I feel like I know a surprisingly large number of people who claim to be afraid of clowns. I think some folks I know only get uneasy if they go to the circus or something and some get full-on nightmares about being chased by axe-wielding harlequins or crushed to death in a small fuel-efficient vehicle with too many clowns inside. Coulrophobia is the technical term for extreme fear of clowns (in case you were looking for a vocab word of the day.)

Of course, by corollary, if there is something which makes some people crazy, I will also know people who love that thing largely because of the maddening impact on others. So I know a surprisingly large number of people who claim to be turned on by clowns. The extremely fabulous sex educator Dr. Ducky DooLittle even has a Knockers the Clown performance art character she does and I admit just last week I came across film proving I once bought a cake for the sole purpose of seeing Ducky stick her ass in it (a la pudding on MTV’s The State.) Entertaining though Ducky’s performances all are, I can’t say I am kinked for clowns.

People often take their children to circuses where there are clowns or invite clowns to perform at kids’ parties. Sad clown makeup used to trouble me, but it did not frighten me. I never found clowns remotely funny or scary as a child. I was going to say most physical humor misses me, but I find comedians like Steve Martin and Chevy Chase hilarious and there is a certain amount of physicality to what they do. So I guess I am just kind of unmoved by clowns specifically.

So I was looking at this half naked photo series of model Apnea for Apneatic and Deviant Nation which featured clown makeup and balloons and other tropes of soubrette clowning and it brought the vital question to mind: Are clowns scary or sexy or are they sexy because they are scary?

The most anticipated moment of the MTV Movie Awards was when they premiered the Twilight New Moon trailer for the movie which comes out in November. Taylor Lautner, whose martial arts moves in a My Own Worst Enemy scene Nixon Sixx appeared in looked aesthetically pleasing, has his shirtless appearance on camera showcased in the trailer. Twilight fan sites have been showing pictures of Robert Pattinson shirtless as well and looking quite a bit more buff and defined than I would have expected.

It kind of looks like the werewolf and the vampire have been passing around steroid precursors instead of blood, but I’m not complaining.

When I heard Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg was hosting the MTV Movie Awards, I thought for a split second about whether they would be worth seeing. Hot Rod was an unwatchable mess of a movie, but Andy Samberg brought us Dick in a Box, Natalie Portman Rap, I’m On A Boat, and more awesomeness. My brother went one year and reported it was unutterably dull, but staying home and TiVo can assist with that. But I only really thought about even TiVoing it for a split second. I suspect Eminem, who walked out of the proceedings, wishes he had not even TiVoed it as well.

I wondered what remotely cool or remotely music-related movies even came out last year, besides Twilight? From all reports, the only notable events of the MTV Movie Awards evening were the premiere screening of the Twilight New Moon Trailer (which we’ll have for you here in a moment) and that grody Sacha Baron Cohen creep being dropped on Eminem. Basically Sacha Baron Cohen put on this white outfit which riffs unoriginally on the already satirical White Gold heavy metal milk commercials and shows his ass (which ranks lower than Fred Durst’s ass on the List of Asses Nobody Wants to See) and MTV flew him over the audience on a wire and dropped him in Eminem’s lap, crotch up. If multiplatinum rapper and movie star Eminem, who has the best gothic video on MTV right now, ups the MTV Movie Awards star quotient by gracing them with his presence, how disrespectful and unappreciative is it to stick an unappealing stranger’s tiny groin in his face?

If you don’t know who Sacha Baron Cohen is, count yourself fortunate, but he is basically this disingenuous pseudo-comedian who never owns his own stupid presentation. Sacha Baron Cohen always pretends that he is just playing a character, but most of his characters are exaggerations of someone trying pathetically hard to be cool. The ego protection Sacha Baron Cohen is engaging in there is so obvious, just in case someone notices that he is not cool at all, that I find him painful to watch under the best of circumstances.

