Gentle Hour

Here is something I made. This is a song called Gentle Hour and it is a cover of a cover. My version of the song is definitely based on the 2009 Yo La Tengo version (which I love love love and love) on the Dark Was the Night AIDS benefit album. The original was by Peter Gutteridge and was released in 1993 by Snapper or possibly The Clean (the internet seems unclear on this point).

A Short One-Sided Conversation With the World. Complete with cursey words.

Yeah.  OK.  Fine.  I admit it.  I'm weak.  I'm WEAK WEAK WEAK WEAK.  OK?  Are you happy now?  I ADMIT IT!  I'm pathetic.  I'm weak.  I'm inadequate.  I'm full of fears.  I'm soft.  I suck.

You could have had your shit figured out long before I was born, ya know.  You had oodles of time.  I didn't ask for this shit.

All I wanted to do is play with puppies, eat ice cream, and be nice to people.  But NOOOO!  You're all like "you must go forth and beat people to death with your balls of steel and bite the heads off lemurs" or whatever the stupid shit is that you value.  Asshole.

So you know what?

Fuck you.

Yeah, that's right.

Fuck you.

Oh, I'm sorry, are you having trouble hearing me?  I said

FUCK YOU!

Oh, wait a second, there seems to be something behind my back...let me just bring that around front...oh look at that, it says

Fuck you.

Hmmm.  There seems to be something in my pocket...let me pull that out...oh!  It's a big ol' ball of

Fuck you.

You know, I seem to have something in my shoe.  Let me reach down there and see what it is.  Yep.  Just as I suspected, it says

FUCK and YOU.



Whew.  Felt good to get that off my chest.  Onward.

Jefe, In Apartment, Unplugged, Concert for the Fans, 2013

So I recorded "Pure" by The Lightning Seeds.

At the end of the video you can hear someone say "Excuse me"; I thought, uh oh, my windows are open and I've annoyed one of my neighbors!  But it was actually two little girls who wanted an encore!  Yeah.  I've got fans.

Here I hit record during the second of my two encores, so a little interaction with my adoring fans is preserved for posterity.

Yeah, I really should have gone out and interacted more with my fans.  When will us rock stars ever learn?  It doesn't kill ya to sign a few autographs and schmooze a bit.

Friday I'm In Love

Here is The Cure.

Note: during the spontaneous speaking part, the feminists I'm talking about are that probably pretty small group of feminists known as TERFs (Trans-exclusionary radical feminists).  That was probably not clear in such an improvised speech.

Trans persons have been on my mind lately.  For awhile I've been puzzled and not sure what I think and knowing that I needed to dig in and do some research because just thinking about things I would follow a process like:  "Well, it seems we have a biological sex; yes there are many cases that don't fit a simple dichotomy, but the vast majority of human beings are either male or female.  Gender roles are pretty clearly social constructs that can be and often are extremely damaging.  But trans seems to fly in the face of that, trans people seem to affirm gender roles and some seem to be so tied to gender roles that they are willing to undergo MAJOR FREAKING SURGERY in order to affirm those gender roles.  What up with that?"  And, to my knowledge, I've never met a trans person so it was all a puzzle to me.

Well I finally took the time to do a little digging this summer and I found a perspective that surprised me.  I don't know if I really have the language to describe it as yet, but I'll give it a try.  When you read people's stories it seems clear that it isn't about gender roles really at all, it's not about femininity or masculinity as such, it's about feeling very, very, strongly that the biological sex thing is either wrong or too limited.  It's not so much a theory, not so much an attempt to categorize and define, it is a lived experience of body dysphoria.  So then what are we to do?  Do we tell people "no, no, you were born with a penis, so that is your fate no matter how much that feels wrong to you, no matter how much pain it causes you---you are stuck."  Do we tell people "no, no, you are a person with a vagina so you are defined by that, you don't get to define yourself---we define you as female."

Also, in the course of poking around on the intertubes about trans matters, I came across some feminists who were very vehemently anti-trans.  Some of them going so far as to believe that trans women are tools of the Patriarchy, not accepting trans women as women but insisting they are men hell bent on invading and controlling female spaces.  This perspective seemed very untrue compared to the stories trans persons told of themselves.

