Tomorrow's Moron

"If one is content with their intelligence, they are poised to be tomorrow's moron."
-Amir Said

Secretary of the Arts

The arts play a pivotal role in culture. Everyone wants to create something. Indeed, most people feel the need to create something. Yet the arts in America have consistently taken a hit, since the awakening of the arts in America at the turn of the twentieth century.

Quincy Jones, one of the greatest Artists ever produced from American soil, has been pushing for a cabinet level position that focuses squarely on the arts. I've long championed this position, and I do indeed believe that there is an immediate need for the "Secretary of the Arts" cabinet position. However, that being said, I'm still troubled.

Quincy Jones, who I admire and consider to be one of the greatest music producers in America, (along side of Gamble and Huff and Curtis Mayfield), has contributed so much to the American arts. And as such, he deserves not to have to take on this fight. Why aren't the most popular "artists" of the time calling for the Secretary of the Arts cabinet position?

-Amir Said

Memory's Warp Speed

"Through all the zig, zags, and sharp turns our lives take, our memory moves steadfastly backwards along a simple straight line." -Amir Said

Action Required

"Dreams with no action behind them means that you're still...sleeping."
-Amir Said

The Prisoner Poised for Remake

The Prisoner is one tv show that should be running on some sort of classic cable television channel. Well, either that or it deserves a full service remake! Having gone through the Bush administration 'Twilight Zone', many Americans got a dose of what it feels like to be trapped in some secret village, where pivotal decisions are made by a puppeteer and some obscure fraudulent leader.

Patrick McGoohan, who starred in, co-wrote, and co-produced The Prisoner, died this past Tuesday. Before McGoohan took the reigns of The Prisoner and became "6", he gained fame as "John Drake", the hero of the television show Secret Agent. (No doubt you've heard the Secret Agent theme song recorded by Johnny Rivers.) What made The Prisoner such a brilliant show was the fact that it channeled the angst of a world that for many, had become somewhat of a prison.

The jail analogy for everyday man was a new concept in the turbulent times of 1968. More importantly, the basic premise of The Prisoner helped to transform how stories could be shown and told on modern television. At a time where intriguing television dramas are being snuffed out by utterly thoughtless reality knock-offs and shameful remakes, (think Howie Mandels's Howie Do It or the "new" Knight Rider), a solid update of The Prisoner would sore big right now, if it were to be remade. Unfortunately, however, the major networks are shit out of cash, and they're not interested in running any programming that isn't cheap and damn-near guaranteed to keep the lights on. And the cable networks, who are now truly in the "prime time" driver's seat, are seemingly more concerned with "artsy" send-ups and/or story-lines tinged with supposedly taboo subject matter. Therefore, a remake of The Prisoner isn't likely, but if it were to ever capture a network green light, I'm ready with my storyline pitches.

-Amir Said

For Fans of The Specials

Been doing some heavy research these last several months... readying the 5th edition of my book, BeatTips Manual, has me reading EVERYTHING remotely related to the themes I touch upon. Well, I recently came across this site dedicated to the British 2 Tone/Ska band, The Specials. Actually, not true, I came across this site months ago, but I "re-discovered" it recently. Funny thing is, I didn't even notice the first time around that the site contained interesting soundbites with the original members.
Check it out: http://www.thespecials.com/

-Amir Said

'Respect Yourself'; Get Up On Stax Records

"Stax Records replaced cotton as the biggest industry in Memphis, Tennessee!"
-Duck Dunn, Stax recording artist.

The above quote almost tells it all, but the Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story documentary offers a complete and searing look at one of America's most important record labels: the mighty Stax Records. If I should ever be so blessed to be in the position to acquire the Stax catalog, you can bet your bottom dollar, it's gonna be a stone cold hour when I get it...

-Amir Said

The Practice of Reading

"Of all the world's activities, nothing generates a mass of ideas quite like the practice of reading a book." - Amir Said

Better Off Selling Free Flyers

Even though most A-list recording artists have taken some financial jabs over the past several years, by and large, they still earn decent money. However, B- and C-listers, (which make up the vast majority recording artists), had better either (1) accept the peril of their musical fate; or (2) pimp out their brand to some foolish moron that has no concept of "P2P".

I use to cringe when recording artists conveyed to me their strategies for new music sales. In some cases, these were people I have been friends with for 10 years or more. In other cases, these were artists who I had long respected but only fairly recently felt comfortable calling friends. And still, these were also artists who were neither friends or enemies but simply music people that I know. However, now I no longer have to cringe when I hear about plans like that redundant one, in which the strategy itself is predicated upon some delusional phantom "movement." Or all the misguided, and woefully under-matched DVD/video strategies. Indeed, in today's music scene, one has a better chance of making money selling free promotion flyers than do employing that oft used, stale strategies of the day.

One reason that I don't have to hear any of these non-reality-based strategies is because I have consistently (and cold-handedly) removed myself from even the most remote music-industry connection. Understand, I have never been, nor have I ever wanted to be a music industry "insider". As a kid, I learned early on that you don't have to be in the circus to see all the clowns....The other reason that I don't have to hear (and/or subsequently entertain) any of these non-sensible music-money-making strategies is because most of the once "new" and "imaginative" strategies have become so old and repeated that they have successfully paralyzed wholesale numbers of unsuspecting recording "androids".

On the face of it, this does not mean that I glory in the demise of the dreams of many artists. On the contrary, I reserve a special level of respect for the kind of dedication that many recording artists demonstrate. However, contemporary "success schemes" have converted the majority of recording artists into de facto marketers or PR types, who seemingly by chance just dabble in making music in their spare time. Thus, with the undeniable collapse of many of the most popular music money-making tactics, I'm convinced that a new crop of recording artists will emerge. This new group that I speak of will concentrate less on marketing/PR and more on the novel idea of, well, making creative, imaginative music. In fact, I envision that this new group of recording artists will reject the "quick fame and money" routine, and focus on generating something fresh, new, and eerily indicative of what history shamelessly has left to peddle.

-Amir Said

Numbers on a "Peculiar Institution"

Where did I get the idea that there were many huge slave plantations all over the South, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Honestly, I can't clearly say. Maybe it had something to do with Roots, the epic television event that I saw as a kid. (Roots was Alex Haley's journey into his own family's slavery roots.) Until that program aired, I think the most that I learned about slavery was: Lincoln and Civil War...I'm not kiddin', that's it. Perhaps a teacher here and there said that slavery was a bad thing (no, really); but I never learned many details beyond that.

It wasn't until well after I graduated from high school that I learned that the vast majority of slave owners were small planters, who owned just two or three to about fifteen slaves. Fact is, Fewer than 15% of all slaveholders owned plantations with more than twenty slaves. This means that the big plantations that I always envisioned when I was a kid were actually the exception and not the rule. Moreover, discovering the aforementioned numbers (and other detailed facts) on the "peculiar institution" of slavery allowed me to better understand how the culture of slavery reached a level of normalcy in the South. Once one sees that this was an institution which received participation more from lower to middle class planters than wealthy "businessmen", it's hard to ignore one glaring observation: that among all of the reasons slavery existed as long as it did in the South, perhaps the most underrated reason was the fact that slaves provided a sort of buffer zone between lower class whites and the reality of their actual position in society.

-Amir Said