Wirehaterz

Over at the Whitehouse-affiliated Susan Lawly forum, a message pasted by hOU that lays into The Wire in amusing fashion. I don't agree with much of it, but that's hardly the point:

Hardly worth starting a new one, so I'll spam this thread instead.


What w/ WB's Love/Hate relationship w/ the magazine, I thought you would find it as ammusing as I to read this panning of the mag (trawled from nowhere particularly important on the web). Enjoy.

I blame part of the piss-poor state of The Wire on Biba Kopf (aka Chris Bohn) taking over as Editor. I mean there's a guy who's idealism is as frozen in 1981 post-punk pan-cultural righteousness (it's noise! it's dahkness! look there's a bad afrikan rhythm, tackle it dahling!) as Dave Tompkins is in his it's forever 1991 and we be buggin out (can't wait for his long-awaited tome on Harvard Press, A Pop Lock is as Good as a Body Rock to a Blind Horse or It was Never as Sweet as when the Native Tongues Sang: The Dark Side of the Bass 1975-93) take on hip hop. That's not even to mention paucity of barely passable writing by the likes of ex-fanzine hacks and uber-hepster noise boys (would former Crank Automotive propreitor and Dead C bag-toter, Marc Masters please stand up), Steve Barker (shite mate I've got interesting taste but they insist I review these same culturally irrelevant dub albums every month), Anne Hilde Neset (*chortles* i married the old editor, that's how i got the job), Dave Mandl (Biba mk.2 replace London with NYC, 1983 MBA in Rock In Opposition studies).
This is not even taking into account the atrocious David Keenan effect on the Wire. If there's ever been a guy who's the atypical cart before the horse hepster he's it. Norman Mailer's white nigger come to technicolor life with a double emphasis on the WHITE. This guy has bought every tall tale and pound of bullshit Forced Exposure has sold since the mid eighties and turned it into the gospel for hairy guys (and gals) with no sense of melody. He'd have you believe the way into future is on the backs of dusty old folk records with a pinch of half-arsed ethnic drone.
For some reason that reminds me of a story I heard or read once about two brothers. One brother, dropped out of high school at 15 and just layed off from the oil refinery sits on his porch drinking beer at 6 in the morning. Watching Mexicans being loaded into the back of flatbed trucks to work on the new highway up the way. Half tempted to sneak amongst their midst even if only to work for free- to feel a sense of purpose.
That afternoon a greyhound bus stops in front of his house and his younger brother who he's not seen for 6 years or more steps off the bus. Unshaven, unkempt and long of hair. He rises. They greet each other. Try to catch up on old times. The older brother tries to explain how hard, just how tight, how rough times have been but before he can finish a sentence the younger brother is in the throes of a great discourse on the exalted state of his learning since he'd left this pathetic little town six years ago. Late night rituals, advanced learning. Concepts so grandiose the common man like his brother could never grasp it's import.
Blood drains from the face of the older brother, a nervous twitch develops in the right eyebrow. Increasing in intensity as his younger brother builds up steam.
We studied with a Russian professor. There was only three of us in the class. It wasn't sanctioned by the university so the professor taught the course in the large hole dug beneath his house. It was then the great light of the knowledge of the ages dawned on me. I knew then the only thing seperating me from Dostoevsky's Underground Man was merely more time.
Finally having his fill of bullshit the older brother smacks the younger hard in the temple with the side of his hand and snorts, "the only thing stopping me from being the next John Holmes is a 12 inch dick" and heads off up the road to leave his brother to contemplate the agony of his genius.
The moral of that story? pick one. My particular favorite is the theorem that the distance from the ivory tower to the street corner is never so great as when they both refuse to acknowledge the other exists. Oh wait, that was the moral of another story i was thinking of. oh well, the Wire still is as mediocre as it's been since it's day's as a jazz-only mag.
Suppose I could start a blog, but I tried that and realized computer programming aint for me and i might give you a hint of the gospel on here but if you want' the full sermon somebody better fucking pay me.

Back in Black,
Bill

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