Rants By Topic

Culture

Green Book and Detroit

05.2.2019

Green Book

Green Book, Detroit. The real Don Shirley and The Donald. The ‘N’ Word, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Abraham Lincoln, Uhura and Star Trek. Obama, Marc Maron and WTF. The Bruce Lee School Of Race Relations. Rent? Really?

Roger CortonSo why are we still talking about Detroit when you’ve got a whole new album and opera about Ireland?

JCHWell, a while back I mentioned that I was still getting some interest in Detroit. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this coincides with Black History Month. I went back and checked and duuuhhhh, all the initial inquiries about the score seem to have occurred around this time of year. I just never put two and two together before. What got me really thinking about it was that movie ‘Green Book’. Did you see it?

RCI did see it.

JCHWhat did you think?

RCI liked it it. It was a little cheesy but that’s OK. I […]

Bodybuilding

12.16.2018

Culture, Health Issues, The Boats

We gotta add another year. Another little black dog from hell. Another voice change. Botox and Mister Ed. What’s next? Bodybuilding. We need a montage. War Of The Gargantuas. Ella Mai-Boo’d Up as metaphor for a new generation. Goodbye permanence! Goodbye tradition! Merry Christmas! JC hates meme generators.

Roger CortonIt’s been a while. How you been? Merry Christmas.

JCHMerry Christmas to you! I’m as good as I can be. Et vous?

RCGood. Good. Everything’s good. I always get a little nervous when I don’t hear from you for a while.

JCHWell this time, it’s been more a dog than me. I decided to do one last dog rescue and…

RCAnd?

JCHAnd I got THE LITTLE BLACK DOG FROM HELL!

RCYou got another Gus?

JCHNot exactly. I drove across the state to save this little shit and blew an engine. And that was just the beginning. He’s had over $3,000 just for an ear infection.

RCAn […]

Pitchfork Reviews: Greta Van Fleet

11.3.2018

Culture

An absolutely scathing review of this young group of Michiganders with the uncanny Led Zeppelin sound. I link to it mainly because I love the writing. And I’ll only add to the author that we’ve already had some very successful bands that have channeled ’70’s Blues Rock–the best of them fronted by Jack White.

Anthem Of The Peaceful Army

Poppy

06.7.2018

Culture

Just a brief ‘hello!’. Rog is away and I’m slaving away. I rarely venture into the world of politics or the greater culture but I keep running across Poppy…

…but all I see when I look at her is Ivanka Trump.

OK, I’ve had my little joke so onward.

It Must Be Ironic To Be Devo

I’ve written a number of times that I don’t do irony much any more. I should’ve learned my lesson very early on but like Dorothy I wasn’t ready for the idea. As a teen, I was in a band that got to open for Devo. And I thought of them at the time as ‘punk’. I thought of them as having a ‘message’. They were saying some pretty sophisticated stuff about the world starting to fall apart. But within […]

Set And Forget Learning

04.6.2018

Culture, Teaching

A Letter To The Editor, Tape-Op Magazine #122

A great end rant.

It dawned on me as I read your editorial that it’s probably no coincidence that the breakdown of this ‘system’ would occur just as Youtube makes available so much task based learning that I would have killed for back in the day.

I have several concerns about the prevalence of videos now on the web.

1. Call it sour grapes, but as a some-time music teacher, I regularly see how students see no reason to pay me for lessons. In fact, I often fall into this trap myself–deciding that I can do things myself that actually could be handled easier by paying a professional. For some reason, we can’t see the abstract value we bring to the table as ‘pros’.

2. Today there are precious few kids who even want to learn to play an instrument or learn to record properly. I don’t mean this to be snarky, but there is a general expectation that music production will be a one-button […]