The sameness of contemporary country music

Forget what I said several years ago about liking country music. I finally persuaded E-girl to listen to it on the radio yesterday during a long car ride. We both agreed:

IT ALL SOUNDED THE SAME.

All male singers. Nearly the same melody.  And the same topics:

• trucks and/or Chevys
• pretty girls with jean shorts (sun tans/smiles, etc.)
• drinking cold beer/partying
• a disdain for cell phones (3 out of 5 songs) and foreign cars (2 out of 5 songs)

Everything was cheerful. No angst allowed.

"Make it stop!" E-girl said after the fifth song, putting her hands over her ears. "I can't tell them apart."

Their voices sounded like they like to pop a cold beer now and then--not like they sit at a bar all night downing whiskey and smoking endless cigarettes. They were more akin to pop singers than to Johnny Cash.

Tom Petty has criticized contemporary country music as sounding like "bad rock with fiddle." I actually didn't hear any fiddles or banjos yesterday. It really could have just been generic rock music, the only difference being, instead of complaining about a breakup or sexual frustration (or the usual narcissistic urges of rock music), these songs celebrated the simple pleasures of a rural life and the possibility of seeing/being with a beautiful "girl."

What I liked earlier about country music is that it celebrated monogamy--something rock music isn't too strong on. But now it seems heavily imbued with an almost anxious nostalgia for a rural/idyllic life that hardly exists. A lot of under-65 year-old rural people aren't working on the farm--they are more likely to be sitting in front of a computer all day than behind a forklift. They drive their trucks (or, more likely, SUVs) to a metro area to earn their pay.

The best critique of the sameness of contemporary country music comes in this mashup published by "Cowboy Dave" earlier this year. (I think I heard at least two of these songs yesterday--but maybe not.) Enjoy?

Two recent electronic pieces on The Great Gatsby

 Like everyone else my age, I read The Great Gatsby in high school and thought, at the time, that it was OK. It took many years, and much more reading on my part, to realize how brilliant it is. (Maybe it's hard to appreciate genius until you've otherwise read a lot of crap—and it's hard to love a book you're required to read.)

A Studio 360 podcast I listened to a few weeks ago (originally broadcast last November) perked up my interest in Gatsby again:  American Icons: The Great Gatsby. An hour well spent.

This morning, CBS Sunday Morning did a segment, The end of an era for the "Gatsby house", about the demolition this weekend of the house on Long Island that inspired Fitzgerald's story. The segment offers just the right splash of clips from the Gatsby movie (thankfully no glimpse of Daisy/Mia Farrow), a little narration from the book, and archival photos of the house in its former glory.

Women, rock?

Alternative music radio station WTMD-FM recently sponsored a pledge-drive, week-long marathon of The Top 500 Desert Island Songs of All Time. (Listeners were asked to submit the five songs they'd want on a desert island, and the radio station compiled them into a play list).

I was surprised that, in the Top Ten, there's not a single woman (unless you count The Talking Heads' Tina Weymouth, who may or may not be singing background vocals).

In the top 50, the only female solo is Etta James doing "At Last." In the top 100, there are only four female soloists/women-fronted bands: James, Brandi Carlile, Adele, and Joni Mitchell—singing "A Case of You" which is one of my least favorite JM songs. (There's also a John Prine/Bonnie Raitt duet of "Angel From Montgomery").

I can understand why there is no Lady Gaga, but how can there be no Aretha Franklin in these 500 songs? (Even Madonna made it in at no. 404, with "Live to Tell").

With the station's past theme marathons, like the 897 Greatest Albums of All Time and 897 Greatest Artists Countdown ), you expect the old standbys—Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd—to be in the top 20. But wouldn't you miss female voices on a desert island?

When I see lists like this, I get a little depressed. It seems like women have been singing their hearts out all these years, but no one is listening.

AVSM Flashback: Birke R. Duncan

 AVSM Flashback is a new and occasional feature in which I'll reconnect with the people who once appeared in the pages of my publication, a very small magazine.


During my self-appointed tenure as a small magazine publisher, I came to dread the once-a-week task of opening  the submissions that were sent me. Most were tedious, poorly written prose and poems that weren’t worth my time or even the amount of postage used to send them.

So it was with delight when I opened an envelope and found quirky gems like Birke R. Duncan’s “Passage of a Moudlyn,” a short, humorous essay in which the narrator pays tribute to his comrade and cousin, Norman Henry Moudlyn. I happily printed it in a very small magazine, issue 18, in 1992.