I guess one could argue that Eminem plays spoof characters in some of his videos, but I feel that is deeply different because one has a sense that sometimes Eminem is clowning around and sometimes he is being raw and real. And nobody would greenlight flying Eminem over the MTV Movie Awards audience and dropping him in Bret Michaels’ lap, crotch up.

It is now the morning after and Twilight unsurprisingly swept the MTV Movie Awards with standard award show fare like Best Movie and MTV special awards like Best Fight Scene. So Robert Pattinson who played vampire leading man Edward Cullen, Kristen Stewart who played viewpoint character Bella Swan, and Cam Gigandet who played bad boy vampire James all spent a lot of time clutching boxes of gold popcorn on stage. Apparently the other music-related movie worthy of MTV consideration was High School Musical 3: Senior Year which starred Zac Efron. Zac Efron is nice-looking enough and I saw him host SNL and so I can’t say whether High School Musical 3: Senior Year was robbed when Zac Efron lost in the Best Kiss category he was nominated in which was won by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson from Twilight. I’m not sure what Zac Efron did win, as even the clips from the MTV Movie Awards show this year are kinda unwatchable and IMDB shows no 2009 wins, but, when he was called to the stage by Sacha Baron Cohen, who was apparently a presenter, poor Zac Efron, being put on the spot, looked like he wanted no part of it and was considering following Eminem out of the building. Edit: MTV reports that, although most viewers missed it in the hubbub, Zac Efron won for Best Male Performance (as opposed to Robert Pattinson’s win for Best Breakthrough Performance Male Winner.)

I’m going to get on posting that Twilight New Moon trailer now, but, seriously, I think Eminem should get a Get Out of Jail Free card for pistol-whipping Sacha Baron Cohen any time he feels like it. Ideally without warning and in the (tiny) crotch area.

Some pundits are suggesting today that Eminem was not really annoyed and just acted angry as part of the gag. If Eminem was not actually disgusted, then he deserves an Oscar or at least an MTV Movie Award for his convincing performance.

The Kelburn Castle and Estate fully opens to the public on Easter and maintains regular hours from Easter until November second. Although Kelburn Castle has many historical and architectural features of interest, the aspect people tend to find most notable is the graffiti-covered portion.

A couple of years ago, it was determined that parts of the concrete rendering were probably going to need to be replaced in the relatively near future. Concrete rendering or plastering is the surface placed on the outside of stone or brick walls for a combination of weatherproofing and texture. In this case the harling or pebbledash was applied to the walls primarily because soft sandstone requires careful weatherproofing to last. David and Alice Boyle, the children of the tenth and current Earl of Glasgow, thought it might be fun to use upcoming renovations as an opportunity to have famous graffiti artists paint a portion of the castle.

So the family commissioned a team of Brazilian painters called Nina and Nunca and the duo Os Gemeos or, translated from Portuguese, The Twins, who are known for their yellow figures and ability to garner establishment regard for what some might view as vandalism. This team of four graffiti artists were invited to do their thang on a castle wall legally, instead of guerrilla style. MTV competition-winning audiovisual artist and music festival scenester luminary Elliot Thomson of Preamptive and the multi-pronged artist group the Novak Collective produced a time lapse video of The Graffiti Project. The project was undertaken in residence and completed in early summer 2007, but, despite the fine reputations of all the artists involved, a debate still goes on over whether this was a desecration of a beautiful historical landmark or pretty much the coolest thing ever.

I don’t think I can think of any dwelling I would get more of a kick out of than a castle fortress with beautiful colorful graffiti painting on it. How often does one get to like something for both hipster and medieval reasons at the same time?

It probably comes as no surprise then that I think the graffiti art is a cool idea. I also think it is in keeping with how such fortresses tend to be extended in different styles over time. Lord Glasgow states:

“Kelburn Castle, unlike most grand houses in Scotland was not planned by an eminent architect like Adams or Lorrimer. It simply evolved over a period of some 700 years. As the family became richer or more important, it grew organically. Over the years, various Earls of Glasgow, or more probably their wives, changed sitting rooms into bedrooms, partitioned rooms to make extra corridors, altered staircases, raised the level of floors and ceilings, mover kitchens from one end of the house to the other and changed the front door from the north to the south side of the house and then back to the north again. The result is that Kelburn is an eccentric half castle, half-house, constantly in use and still very much lived-in.”

