Saturday, February 10, 2007

• John Cougar Sellencamp

Response to a friend's indignation over John Cougar Sellencamp's "This Is Our Country" use in Chevy commercials:

The corporations have captured the arts and the rest if us as well. When Andy Warhol immortalized the Campbell's Soup can (one of the most basic food stocks in the market), he inititated an elevation of the simple everyday object as something iconic (today we have Paris Hilton), and we bought it. Maybe out of familiarity, recognition or comfort. Maybe because artistically it offered no challenge at all and therefore became palatable to a lazy culture. Maybe we revere Campbell's' decades of dominance over every other soup company that has tried to market a tomato soup. We just like success. It reflected us in the most simple of ways and was aesthetically as easy to love as condensed soup is to heat up in the microwave. Either that, or Warhol recognized that this was already happening to our declining art culture, and he simply and with genius expressed it through lithography.

And now all art is a Campbell's soup can. It had better be, or it won't get seen or heard or published. What on earth is The Surreal Life or American Idol or The Apprentice or Rob & Amber: Against the Odds or any of the hyper-edited reality tv shows? It's about money, marketing to a mass, finding a lowest common denominator. What we have to decide, as artists, is: what money is good and what money is bad, or does it matter all? Is Clay Akin's money from 2005 any better or worse than Bob Dylan's from 1968? Is an idea of "artistic integrity" something to be admired or something to be scoffed at as the prattling nonsense of bitter, dying poor people who used it as an excuse for why they never made money selling their songs or paintings or poetry. If we can put integrity out to pasture, then absolutely every aspect of life will get easier to accept. Maybe one can take "bad money" and make it "good?" Can one earn "good money" for themselves while being part of a campaign that helps a conglomerate earn "bad money?"

I read an article in Rolling Stone featuring the rationalizations of bands that sell their music for commercials and campaigns. Led Zeppelin (Cadillac) said it was the "only way to get thier music heard by a new generation." Is Led Zeppelin music really hard to find? Does attaching 8 seconds of "Rock and Roll" to a Cadillac commercial make a younger generation interested? It might make them interested in buying Cadillacs. I guess being played every other song on 95.5 and 93.1 in L.A. doesn't give Led Zeppelin enough chance to get heard. I have satellite radio. You can't scroll through the ROCK menu without seeing that Led Zeppelin is being played somewhere at any given time. And by the way, their songs were recorded 30 years ago. Is it at all possible that perhaps the money train would slow down a bit on those songs? Is it absolutely necessary that they continue making fresh money decade after decade after decade? If so, then why? Because money is good. But is all money good? Does it matter to differentiate?

Younger bands use the same logic as if there is no other way possible to get people to hear their music than to let some giant corporation use it to push their product whatever that may be. An Oasis song, "All Around the World," is the jingle for AT&T. I own that album, and I sweat with shame every time it comes around on shuffle. You can't get a much larger monopoly than AT&T. Here in Los Angeles, AT&T just bought out Cingular after Cingular had swallowed up SBC which had only recently taken over PacBell, and the first thing that AT&T sent me in the mail was a notice that basic rates were going up. Of course. And Oasis wears AT&T on their sleeve because AT&T is keeping a nine year old - long since dead! - song alive and thriving. Can you image if someone actually saw an AT&T ad and then said to themselves, "Wow, that jingle, "All Around the World," is really awesome. I wonder who that is?" and then ran out to buy the cd? "I love that AT&T song!!" My brain just punched my skull.

All irony aside, The Postal Service sold their song "Such Great Heights" to UPS. Too bad they didn't just name their band United Parcel Service in the first place.

I even caught myself suckered by it the other day. I was shopping, and I heard "Remind Me" by Röyksopp. That's the song used in the Geico caveman commercial in which the caveman is on the moving walkway at the airport. I love the caveman ads, but I had no idea what that song was. (I ignorantly thought it was a soundtrack written for the ad.) I found myself smiling and thinking - not "I love this song" - but, "I love those Geico caveman ads. Dey funny. Silly metro-caveman. Maybe I'll switch to Geico." Could I now buy the Röyksopp album and listen to that song in all seriousness with any appreciation of it's original intention? Could I play it at a party (were I ever to actually throw one) without the guests thinking, "Dude's playin' the Geico song at his lame-ass party. He's a lame-ass. Why are we here? Oh, he always has lots of J.D., that's right."

SIDENOTE: a quote from a blog about the Geico commercial actors: "They remind me of Vincent D’Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and Val Kilmer. They were in The Salton Sea together." Ok...

There's even a web site called whatsthatcalled.com from which you can search via a pulldown menu a list of major companies and corporations to get the details about the artist's soul which they'd purchased and which exact song they'd pillaged.

Some mark the musical culture downshift at 1985 when Burger King used the original recording of Aretha Franklin's "Freeway of Love" or two years later when Nike used The Beatles' "Revolution" for a sneaker.

Today, when new artists write songs, they are also dreaming of hitting a commercial jingle jackpot. And when they do, there is no cultural consequence for the sell out. Well, the culture pays indeed. What I mean to say that the artists suffer no criticism for the sell off.

