Meet the Faculty: Baltimore Joe

When I opened the doors of the Lanier Drive Institute of Higher Thinking, I envisioned a blog that wasn't quite like everyone else's. Considering that there are roughly 4 billion blogs out there, I'm sure I'll never achieve the degree of singularity I would like. Still, this was not to become one of those pages where some hack just ranted off into the cyberverse about whatever issue was particularly interesting to him that day. It has been that so far, but it has also been new.

Beginning today, the Institute is launching a monthly series called (as you may have noticed above), "Meet the Faculty." In this case, the "Faculty" just happens to be anyone I find interesting.

First up is Joe "Don't Call Me Blossom's Brother" Lawrence. Joe is known as "OpieGSU" on the Georgia Southern fan message boards, from which he has been banned for being unsociable or revolutionary or a pain in the ass or right about things, depending on who you ask. My exchanges with him through the "comments" section of this blog have been interesting and civil, so he seemed like a perfect person to begin this new segment. This "conversation" was held by email over a span of about ten days and is being presented in two parts.

Next month: who knows? I'm taking volunteers.

SG: I guess this should start out by letting my three faithful readers know that to my knowledge, we have never met. I know you from the Southern Connection message boards and you, I assume, know me from my lengthy stint as Georgia Southern's beat writer for the Statesboro Herald. You work in Baltimore in the legal profession (correct me if I completely crap the bed on my facts) and I now haul the Miller Girls around the Coastal Empire trying to get people to drink more Miller Lite. Good gigs all around.

Something I noticed from your Southern Connection days that really sticks out is your use of Hunter S. Thompson's image in all of your posts. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, '72, but my most lingering impression of Thompson is that he served as the model for the character of Uncle Duke in the Doonsbury strip. In my old blog I called the report of Thompson's suicide an early contender for "the least shocking headline of 2005," but the man had/has this cult of worshippers that make Michael Jackson's fans look like rational human beings. You know, intellectuals, gun nuts and recreational drug users who gladly embrace "gonzo" journalism and read Thompson's apocryphal ramblings like the Dead Sea Scrolls. That is some really fine iconography. What draws you to Thompson?

JPL: There's nothing that I can say that hasn't already been said about Thompson. HST was just the quintessential anti-authoritarian. Mixing guns, gambling, drugs, and booze? What's not to like? It sounds like a Georgia Southern party.

On top of that, he was hilarious. I guess my first exposure to HST was like everybody else, by reading Fear and Loathing, in high school. About the same time, I had a subscription to Rolling Stone, and they would often feature articles from HST. I've read most of his stuff since then, and whether it was his adventures as an American reporter in Puerto Rico in The Rum Diary, or his political/social commentary of Kingdom of Fear, he has just never failed to make me laugh out loud. He had no allegiance to anyone but himself.

HST was one of the last of the genuine rebels of American pop culture. In today's world, even rebellion is processed, packaged, and for sale. Whether it's writing, music, film, it's all been calculated by some weasel in an office with piles market research and consumer data.

Thompson couldn't have been further from that. While much of his "adventures" in his gonzo journalism are clearly over-exaggerations and embellishments, he is so genuine and committed in his writing that one often finds it difficult to tell whether or not he is giving an account from reality or from his own drug-enhanced imagination. Where does the reality become the gonzo and vice versa in other words.

Most kids today would find it hard to believe that a 60+ year writer could ever be as "rebellious" as today's pre-packaged bullshit pop pseudo-punk anarchist. HST would eat Marylin Manson or Fallout Boy alive if he ever had them out to his "compound."

The guy was a sports fan too. He wrote a column on espn.com called, "Hey Rube", toward the end of his life, in which he shamelessly ripped this horrible president we have, while at the same time writing fall down funny accounts of his sports gambling losses.

HST was a man's man, and a unique voice in a sea of recycled ideas.

When do we get to talk about how bad Sam Baker sucks? Hehheh

SG: Keep yer pants on, we'll get to that.

I think it's interesting that you talk about how rebellion is packaged these days. I don't know if you ever saw it, but PBS had an amazing documentary a few years back about how MTV peddles "cool" to the youth demographic—in their case about 13 to 25. It's called The Merchants of Cool, and you can actually watch the program online.

