Shaking the Tree - 12/01/06

With the Digital Café Tour eating up almost all of my time this year, I haven't had much time to spout my opinions in a blog in a while. Today's topic for discussion is Shaking the Tree, to quote Peter Gabriel (one of my all time heroes).

No one shakes the tree anymore in the media. Once upon a time the arts/media existed to challenge the system... or at least to question it and keep it honest.

Folks like John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, Edward R. Murrough, Dan Rather, Igor Stravinsky, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Martin Scorsese, Frank Zappa, Oliver Stone... oh, hell, add Jesus Christ, Boddidharma, and Ghandi to the list...TITANS... CHALLENGED THE SYSTEM. They said, "This dog won't hunt!"

Gut check time, folks! Is there anyone shaking the tree in the media? They let Dan Rather go. That was a sad day. Instead, we have talking heads who regurgitate pablum that is controlled directly by our government. There was a word for that phenomenon. It was called The Pravda. We weren't supposed to have that in our REPUBLIC.

What happened to the 4th Estate? The press. It's now a profit making vehicle for television advertising, not a vehicle for truth in the news. Who knows what's really going on? I don't. Do you?

Which leads me to my next point... Where have the titans in media gone? In Dan Rather's case, retired by a bunch of spineless suit weenies in favor of a younger, much less qualified person.

John Lennon, Hendrix, and Zappa are dead.

Okay... now turn on your radio or your television. Is there any challenging media left?

Nope. Just ads and lip-synching blow up dolls who can't even get lip synching right.

So, now let's turn on the TV! Shall we?

First, a very urgent voice on an ad for the next, best penis-hardening pill asks you, "Will you be ready?" Will I be ready? For what? To get laid? Are they kidding? People have been getting laid since before there was language. They didn't need a pill that drops your blood pressure into your penis. However, the commercials depict a bunch of really anxious people in their later 30's to late 50's, all who look like ED could be a problem. Then they take the magic pill and the football goes throught the tire. They're lying out in a meadow, naked, in cast iron bathtubs, laughing maniacally and ready to bump uglies for hours on end.

Why are they in two tubs instead of one? Why is the tub in the meadow anyway? Where are the police to arrest the two naked, 40 something year old people humping in the meadow? What the hell is going on?

Let's face it, the commercial is designed to put a question in the head of every man who watches it... WILL YOU BE READY? WELL, JEEZ! NOW, I DON'T KNOW!

And while you're questioning whether or not you actually need a four-hour boner, are you questioning that oil is back up to $2.15 per gallon, post-mid-term-elections?

Okay, so now you're anxious about getting a hard on, and the next commercial selling an anti-anxiety pill comes on. Do you have anxiety? Are you depressed? Well, of course I'm depressed! The last commercial just made every guy who saw it anxious about getting a hard on! Great, there's a pill for that anxiety!

Unfortunately, the side effects are a skin rash, penis shrinkage and uncontrollable diarrhea.

So, now, their pills have given you a four-hour hard on, but it's half the size it should be, you have a rash, and you're crapping your pants in public. That's sexy...

AND YOU NEED THEIR NEW RASH CREAM! And so on, and so on, and so on.

Let's turn it around. Meanwhile, on the other side of the sheets, bridal magazines are selling women the notion that it is every American woman's God given right to have a Superbowl-sized wedding followed by floating on a marital cloud of wine, crazy monkey sex, tropical vacations and spotless kitchens with a center island and $300K in appliances. There might even be a ride down a tropical beach together on a white stallion...

AND WE WONDER WHY THERE IS A 60% DIVORCE RATE?

Probably because the four-hour, pill-driven, undersized hard on, coupled with rash and diarrhea, did not meet the glowing expectation set by the bridal magazines, and both parties fought over the bank accounts and divorced...

ONLY TO END UP ON AN ON-LINE DATING SERVICE LOOKING TO FIND SOMEONE ELSE ON WHOM TO AFFLICT OUR UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS!

And the oil prices go up and up and up while we become masturbating, permanently horny zombies with no life-partners.

What is the point of my rant, you may justifiably ask, at this juncture in the story?

Don't swallow the pill! Open your eyes! Find new heroes! Find new media! Shake the tree!

Why did people love YouTube enough for it to be worth $1.6 billion to Google in daily traffic? Because it was free! It was challenging! It was of-the-people-for-the-people!

And you're not going to find that in conventional media. When was the last time someone came along in that arena who bucked the system? Kurt Cobain? He's dead, too, unfortunately, and that was over a decade ago.

Digital Café Tour is trying to shake the tree, so to speak. I believe in it so much, in fact, that I have actually immutably linked Friday's Child, which is very dear to me, to The DCT business model.

DCT has only dealt with recording/video taping Indie music acts to try to tap into an undercurrent separate from the control of the vast machine. There are ten of us working on this at all times. Sometimes we get paid. Sometimes we don't. We do it anyway. We are trying to bring live music back to audiences as a forum for change. We don't lip synch. We don't do multiple takes. It's real. It's raw. It's necessary.

I have not been political up until this point in my life. However, I feel that to remain on the sidelines any further is socially irresponsible. We are becoming a society of overmedicated, politically apathetic zombies.

Unless someone stands up in the media field and shakes the tree, we're not going to have any art left that isn't tightly packaged and politically fettered. Other than Tom Morello from Audioslave, no one is out there telling it like it is. No one is being given the forum. When the forum gets out there, some big monster buys it up and reasserts control over the freedom of opinion.

This is the awakening for me, personally. I'm not on the sidelines anymore. I'm not apolitical anymore.

I am not really very significant alone. I need everyone's help. Spread the word. SHAKE THE TREE!

Tell your friends about digitalcafetour.com. Currently, sure, we have some sponsors. Does that make us corporately controlled? Nope. Our sponsors make musical instruments and pro audio. They're interested in music. The people who own and run the companies are musicians, mostly. They paid to have their instruments featured. Why? Because they believe in music, too.

I believe in music. I believe in art. I believe in them because they add beauty to a world where spys put radioactive poison on sushi to silence the truth. We live in a world where people kill, lie, steal and cheat in the name of greed... a world that spawned Hitler and Stalin.

We also live in a world that gave us Mozart, VanGogh, The Beatles, Bach, Francis Ford Copolla and Rodin. I'd rather live in that world. How about you?