I think I’m gonna stop answering my e-mail.  I just don’t want to get into arguments anymore.  Between those who still believe and myself.

There was a time when I lived to read "Rolling Stone", to be on the pulse.  Music was the most happening art form.  It not only soothed your soul, it informed you, it gave you insight, it helped you be who you wanted to be.

This lasted for a very long time.  Until about the turn of the century.  And then it all fell apart.  Now it’s like Germany after the war.  A giant hole.  With carpetbaggers trying to make a buck.

I’m preparing podcasts.  I was going to do one on Little River Band’s "It’s A Long Way There".  But I can only use thirty seconds of EMI music, and it’s an eight minute song, with MOVEMENTS!  So I kept pushing the button on my iPod, trying to see if what came up on shuffle would inspire me.

I thought of doing a podcast on David Crosby’s "If I Could Only Remember My Name".  But there wasn’t enough story, and even though the album is experiencing a renaissance, it was still the worst of the initial CSNY solo records.

And then I heard "Hand In Pocket".  Oh, the glorious SOUND!

And then my iPod alighted on Alanis’ performance of "You Oughta Know" at the Grammy Awards.

I want you to know

Oh, the INTIMACY!  It was like picking up the party line and overhearing a conversation between ex-lovers.  You were immediately drawn in, you were MESMERIZED!

I wish nothing but the best for you both

This is how we feel about the major labels, their employees.  We really wish them hell.  We don’t want to see them ride off into the sunset happily.  We want them to fall off the horse, we want to see them stomped in the mud.  Because they FUCKED UP OUR LIVES!

An older version of me
Is she perverted like me

Christina Aguilera acted perverted, there was just no art in it.  Strutting around on her chicken legs.  There was no inspiration, we learned nothing about ourselves.  But listening to Alanis we had to confront OUR OWN sexuality!  Where were WE on the continuum.  Was she really us, or was she further out there.

Would she go down on you in a theatre

If only Beck, if only Clap Your Hands Say Yeah would come up with a line so simple that cuts us to the quick.  We can see it.  Alanis on her hands and knees.  With his pants unzipped.  Performing an act we’ve all experienced but we’re not sure we want to hear about.  It’s a Warhol moment, but in SONG! As honest, but more palatable than anything the Velvet Underground ever did.  This little middle class girl from Canada…

Does she speak eloquently

Eloquence is for also-rans.  It’s about looks, not speech, not erudition.  God, how often has this word even APPEARED in lyrics?

And I’m here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to deny me

I discovered Alanis on MTV.  Oh, she was also on KROQ.  Nobody watches MTV anymore, it’s no longer an addiction, no longer an obligatory stop on the way through the dial.  As for KROQ, didn’t the iPod kill KROQ?

So where does this leave us?

With purveyors clamoring to sell us their wares like street vendors in a third world country.

And outsiders without any power trying to convince us the crap that only they can like, we should like.

And we turn to the media, crying out for guidance, but we’re told to post our thoughts on the Web, whether it be in blog form or YouTube video.  Maybe somebody might pay attention.

You seem very well, things look peaceful
I’m not quite as well, I thought you should know

Do I just tune out?  Because it’s all so overwhelming.

One can read the myriad of reviewers at pitchforkmedia.com, but there are no standards, no way to decipher what’s really good.  And so many of the acts that rise from the boonies are not in the league of the classic acts that came before.

There used to be a mainstream.  You didn’t HAVE to live in it, but it was there.  Now the Top Forty isn’t even mainstream.  It’s pop and urban.  And upon being derided that one isn’t infatuated with Beyonce, one ponders tuning out for all time.

You oughta know that things are really fucked up.  We marveled at Alanis’ Grammy performance of this song with a full orchestra ten years ago.  Now common wisdom is the Grammys aren’t worth watching.  And, if we’re not watching the show, and MTV plays no music and we’ve tuned out radio, where do we go?  Our iPods only play what we already know.

Are you confused?  Are you disillusioned?

I am.

I want something to champion.  But everybody’s got a MySpace page, everybody’s sold out to Madison Avenue, there’s little to believe in, and there’s more coming down the pike every minute.

That’s the story of now.  The onslaught, the endless overwhelming media deluge.  Why watch the Oscars.  Didn’t "Newsweek" say TV was better than movies?  And doesn’t everything make it to TV eventually anyway?  Who is this show for?  The advertisers?

The Oscars are an anachronism.  Just like the moviegoing experience.  "The Departed" is not "The Godfather".  I know because of the lack of mania.  The last time there was credible mania was for "Pulp Fiction".  Ironically around the same time "Jagged Little Pill" was released.  In the midnineties.  When the mainstream and hipdom merged.  Then the mainstream took off by itself, becoming ever lower common denominator in search of the buck.  The money is all that matters now.  But how much do you need, and at what cost?

Who’s got time to play albums?  And which ones you should spin?  And none of this music seems to impact the culture.  There’s a war going on but all we get is a dancing fool saying he’s going to bring sexy back.

Are you thinking of me when you fuck her

We’ve been forgotten.  The purveyors play to the middlemen.  It’s sold to radio and the "Today Show" before us.  We get what companies pay Best Buy to stock.  Oh, there’s the wild west of the Internet, but would you have moved to California in 1849?

My favorite track on "Jagged Little Pill" is not "You Oughta Know", but "Hand In Pocket".  But there’s a resonance in "You Oughta Know" that gives me shivers.  It was nine months after the last time I saw my then wife.  It was clear she was never coming back.  I’d honored the bond.  But that wasn’t enough.  I was left in the dust.  What to do with my feelings?

I found no outlet until "You Oughta Know".

How many albums did "Jagged Little Pill" sell?  Fifteen million in the U.S?  Maybe more?

It wouldn’t move this many if it was released today.  There’d be no way to reach everybody.  Still, it would eclipse the work of the vapid Norah Jones.  It would put Rascal Flatts in its place.  It would illustrate that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are running on fumes.

That’s what the scene used to be.  A landscape outsiders tried to invade to blow our minds.

There’s no longer a scene, no landscape.  If you believe, you’re functioning in your own little backwater.

I don’t know the way out of this mess.

But I’m sure it’s not going to come from the usual suspects.

Someone’s going to realize it’s not a user-generated content world.  That we need order.  That living in a Tower Of Babel society is not rewarding, not fruitful.  That the human condition is to bond around excellence and revel it.

For now, like the teens rallying around Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, I’m genuflecting to the past.  Because the present is just INCOMPREHENSIBLE!