Some of the concept of painting part of the castle was consciously to unite urban art and rural canvas. Looking at the history, though, the whole thing is very much in keeping with the origins of the estate. It is always odd for Americans, with our comparatively brief national history, but the Europeans really track where things come from for centuries, although there are always those who contend that some of European genealogy and history is at best excessive in detail.

At any rate, Kelburn began as a Norman Keep when the de Boyville family, who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror in 1066, moved to Ayrshire in 1140. It is estimated that the Norman Keep edition of the building on the Kelburn Estate was completed by 1200ish. Some time in the following centuries, the de Boyvilles evolved their family name to Boyle, which lead to cultural confusion over whether that was a proper Scottish noble name or an Irish name. Because Europeans care about such matters, the Boyles, despite their seven or eight hundred-year-old estate and titles, are often left off various lists due to their lack of an official tartan and a suspiciously Irish-sounding name. Technically, their name is Norman invader and many families have invented official tartans to get in on the whole uniforms and team colors culture. From an American perspective, I’ve spent time in Scotland and I’m probably more educated than the average American and I probably could not differentiate between Scotland and Ireland on a map with a vintage traditional broadsword to my head. Whether or not the threatening broadsword had creative graffiti on it.

In 1581, a more impressive castle was built around the original stone structure. During the following century, the Boyles got very paid in shipping and shipbuilding and, ahem stamping out smuggling in service of Customs & Excise. The Boyle family was rewarded for their public service in 1703 with the title of Earl. When he received his title, the first Earl of Glasgow had recently completed construction on Kelburn House, a mansion built to address the difficulty of castles being considered unfashionable at the time. If the first Earl was so concerned about what people might think, he is probably turning over in his grave over the idea of graffiti adorning Kelburn Castle, but it really is in keeping with updating with the times the same way he did. In the 1800’s, the fifth and sixth Earl of Glasgow caused the size of the Kelburn Estate to dwindle, the fifth through a fabulous fashionable gambler scenester lifestyle and the sixth through endowing churches. In between being seen at all the best parties and religious events, they did manage to put a Victorian wing around one of the 1581 towers.

In 1977, the current and tenth Earl of Glasgow and his wife Isabel were culturally generous enough to open the grounds and buildings of their family home, of many generations, as a park and museum for part of every year. You can now visit the incredibly beautiful and storied Kelburn Estate from Easter through November second.

Interscope recording artist Lady Gaga is an entertaining answer to the reams of pseudo-indie forgettable hipsters who put so much effort into looking like they are not trying at all. When a ballet dancer makes a pirouette look effortless, that is impressive. When a band backed by a mega-corporation makes it look effortless to get beamed into millions of households while being a humble dork in a Cheeto-stained ironic T-shirt, that is just stupid fake.

Lady Gaga is not afraid to look like she put some effort in when she got dressed today. She appears to come out of the same New York city nightlife culture which first gave birth to Madonna. MTV bleeps the word “muffin” when Lady Gaga touches her genital region in the “Poker Face” video, but Fuse TV leaves it in. Make of that what you will. Watching the “Poker Face” video makes me feel like it might be coming around to time for it to be fun to get dressed up to go out again. I appreciate an artist who can un-ironically perform with jewelry glued to her face, while somehow seeming like she includes her audience. A Britney Spears will get dressed up, but one always has the sense that she is from some other planet and she is there to perform and not to really get anyone else’s ass down on the dance floor. Lady Gaga makes you want to show what you got. At the very least, “Poker Face” is some lovely eye candy directed by the brilliant Ray Kay and produced by Jill Hardin. Lady Gaga and songwriters Nadir Khayat collaborated on the songs adorable lyrics.

