So Much Junk, So Few Gigabytes

Make no mistake about it. We live in the most junk obsessed society on the face of the planet.

Take the "news" and blogger buzz last week. I mean, what incident of significance happened? Correct, it was all about an overweight, drunk 25-year-old stumbling around on a stage in Las Vegas? Search on YouTube, and you'll find 2,160 clips referencing the Britney Spears VMA fiasco. Just so you know that United States Americans (to borrow a phrase from Miss South Carolina) have their priorities straight, you'll find only 76 references to General Petraeus' report to Congress. (Huh, what's that about? Who's Petraeus? What's a Congress?) Amazingly, you'll actually find a total of five references to the bombings in Kathmandu, needless to say none of them in English. (Hey, those folks don't matter, they only make clothes to sell at H&M, they can't actually shop there.)

Nobody cares that people are getting killed by bombs in Nepal and Iraq, right? We want to see Britney bomb.

What's really spooky about this is that there will actually be plenty of people buying the crap she has to sell. We all need another chance to listen to that great message she has to share in her lyric that goes something like "Gimme, gimme, gimme more." However, I'm not clear what she is pleading for in excess -- more dollars for her CDs or just more plain old Chicken McNuggets. All that matters is gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme...

All of this got me to thinking about all the junk that's out there and the very name and intent of this site. I mean, for cryin' out load, there is just so much useless product that we toil away our waking hours in order to waste dollars on and ascribe meaning to. But why are we buying it when there are so many treasures waiting for us to nab for free?

Why do so many of us feel that it's really important that we've bought something with a Kenneth Cole label even though he never saw the garment that was dreamed up by some junior assistant who spent 10 minutes designing and some woman in Nepal wove together and got 50 cents for her 10 hours of labor.

That was one of the reasons I decided to start a blog in the first place, to reclaim the junk that gets ignored or thrown in the trash heap. There is a lot of junk out there and a lot of stories behind each piece. So over the past few days, I've been encouraged to come across others who feel the same.

Eva Deadbeat, has a great new vlog about Found magazine. I came across the 'zine in a bookstore over the weekend, and it was heartening to see another like-minded group roaming the U.S. in their van to collect and ascribe meeting to junk they find. The whole concept of being a Junk Thief is not original, and more than a year ago when I predicted the coming Junk Thief revolution, I knew that I was neither the originator nor alone in my quest to promote finding and ascribing meaning to all the trashy treasures out there. The question is, will all the junk thieves ever manage to connect? I'm curious if the creators of the play Lost and Found in the Mission that made an entire musical production centered around trash lingering in the streets of our fair city and staged at the now sadly departed Jon Sims Center and Junk Pirate magazine know about each other as well as Junk Thief and Found magazine. The best thing about Found magazine is that it has nothing mined form Google searches, just plain old-fashioned, physical gleaning. I think we all should make a convoy of funky old vans and tour the country. And as hungry junk thieves, we'll probably look a lot more appealing as we dance in our skivvies belting out "Gimme, gimme, gimme more (junk)."

Deadbeats and JunkThieves Collide!

You can say you saw it first here, Eva Deadbeat and Gregg JunkThief met for a great gab fest and lunch today at the Samovar Tea Lounge in the Castro. After six months or so of blog commenting, we met live and had great conversation. What did we discuss? Oh, some things are private and not to be spread all over the blogasphere! I think we both were pleased to find out that we are both the good kind of crazy not restraining order kind of crazy.

Eva's just as peppy, bright and adorable as she is on her blog and vlogs, and I hope it's not the last time we converge. I'm sure we'll continue our cross-country banter in the days ahead. I hope to meet other visiting bloggers coming through SF or when I'm in your town. Drop me a line, and we'll take time to shut off the modem and monitor for real conversation.

As Eva can confirm, do be warned that I can be a real JunkThief. I unwittingly nabbed her tasty English tea, but she seemed to have no problem with the bottomless cup of Russian tea intended for my lunch. Sometimes the serendipity gods manage to smile down to make all things work out. As you can see, I'm not even scowling in our photo!

DBC Channel - Outlawed and now R.I.P.

I'm really sad to report the demise of one of my all time favorite YouTube channels, The Deadbeat Club (no link here since it takes you nowhere now). Eva Deadbeat of Burlington, Vermont, had a regular show that had musings on culture, dating, life, weather and everything under the sun. She could span the spectrum from silly to insightful all in one broadcast, and had developed a growing fan base. Thus, she got enough attention from the YouTube police to be shut down as her "found material" got them a bit itchy. Our own little JunkThief TV channel could meet the same fate soon, but I've been thinking about talking to my neighbor next door who works for NetFlix anyway to see if we might cut a deal.

One can't even really blame YouTube completely since it's part of the paranoia brewing with their Viacom lawsuit. Viacom probably wishes they could copyright the alphabet so they could charge 10 cents for every character published anywhere on the globe.

Artists from Shakespeare to Warhol to P-diddy have repurposed existing works and put their own stamp on them. The idea of Free Culture as outlined in Lawrence Lessig's book of the same name is constantly in flux, an eternal dance of creativity and profit.

I was watching the documentary The Lady in Question is Charles Busch last night, and it was clear that much was lost when his outlaw East Village shows became increasingly mainstream. Living in a city where emerging artists have been outpriced for a couple of decades, it makes me often wonder if I live in a fantasy of being surrounded by urban bohemia. Indeed, I am far more establishment than I want to admit. But I doubt I'll be moving to Chowchilla, Fargo or Slab City anytime soon to pursue my artistic integrity. Though the temptation is always there...

Fortunately Eva Deadbeat still has her great blog that is worth visiting and sending her your condolences for this case of Goliath beating up on David (or Davida). I'm sure some great Deadbeat phoenix will rise from these ashes and sing the siren song in the next chapter of internet outsider art. I'm sure Henry Darger and his Vivian girls are smiling down on her at this very moment.

A cool review

Thanks to Eva in Burlington, Vermont, of the Deadbeat Club for the glowing endorsement of this site and for posting the Patti Smith YouTube rendering of "You Light Up My Life." She has a great site and some fun videos that are sort of a younger, female and less disturbed version of Spalding Gray monologues. Always a mix of funny and insightful musings on pop culture, modern life and the granola set. It's good to see someone on YouTube under 40 weaving a good story and not attempting to rap or re-enact Jack Ass.

I'm glad to see she's promoting such a wonderful reworking of a song I used to hate. I've long been working a mix tape that I call "Strange Covers." It keeps evolving, but here are some for the list

* Nina Simone - Feelings (I found it on YouTube once but have since lost it)

* Debbie Harry y Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - Strawberry Fields Forever

* Queen Latifah - California Dreaming

* Zeitgeist - Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

* Mina Mazinni - Mack the Knife

* Cathy Berberian - I Want to Hold Your Hand

* Mae West - Day Tripper & Twist and Shout

* Aretha Franklin - Nessum Dorma