Anyway, I've been thinking about that stuff this summer and so when it came to improvising...the speaking bit went that direction!  So, it wasn't some general slam on feminism, if that's how the improvisation sounded.  I am very much in favor of feminism.

BaDOOM! 

Everything Will Flow

This one's going out special to my old pal Suspiciously pleased.  It's by Suede.  I tried to Goth it up a bit with my vocal stylings.  Was I successful?  You be the judge.

Mason Jennings Song

Yeah, here's a sad break-up song called "Moon Sailing On the Water".  Geezey Pete Jefe, way to bring down the party!

Edited: because for some reason the first time only the first minute or so of the video was uploaded.  I know, you're thinking--hey, that would have been better.  Well Suck It!  I have reloaded the full video with all it's sad break-up songiness complete.

New Order

Yo it's New Order's Temptation ya'll.

It's A Golden Age MashUP!!

...but what song is it mashed with?  What song? What?  You'll have to watch to find out!  And  YES, this video is 8 minutes long!  HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!  Oh.  Bejimber me timbers.

Waiting For Superman Part Deux

Here is a little music accompaniment to my previous post...

Waiting For Superman

This is the shortest of three assignments I had due last Friday.  It's a reflection on the documentary Waiting For Superman which we watched for class.  I wanted to revise it and work a few things differently then post it...but, BaDOOM!  Not gonna happen this week, so here is this...I was just happy to have the opportunity to quote The Flaming Lips in a paper for school.

If you haven't seen the movie...

SPOILER ALERT!

 
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Reflection On Waiting For Superman

            The foremost response I have to this film is that it is incredibly one-sided, heavy-handed, and emotionally manipulative, and though it has some points to make, it would have been a far better film and its audience would have been far better served if the filmmaker had been more concerned with presenting an honest, robust, and reflective picture of the situation and less concerned with eliciting the particular narrow emotional response that it achieves.  I’m going to reflect on one scene from the film that I think most powerfully shows the filmmaker’s unexamined assumptions and the filmmaker’s propensity for propaganda.

At the end of the film we are subjected to the long scene (it seemed to last at least a half an hour but it was probably more like five minutes) wherein the kids are waiting to hear their names in the charter school lottery.  As the number of placements available drops to zero, and most of the kids we’ve been following are not called, our hearts break along with theirs; a viewer cannot help but respond to tears standing in the eyes of children and parents as their hopes are crushed.  Throughout the film we were told that the public schools these kids will be forced to attend are broken.  The high schools they will attend are failure factories.  The cycle of poverty and crime goes on and on and the only way out is education.  But bad teachers, intractable teachers’ unions, and byzantine bureaucracy stand in the way of these kids receiving the education they need to escape a dismal life of failure.  Plucky reformers like Michelle Rhee try to work within the system but they are slammed down hard by the awesome might of the unions.  Other plucky reformers find a way out, a way to slip slightly to the side of the system and create charter schools free from the crippling hands of the unions and the dead weight of bad teachers.  These charter schools are the only hope for these kids, the film tells us, but space is limited so they have one slim chance, one small hope to escape their fate—the lottery.  As that hope slips away, the children and their families are devastated and we, the audience, are devastated too.  We are devastated for these children because the film sets us up to believe that now their lives are over and there is no hope for them.  The children have received the sentence of death—death via public school attendance.  By choosing this “dead children walking” frame for this scene and for the movie as a whole, the filmmaker sets up very heavy-handed, emotionally manipulative, false dichotomy and ignores a more nuanced reality.

First of all, (ignoring the fact that these kids are all in a massively successful documentary film and if they don’t all have college trust funds from this then there is something very wrong with the filmmaker), what do all of these kids have in common aside from a desire to attend a charter school?  Each one of them is blessed with at least one very strong advocate, parent or guardian, fighting for them, caring for them, and supporting them.  Having advocates like that is a far more powerful aide to future success than the particular school a child attends.  The film does those advocates a disservice by painting a “charter school or doom” dichotomy for these kids.

