i don't like this version of the matrix

I woke up the other day (redundant, unless this is posthumous...) and thought: "I don't like this version of the Matrix." The world was seeming weird, pre-fab, on a pointless loop, most people unhappy, their creativity, higher purposes and spirits locked into mundane rat races, 9-5 type jobs, and stresses and concerns that add up to what? Really,  they need to reboot the matrix asap, the damn thing!  And when I start feeling Matrix-y and dark, and when old, panicky feelings of doom and anxiety start bubbling up, and when my blood runs cold as Bart runs beneath the Bay, and I cry during re-runs of M*A*S*H, I had to admit that the ol' depression was sneaking back into my life. Seems friend Lexapro, which had been doing me right for about 1.5 years now, was leaving me in the lurch.. "Just take more," was everybody's answer, and that will be the new catch phrase for the '08s -- "just take more." True, I was taking what is considered a low dose of the stuff, so why not up the sucker?  But I worried that I was just throwing meds at the problem and was
now in a cycle of addiction that would never end.  When would I emerge clean and bright and living in ZION? But those are a depressed's thoughts. So yeah, I increased and am here in the transition.

To help I thought I'd take a trip into the Matrix within the Matrix: good ol TiVo. Got all my Daily Show's (killer) and Lost (psychedelic) and I also noticed VH1 was running what they called "Classic 120 Minutes," the old "alternative" video show from back in the day at MTV, that I used to waste countless (well, two, really) sleepless hours on Sunday nights jacked into back, way back when. That should be a fun jaunt down memory lane eh? Probably won't make me cry either, but ya never know.
"Alternative" in quotes because it was supposed to contain videos which weren't mainstream enough for the regular MTV; radical stuff like U2, the Cure, the Knack!  But in truth, 120 Minutes was not all that different from regular MTV when it started: you sat though hours of dreck (U2, the Cure, the Knack!) to see one or two cool videos.  Oh, if only we had Tivo back then. Or Lexapro for that matter. Think of the hours of our lives given back to us.

Things did not start well. First video off the block was Blind Lemon's "No Rain," featuring that poor, dancing bee girl, and that poor, lead singer guy. This wasn't "alternative" back when it used to air (every 15 minutes or so), but I guess in 2008 it is now considered freaky.  In any case it sure was bad. Nuff said. Then came an unfortunate mélange of truly pedestrian gack: 10,000 Maniacs, Madness, the Cure, the Church, Green Day, Human League and Tori Amos; then a video that seemed to start out promising, "Black Sunshine" by White Zombie, (crazy typewriter typing, Iggy Pop narrating) but quickly devolved into ugliness and repetition, the main ugliness supplied by having to look at Rob Zombie in his youth, while the song began to sound just like guys across the street running a leaf blower for 20 minutes. And I used to LIKE that kind of thing!  I sped through that nonsense and saw by Tivo's time line that I was just about through the first hour. A write-off to be sure, thank god it was only about 6 minutes of my life this time around.

At this point and completely out of nowhere, Wire, of all bands, appeared on screen. I was jazzed. Wire! I don't think I'd ever seen a video by them before, and I braced myself for something truly amazing, I mean Wire! the Ur band, one of the progenitors. My serotonin dripped and surged.  But my joy turned quickly sour as Wire became Madness and mugged their way through Eardrum Buzz, a tune from their, I don't know, Madness Period?  Jee-zus it was bad, and I spit, ptoo, ptoo, the nasty taste outta my mouth, and thought that the evil machine architects of the Matrix had done this on purpose, had inserted this bogus Wire video into the equation to sully what had once been good. And I despaired.  But, for naught! because the Wire was just a cruel, false teaser of sorts, right on its heels at 0:55 min, came the unmistakable opening kraangs of Joy Division's, "Love will Tear Us Apart."  I held my breath. After the Wire, what was this gonna be? Some kind of crappy compilation of stills and album cover shots strung together?  No, it was fukkin Joy Division playing Love Will Tear Us Apart in a room. Straight up. No fancy cuttin' and editin. Just the Joy and the Division. I don't think I'd ever seen this video before.  It was professionally done. Ian was wearing the big white Vox up high on his chest and played it gently once or twice. Steve Morris was impressive, I mean the dude at such a young age really set a difficult task for himself trying to drum like a drum machine on every song. Images of Sumner were fleeting as he pecked on a keyboard.  It ended, as all Joy Division songs do, with a touch of melancholy and "what ifs."  But triumphant none the less, and I pressed (Tivo) onward.

