![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Tired of all the noise...wake me when its over with
The news is exhausting. So was church, which is hardly surprising, it's a liberal progressive social justice inspired institution. Good news? It raised $5,000 towards medical debt relief, and apparently $5,000 removed $500,000 worth of medical debt. I don't understand how it works - and they said you had to talk to someone in the undercroft who was part of a task force to convince other religious organizations to unit and help with the cause. I was watching on Youtube from home. Oh, they've transferred their streaming service from Facebook to Youtube now, following the Community Church's example. People are slowly disappearing from FB for various reasons - the ads are exhausting, unless you are in private group, and everyone hates Meta (for good reasons - Meta laid off 3,000 people and gave bonuses of $200,000 to chief executives. I hope the chief executives work themselves to death and into an early grave, it's possible.)
The news makes me violently angry, exhausted, and feeling incredibly impotent. So angry, I found I couldn't get past the headlines to read the articles in New Yorker and New York Magazine feeds. Or even post them here. I can't reiterate it. I don't want to think about it. My blood pressure rises and I just feel really tired.
I watched the Kendrick Lamar super bowl half time video finally - I didn't watch the Super Bowl, and had mostly forgotten about it? But someone posted about it on social media and I got curious. I can see why my mother didn't like it - she's 82 years of age, and not a fan of rap aka hip-hop music, and couldn't hear or understand any of it. To her? It was mostly just noise and people moving about in costume. Also she doesn't necessarily think metaphorically like I do - so a lot of it went over her head. And she tuned out.
I also watched the analysis of the performance, and looked up the lyrics. And then saw an article from New York Magazine or the New Yorker, not sure which, detailing the conflict between Canadian Rapper Drake and American Rapper Kendrick Lamar. Most of which appears to be nationalistic in context, and not really about being Black or Black culture, so much as a Black Canadian resenting an Black American for ripping off his music and telling him he didn't represent or know Black Culture. The article gave me a headache and was also exhausting. I stopped reading halfway through.
I tried to watch the Therapist's analysis on youtube, but it gave me a headache and depressed me further.
I knew what Kendrick was doing, my niece is or was a huge Kendrick Lamar fan and introduced me to him way back in 2020. I downloaded his music, listened to it, and realized that I'm not really a fan of hip-hop, but can appreciate it? It's not easy to listen to and not for everyone. It's angry music, with a lot of angry virulent energy emanating from it. Listening to it - can feel at times like being punched in the face with sound.
And despite what you may believe? It is by no means exclusive to the Black Culture (Emimen proved that, along with various other White Rappers back in the 1980s) any more than Country Music is exclusive to Whites. Nor is Jazz exclusive to one race or the other - I know I've seen all races perform it.
We want to make music and culture race specific or national specific or even gender specific, but one of the many things I've learned over the years is its not. It changes based on who is singing and acting within it. For example? Beyonce is going to sing Jolene very differently than Dolly Parton, just as Whitney Houston sang I'll Always Love You differently than Parton. Houston's version of I'll Always Love You - made it more of a R&B or Pop song, while Parton's was more of a Country song. Some white people got annoyed that Houston sang it and felt it was misappropriated and stolen from Parton. (While Parton was laughing all the way to the bank - she made millions off of Whitney's remastering of that song, and even stated with a chuckle that Houston did a better job with it than she ever could.)
People have a tendency, and I don't quite understand why, to want to make their race, gender, orientation, etc their sole or main identity? But all you need to do is jump on a fandom posting board with an alias to quickly realize that all those external things (gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, height, weight, color of your skin) are in reality irrelevant and only have the meaning that our brains are programmed over time to give it. And it's really hard to fight that programming. I discovered that in 2002, when I jumped on boards, and quickly realized that people thought I was male (I'm not), or at one point someone thought I was Black, I'm not. I can be whomever I want - I thought. From any country, any gender, any race, anything. Or nothing at all. One poster got upset when we gave them a gender or even a race, and perhaps they were right to be upset? We are all in reality, as a male nurse recently told me, just energy beings in meat sacks.
