Crazytown

KIDS THESE DAYS

by Daniel Maté (composer-lyricist-guy behind the table)

Last week I wrote to you from Vancouver, Canada.  I got back to New York Wednesday night after some snow & sleet delays -- in late March, no less (and I mean, not to complain or anything because let's face it, Ma Nature is doling out far worse calamities the world over, but seriously:  AHEM.)

Thursday morning, following a single any-length-would-have-been-too-short recuperative sleep, it was up and at 'em again:  "'em" in this case being the pre-teens of coastal New Jersey.  It was Day One of auditions for the pre-teen musical theatre program that I'm participating in this Spring as composer-lyricist/music director, at a wonderful theatre company down thataway.

THE STRAIGHT DOPE(AMINE) ON ADDICTIVE VIDEO GAMES

or, Why do pissed-off birds, mismatched zoo animals, and tripped-out pachinko boards give me such a braingasm?
by Daniel Maté (a composer-lyricist-bookwriter, supposedly)

I held out for a good long time.  I really did.  Everyone's been talking about this game Angry Birds for the past year or so, saying how devilishly addictive it is.  Sounded like a very bad idea.  I didn't know much about the game itself -- something about slinghots and green pigs and exploding eggs? -- and frankly, I didn't want to know.  It's fine for my friends with office jobs:  an engaging but innocent diversion to get them through their daily drudgery.  Or maybe, in moderation, a way of passing the time on long rush-hour commutes.

But not for me, I said.  For me, there is no such thing as moderation.

THESE SONGS OF "FREEDOM"

by Daniel Maté (composer-lyricist-bookwriter)

In honor of the brave people of Egypt, who seem well on their way to casting off the (U.S.-backed) dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, under whose iron fist they've been living since the same year another tyrannical ruler named Donkey Kong first came to power, I present an assortment of songs with the word "freedom" in the title.  

But first, this moving video from a solidarity rally in London, which gives a sense of the depth of the relief and excitement many people -- those who aren't part of the Egyptian ruling class or the U.S. State Department (have you seen Hillary Clinton lately?  she's sweatin') --  are feeling:

 

SONGS I WISH WERE IN MUSICALS

In which Crazytown's token Canadian inserts a fiver and programs a few favorites on the jukebox (musical).
by Daniel Maté (composer-lyricist-bookwriter)

In Stephen Sondheim's preface to Finishing The Hat, the Reigning Grandmaster of Theatre-Which-Is-Musical's recent compendium of printed lyrics (Part One), he elegantly and convincingly lays out the various differences between pop and theatre lyrics.  He also describes how and why listeners' ears have become "lazier" since his day:  "pop music has encouraged them to welcome vagueness and fuzziness, to exalt the poetic yearnings of random images."  (p.XXVI)

Touché, Steve.  The vast preponderance of pop lyrics are guilty as charged -- not that vague and fuzzy is a problem, as they're often completely successful on their own poetic, yearning terms.  (I'm looking at you, Wrexx-n-Effect's "Rump Shaker".)  

ADS THAT MAKE YOU GO "HMM." OR "GRR..." OR "HUH?"

Why ads suck in general, and then a few that suck more specifically, complete with photos.
by Daniel Maté (composer-lyricist-bookwriter)

"As advertising blather becomes the nation's normal idiom, language becomes printed noise."  ~George Will

Call me crazy, but I've been noticing ads everywhere these days.  

I know, I know:  I'm supposed to notice them.  That's their job, right?   Do an etymological shakedown on the term and you find that at its root, to advert means to turn the attention to.  So kudos, ye modern-day Mad Men, you have my attention. 

But there are different types of attention, various kinds of noticing.  I'm no Don Draper, and thank God for that -- I'd hate to think I was just a good-looking cog in a stylish but overhyped period piece (yeah, I said it) -- but I take it that the ideal consumer from an advertiser's point of view is one who pays attention in a particular way, a way having something to do with being open and receptive to an ad's content.  The better for it to penetrate, the better to absorb and retain it, the better to influence shopping choices, my dear.

The kind of "noticing" I'm talking about, though, probably wouldn't make an ad exec or copy writer smile.   Because for ads to work, you have to take them for granted, don't you?  The fact that they're there should seem natural.  You sort of have to not question or quibble with them being in your line of sight in the first place.  

That questioning and quibbling is exactly what's been going on with me.  I see ads on bus stops, in the subway, on huge billboards overhead competing with my view of nice architecture or pretty skyline (or sky), and I find myself actively irritated that THIS, of all things, is what I'm looking at.  As in, I'm noticing that there's an ad in my face, and that someone must have expended a lot of effort, and in some cases, talent and creativity, to place it there. And at those moments, as odd as it sounds to say this, the whole thing just seems totally and outlandishly weird and artificial to me.  Which, of course, it is.

ON THE SUBJECT OF ME

Crazytown's token Canadian hits the ground blogging with a loquacious post addressing just who the hell he thinks he is and what his deal is exactly.  Oh, and something about berries.
by Daniel Maté (Writer-Tunesmith-Performer)

"Wow.  Crazytown.  Just like I pictured it.  Skyscrapers, and everythang."  - with apologies to Stevie Wonder

Hi Crazytown readers!  I'd like to thank Ryan Scott Oliver, this site's founder and a man I'm proud to call a colleague, for inviting me to join his expanding roster of artistic acolytes and cultural commentators.  It's great to now have a weekly deadline, as well as a readily available basket to collect and distribute my abundant mind-berries (a.k.a. thoughts), both the low-hanging (i.e. superficial) and more out-of-reach, ladder-requiring (i.e. involved, considered, "deep") kinds.

Continuing the terrific berry metaphor just a bit -- because hey, why stop now -- I figure this here blog column will enable me to both freeze (i.e. conserve for later) and bake (i.e. actually combine and transform into something more interesting) parts of my berry harvest, instead of letting them hide and shrivel on the tree (i.e. in my head, never to be explored) or drop and spoil on the ground (i.e. impulsive Facebook posts, e.g.)