The last issue of the magazine was published in 1997 and I lost contact with most of my contributors over the years. Then, a year or so ago, Duncan wrote me out of the blue and asked for permission to convert the Moudlyn story into a radio play. I was charmed that he would even ask, since the magazine no longer existed. Since then, “Monty Moudlyn: Founder of the Hug Brigade” has played on select public radio stations across the country. [I am pleased that the back of its CD cover states: “Based on the stories published in A Very Small Magazine, The Ecphorizer, and www.ecphorizer.com.”]

I asked him Duncan recently about how he found AVSM, how he supports his writing habits, and what else he has in the works.

Birke R. Duncan

Do you write for a living or do something else?
I sell suits for a living. One shop was so dysfunctional that it has formed the basis of a stage play, "Wolfsbane in Mocha," which I'll produce locally this summer. I advise all aspiring writers to get a job they hate, because all fiction arises from conflict.

How did you find AVSM?
I found AVSM in the "Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses."

What prompted you to write "Passage of a Moudlyn"?
It was in a creative writing class in the winter of 1989. The professor was a novelist named David Shields. He told us to write a funeral eulogy. At first, I started writing something serious, but then went for humor. The main character was based on an eccentric friend.

How did you go about turning it into a radio play?
At the time, I had spent several months producing the complicated thriller, "Riders of the Three-Toed Horse." It had bogged down in tedious sound effects mixing. I did "Monty Moudlyn" to give myself a break. A friend has a studio in his sound-proofed basement. We concocted most of the sound effects ourselves.

How did you distribute to radio stations (or get word out about it)?
I looked up audiotheater.com , which has a mostly outdated list of radio troupes. I then emailed the groups, to see if they'd like to hear the CD.

How many stations have played it so far? So far, to my knowledge, two stations have aired it: WFHB "Fire House Theater" in Bloomington, IN, and KUNM "Albuquereque Radio Theater" in New Mexico. Writer/director/host Fred Greenhalgh says he will air "Monty Moudlyn" some day on WMPG "Radio Drama Revival."

Have you made other radio plays or non-print creations?
"Monty Moudlyn" was my penultimate radio drama. The last was "Union of the Snake." A short film version of two other Monty stories goes into production in March.

XM-ed

When I was growing up, public radio was a lifeline to a world beyond the confines of my little town. When the NPR correspondents were in NYC or California, I was there, too, not stuck in my room worrying about cruel high school hallways. It helped diminish my adolescent loneliness.

So it pains me to admit that I've hardly listened to NPR for the last six months. That's because we bought a new car and got a gratis subscription to XM (which we extended for three months). It wasn't only free XM that hastened my temporary departure from NPR. My local NPR stations in D.C. are mostly either talk (i.e., politics) or classical music during the week.

But I crave narrative, not just people talking about the present moment or the current political scene.

And I got that on XM (ironically, of course, on their public radio stations, particularly PRX). Each drive offered me a delicious torrent of voices describing lives full of beauty and confusion and fear and joy, with stories so compelling I often wished for heavy traffic to delay my arrival. I especially enjoyed being surprised by shows I wouldn't have known to seek out otherwise—like Nate DiMeo's Radio Palace (particularly his The Brothers Booth).

Now, alas, my trial is up. Being the frugal person I am, I can't justify spending $160/year for radio when we have four public radio stations in the area. But the real reason I let the subscription expire is...Radio Disney. When my tween-aged daughter was in the car, that's all she wanted to listen to—an experience I have described as "purgatory on wheels."

The future of books

• NPR's "On the Media" devoted a full hour to the future of books and publishing in its July 2nd show, Book It. (This is an updated re-broadcast of a previous show.) The broadcast includes an interview with Neil Gaiman on what authors in the future will have to do to make money. According to this show, formats like the iPad or the iPhone will be how books will be delivered in the future. Drat!

• On the Media's information page for this show includes a link to a 2008 New York magazine article, The End, which is on the end and/or the transformation of the publishing business.

• Realizing this was becoming one of my Links posts, I googled "future of the book" and found:

• The Institute for the Future of the Book (IFB seeks to chronicle the shift from print to screen, and "impact its development in a positive direction.")
• The Future of the Book - A Wired magazine article (from 1996!)
  
• Since links have a tendency to die, you can see other articles and web sites for yourself via my Google search for "future of the book"
• Finally, ironically, my Google search brought up the page, The Googlization of Everything, a page created by writer Siva Vaidhyanathan, who is working in collaboration with IFB.
  