I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be
A little gambling is fun, when you’re with me (I love it)
Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun
And baby when it’s love, if it’s not rough, it isn’t fun

The song is about strutting your stuff in a sexy way, while not revealing whether you are sexually available or not. Remember, I loathe puns, but I make an exception for the sex and porn puns. Especially if they have fabulous style.

I watched the Rock Docs: NWA: The World’s Most Dangerous Group documentary about NWA last night. Surprisingly, it made me think and actually somewhat changed my view on some things, most notably Ice Cube. I know, if something on VH1 made me think, apparently intentionally, then WTF is up with the universe?

I loathed Ice Cube the first time I heard his solo music. I first heard it at a time when the hip hop industry was working overtime at making it acceptable for white people to buy rap albums. Longtime Blue Blood readers may recall an article I wrote for the print magazine about my love of Ice T, which I called “I Shot the Sheriff and the Deputy”. (I’m a witty girl.) But the first stuff I heard by Ice Cube was not about the things I could relate to in an Ice T record. If there was anything about rage, disenfranchisement, and reaching for power on there, it was most definitely not for me. Ice Cube went on and on and on about how much white people overall suck and Asian people are this and Jewish people are this and white women are all ugly and blah blah blah. Apart from the deliberately alienating lyrics, this was also a time when rappers didn’t really tend to be that good-looking. Music television was around and MTV was instrumental in popularizing NWA, but let’s just say Ice Cube didn’t really have the good looks of LL Cool J, Nelly, or 50 Cent. Ice Cube looked like the pissed off guy who, if you had a party at your house, would get drunk and start breaking stuff as soon as his friends started having fun or getting laid. Like he should talk about what anybody else looks like. Hmph.

Then, at some point, Ice Cube appeared to have had politician-level quantities of Botox injected into his head and he started appearing in family-friendly comedies. I thought that maybe the deities of irony think that’s funny. But Ice Cube was appearing in exactly the kind of movies which are offensively wholesome. I’m not opposed to wholesome, but I am opposed to the kind of wholesome which makes you believe someone is just hiding most of who they really are. I am opposed to the kind of wholesome which is intended to make regular people feel terrible about themselves. And I thought Ice Cube was, by now, not only a racist misogynist, but a sell-out racist misogynist tool of the overculture.

Watching this VH1 special made me rethink my opinion that NWA was really just an example of Dr. Dre being great and taking a few guys from his neighborhood with him, folks who were just in the right place at the right time with the right friend. Taking nothing away from Dr. Dre’s brilliance, NWA may have been able to be what it was for more of a group synergy than I would previously have credited. Notably, Ice Cube actually wrote a number of raps, but I’ve never seen press coverage of the group talk about that before.

I can see why Ice Cube might have furrowed his brow like that, if he wrote some of NWA’s angriest words and then he saw Eazy-E being all about grabbing all the dough and having sex with as many groupies as possible. And he saw his bandmates settling into making something he saw as important and political into a business. As the seed money for the band and the studio they recorded in came from Eazy-E and much of the band’s street cred came from Eazy-E, he probably deserved a bigger slice of the money pie and, if he was more of a hit with the ladies than the others, maybe he was just plain sexier. He was certainly hotter than Ice Cube. And Eazy-E did die of AIDS from having so much random unprotected sex, so not that there wasn’t, ya know, a downside to being attractive that way.

Knowing that Dr. Dre went on to tap talents including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and 50 Cent, I just kinda thought he was the brains of the operation. I’m not sure what MC Ren went on to, besides a few solo efforts, at least one of which did very well. DJ Yella went on to direct for mainstream adult video companies. I obviously believe that porn can be political, but calling a gonzo porn series DJ Yella’s Str8 Outta Compton really seems to show a certain willingness to overlook the importance, strength, and pride of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton record.

I feel a certain sympathy and understanding for Ice Cube now, that I did not before. If those words were his and he truly believed in what NWA had to say and changing the world and it was not about the money or the groupies, then it must have been gut-wrenching for him when those around him started talking like it was just business. I don’t know what year he legally changed his name to be Ice Cube, but it seems like he really wanted to be that guy, not just play a character to sell stuff.

