Archive for April, 2022

Getting Farther Out Everyday

Saturday, April 30th, 2022

I have less than a month left of high school.

Last week was technically the last ‘normal’ week of classes before AP and state testing wreck havoc across the land. For me, it was the busiest week of my high school career. I had my final Model UN conference, which ended with a joke motion to “get rid of Ohio (via bulldozer boats)” (don’t ask). Guess I won’t be off to Kent State in August, for it had to be sacrificed to save America from the rapidly expanding, parasitic Buckeye State. On other days of the week, I found myself in parts of my school I had never seen in my entire four years of attendance there. The secret agent lurking inside of me adored that, though I still question why my school doesn’t use its perfectly preserved time capsule pool for more than the swim team and physics class boat races, or why I didn’t know they have a room full of iMacs.

All that aside, it gives me mixed emotions to know that the public school system I’ve been tethered to for the last twelve years will be soon be behind me.

It’s even odder placing my role as a freethinking high schooler in the context of our current culture. More and more attacks on critical thinking have been entering schools across the country thanks to concerned parents who would prefer their children remain ignorant to history and the world at large. Reading about book bans and threats towards teachers who teach the truth is disheartening and, frankly, terrifying. It’s a shame that we as humans, instead of encouraging nuance and intelligent analysis, have allowed for those actively promoting ignorance to have an increasingly large platform. Society is being rapidly dumbed down at the hands of these types, the ones who let their favorite political pundits and reality show stars—what’s the difference nowadays?—determine their every opinion instead of stopping to think about what they are consuming. They may be puppets, but they have power.

We live in a world of ever-increasing absurdity, plain and simple, and humans are basically just strange little animals trapped in an overcrowded cage. They do weird things and can seem very kind one moment and then be seen brutally mauling each other the next. Recognizing these truths is the only way to see the world for what it is. And when logical thought and critical thinking are placed at the forefront of this observation and emotions don’t blind us, work can be done and change can be made for the better—for all of us. When education devalues these qualities and promotes homogeny and close-mindedness in their place, you are learning nothing but a lie.

I’m genuinely grateful that I was able to receive a quality education throughout my high school career. And I’m miffed that the things that made those four years so valuable to me—the discussions I’ve had in my English and social studies classes, the documentaries I’ve watched and dissections I’ve done in anatomy class, the support I’ve received from my teachers—are being disparaged across the country. But then again, people still think that the Kent students protesting the Vietnam War on that crisp spring day in 1970—the anniversary of which is coming up rapidly—were the true agitators when the National Guard came to town. And that’s not stopping me any time soon.

As I enter the next phase of my life, I will continue to seek the truth.

Sunday, April 24th, 2022

Brain drain.

I let my lava lamp on for the whole length of a movie last night and all it did was form some sort of brain mushroom cloud.

FEATURE EXCLUSIVE: 1450 Days (And 48 Years) After The End

Saturday, April 23rd, 2022

As you have heard me say on this blog too many times already to count, DEVO holds a continuously relevant presence in our society whether you want it to or not. And while the majority of the world still sees them as just some harmless, kooky one-hit-wonder from the 80s, their philosophy runs much deeper and darker than wiggly lines and bright colors suggest, and it dates back to the seediest early seventies basements of Kent, Ohio, places where new wave sheen would never dare to shine. DEVO were in the trenches, residents of Ground Zero, witnesses to de-evolution in action.

It just so happens that their second ever public musical communication of their de-evolutionary theory happened 48 years ago today. (Can you believe it’ll be 50 years since their first show next year?) As a partial live recording of the concert surfaced last year, current de-evolutionary scholars have a better idea than ever of what that early gestational period was like before Akron catalyzed DEVO’s big break, overshadowing Kent’s undeniable birth of the band.

One such scholar, my good friend and collaborator Max Devo (AKA Zhir Vengersky) has summed up the events in a brilliant little essay he wished to have me expose to the world. I was more than willing to handle the job. I’ll stop my spiel now and turn the microphone to him.

Read on below:

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Friday, April 22nd, 2022

Mold is people, too.

I Want My EmpTV

Thursday, April 21st, 2022

Somehow, in this media hypersaturated world, I’ve been feeling like I should watch more television. It’s the end of the academic year, and I constantly find myself in a weird limbo between feeling overloaded with home stretch work and having absolutely nothing to do. This limbo usually fluctuates within hours multiple times every day. And when my schedule creates a void, I need something to fill it. (I guess my time management skills are too good.) My teenage years made me into a movie watcher as I subconsciously rejected the cartoons of my childhood. But as someone who loathes dismembering a movie that was intended to be watched in one sitting, finding the time to fully digest one is sometimes tricky. TV can provide a similar experience in a (usually) shorter time frame, making it easier to work into a night. And, when done right, it can be the medium for incredible and moving works.

