I've been reading Greil Marcus again, which is never a great thing for my thought patterns. The man is one of my true heros, but his idiosyncratic, all-encompassing ways of thinking are infectious, especially for someone who harbors fantasies of writing the new version of "Mystery Train". (The fact that I just recieved a hardcover copy of his most recent book, "The Shape of Things To Come" from amazon for 5 bucks suggests that I'm once again failing to look at the economic angle of things in this ambition). But, having just finished reading "Double Trouble", which collects Marcus' articles of the 1990s, I'm now begining to think way too much like Marcus. I was watching Gojira (the original Japanese version of Godzilla, and a damn fine film, if you haven't seen it- I promise it's way better than you think) I began thinking of the relationship between our favorite giant lizard monster and Elvis Presley. The timing nearly works perfectly- mid 1950s. Both figures started out revolutionary and legitimately "artistic" (whatever that might mean given our subject) but during the 60s and 70s both were softened and declawed and made safe. I'm pretty sure normal people don't think this way. Then, when Bonds hit number 756, I started thinking about Godzilla again, and Elvis, and how Bonds was like both in weird, more or less meaningless ways. I think this is the kind of thing that gets worse before it gets better. You have to go through to get out.
Right now I'm listeing to a lot of Gram Parsons and Graham Parker and the Byrds and Sonic Youth. I'm trying to write something that sums up all of the ideas about Elvis that have been kicking around in my skull for two or three years. I'm still looking for some kind of proper job (or at least something that looks enough like one to avoid the real thing). I'm planning on buying a Wii on Friday. I'm cautiously optimistic that the Braves series with the evil Mets will continue to go well. I'm in slight shock that last night, when I was flipping through channels during the commerical break for a rerun of Law & Order SVU I heard an Aesop Rock song (Food, Clothes, Medicine) on an episode of Dog: The Bounty Hunter, of all fucking things. I spent the weekend re-watching the last two seasons of Arrested Development for the Jagger only knows how many times. I'm reading rock criticism and Nabokov. Everything is different and nothing is different. Like Roger Clyne sang, I don't need a miracle, but I could use a push in the right direction. Or maybe not that drastic. Things have often been much worse, just more clear. When the music is this good, who really cares? And when you can convince yourself the most pressing issue is whch game or games you're gonna buy on Friday for your new system, and Gram Parsons is singing "She", things are good in a wicked and weird sort of way. A friend of mine told me today that what I really need to be doing is writing my first novel right now, and you know what? She just might be right. I might even have an idea for it, even better than my bizaare conviction that what the world really needs is a screenplay inspired by Boogie Nights about the creation of Pong and the formation of Atari.
Waiting for the gift of sound and vision, I abide.
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