On one level, I’m pleased that the internet facilitated the financial viability of my previously costly art project for my scene and community. Money can facilitate freedom and I like freedom. But money can be a really polluting influence as well, one which really brings out the wolves. I know I find it gut-wrenching when I hear “just business” from my peers and compatriots, some of whom are (or at least were) people I deeply believed in. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a data mining corporation like Experian simultaneously strip mine our culture and destroy any remaining privacy or control over our lives we might have. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a mainstream adult video corporation like Vivid recruit others I would have considered members of my tribe, while paying them far less than they would ever offer someone they considered a full-fledged member of society. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a mainstream porn site like SuicideGirls turn once vital sexual and feminist activism into bickering competitions which would be unseemly even in junior high school girls. There are people, I would have considered members of my tribe, who help a mainstream clothing corporation like Hot Topic cheapen our style and make it something for children.

Maybe they have given up on true empowerment and feel like playing the clown is the only option left for them. If they can no longer recall what was supposed to be empowering about what they chose to do, then, in my opinion, they need to check themselves.

I’m not interested in being the court jester with the funny-colored hair in a disrespectful ruler’s kingdom. I’m thoroughly capable of putting on an Izod and having a nice salon do something more natural. I was bad at golf the last time I played at my grandparents country club, before being banned for punk rock behavior. But I could learn. And I love to eat, so I am ahead of the curve in knowing which fork to use.

If I decide to switch things up, it will not be to play the Pied Piper in leading people to work for Experian for free (while giving away their personal data) or Vivid for less than standard wages. I absolutely reject the notion that I should accept second class citizen status because of how I like to have sex or my gender or what I like to wear or what I like to listen to or having an artistic temperament. There is no obvious word for the kind of disenfranchised I am. But I won’t accept working for a corporate master on lesser terms because of it, any more than Ice Cube would for the color of his skin or where he is from.

All I’m saying is that Ice Cube made a reported thirteen million dollars last year and I no longer begrudge him it.

So I really think MTV needs to debut a liquor lesbian duet between Katy Perry and Amy Lee where they snog by the end. See, poor Katy Perry was asked by Steppin’ Out magazine who she would want to kiss. Her singing about how she kissed a girl and all. Katy Perry told Steppin’ Out that she would like to recreate the Madonna and Britney Spears kissing moment from whatever awards show that was at. She wanted Mily Cyrus to kiss her at the Teen Choice awards last week. Okay, I just Googled to see why I remembered the Madonna lesbian kiss being a threesome and to see what awards show it was at. The answer is the VMAs and the kiss was Madonna kissing both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. How does Christina Aguilera get left out of that? But I digress.

So anyway Katy Perry said she wanted to do a stunt like the Video Music Awards one with Disney’s Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus’ peeps issued a public response to this idea which can be distilled down to “ew, gross, no.” In more detail, Teen Choice Awards host Miley Cyrus told E Online’s Marc Malkin that “[Katy Perry] sang on my record. So I think she’s kind of getting back at me, because she was doing harmonies and backgrounds.”

Okay, that was kind of unintelligible, but Miley Cyrus is only like fifteen-years-old. But Katy Perry is still left with the problem of who to do a lesbian publicity stunt with now that Disney’s teen queen rejected her advances. According to my usual primary source for pop culture factoids, The Jesus Blog, Katy Perry found “that because singing about Christ did not bring riches and fame she has decided to sing about sensationalism and pull publicity stunts in order to be known.” Yep, you heard it here first (unless you read The Jesus Blog or are, ya know, very informed about Katy Perry), Katy Perry started off as Katy Hudson, singer of Xtian pop rock.

