 May 2021 – is the great Eric Burdon’s 80th birthday.
[2] Okay, Boomer.
[3] 1 June 1954 – 14 May 2017.
You Do Hoodoo 
I love when you see them in interviews and they say things like, “As an artist… .” They just use the term so loosely. To really usher in a new era after all this time, it will require someone capable of something really big. I’m not sure, though. The one person I thought might have done it was Heath Ledger. But then I heard him criticize other actors for calling their trade an art. I thought Brokeback Mountain was a big deal — and that it set things in motion.
I think art is there and everything … but you know… . Like I would say your poetry is art, and I would consider people like Bob Dylan and McJagger to be artists. But if you let Machine Gun Kelly and Post Malone join in, it might raise a few eyebrows. I’m not sure, though. I’m not the critic’s choice, and I don’t own any kind of art, so I can only say what seems to be so, because I really don’t know. I just always associate it with intellectual thought. After that scene in Limitless where he could interpret artwork, I started paying attention to it again.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Rodney, what’s an art and what’s a craft is difficult to distinguish. I only know what I like and don’t. Cheers!