Rap is the angry part of hip-hop and is the language of the streets. To truly understand it - you kind of need to live in an urban environment or have experienced one, although it is possible to do it without that. My niece loved it - and hadn't experienced the angry urban environment or merely visited it. Her mother loves it - because she grew up in the NYC of the 1970s, and that's about as angry as you can get? Hip-hop emerged from that environment during the 1960s-1990s. I know something about it - because I'm surrounded by people who love it. And I continue to dip into it myself - I've quite a bit of it on my MP3 or Apple Music Account. But it is hard to listen to at times - because the music likes to punch you repeatedly in the face with it's furious lyrics. Kind of like Heavy Metal. It comes from the same place that a lot of Heavy Metal comes from - while Heavy Metal tends to be mostly small Midwestern or suburban Midwest lower middle class to working class white music (very popular in the 1970s-90s, see it less now, although it's still going strong, I'm just no longer surrounded by its enthusiasts like I was in Kansas and Colorado), Rap tends to be mostly urban, working class and lower middle class Black music, although the musicians on both ends are quite wealthy. That said? Various people play and perform it regardless of their race or gender (see tangent above).
Lamar's performance at the Super Bowl was basically a big and very loud "Up Yours" at the various folks/organizations he was understandably and justifiably pissed off at - including the current Republican President and his Administration. It also was about Race Relations as they currently stand in the US. Not to mention our current political situation. He was furious at Drake for suing him over the song. (In case you don't know who Drake is? Drake is apparently a Black Canadian who was upset with a Lamar, a Black American for co-opting his lyrics and telling him that he knows nothing about Black culture, because he happens to be Canadian. Lamar was basically telling Drake where to go, with interest. That's the fight between Drake and Lamar according to the New Yorker. Oh - there's a fight going on right now between the US and Canada. Yes, Canada. I know. We are actually fighting with Canada. It's kind of like, I don't know, me fighting with my brother? Canada is understandably and justifiably pissed off with the US, and the US isn't helping. What's ironic about this is that the US owes Canada about 380 billion dollars in change. They are one of our (the US) creditors. And you wonder why the Onion and SNL gave up on political satire?)
I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like I live in an age in which everyone is constantly yelling at each other and nobody is actually taking the time to really listen? Empathy occurs when we listen, but its blocked when we're busy judging and condemning, and as a result all we get is the cacophony of sound, and meaning is lost along with it. I'm finding myself lost in the cacophony of sound at times, until, I just switch the whole thing off.
Its as if people are so angry and so tired of not being seen or heard, they feel this need to punch you in the face with it - verbally speaking. Yell at full volume. Thinking, oh then I'll be heard? Over the noise cancelling earphones, and ipod inserts, and everything else. But no, it's just adding to the cacophony of noise.
The news makes me violently angry, exhausted, and feeling incredibly impotent. So angry, I found I couldn't get past the headlines to read the articles in New Yorker and New York Magazine feeds. Or even post them here. I can't reiterate it. I don't want to think about it. My blood pressure rises and I just feel really tired.
I watched the Kendrick Lamar super bowl half time video finally - I didn't watch the Super Bowl, and had mostly forgotten about it? But someone posted about it on social media and I got curious. I can see why my mother didn't like it - she's 82 years of age, and not a fan of rap aka hip-hop music, and couldn't hear or understand any of it. To her? It was mostly just noise and people moving about in costume. Also she doesn't necessarily think metaphorically like I do - so a lot of it went over her head. And she tuned out.
I also watched the analysis of the performance, and looked up the lyrics. And then saw an article from New York Magazine or the New Yorker, not sure which, detailing the conflict between Canadian Rapper Drake and American Rapper Kendrick Lamar. Most of which appears to be nationalistic in context, and not really about being Black or Black culture, so much as a Black Canadian resenting an Black American for ripping off his music and telling him he didn't represent or know Black Culture. The article gave me a headache and was also exhausting. I stopped reading halfway through.
I tried to watch the Therapist's analysis on youtube, but it gave me a headache and depressed me further.
I knew what Kendrick was doing, my niece is or was a huge Kendrick Lamar fan and introduced me to him way back in 2020. I downloaded his music, listened to it, and realized that I'm not really a fan of hip-hop, but can appreciate it? It's not easy to listen to and not for everyone. It's angry music, with a lot of angry virulent energy emanating from it. Listening to it - can feel at times like being punched in the face with sound.