Now I have no problem with it if someone like Christina Aguilera or Alanis Morisette is initially marketed as wholesome and virginal and later marketed as more mature and maybe a bit dangerously slutty. That is just growing up. I think it is egregiously inappropriate to market very young girls in overtly sexual ways (Yes, I’m talking to you, Billy Ray Cyrus!) But it is pretty normal for young girls to grow up and for artists to evolve over time. All that makes sense.

But when Xtian artists like Amy Lee of Evanescence or Katy Perry sort of cross over into gothic and bi-curious markets, they tend to dilute both. Amy Lee can sell diluted darkness because she seems, to the uninitiated or overly gullible, to be coming from a gothic place. Amy Lee is the methadone of goth. Katy Perry can sell homophobia because she seems, to the uninitiated or overly gullible, to be coming from a sexually adventurous place. Katy Perry is the arsenic of sexual adventure. So I think Katy Perry’s peeps need to get with Amy Lee’s peeps, put together some sort of Ani DeFranco meets Coal Chamber mash-up, and have the two supposedly edgy artists make out to it. Lesbian kiss publicity stunt problem solved!

When the feminist publications like Feministe and the rock publications like AntiQuiet, and the news overlords like MSNBC all agree on something, it is safe to assume the topic is something as definite as the sky is generally blue. In this instance, pretty much everyone agrees that famous homophobe Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” video is a lot like a tremendously sucky version of a Girls Gone Wild set up.

More than a decade ago, Jill Sobule sang a bouncy tune, of the same name, about a woman who is titillated and unsure and excited about the new experience of having kissed another woman. Neither video shows a lot of lip-locking because both were intended for MTV airplay and, as a society, we tend to still view same sex kisses as potentially unsuitable material for kids. I think there will come a time when the idea of two women kissing being scandalous is as quaint as the idea of two people with different ethnic or racial backgrounds kissing is now. Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal, recently had to work on their legislation because they had some old laws on the books to prevent black/white couples from other states from using Massachusetts to legitimize their otherwise illegal unions.

Because progress really can and does happen on so many fronts, the lameness of third wave feminism never ceases to disappoint me. If Katy Perry thinks it will turn guys on to tell them that she had a dream about kissing a girl, but, like, ew, not that she’d ever really do that . . . well, it probably will turn guys on.

Most guys I know, who would freak if their girl made out with another guy, think they will be just fine with it if she makes out with another girl. In real life, guys often beg to see this and then get really upset when the opportunity actually arises. Like it never crossed their minds that the chicks might actually be into each other, so then they get belatedly jealous. Personally, I think the swinger relationship model is at least internally consistent, but it is just silly to have the notion that it is totally cool for your girlfriend to kiss other girls, so long as she doesn’t like it. The idea of chicks kissing chicks because they really want to kiss a guy and need to get his attention . . . well, I guess I just think it is better to be more goal-directed towards what you really want.

Gentlemen, before your girlfriend starts kissing girls, decide whether or not you are cool with swinging. In most cases, the other party having a vagina doesn’t really mean it does not count, unless you are making your darling do something she hates. Of course, there is also the possibility that your girl is indifferent one way or the other to whomever she fools around with. To her, getting down with anyone may not be worthy of a musical anthem because it is a matter of some indifference and just really no big deal. This may include doing it with you.

Ladies, do not ever plant your beautiful sexy lips on anyone who would sing a song which manages to be sexist, male-bashing, and homophobic like “Ur So Gay”. Katy Perry does not deserve your kisses.

Okay, this is just plain awesome and entirely made my day. I am mostly familiar with Kerrang! for being the well-written and well-photographed hard rock magazine which used to cover a lot of the bands who played Taime Downe’s late lamented Pretty Ugly nightclub in Los Angeles. Apparently, on the other side of the pond, Kerrang! also does radio and television and such. One of their on-air personalities is Nick Margerrison who does a show called The Night Before.