Not that everyone is “doing it right.”

The internet alerted me yesterday to the fact that horribly corrupt anti-democracy politician Rudy Giuliani made an appearance on a show called The Masked Singer. (It had apparently first leaked a while ago, but it somehow it didn’t appear on my radar back then, or maybe the news cycle moves way too fast for anyone to keep up in today’s world.) The first thing that popped into my mind upon learning this oh so crucial piece of information was this: Again? It was only a few months ago that that show, which I have never watched, made similar headlines for having Sarah Palin on as a fluffy singing bear or something, which had made me want to slam my head into a wall. Why?

Well, I think I’ve figured out why. Prior to those two media meltdowns, the only times I had to deal with The Masked Singer‘s existence was my DEVO fan friends cringing at some video game streamer bro singing “Whip It” on there, because their cultural assimilation continues to be amusing. Otherwise, I would have been blissfully unaware of anything regarding the show except maybe seeing a commercial once or twice when I wasn’t paying attention.

But The Masked Singer has cracked a code: Putting high profile, morally reprehensible people on your ditzy TV show gets headlines and, in turn, free promotion. Your content can be the most useless dribble in existence, but you can glue a controversial face onto it and the world cannot refuse to ignore it. Does the show in question bring anything new to the table? No. To, appropriately, apply an one-off DEVO catchphrase to a wider scale, people have been wanting their EmpTV for a long time. They like their charming C-list celebrities and cheesy old songs (which, in Rudy’s case, was the most tainted rendition of “Bad To The Bone” possible, which I don’t think even the guys from DEVO could have made up). Is there any reason to pay attention to it other than its promotion of some hideous politicians (and Jenny McCarthy)? Not anything meritable. Did it even matter that the rude-y episode actually hit a low point in viewers despite its shock value? Considering that I’m also seeing articles from the same publications about their epic fail, probably not. Any attention is good attention, and effort that could have gone into reporting about something not mindlessly idiotic and crass was forced to divert itself. It goes to show how cynical our modern world and media cycle is when you have to promote some of the world’s most undesirable people to get the share of the floor that you crave. It’s nice to call yourself “relevant,” even when you’re exploiting political starpower and uplifting people who only seek to slam the boot down on the little guy. And when cute little grandpa Rudy wanting to make a good impression on his granddaughter—he has kids?—comes off as harmless, it’s all the easier. It may have gone slightly awry this time, but maybe it won’t the next. Think of the people who viewed Joe Exotic as some sort of kitsch god after Tiger King gripped us in the early days of the pandemic, or Dubya Bush trying his best to fill in for Bob Ross. The media is manipulative; it just depends on what angle you’re viewing it from.

There’s plenty of shows out there that are actually worth sitting through, and we’re the ones who choose what we watch. Can we change the channel already?

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Monday, April 18th, 2022

https://www.geraldvcasale.com/pages/the-first-devo-concert

Gerald V. Casale wants U to know your history!

Happy 49 years, DEV-O.

Monday, April 18th, 2022

I updated the DEVO web archival site me and a friend started years ago for the first time since literally last summer. Just as a reminder that it exists.

Woe Is Me

Sunday, April 17th, 2022

Funny that I’m spending the first year anniversary of getting my COVID vaccine slightly under the weather (though I tested negative). Spin some Jihad Jerry for me, please…

Sunday, April 17th, 2022

I wish I was in my “Sunday best” for Easter, but I’m sick. So here’s a chick I bumped into last week doing what I wish I was doing to make up for it.

One Year Of Transmissions From The Battlefield

Sunday, April 10th, 2022

Time really flies.

I made my first post on this very blog one year ago. The idea of having my own blog had been floating around in my brain for a while at that point, and I had finally bit the bullet. It felt liberating to have my own corner of the internet, my own .com not tethered to any conglomerous online entity (though I eventually cloned my blog on Tumblr out of an unconditional adoration of the platform despite its faults). That feeling still remains.

When I blog, I’m a top secret agent logging my perspective on the world—that’s pretty much why I started blogging in the first place. No one was going to document those thoughts and opinions other than myself, and being able to do so lets me be free. Here and on Tumblr, I’m unaffected by character limits or “threads.” I don’t have to sloganize everything I say or strip my thoughts of their context or depth. I don’t have to dumb myself down. It’s my way of being independent as I await the promised land of O-Hi-O for college, and I know that what I’ll be up to over in those parts will be supplying me with plenty of fuel for my typey-typey. It brings me a lot of satisfaction to put my thoughts out into the world, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Viva la blogosphere. (Whatever that is.)

P.S.: You may notice that things have been looking a little different around here. I’m not not still “in the red,” so to speak, with how I see the world. But with all the chaos—and that’s somehow the best kind of chaos—coming up in my life, I guess I’ve been needing some time to chill out. Out of the red, into the blue?