Two things I think are really amazing about this: first, even college-age kids turn towards MTV for a frightening amount of entertainment. I mean, look at that demographic! And 13 might be a lowball number for the lower threshold of MTV's targeting. It's scary to think that 22-year old college seniors are tuning into "The Real O.C." because it appeals to them in the same ways it does to 13-year-olds. Second, with the Internet and viral marketing, some companies are using tools like MySpace and Facebook to create underground movements that aren't really underground.

I wonder what Uncle Duke would have had to say about that!

Isn't it funny how well this documentary holds up, even though it was first made in 1995?

JPL: Yeah, I remember watching that show. (BTW, Frontline has some great in-depth stories, especially on the war. I spend money on a satellite dish with like 1000 channels, and I end up watching PBS half the time. Alannis Morissette would call that irony.)

That particular show depicted exactly the kind of invasive marketing research/data that I'm talking about.

That kind of hardcore, directed psychological manipulation, by large entities like corporations or governments, becomes even more ominous when one considers that we are currently in a war in Iraq that was super-hyped and barely questioned by the same media machine that dictates "cool." You, being a reasonable thinking person, would have to assume that the same types of marketing strategies were used to sell the war to the American people as a whole.

I say all this without pretending that I am somehow above this type of corporate manipulation. Everyone is subject to it unless you are one of the few people in this country who don't own a TV, don't listen to popular music, and/or don't watch popular films. You know, aliens (or certain Manhattan-ites and the Amish).

It's scary.

Fear of being manipulated and brainwashed by these corporate cretins is almost enough to make me not want to watch my TV on a semi-constant basis like I do. Almost.

Being a Doctor of Journalism, man, Raoul Duke, would of course curse these marketing pigs for the swine they are, and then probably go off on a tirade about how you can't trust Samoans either.

Speaking of documentaries, now there's a art form that has enjoyed a creative explosion in our lifetimes. I personally think the reason for that is because we've run out of original ideas as a culture. Very little of the American/western pop culture is original anymore. I mean, if I have to see Hollywood make another sitcom redux movie, or another re-make of a re-make, I think I'll puke. Even most of the ideas in modern writing have been done already, over and over again. And the popular music industry? It died when "American Idol" hit and Fatboy Slim made it cool to be a sellout.

[Below: Fatboy Slim, "Weapon of Choice"]

It's no wonder why more and more of today's filmmakers are turning to reality subjects and documentaries. That's the only original shit out there, and it is, for now, a semi-haven from corporate influence. It's like all of the BIG ideas have been done, so these documentary-makers need to find their art in the ordinary and mundane things, in order to be original. That search interests me.

Now that I just slammed modern writers, what's up with this novel your writing? Are you going to break some new ground?

In all seriousness, writing a novel takes a level of discipline that I do not yet possess. How's the progress, and what's it about, more or less?

SG: Fiction writing has been a labor for me lately—this is one of the reasons I've begun blogging again. It's a kick-start. I haven't been a full-time professional writer in almost two years, and although the skill is like riding a bike, I'm still not going to get up on a half-pipe right away.

My first novel has been a work-in-progress since 2003, based on an idea I originally conceived in 1994. I have notes/outlines for three or four other works, but I'm pretty committed to this first one. First I am writing a play for the Statesboro Arts Center. Paying gig.

As far as finding original ideas, I think the sheer landscape of human thinking has become so big that a unique voice or perspective is more important than a unique idea, since the latter is almost extinct. I disagree that all of pop culture has been compromised, too. After all, we are so schismed as a society that finding a true crossover sensation is really tough. If there are 10 million Americans tuned into "American Idol," that is still just a fraction of the overall population.

But back to original voices for a minute.

When I decided to start blogging again, I really wanted to do something a bit different. Most blogs are mind-numbingly boring or self-absorbed or just ignorant. My old blog was probably not very different in most respects (and this one is just beginning to find a voice). So I thought I'd try a blog where I actively try to engage people in thought. This little "conversation" is a step I hope to repeat regularly with a variety of folks chipping in their opinions. I have some other ideas, too. I just didn't want this to be another page of "some guy bullshitting."

Again, this is just an attempt at a less-staid approach to a concept that can be pretty tiresome, but also fairly brilliant.

The novel, meanwhile, continues to grow in terms of how it writes itself in my brain. Again, I think I've found a unique way to tell a story that may ring somewhat familiar, but with some skill and patience, I should be able to make the story my own. My fiancée is pretty supportive of me continuing a writing career, but for now, beer pays the rent. I don't regret leaving journalism, but I'll never quit being a writer.