Memorable endings on TV

Since the "Lost" finale, I've been thinking about memorable TV show finales. Apparently I'm not alone. I googled "memorable TV show endings" and found links to lots of critics and bloggers weighing in on the same topic.

The freshest commentary on memorable endings that I found was on the NPR "Day to Day" web site and its related blog—that's probably because the show ends today and for the last few days they've been discussing endings there. One segment, A Critic's Favorite Final Episodes, discusses three memorable endings: from "Six Feet Under," "The Sopranos," and "Seinfeld." A related blog post, Final Episodes by Jason DeRose, provides footage to the last moments of the shows discussed. Again, "Six Feet Under" is listed among the favorites.

I also would list "Six Feet Under" among my favorite TV show endings—those brilliant last six minutes helped me forgive the screenwriters for the preposterous/maudlin storylines from its last two seasons. (However, if you watch it via the link above, you're probably not going to find it very affecting unless you've watched the show and are familiar with the characters and the fact that each one of the 63 shows in the series began with a death). After I saw it the first time, I rewound it and watched it over and over—the daughter driving through the California desert while each of the main characters lives' are summed up in moments of film was wrenchingly beautiful to me.

I applaud those writers/screenwriters who can create an ending that's innovative, especially when it offers a fitting conclusion and isn't just there to shock or dismay its viewers. Among the latter, I'd include "Twin Peaks," when Agent Cooper becomes Bob; the "Colbys," where Fallon is stranded on a highway and abducted by aliens; and "The Prisoner," where he lifts a mask off a man's face to find himself, and then he drives away... unless he's driving towards the same fate over and over.

In the fresh, creatively appropriate category I'd include "Seinfeld," "St. Elsewhere," and "Newhart" (which I admit I never watched except for those much-acclaimed last few minutes).

Of course, perhaps my list would be longer if I had premium cable—I've never watched "The Sopranos" and am currently, slowly making my way through "The Wire" on DVD via Netflix—and if I watched any kind of TV on a regular basis.

In a future post, I hope to look at both cliched and memorable endings—and beginnings—of fictional works.

Dear Garrison Keillor

Dear Garrison Keillor,

Please hire new writers for Prairie Home Companion and let them breathe new life into it.

PHC is starting to feel like the wheezy old relative you dread to see coming up the walkway because he rattles on with the same spittle-infested stories every week or makes even new events sound moldy.

I never found Guy Noir charming, but I tolerated it for the first couple of seasons, figuring you’d run the gamut with it and be done. But it was introduced in 1995 and it's still on most weeks. Assuming that Guy Noir is at least partially your alter-ego, it’s depressing and awkward to hear him try to hook up with women in his role as a mediocre detective. I know it's a parody of old radio-hour detective shows, nevertheless, it feels a little—I hate to say it—Woody Allen-ish.

As for Life of the Cowboys—I continue to think the whole premise of early American cowboys juxtaposed into modern times is clever, and I wouldn’t mind hearing it occasionally as something you could revive for special occasions. But not every week, please.

There are a thousand other stories and characters that you all could be presenting instead of Guy Noir or the cowboys. Why not have a contest and let young playwrights submit their short radio plays for your ensemble to perform—do a new one every week and have listeners vote on their favorite at the end of the year. Present the winning playwright with an award during the last show of the year and/or give them a one-year writing gig or internship at PHC. Or, at least, solicit ideas for new characters or new skits from your listeners.

Also consider letting writers from a publication like The Onion contribute something once a month or even weekly—something weird and new, presented in under three minutes. Let people submit tall tales or real life stories on tape and fly in the best people to sit there and perform them—once a year or once a month.

While you’re at it, stop relying so much on sound effects to fill the time. Your sound effects people are very talented at what they do. It’s just that they shouldn’t be doing it so much of the time, or they should be doing it in the background, to add depth to the performances.

Even if you did nothing else but your brilliant,  suddenly inspired "News from Lake Wobegon" in each show, it would be enough of a contribution to any PHC. The problem is that I have usually turned the radio off these days before you get there. I miss it.

Sincerely, 

Your past and future fan, Beth Blevins

I am now officially un-cool

I have a confession to make, and since I’m not Catholic, I might as well make it in the confession-booth-like confines of this blog posting.

Lately, I’ve been listening to Country and Western music in my car.

