Yes, I did correctly predict the ending of this chapter of the JonBenet Ramsey story. If this teaches us anything is that you can never underestimate a person’s desire to be famous. Even if it means taking claim for the most horrendous crime imaginable, people will go to any length to feel like their lives actually mean something. That is what happens when you have a culture where self-worth is typically equated to fame and fortune. I really feel that it is the goal of every American to be famous, we all want to be on magazine covers and to be talked about. It’s amazing what people will do just to have a taste of that experience.
(This coming from a guy who has posted somewhere over 300,000 words discussing his life in minute detail for an unknown audience. It’s a somewhat healthier method to reach fame though even I wonder if it is a finish line I ever want to cross.)
Oh and the other lesson of this story is the fact that the news channels went after this story like a pack of rabid dogs even though a) it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t real and b) it really wasn’t much of a news story to begin with. This is what happens when you cross news with entertainment, you suddenly get CNN acting like CSI except that real life isn’t nearly as well written as that show. Again, maybe I am just hoping for a world that is much more intelligent than this one but it would nice for the news to focus on the dozen incredibly important stories that are going on in the world right now instead of this filler. Or at least find another Runaway Bride story, which at least leads to good comedy.
Switching gears, I had a very interesting experience at the Jon Dee Graham concert this weekend. (For those wondering, yes, you can get your own sample of Jon Dee Graham by simply emailing me and asking for Battling the Current: Volume Two. Please do, I’ve got a pile of those discs and if I don’t get rid of them I’ll have to start using them as coasters.) It was a great show with a small crowd but one where basically everyone in the room was a fan. And Jon knew that as he had a hard time bringing himself to shill his new CD when he knew that everyone in the room had already bought a copy.
The big thing is that it was an incredibly funny show. Jon Dee has this wicked sense of humor and it comes out in his between song banter/cigarette breaks. Or when he fires his band in the middle of a song to invite random people onstage to play instead. Random people who just happened to bring their own guitars and effects pedals. (Explanation: he brought on local KC act The Gaslights (which features one of my bartenders on lead guitar) to play the song and figured that it would be funnier to act like he was sick of his own band.) It’s the type of set where you spend half the time laughing.
The reason I wanted to write about this is because it is interesting to me that two of my favorite concerts from this year was this one and The Ditty Bops, both of which I enjoyed more for the humor than for the music though both parts were excellent. And I think that means something when Battling the Current Volume Two can probably be described as very upbeat and uptempo but rather dark. It’s a great disc filled with songs I love and I listen to it all the time but much of it is looking into the dark corners of one’s soul. That’s what happens when Ball and Chain is the second song on the disc. But all this while what I’ve been enjoying the most is just upbeat and happy and funny moments. Which is probably my subconscious telling me that I should really lighten up a bit. Like everything that bubbles its way up from my subconscious, I’ll take it under advisement.
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