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.I don’t see a lot of jets crashing into downtown Murfreesboro.Still, it would be disingenuous if I didn’t mention how innovative (and how clever) some of these presentations truly were.Craig Seymour of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution talked about “boy band slash fiction,” outlining how certain fans of ’NSYNC like to imagine Justin Timberlake getting fisted by Lance Bass.Glenn Dixon surmised that much of the Contemporary Christian genre is driven by artists who literally want to fuck Jesus Christ.And the aforementioned Wolk’s juice-fueled explanation of how CDs are inappropriately remastered for pop radio was fascinating and insightful.These are all examples of people who truly did think about music in new, unconventional ways.But here’s the depressing rub: You know who’s not thinking about music in new, innovative ways? Musicians.At least not the musicians who came to this conference.You see, Saturday night was supposed to be the big collision of sound and fury; this was when local “rock stars” were going to take part in a high-profile EMP symposium, simulcast on public radio.The four participants were Mark Arm of Mudhoney, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, Sam Coomes of Quasi, and allaround indie rock impresario Calvin Johnson.And they all had nothing to say.For two hours, I watched four people stare at the audience, all trying to prove they were cool enough not to care about the attention.None of them had any prepared statements (well, Brownstein claimed she did, but then she elected not to read it).None of them wanted to answer any of the moderator’s inquiries, and they made fun of half the audience members who dared to ask them questions.Coomes spent all 120 minutes trying to act confused; Arm preferred to play surly; Brownstein opted for a nervously bookish vibe; Johnson just tried to seem weird.At one point, Calvin bemoaned the fact that—since the end of the World War II era—Americans won’t even sing “Happy Birthday” at parties, apparently because our willingness to sing in public has become “atrophied.” Clearly, Calvin Johnson has never been to an Olive Garden.“I try not to analyze the process of listening to music,” Brownstein begrudgingly said.“The less I think about my art, the better,” reiterated Arm.If you take these artists at their word, there is no intellectual element whatsoever to rock music; all you do is walk out on stage and emote.According to them, there’s never anything to think (or write) about; in fact, attempts to do so sully the entire creative process.Luckily, hardly any of the visiting critics or academics attended the musicians’ panel, as it happened to be scheduled during suppertime.And honestly, I’m glad they didn’t go.Who needs to hear that your life’s work is irrelevant? I prefer to imagine all of America’s rock geeks breaking bread together, talking about Silkworm songs and Clinic b-sides and forgotten Guided by Voices shows and—maybe for the first time in their lives—feeling completely and utterly normal.I’m sure their orange juice never tasted so sweet.SOUTHERN-FRIED SEX KITTENBritney Spears is the most famous person I’ve ever interviewed.She was also the weirdest.I assume this is not a coincidence.The main thing I remember about this interview is that I spent (what seemed like) twelve thousand years waiting for her photo shoot to end.There was minor chaos during the shoot, because—at the last minute—Britney decided she did not want to be photographed pantless, and that specific pantless image was (in truth) the main reason Esquire wanted to do a story on her.They needed a pantless Britney on the cover of their magazine.Her refusal created an intense dichotomy among her handlers: Britney’s family members didn’t want her to do anything overtly sexy, but her publicity team (whom she later fired) only wanted her to do things that were overtly sexy.She eventually agreed with her publicist.The singular upside to the photo shoot was the cookies; someone was responsible for providing Britney with warm chocolate chip cookies at all times, and they were fucking awesome.After I spent my time with Spears, people kept asking me, “What is she really like?” My answer was usually, “I don’t know, and I don’t think she does, either.” And that’s not sarcasm; I honestly believe Britney Spears was so insulated from the public (and so exhaustively governed by the people trying to control her image) that she became unable to differentiate between (a) the person who was famous and (b) the person she actually was.I suspect this is why she kept making so many strange decisions in the wake of this interview (i.e., getting married in Las Vegas to someone she barely liked, wearing T-shirts that said things like “MILF in Training,” constantly being photographed barefoot in public, etc.).Her management team directed so much emphasis toward turning her into an unsophisticated semi-redneck that she now has no idea what is normal and what is marketing.I suppose her life is exciting, but I suspect it’s a pretty terrible way to live; I don’t think she has any idea what’s really happening to her.That said, I did notice that her Southern accent always seemed to mysteriously disappear whenever she became annoyed with my questions.Maybe she’s the blond Machiavelli.Because the photos that ran with this story were pretty hot, Esquire cut about seven hundred words out of my profile to create more space for the pictures.This is the original draft.BENDING SPOONS WITH BRITNEY SPEARS(NOVEMBER 2003)Twenty feet away from me, Britney Spears is pantless.Her sculpted hair makes her look like Marilyn Monroe on a date with DiMaggio, assuming they’re going to Manhattan’s finest pantless restaurant.She’s wearing a sweater that probably costs more than my parents’ house, and her white heels add five inches to her five-foot-four pantless frame.Oh, and did I mention she’s pantless? She’s not wearing any pants.This is a hard detail to ignore.This is a hard detail to ignore because the number of men who have seen a pantless Britney belong to a highly select fraternity: it’s Justin Timberlake, her gynecologist, the photographer who’s doing this particular photo shoot, and (maybe) the frontman for a fourth-rate rap-metal outfit from Jacksonville, Florida.That’s more or less everybody.1 And—perhaps stupidly—I actually thought I was about to rush this semi-pathetic frat; I honestly believed the reason I was invited to this Manhattan photo shoot was to glimpse Britney’s vagina and write about its cultural significance.Somehow, that seemed like the only logical explanation as to why Britney’s naked ass was being unleashed on the cover of this magazine; this whole affair must be an aggressive, self-conscious reinvention [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]