If Chevy makes some environmentally unsound cars, isn't that "bad?" Making one or two cars that are environmentally okay (barely) doesn't counterbalance the damage that the other vehicles do, does it? You can't abuse one child, but consider yourself "good" person because you were very nice to the other kids, right? Is O.J. an okay guy because he managed not to kill all but just two of the people he'd met in his entire life. That's not a bad record when you think about it. (I just can't let the O.J. thing go.)

As an actor, what will I do if I get a major commercial booking from a Chevy pick-up truck ad? Would I consider not taking it - even for a second? Not a chance! If I get a role in a tv show, do I check out the environmental records of all advertisers that sponsor the show, the network that owns the show, the charitable records of the producers who put out the show and pay my check? Of course not. I need to work! I want the work! I kiss the ring of all involved. Worst of all - what if my first commercial is for my most hated enemy - Time/Warner Cable??? I guess we say to ourselves, "Well, I've got to make money some how, some way before I can do the "right thing." Isn't that the exact same rational that John Cougar Sellencamp uses when he decides that he needs Chevy to sponsor his tour or else he can't travel in the luxurious tour bus and be shuttled in private jets and limousines from arena to arena? That no one will hear his pedantic, oversimplified, crappy, cliché-ridden, nursery rhymes unless one gets featured in a TV commercial? Well... then he contributes some time to charitable organizations and sings some songs for free for some farmers and everything's right again. Will he perform at Al Gore's Global Warming concert? Will he sing his Chevrolet/USA song? Will the throngs cheer?

I guess I'm just upset because I haven't had the chance to sell out big time yet. I want to sell out real bad. I'd sell this lousy blog for $5 (exaggerated offer not legally binding). And as far as Chevy, I say, "Go Chevy!! I love you, Chevrolet. I really do."

In fact, I'm going to work something out that Chevy might like into my next set. Here goes:
"Hey, how's everybody doing tonight?... Anybody here, like, drive a car?" Audience reacts with enthusiastic "Yeah, I do! I drive!!" and such. I've found something with which they relate.
"Yeah, I drive a car, too. And I'm a good driver... because I'm not Asian." Peels of laughter at the dead-horse racial slur.
"But seriously... when I drive, I'm on a mission, Baby. Stay the hell out of my way." Audience laughs like school children watching monkeys screw at the Zoo.
"I drive a Chevy truck because I like to guzzle gas like Rosie O'Donnell suckin' on a Shamrock shake!" Audience members punch each other in the ear drum to stop from laughing so hard at my simplistic fat-person-jab.
"Chevy Trucks rock! Go USA!" Audience goes back to ticket counter to insist on paying double for the show that is so damned awesome - and American.

Later, Chevy calls to bottle my magic.

Opinions are like assholes, but at least assholes have a function™. There's a very big difference between criticism and action. But hypocrisy is a human element. I just want the opportunity to be hypocritical. After I count the money, I'll get back to you.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

• Why Can't We Hire Keira Knightley?


21 year old actress Keira Knightley (all three “Pirates of the Caribbean“’s) has announced that she’s taking time off to “get her life back.” Her life, I figure, must be something other than “working” while being tremendously wealthy and famous. It has always been her instinct, she says, to take every single acting role that came along for fear that there never would be another to follow. Very true to life for anyone in Hollywood. But I do wonder in what period of her life she has experienced such fearful downtime to substantiate that restless work ethic? She is phenomenally beautiful, a genetic masterpiece at a cross between Winona Ryder and Natalie Portman, and has worked consistently since she was 8 years old. If she is insecure about work, then how the hell am I supposed to feel about my virtual non-existence, my almost science-fiction-worthy lack of opportunity in Hollywood against which I have to beg and fight and scratch in every creative (and sometimes shameful) way possible? Even stooping to the level of writing a blog…

Keira says that if by taking this time off she ends up “at the back of the line,” then so be it. Keira Knightley is not in any “line” except for the Can-we-get-Keira-Knightley? line. As if controlling the wrinkle in time - even if she’s at the back of that line, she’s still at the front of that line.

I don’t begrudge anyone in Hollywood taking time off. But when you have gotten to the level of success that you can choose the time off rather than have those painful stretches of non-employment choosing you (or being socially forced into Rehab), then I resent your PR manager feeding the story to the networks and magazines as if you may be sacrificing something. For most of the world, “time off” is one or two weeks annual vacation approved resentfully by upper management with piles of work waiting for you the second that you return from your stealing-time-from-the-company-week (and we’d appreciate if you’d check your email twice daily). That’s during a career which is usually spiced up with at least a couple of stinging layoffs.

At 21 - rich, famous, and beautiful with a lifetime of almost incalculable residuals to come, Keira can safely “get her life back” for the next 70 years or so and never have to furrow her her wonderfully symmetric, lusciously think eyebrows with worry. Yes, I like thick-ish, bold eyebrows. I don’t know why Pam Anderson and the like shave theirs down to the thinness of a strand of DNA when strong eyebrows like Keira’s add so much contrast and interest to the facial structure. But I digress and reveal personal weakness. She got me. She’s in my mind’s eye even when she’s taking time off to get her life back. Darn it. I want my life back, but I just can’t get the time off.