Why I Hate The Blues

I admit it. I am not a fan of The Blues. I mean seriously, does B.B. King really look like he has, “The Blues” right here?

Rich People Blues

 I just find it hard to believe that someone adorned in gold rings, a crushed velvet suit and a $10,000.00 guitar with gold plated pickups has “The Blues.” What could you possibly have the The Blues about that others can relate to?

· The Penthouse Suite was Already Booked Blues

· The I Couldn’t Get a Dinner Reservation So I’m on the Waiting List Blues

· The My Other Limo is in the Shop Blues

· The I’m Sorry But All I have is Hundreds, Can You Break it Blues

And I don’t care if Blues is the basis for Rock music. I hate it when people say, “Well everyone should like The Blues because it forms the foundation for rock music.”

 I like beer but by that logic I’m not gonna run around ingesting raw barley and hops just because it’s the basis for all beer.

 I don’t wanna hear about heartache and loss coming from people who fly first class and buy private planes and shopping centers for fun.

Poor People Blues

 I don’t wanna hear blues from rich people, and frankly, I don’t wanna hear it from poor people either. If you thought you were gonna make a fortune in music and solve all your problems, then you should’ve stayed in school.  Making money in music is a longshot on the level of winning the lottery. You wanna solve your problems? Sell your guitar, buy a suit and get a job.

White Guy Suburb Blues

 Some people may say there’s lots of talented local blues musicians, but frankly, your buddy from work who drives a Prius, rents a house and has DirectTV and who's band plays the local Yorgurtini on Saturday’s is not my idea of, “The Blues"

The British Invasion

 Just for the record, a bunch of frilly pretty boy middle class Englishmen who thought they were blues just because they owned a Muddy Waters album, is not blues either.

PS: The Moody Blues (pictured above) is not Blues either. 

                                       The Blues Brothers

 Rich white comedians are not blues. Although the fact that John Belushi was fat, and on heroin and died of an overdose IS kind of Bluesy

In Conclusion

The Blues is a dead art form. It is inherently bland and so minimalistic that it is incapable of evolving. The same chord progression and the same scale done hundreds of thousands of times for decades, ad nauseam.

 Rock music remains the superior genre because it is able to grow and evolve in radically ever changing ways that their dinosaur blues men counterparts could never dream of.

A life forever bound to the same chord progressions and scales?

Now there’s a thought to truly give one, “The Blues.”

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Make Your Own Kind of Music

Make Your Own Kind of Music

There's no way to describe what I do. Its just me. - Andy Kaufman

Andy was an absolute original. An uncompromised artist who marched through his short, strange life to the beat of a very different drummer. - Marilu Henner

   Andy Kaufman is one of my heroes. I'm old enough to remember him on Taxi when the show was on TV for reals and not on re-runs. I remember his foray into pro wrestling but it wasn't until my late teens that I really got a sense of what he was really about. That's what I want to talk about today.

   The Midnight Special was a pretty big show back in the day. If you remember NBC's Friday Night Videos, this was its predecessor. You would think that not knowing if you're ever gonna get another shot on national television you would want to come out swinging with your best material, but I love how he just uses the opportunity to sing, "I Trusted You!" for almost 4 minutes. That takes balls as big as church bells.  

   The kind of people I like to be around are intelligent, creative, highly original and unique in the way they live/think/act/whatever, and not afraid to show it.



I never told a joke in my life - Andy Kaufman

  I don't like being around people who feel the need to conform to whatever the average consumer is into. People who buy whatever television and top 40 radio tells them to. People who are afraid to stand out. Afraid to rock the boat.

  People who read whatever Oprah Winfrey tells them to. People whose idea of going out for Chinese food is Panda Express. People who go to the mall to buy anything. People who call radio stations to make requests. People who watch movies only because it has cool cars, guns or explosions in it. 

Ok, I've alienated enough people, you get the idea, haha.



  I just don't understand the need to conform, to be like everyone else. Its a completely foreign idea to me. I mean when you put your happiness in other people's hands, when that person leaves so does your happiness.

  I've been different ever since I was born. I'm a first generation Mexican-American but I can barely speak Spanish.  Too white for the mexicans, to mexican for the whites. Not a whole lot of us out in the upper middle class suburbs of the 70's and 80's, and definitely not alot of us in the private catholic schools we went to. 



   

   They let me know immediately that I was different from everyone else. I remember my first day there when the Principal decided that from now on I will be called Joe, instead of Jose because that would be easier for the other kids. These Irish nuns were not in the business of turning kids into Creative, free-thinking, original, people who question authority, religion and governments. But instead of desperately trying to fit the suit, and be like everyone else and conform, I chose to stand alone, and be proud of who I am. "Yeah I may be different and a bit weird, but thats me, take it or leave it and at least its a lot more real than the trip I see you on."

Ok I'm done writing now, and since I don't know how to end this nice and neatly, I'm just gonna go now. 





When Hunter S. Thompson ran for Sherrif of Aspen, Colorado he purposely shaved his head just so he could call the opposing candidate, "My Long Haired Opponent."