Second, this heavy-handed scene plays on a false “receive a great education or be doomed to a life of poverty” dichotomy.  Now it is the case that education is a road out of poverty for some people, but there are no guarantees, our society has wider problems than that.  The road out of poverty via education is a path for the few, not the many.  What I mean is:  what would happen if educators were successful beyond their wildest dreams?  What if no child was left behind, every single member of a generation received a great education, graduated from high school, and, let’s take it a step further, graduated from college?  Would poverty simply disappear because we were able to wave millions of college degrees at it?  No, of course not.  Our system is structured to have winners and losers and we could easily end up with millions of highly educated burger flippers and hotel cleaners.  Or, I suppose the hope is, or the assumption behind this film and legislation like No Child Let Behind is, that education will create a nation of American technocrats that will allow the United States to “beat” China, India, Mexico, and everybody else in the world and insure prosperity for our citizens.  Since it has slowly become too “icky” (i.e. socially and politically unacceptable) for us to have an underclass in the U.S. (although that particular battle is far from over—there are many, many people who are just fine with having an underclass), people hope that poverty will be eliminated through education and there will be enough room in the middle and upper classes in America because an educated nation could be a nation of four hundred million rich people if only we have the gumption to exploit the rest of the world.

This film rests on the assumption that everything is fine with our society at large and it is only our broken public school system—broken by those pesky teachers’ unions—that is problematic.  If only those kids could have gotten into charter schools, their lives would be saved.  If only we could fix our school system, then all the poor kids would get their shot at a picket fence and a two-car garage.  I agree that our school system is broken.  There are too many bad schools, bad teachers, and bad educational experiences for children.  But maybe our schools are broken because our society is broken, and the schools simply reflect that.  I have long thought that the great hope imbedded in education is a hope of societal transformation.  The hope is that producing generation after generation of highly educated citizens will give us a populace with the tools needed to create and maintain a just society.  But that too is too much of a false dichotomy.  If it is to happen at all, a just society won’t come through fixing the schools then letting the schools fix society.  It won’t be a simple step-by-step, cause and effect, process.  To quote the band The Flaming Lips:  “Tell everybody, Waitin’ for Superman; That they should try to hold on best they can; He hasn’t dropped them, forgot them, or anything; It’s just too heavy for Superman to lift” (from The Soft Bulletin, 1999).  Not only is the problem of poverty too heavy for any reformer to lift, or any charter school to lift; poverty is too heavy for our entire educational system to lift.  Education can be a part of it and an important part, but a just society will need many strong institutions to help with the lifting. 


2 August 2013 Edited to remove my name which popped in there due to the copying and pasting from my assignment.  I'm trying to be a little more careful about interwebs anonymity these days. 

          

El Jefe Announces Small Delay In Commenting Frenzy

Cornered by reporters while trying to sneak from his Des Moines residence this morning, one "El Jefe" was eager to assure the press that his vaunted HIA 2013 Commenting Extravaganza Project was not, despite appearances, completely derailed.

"Hey," said the alleged commenter, "2013 isn't over folks!  Yes, I'm behind schedule.  Yes, it's nearly June.  But there's still a lot of year left!  I can assure the HIA community that the commenting project will be proceeding...you know...soon..."

When asked about reasons for the delay, the self-proclaimed Comment King mumbled something about "applying for financial aid" and "finding myself" then quickly fled to his vehicle.

Reporters were reported to be "skeptical".


In a completely unrelated story, the deceased King of Rock and Roll, one Elvis Presley, responded to inquiries regarding his Elvis Sings Internet Memes project with the following comment:

"Hey, I'm in Heaven.  Time works differently here." 

WHAT WAS I THINKING!

How could I have forgotten to post this gem from our Des Moines hootenanny?

This is in honor of Jefe's much too short visit this weekend, here is to the hope of an Ames hootenanny soon!

El Jefe Announces a Special New Project

Dear HIA,

One of my projects for 2013 is to comment on each and every post here at the HIA.

"Why?" you ask?  "Why, oh why?, oh god please why? please please make it stop why? why? why?" You ask?

Well, I'll tell you.