And despite what you may believe? It is by no means exclusive to the Black Culture (Emimen proved that, along with various other White Rappers back in the 1980s) any more than Country Music is exclusive to Whites. Nor is Jazz exclusive to one race or the other - I know I've seen all races perform it.
We want to make music and culture race specific or national specific or even gender specific, but one of the many things I've learned over the years is its not. It changes based on who is singing and acting within it. For example? Beyonce is going to sing Jolene very differently than Dolly Parton, just as Whitney Houston sang I'll Always Love You differently than Parton. Houston's version of I'll Always Love You - made it more of a R&B or Pop song, while Parton's was more of a Country song. Some white people got annoyed that Houston sang it and felt it was misappropriated and stolen from Parton. (While Parton was laughing all the way to the bank - she made millions off of Whitney's remastering of that song, and even stated with a chuckle that Houston did a better job with it than she ever could.)
People have a tendency, and I don't quite understand why, to want to make their race, gender, orientation, etc their sole or main identity? But all you need to do is jump on a fandom posting board with an alias to quickly realize that all those external things (gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, height, weight, color of your skin) are in reality irrelevant and only have the meaning that our brains are programmed over time to give it. And it's really hard to fight that programming. I discovered that in 2002, when I jumped on boards, and quickly realized that people thought I was male (I'm not), or at one point someone thought I was Black, I'm not. I can be whomever I want - I thought. From any country, any gender, any race, anything. Or nothing at all. One poster got upset when we gave them a gender or even a race, and perhaps they were right to be upset? We are all in reality, as a male nurse recently told me, just energy beings in meat sacks.
Rap is the angry part of hip-hop and is the language of the streets. To truly understand it - you kind of need to live in an urban environment or have experienced one, although it is possible to do it without that. My niece loved it - and hadn't experienced the angry urban environment or merely visited it. Her mother loves it - because she grew up in the NYC of the 1970s, and that's about as angry as you can get? Hip-hop emerged from that environment during the 1960s-1990s. I know something about it - because I'm surrounded by people who love it. And I continue to dip into it myself - I've quite a bit of it on my MP3 or Apple Music Account. But it is hard to listen to at times - because the music likes to punch you repeatedly in the face with it's furious lyrics. Kind of like Heavy Metal. It comes from the same place that a lot of Heavy Metal comes from - while Heavy Metal tends to be mostly small Midwestern or suburban Midwest lower middle class to working class white music (very popular in the 1970s-90s, see it less now, although it's still going strong, I'm just no longer surrounded by its enthusiasts like I was in Kansas and Colorado), Rap tends to be mostly urban, working class and lower middle class Black music, although the musicians on both ends are quite wealthy. That said? Various people play and perform it regardless of their race or gender (see tangent above).
Lamar's performance at the Super Bowl was basically a big and very loud "Up Yours" at the various folks/organizations he was understandably and justifiably pissed off at - including the current Republican President and his Administration. It also was about Race Relations as they currently stand in the US. Not to mention our current political situation. He was furious at Drake for suing him over the song. (In case you don't know who Drake is? Drake is apparently a Black Canadian who was upset with a Lamar, a Black American for co-opting his lyrics and telling him that he knows nothing about Black culture, because he happens to be Canadian. Lamar was basically telling Drake where to go, with interest. That's the fight between Drake and Lamar according to the New Yorker. Oh - there's a fight going on right now between the US and Canada. Yes, Canada. I know. We are actually fighting with Canada. It's kind of like, I don't know, me fighting with my brother? Canada is understandably and justifiably pissed off with the US, and the US isn't helping. What's ironic about this is that the US owes Canada about 380 billion dollars in change. They are one of our (the US) creditors. And you wonder why the Onion and SNL gave up on political satire?)
I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like I live in an age in which everyone is constantly yelling at each other and nobody is actually taking the time to really listen? Empathy occurs when we listen, but its blocked when we're busy judging and condemning, and as a result all we get is the cacophony of sound, and meaning is lost along with it. I'm finding myself lost in the cacophony of sound at times, until, I just switch the whole thing off.
Its as if people are so angry and so tired of not being seen or heard, they feel this need to punch you in the face with it - verbally speaking. Yell at full volume. Thinking, oh then I'll be heard? Over the noise cancelling earphones, and ipod inserts, and everything else. But no, it's just adding to the cacophony of noise.