Hour two tried to pull a similar Wire false hope stunt right off the bat, but I was on to them now.  The words, "Damned" appeared, but on screen was some version of Dave Vanian, all dressed in an elaborate romantic cowboy getup singing "Alone Again Or" which I googled was an Arthur Lee, Love cover. Uh, to be nice and cause it was the Damned, or parts of the Damned, I'll just say it was embarrassing and leave it at that.

Then came that famous duet between Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson from the B52's. Wha?  Were they like dating or something? I sure hope so cause there can't be too many other explanations for the existence of this video. And again things looked quite dire. A turn came at exactly 1:34 with a surprise art video, Cracker's excellent, "Low."  Yes, you heard me, Cracker and excellent.  This song anyway. Remember them? I don't really. It was one of the dudes from Camper Van Beethoven.  "Low" is shot in black and white is edited like some real professional shit, while also containing gratuitous Sandra Bernhardt as some kind of weird, disheveled  boxing chick who eventually knocks the stuffing out of David Lowery. Its a cool song and for some reason it all works. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jywZEjSiCBM

A short interlude then occurred with the lovely, "Save it for Later," by the English Beat, and it would be damn hard to ruin that song no matter what enormously inane video you shoot for it, even though they gave it the ol' college try. Time was grinding down and it looked like there would be no Pixies (although skirb was treated to the "Loud Quiet Loud" Pixies doc. over at Milvia Manor this week, complete with stereophonic sound and more pixels or dots or lines than I've even seen gathered on one screen before.  The doc follows their reunion tour of '04 and paints them as mostly old, overweight, (gratuitous Frank Black topless shots aplenty!) dysfunctional, non-communicative people who know how to play the same songs together on stage. Def. check it out.), no Screaming Trees or Urge Overkill, no The Cynics (Pgh's own, who were rumored to have a video in the files over at MTV, never to be seen).  But only more drek, The The; bad period Tubes (breaks my heart) and yet another Madness number!!  But they know me now, the machine squid programmers in Matrix land. They let the bar sink awfully low, they will bring the clouds before they let the sun shine.  So I waited.  Then  finally came something with some teeth, and they happened to be attached to the shiny bald head of one Sinead O'Connor.

"Emperor's New Clothes," was the song, and I didn't believe my reaction either, not being one to wax ecstatic about Ms. O'Connor in public, I've harbored an on-going respect for her and affinity for her first couple albums, forced as I was to listen to her, ad nauseam, when I first met F, it was tough love. I grew to like her stuff. This video was a remarkable piece of work: First shot of empty stage, then Sinead pacing around like a caged animal (said F), but it was apt, Sinead bald, lovely and nervous, getting ready to read us the riot act of "Emperor's New Clothes."  The video is a study in contradictions. Sinead is both very graceful and incredible awkward in this video, affecting swan-like movements of her hands and neck, yet dancing around like a drunk with shoeboxes for shoes; she's very femininely beautiful, shaved head and all, but also very masculine looking at times, neck bulging and ugly; she's confrontational, approaching the camera undaunted, and demure looking away with those fluttering eyes; she evokes power but not really sexuality. Watch it again and again here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlPCl6aF5VA

Shit, I miss ol' Sinead O'Connor, is what it boiled down to. Iconoclastic, in her own world, and you can't deny the voice. You don't believe me? Listen to Mandinka.

Remember when she ripped the pope photo on SNL? I do since we just had Easter, god bless her.  I was also wondering, to digress, why Easter came so early this year,  foolishly thinking that Easter, like Xmas is on a fixed date right?  None of my Catholic family or friends knew why the date moves around.  I mean, there was a day Christ was born, right? Christmas? Shouldn't there also be a day that Christ rose?  O' silly Jew, the date of Easter is anything but simple, turns out, its fraught with centuries of ecclesiastical in-fighting, Jew-baiting, and crazy mathematical, astronomical and ecumenical tweaking and revision. Nowadays we like to think that Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first new moon after Spring Equinox. Which is why it changes, since the moon don't give a shit about our Julian Calendar. (See Cat Power, "The Moon"). The cool thing is that Easter won't be this early for about another 250 years or so. And it hasn't been this early for almost that long. Cool also because its so fucking silly, so cosmically silly. What date? What event? What calendar? 120 minutes is now six minutes.  Take two pills instead of one. And wait for a better version of the Matrix.