(And you'll notice I never gave anyone even a whiff of my novel's plot…)

JPL: Only 10 million watch "American Idol," but many, many more are exposed to its poison. How many times a week has your local news featured some "American Idol" update? You can't escape it. The shit is everywhere. That's not to mention that just about every westernized country now has its own version of "Idol". It's global and pervasive.

We used to have rock stars or jazz musicians or country singers, who bled and sweated out their own songs, paid their dues in a local scene, and as a result refined their styles for a mass audience. That's a long-term prospect.

Now though, thanks to "Idol," popular music has become infested with glorified lounge singers, singing covers, and calling themselves "artists". Never mind that they didn't write the songs, and were coached and packaged from day one to appeal to the widest possible audience. In other words, they appeal to the lowest common denominator.

For me, what makes any art worthy is the level of sincerity that comes through it. As long as it is genuine, and comes from a real place in the artist's heart, then I have a hard time criticizing it. However, the overt commercialization of "art" today, makes any artist's attempt at making a genuine statement completely hollow. It's impossible for you to be truly genuine if you are trying to sell me something.

I'm specifically talking about music here, but I think it holds true for other art forms as well. Selling out used to be the last step for a musician. Now it is the first. For example, how many popular songs over the past few years have gotten their first wide exposure in an ad for cars, trucks, or iPods?

It's just really disturbing that people love to be spoon-fed this pure bullshit.

It's laziness really. Rather than tune into a good college radio station, where you are very likely to hear something you've never heard before, people take the easy way, and tune into some Idol wingnut singing a song that has already been done three times over.

People are so eager and desperate to be led to the trough. It's sad.

That's why I personally try to embrace anything that's different or sub-normal, in order to get away from the constant bombardment of the "cultural salesmen." Weird people and weird things are so much more interesting, for one thing.

SG: Your brush may be a bit too broad, my friend. I think it is disingenuous to blame an artist for mainstream success.

The term "average American" should really put a little more emphasis on the word "average." Like it or not, the broad shoulders of this economy belong to the thoroughly average American, "people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." Thank you, Mel Brooks.

I'm not going to fault Kelly Clarkston or Dianna DeGarmo (who went to my high school, by the way) or William Hung or any other overnight sensation for riding the wave created by the entertainment appetites of a populace of cultural dunces. More power to them. I hope they sleep on cotton candy and shit twenty dollar bills. What they are doing is no less insincere than bluesmen who robbed licks and lyrics from their counterparts or Hall of Fame singers who made their name playing other people's songs. Hell, Elvis did it and the Beatles started out recording a tremendous number of covers. My favorite Nirvana performance is the Meat Puppets "Lake of Fire" or the Leadbelly "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" off the Unplugged in New York CD. Cobain owned those songs and doesn't deserve to be faulted for cribbing off someone else's (musical) notes.

I don't blame the marketers, either, not really. Their job is to make a product that will draw attention to itself, be it TV, music, movie or book. Since an overwhelming number of Americans lack critical thinking skills, they aren't able to differentiate between what is popular because it is good and what is popular because it has been engineered to be popular. Really good art will always find an audience. But it might take a while. So if Mellowdrone sells the rights to "Oh My" to Nissan for a car commercial, that doesn't make the song any less kick-ass. It just means someone associated with the band said "oh hell yeah I'll take a million bucks… I don't care if you use it in the commercial for the Nissan Shitcan." If nothing else, the so-called sellout might let a good band make another good LP.

Likewise, I don't begin hating something just because it attains mainstream popularity. I met Maroon 5 a few years back when they opened in Statesboro for Jennifer Nettles (now of Sugarland fame). Those guys were all right. Live, their music was so tight that I was blown away, and they gave me a free three-song EP before Songs About Jane was ever released. Now there is some degree of M5 overkill thanks to the record companies getting too much airplay for their band (a la Alanis Morrissette), but that doesn't mean I don't like them anymore. If the new CD has good music, I'll like it. If it doesn't, I'll still like the first one.

Which brings up my final point—flash-in-the-pan celebrity will always consume itself. Eventually, even Average America gets bored with Brittany, who is now more famous for being a pantyless slut than for her singing. Other 15 Minutes of Famers have faded so far into obscurity that I can't think of one right now. Even worse, you can end up with the George Reeves effect and never outgrow your initial place in pop culture.

Celebrity isn't exactly something I would wish on someone, so when I think about all the bad music, TV and movies out there, I choose to ridicule the people who consume it, not the ones who make it. I mean, everybody needs a job.