For too long I have been enjoying your deliciousness in silence.  There are too many lonely un-commented-on posts here on the HIA.  Too few mighty efforts at art on the HIA have been tagged with an ROTFL.  Too many children go to bed hungry at night.  Too few houses have a white picket fence and a two car garage.  Too many families have split asunder leaving it to the lawyers to decide the fate of the 2.5 children.  What about the 0.5 child?  My fellow HIA'ers, I ask you:  WHAT ABOUT CHILD 0.5?!?!?!?!?

That is why.

So prepare to be outrageously ass-kissed and flattered motherfuckers.  You deserve it.

Elvis Announces A Special New Project

El Jefe plays The Boss

...OR... Drinking and Feeling Sorry for Yourself Might Not be the Best Way to Spend Valentines Day, But Hey, It's A Tradition

So this is The River by Bruce Springsteen.  Somehow, in my life, I had never heard this song until very recently.  Holy crap what a good song.  Now I completely understand why The Boss is beloved.
You know, growing up my Boss exposure was just Born in the USA, Born to Run, Glory Days and a few more and it is was like "yeah, it's alright..not sure why he's THE BOSS..."  But after hearing The River I am a convert.  He is THE BOSS indeed.

This is one of those songs where there is no chance on God's Green Earth that I can do it justice, but I've just got to play it...I love it so much...must play and share...

Technical note:  if you watch the video you might notice that I appear to occasionally say a few things that are probably inaudible to you.  This is because I had to turn the audio input down super low before the keyboard would cease causing massive mic crackle.  It's OK.  What I was saying was not important--just stuff like "here's a song by The Boss'' or "happy valentine's day" or "hey kitty stop vomiting I'm trying to play a song" or "why is my music room such a barren wasteland, I really should put some pictures up" or "we can never be completely certain of our knowledge of the universe because everything we know is through the filter of being human.  Science is our most successful knowledge pursuing technique but we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking there will be some infinite progression of scientific discovery and technological innovation that will one day remove the filter of human experience and allow us to know with certainty some ultimate reality..."
Stuff like that.

Oh, and one more.   I'm pretty sure I said "here's another song I've learned recently".  Yes, that's right HIA, there is a short bonus song at the end.  Lucky you.

Here's a link of The Boss doing it for realziez.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utVR3EgQkHs

Feeling a little blue on a Tuesday afternoon, El Jefe decides to learn an Andrew Bird song...

Not a mistake free version of course, when are they ever? But I like how the camera couldn't keep up at some points, creating unintentional Special Effects! And I like the improv whistling solo that eventually falls apart. If you know Andrew Bird, you know whistling is very Andrew Bird. He played here in Desa Moinehans a few weeks ago, ser good, ser ser good with the music bits that fellow.

Don't cry Jesus

Here's a little something I found while playing around with Photo Booth on my computer yesterday. If I recall correctly, this is Elicious and me around a year to a year and a half ago testing how the ukulele sounded shooting video with Photo Booth.

It's short and somewhat amusing (I think) so I thought I'd share...

But can he bring it on with this axe?

Consider Yerself broughtnened'El Jeffe

WARNING: Do NOT Ask Jefe to "Bring It" Unless One is Fully Prepared to Have it "Brung!"

First Single From "V-The Musical"

HIA video exclusive!!!
We at HIAnews have secured the first recording of "Science Lady" from the brilliant rock opera based on the sad-ass TV movie "V"! This reporter was able to sneak in two cameramen undetected to record Jefe and Roxy during a rare performance, and then immediately hand the raw footage over to an esteemed music video director (do the words "Rhinestone Cowboy" ring any bells?) to do with it what he wished.

The video has certain 'experimental' elements but what can I say, the director had a vision. Shame it wasn't 20/20, perhaps then he could have seen the errors of his ways. Let this be a lesson to all future videographers ...STORYBOARD, STORYBOARD, STORYBOARD!!! Be that as it may, this is a great song that deserves to be heard as soon as possible and not left languishing until a future undetermined date when it will be buried somewhere in a two album Broadway cast recording with all the other songs from the musical, like "Standing With My Gun of Freedom Pointed at the Spaceship of Fascism (Volume One Part Two)