Not all truth is funny. But that which is funny is true. I don't believe you heard me. I said, what is funny is invariably, undeniably and inescapably just that: the truth. And just so, the truthful voice of Bill Hicks has been haunting me; dancing around my face like a bee; has turned my head like a strange smell, and has stopped me as quickly and as effortlessly as a spider's web that I have just walked through. I recoil, out of balance, stymied by human frailty in the face of that near-invisible strand which is timelessly, triumphantly animal. We fear the animal. Hate its base motivations; hate its mindless destruction and arrogant reproduction. Hate its stench and compassionless, selfish resolve. But listen: The thing that you hate in others is almost always the thing that you really hate about yourself. More truth (I'm not making this up). But somehow Bill Hicks turned that reflection of himself upside-down and backwards, like one seen in a cereal spoon: the things that he loathed about himself he loved others for, recognizing in them a familiar human frailty and a timeless, animal urge to survive. No matter how foolish most people look doing it. Surviving, I mean. And to be sure, we do look ridiculous, even when we are doing it with a straight face and in nice clothes. We are animals, thinly disguised in spats and bowler hats, trying to hang on. Yes, surviving is rarely gracefully done, but it is beautiful to witness. And somehow, against all odds, Bill Hicks himself continues to survive. Even though he's long been dead, in my mind Bill is probably watching TV, napping, or cursing those who surround and help him. And they curse him back, I imagine, once they've left his room. But they love him, for being a contentious, frail, timeless, ridiculous, hateful and beautiful animal, who has somehow survived under the burden of almost unspeakable truths, giving us back, as clearly as a silver spoon, reflections of ourselves as people we can love and forgive.
The ghost of Bill Hicks has, yes, haunted me of late. I don't know why, exactly, or why now. But there was no mistaking whose ghost it was when it arrived. So when I felt myself visited upon, occupied by the countenance of another —in this case Bill Hicks— it was natural for me to surrender to it. I was only too happy.
You see, others frequently believe they are trafficking in The Truth. I'm not sure who's to blame for that. But almost nobody ushering forth any real and significant truth thinks that that's what they're doing. Or at least they wouldn't admit it. Truth of the highest order is to be resisted, dragged from you on the gallows; played as a trump card and only as a last resort; because The Truth is frequently not good news to anybody. It rarely appears heroic at the time, to be the bearer of truth, but more like an affliction.
Most of us think it very noble to search for the Truth. It's romantic. It's poetic in a rugged, wind-blown, Sam Shepard-y kind of way. To be a searcher. I'll start over. To search for the truth is hip. To find it is another matter altogether. For finding it makes one responsible for it. Like finding a stray kitten: once you've seen it you become somehow morally obliged to it. And then you've become one of them, "a cat person." And nobody you know wants to see you coming with that Stray Kitten. Because you will try, they fear, to make it their kitten as well. You will try to make them Cat People. Truth is the same way: God help you if you actually see it, know it, because then you're saddled with it. Better to be vaguely, honorably in search of the Truth. Bill Hicks saw Truth before me or anybody else had a chance to warn him, poor bastard. He turned a gritty corner one day as a young man in Chicago and The Motherfuckin' Truth was on him -not like a stray kitten, but like a full-grown alley cat who has just eaten and still isn't satisfied. He held onto it, this "cat." Made a coat out of it, and wore it to New York; hid his secret heart beneath it and opened it like a curtain onstage; wore it when he tried to find love; had it on when he went down on it all; pretended he'd never seen it before, didn't know whose coat it was, when he married up with a pipe and became angry and tired and disillusioned and full of self-loathing, and doused himself with brandy and lit the fuse, melting that animal spirit deep into his own. He tried to swear it off, but The Truth was on his skin like a rank smell, and he became responsible for its delivery, even when he couldn't live up to its message.
And of course, nobody can live up to it. But for those who live up to the attempt at living up to the truth, there is reserved a special place in heaven. And there are no cats there, smelling up the place. But Miles is there. And Buckminster Fuller and Buster Keaton, Nathanael West, Charlie Parker, Stanley Kubrick, Flannery O'Connor, Preston Sturges, Yasujiro Ozu and Robert Johnson. ("Where's Shopenhauer?" someone asks. That's him at the bar with Roberto Clemente.) And amongst them sits Bill Hicks. And they will sit over cups of fresh coffee, or so I choose to believe, and say, "Damn. Glad that's over."
zaterdag 27 maart 2010
donderdag 25 maart 2010
Prachtig lawaai
Jesu-Dead Eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySJ0cXJGoyYFuck Buttons- Flight Of The Feathered Serpent
Wilco- Spiders (Kidsmoke)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuNP_rFu91I&feature=fvsr (dit lied duurt eigenlijk nog een volle 2 minuten langer, en let aub niet op de clip!)
M83- Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun
Sufjan Stevens- You Are The Blood
Mogwai- Two Rights Make One Wrong
Slint- Washer
Gavin Bryars/Aphex Twin- Raising The Titanic
Sonic Youth- Rain On Tin
Maar Nikolas, heb jij het dan echt zo voor lang uitgesponnen, inherent melodische liedjes die er beter uitkomen als je ze zo luid mogelijk speelt? JA!
Voor al wie nog dergelijke liedjes kent en wilt posten, reageer gerust! Next time we'll do weird hip hop!
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