If we are very, very lucky, we get some pop culture guides to lead us and some truly brilliant art to be the cutting edge. Folks like Hunter Thompson, Chuck Klosterman, Bill Simmons, Jon Stewart, the people at The Onion, Terry Gross and hundreds of others are out there to shed some light on the pop culture landscape. If people choose to ignore their guidance, that's their own gig.

Which brings me to a fairly obvious question: what are your guilty pop culture pleasures?

JPL: I don't really blame the artists, the marketers, or the corporations, as much as I blame the stupid American people for eating it up like flies do with shit. Regarding the artists, it all comes down to sincerity. A guy like Cobain could pull off a cover of a Meat Puppets song because he paid his dues, and he does the song with clear reverence for the Puppets. He was committed to that song, and all of his others. They came from his heart. We all know that.

When a kid like Sangina does a cover of a Kinks jam, he's doing it because someone told him that it would make him famous and make him a lot of money. It's a completely different vibe. He's got no affinity for the song, no real respect for it. He doesn't feel it. It's just a vehicle to a mansion on a hill, and crazy amounts of teenage tail, for him. Sure, those perks also come to the genuine artist who is lucky enough to achieve notoriety in his lifetime, but they aren't necessarily his entire motivation. In fact, it didn't seem like Cobain himself ever really wanted those perks at all. Everything that I've read about him seems to suggest that he really struggled with maintaining "sincerity" in his music after all the success had come. In my opinion, that struggle was what drove him to kill himself (along with Courtney and a raging H-bomb habit).

I guess I just like my artists to be starving ones. That, in and of itself, is a cliche though. Remember when Nevermind first broke, and Kurt was on the cover of Rolling Stone with a homemade T-shirt that said, "Corporate Mags Still Suck"? It's all a paradox and it would seem that if you are really good, it is almost impossible not to "sell out" at some point in your career. Like you said, the good stuff usually shines through, even if it is years down the road.

Look, I certainly understand that when you break it down to the individual level, every cog in the machine that is mass media, is an individual person, who is basically just trying to pay the rent and eat.

However, economic motivation while a reality, is not an excuse for selling out. Sell out all you want, just don't claim that you are a pure artist, or anything more than just a mass produced consumer product. Time to quit, I have gone way past the high and might stage. Who am I to talk?

My guilty pleasure of pop culture? The Goo Goo Dolls, Pop Tarts, Playstation2 NCAA 07, The Drudge Report, Letterman, the view, and Regis & Kelly, weed, Sportscenter, The Bad Girls Club, The Star Wars flicks, burgers from Five Guys, Cathouse on HBO, Real Time w/ Bill Maher, NPR's 'Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me', Myth Busters, American Chopper, the Don and Mike Radio show, did I mention weed?

SG: So I definitely have more guilt associated with my guilty pleasures. I completely trump you in the guilt category with films like Smokey and the Bandit, Roadhouse, anything with Godzilla in it (even the awful American version) and Love, Actually (which is a great movie, but I hemorrhage Man Points by mentioning it as one of my favorites). My television guilt is limited: I love "Deal Or No Deal." My literary indiscretions include Conan novels (not just the ones by Robert E. Howard, either) and comic books. Not cutting edge graphic novels, either (although I like those, too). I'm talking about an addiction to The Incredible Hulk and Astonishing X-Men (written by Joss Whedon of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fame). And in music, well, the list is long, but tends to be limited to songs rather than artists. I guess anyone can put lightning in a bottle. I like at least two Kelly Clarkston songs, think Pocket Full of Kryptonite by the Spin Doctors has at least four really, really good songs on it and I actually once owned Dokken's Dream Warriors on vinyl. Yes, the title song of the album is also the title song from Nightmare On Elm Street III. Thankfully, I now admit Dokken was shit. I'm sure there's plenty more on my iPod that would make more eclectic audiophiles cringe, but I'm not divulging that right here right now.

JPL: God lord, Deal or no Deal?! You should be ashamed. Heheh.

I love Smokey and the Bandit, but no guilt there.... "East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'. We gonna do what they say can't be done." The scenes with Jerry Reed are my faves. And Sally Field was never hotter than she was in those movies.

OK, I just admitted that I sometimes watch The View and Regis and Kelly... can we hurry up and talk some football?

We will shift gears to sports, beginning later this week or early next week.