This is quite a confession, coming from someone who grew up listening to rock, went to punk and new wave concerts in college [yes, that's me in the pic at the right, at my most decadent], and who used to consider herself cool. But I don’t like most music that’s available on the radio in the D.C. metro area (Hip Hop, overproduced R&B, tired classic rock or meaningless pop hits). The one alternative station I can receive goes out of range three miles away from my house (and it plays the Grateful Dead too much, for my taste). I like the Classical station but not for short drives since I can never get in an entire symphonic movement. So, on short drives, when NPR is playing “Car Talk” or some other show I’m not wild about, my finger reaches for the C&W button.

As I drive from errand to errand in my minivan, I wonder why I’ve gravitated to C&W, not sure if it’s a familiar trajectory, from disenfranchised youth to middle-aged suburbanite, raging hormones to stable sentimentality (if rock music is all about sexual love, then much of current C&W music is about the responsible aftermath, or what I call “love with a mortgage”). But I tell myself it’s my writer’s curiosity, that C&W songs tell stories. And sometimes I like even the most treacle-y songs because I like trying to predict the outcome.

When I first heard the song, You Can Let Go by Crystal Shawanda, I was able to predict the third verse while still listening to the first. “The dad’s going to die in the end!” I announced to my disinterested teenage son. “She’s going to tell him to let go on his deathbed.” Even though I called it correctly, I choked up at the end. In fact, I still have to turn the station if that song comes on now.

But I’m not entirely devoid of cynicism. My son and I sometimes play a game in the car where we take a predictable C&W song and turn it into something ridiculous or jaded. Thus, the Brad Paisley song, When I Get Where I'm Going ("When I get where I'm going/on the far side of the sky./The first thing that I'm gonna do/Is spread my wings and fly") inspired us to spontaneously sing: “You know that when I die/I’m going to go into the ground/My body will putrify/But my bones will stick around...”).

Maybe C&W needs a droll/playful sub-set or a fusion with some other, less optimistic genre, but I'm not sure it's going to happen anytime soon—and I'm not even sure I'd tune into it in the car if it does. Maybe the thing I most appreciate about C&W is its earnestness, how (like me, these days) it doesn't really try to be hip.

Do writers need an MFA to get published?

On Fresh Air yesterday, Terry Gross interviewed James Franco, whom I remember as the good-looking stoner on Freaks and Geeks. Franco, it turns out, is pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia.

Gross asked him why he is going to school to learn to write. Franco answered:

"I felt that if I wanted to be serious about writing I should be around other writers. There's a romantic notion, like, uh, 'well if you want to be a writer just write.' But I don't know if this is true, but I had a professor at UCLA who just wrote a book on this very thing. And I think it turns out—I could be wrong—but I think 90 percent of fiction authors that are being published today went through MFA programs."

This gave me pause—enough to look up the podcast and transcribe the passage above. I have no intention of pursuing another graduate degree, mostly for reasons of time and money, but also because I don't want to go through the trauma of taking the GRE again. (It turns out your GRE scores are only good for 10 years; just thinking about taking another long, standardized test makes my palms sweaty).

I wasn't sure how to test this premise—most published fiction writers do not put "MFA" after their names. But, of course, it turns out, other blogs and web sites have addressed this issue so I don't have to do any original research here. 

I googled: (do fiction writers need an mfa?) [without quotes] just now and found the following answers*:

• Everywritersresource.com - Should I get an MFA in Creative Writing? The Good, Bad and Ugly. The answer is "maybe," but only if you write literary fiction.

• afterthemfa.com - A short post says: You don't need no stinkin' MFA, which links to a web site devoted to this idea, http://www.youdontneednomfa.org (Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since Feb. 2007).

• A link to a book listed on Amazon, Portable MFA in Creative Writing, which purports to offer the "core knowledge of a prestigious $50,000 MFA program without paying tuition."

Most of the other hits, especially on the following windows, seemed to be links to specific MFA programs. So I tried a new search question,  (do fiction writers need an MFA to get published?) This brought up such titles as: 

• I Say "Phooey!" to the MFA in Writing: Let's Write Our Hearts Out Instead (from associatedcontent.com)

• The importance of MFA creative writing programs for writers (from helium.com)

• How to make a living writing short fiction (idea) (from everything2.com)

What's depressing is that many of the articles that weren't links to MFA programs were found on non-paying, freelance-written web sites, or posted as questions on user-driven forums like Yahoo! Answers.

So, based on this short Internet survey, whether you have an MFA or not, it looks like the chance of your being a struggling, unpaid writer are still very good.

* I know Google isn't AskJeeves, but plugging in random questions is sometimes a cool way to discover new web sites—I'd never seen any of these web sites before now.