http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/3523
The Punk Rock of Blogging
by Phil Rockstroh
The ideas contained in The Bill of Rights and the
tenets of The Enlightenment are quaint notions to corporatists.
Within our empire of mammon, cant and incommensurate privilege,
concepts such as freedom and liberty lie forgotten, languishing
like the statues of forsaken gods within the crumbling temples
of some dead religion.
I often receive emails from readers who ask, in essence:
And what of those of us -- those who remember and grieve our
republic's passing. Is there some place of sanctuary where we
could rally our spirits; a place where we might gather our
strength -- where we might have a rapprochement with our own
hopeful hearts, where we might rise in the cool air of morning
in some location no longer haunted by the malicious and
manipulative spirits who have usurped our names and stolen our
country. Is there any place on earth where we might dodge the
mind-grinding, soul-killing, death-worshipping legacy of the
militarist/corporatist/consumerist state?
Don't you see, Phil, these readers implore and admonish me:
We're besieged and outnumbered by the mindless worshippers of
Death around us -- and, by the way, fella, your incantatory
prose will not move, nor even interest them.
I'll answer these entreaties by quoting from a documentary,
"Punk: Attitude," I viewed, recently, in which independent
filmmaker Jim Jarmusch posited that art movements (and political
ones as well) don't need the masses, they just need a committed
5 percent ... the masses will follow. There is no need to inform
the mob; a mob, by its very nature, is uninformed -- and
unteachable. The belief in the existence of an informed mob is
like believing in the existence of that chimera called
compassionate conservatism -- and we've seen where credulity to
that sort of crazy talk leads.
As was the case with Punk, which Jarmusch termed, "do it
yourself art" -- one needs passion, commitment, conviction --
tempered by an ability to apprehend and uniquely interpret
changing realities and circumstances -- plus an inner reservoir
of courage and follow through. These things can't be bought
retail: And that is exactly the advantage we hold.
Hence, it might be instructive to look at the mode of being
evinced by the pioneers of Punk Rock ... Tired of endless guitar
solos and of Arena Rock and Roll's egomaniacal inanities, they
learned to play three cords -- real fast -- and would play for
little or no money in shot-out downtown clubs -- thereby
reintroducing the danger and allure of the subversive intimacy
of early Rock and Roll to a new generation -- and forever
establishing the enduring principle that being an imbecilic Rock
and Roll egoist should be a democratic process -- not limited to
only corporate, guitar technocrats (or even those individuals
possessed of the tyranny of talent).
Point of clarification: I'm not speaking here of literally
becoming a punk rocker. (Although, a convincing argument can be
made that: independent websites and blogs are the new Punk
Rock.) I'm talking about the initial passion of the progenitors
-- not the conformist banalities displayed by their mindless
followers ... I'm speaking of the mode of being of the folks who
created the art form -- not the hollow mimicry of those who
mummify it into dogma.
The do-it-your-self-art idea being the key that unlocks the
barred door of the commodified prison of a corporatist state of
mind and allows one's life to be created -- not by narrow
careerist agendas -- but by the surrender to all it takes to be
free.
To do this, sometimes, you must follow your inspiration so far
off the path -- you have to blaze your own path to make your way
back.
It's not the outcome of your endeavors, but the life lived. If
you live with such ardor -- who knows who and what you'll
effect. We must be like the monks of The Dark Ages, copying
books for generations yet unborn, preserving what we can of our
humanity and passing it on.
I believe hope arises in organic ways before it makes its way
into political platforms, is implemented into policy, and,
finally, imprisons us in dogma -- thus allowing a new generation
to engage in the soul-making of sedition against its ossified
order.
Let's get to it.
---------------------------------------------------------------
WWWhatsup NYC
http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
---------------------------------------------------------------
