Monday, March 8th
Our dryer is on the fritz (read: doesn’t have any power) and I’ve narrowed it down to the door latch switch, which, once I got it out, was indeed charred a bit. I may not be a Mr. Fix-it, but I can at least take shit apart and look for shit that seems to be out of place.
Hooray for being halfway capable!
Sunday, March 7th
A weekend of food, I know, but this is what I came home to after a tiring 12hr day at work. Clockwise from top: chicken breast, beef spareribs, homemade cornbread (thanks, Amanda!) and a twice-baked potato. Kickass.
Saturday, March 6th
Sara made homemade mac and cheese with jalepenos, peppers and chorizo. They were fucking awesome.
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Friday, March 5th
Flowers blooming in front of our house. Yes, it’s only March.
Just in case you missed it, that’s Mick Jagger introducing John Lennon, who plays Yer Blues with Eric Clapton on lead, Keith Richards on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums.
I can’t even imagine something like this happening today. Who would play the parts? Name four musicians in the popular sphere that would add such gravity to such a throw-off performance. I dare you.
I can’t do it. I’d bet you can’t, either. Sure, I could cobble together a group of “indie” musicians who would nearly make me squeal with delight if they all showed up on stage together, but half of you wouldn’t know who any of them are. I’m sure other people could do the same with some of their favorite artists and I’d have no idea who half of them were, either. Music, like so many other things, is becoming a niche art. Pop artists rarely play their own instruments or write their own songs, anymore. That’s always been the case, to a certain extent. Marvin Gaye didn’t write all of his early work. The Beach Boys were a manufactured band in the beginning. But they were (or became) talented musicians. Pillars of their art form.
That just doesn’t happen anymore and it’s sad.
I’m not trying to sound entirely like an old coot. I’m trying to be honest. Even if you do like pop music nowadays, there aren’t truly mythic characters to choose from who are also seriously talent musicians. There just aren’t. Yet, just a generation ago, they were all over the place. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, the list goes on and on and on.
This isn’t just pie-in-the-sky remembrance of all these great artists from the Baby Boom generation. Or even dreamily remembering back to the early 90’s and Generation X. Because, let’s be honest, the number of truly talented musicians brought about by the grunge generation is nowhere near the level of a generation before it. The number is even less today for the Millennials, or whatever you want to call them.
I don’t think that we’re less capable to producing supremely talented people in all fields of entertainment today than we were a generation ago. I do think that we put less stock in that level of talent today, though. It’s a more bite-sized, immediate satisfaction marketplace. It’s a shame, really, because with the easier access to education and resources, I’m sure hundreds of musicians could be just as talented, if not more so, than the people in that video, but we just don’t do that anymore.
/rant