I’m not sure what astronauts have to do with hard rock, but I guess MTV’s early call sign video interlude involved the moon landing, so maybe it all just fits together in some secret cosmic way. At any rate, Nick Margerrison was interviewing astronaut Edgar Mitchell, on Kerrang! Radio, when the famous astronaut casually pointed out that life definitely exists on other planets and aliens have visited earth. The obviously usually-smooth Nick Margerrison is kind of like ha, ha, wait are you serious? He sort of sputters and says wow a lot, while waiting for his interview subject to admit he was kidding.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell: “We’re not alone in the universe at all . . . The UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been covered up by our governments for some time.”

On-air personality Nick Margerrison: “I’ve had crazy UFO nuts before, but I’ve never had Dr. Ed Mitchell, the 6th man to walk on the moon, a respected scientist in his own right, announce to me that we’ve been visited by aliens from other planets and they definitely are out there and there’s no debating it . . . I’m just wondering if I’ve stumbled on astronaut humor and in a couple minutes you are going to go I was only pulling your leg.”

The Apollo 14 veteran astronaut goes on to point out that he grew up in Roswell and we really did have aliens come to Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. He says there are aliens who conform to the popular concept of little humanoid creatures with big heads and big eyes. Additionally, we are lucky the aliens are not hostile because we’d be totally gone by now if they were. The record-holder for longest moonwalk ever says that some governments are going to be declassifying their UFO information soon and implies that, in preparation for this, the Catholic church issued a proclamation that

“Belief in life on other planets does not compromise your Catholocism.”

Even more awesome than the conversation between Nick Margerrison and Edgar Mitchell is the conversation between The Night Before producer Alex and the NASA media rep. Kerrang! had the balls to post their producer’s call to NASA where they asked if anyone from NASA wanted to come on the show and comment on Edgar Mitchell’s assertions. Kerrang! did have the consideration to bleep the publicity person’s name and email address though.

NASA PR Person: “He said that? Okay, what do you want me to say to that? . . . That an astronaut said that there were aliens? . . . Let me see who would be willing to dispute what an astronaut says.”

Although the NASA guy says he will get back to the show, he never denies what the astronaut stated, just says he needs to find someone willing to dispute it. As it turns out, apparently no one was willing to go on the radio to refute what the devil-may-care 77-year-old astronaut had to say. NASA merely emailed the show saying,

“Dear Alex,
NASA does not track UFOs.
NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe.
Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinion on this issue.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.”

Is Dr. Ed Mitchell telling the whole truth, senile, or pulling a damn funny practical joke? There’s just no way to know, but it makes for great listening. Kerrang!’s interviewer asked him if he was worried for his safety, blabbing stuff like this.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell: “I don’t think they are knocking anybody off for that any more.”

I used to watch music videos and just feel the mood they were trying to evoke. I’d believe that the peformers really were that cool. It was all so sexy and exciting. I just wanted to pass through that TV screen into a cooler and more passionate world.

Given that I kind of did manage to live my life so that I got to pass through the screen to the other side, I actually only got cable television because I was offered a really good deal on getting it with a cable modem. Time Warner Cable recently bought out Comcast, who I think bought out RoadRunner, and maybe AT&T was in there somewhere. I didn’t totally follow all the transfers and my cable bills literally did not have a return address on the envelope for a while because the changeovers were so hasty.

The upshot of all of this is that I recently had a channel line-up re-shuffle and it is easier for me to TiVo lots of music video shows, fast forward through stuff I don’t like, and still get to enjoy lots of videos I do like and might not have come across otherwise. Music videos used to be one of my favorite forms of entertainment and one of the only types of television I would watch. My college had a room in the student center with a gigantic projection TV and a friend of mine (who had a first and last name which were surreally both slang for penis – he was even more surreally named after his father) and I used to sit there and watch MTV on it, missing stuff we were supposed to do because we were just going to stay until the good video came on. When I finally had access to a television with cable and a closed door, I wasted no time finding which shows had the highest preponderance of rock videos I found worthy of self-pleasure.

My new Time Warner Cable line-up includes a couple of MTVs and VH1s and CMTs, and the delightful relative newcomer FUSE. I should be in heaven, but I have trouble stopping the negative ideation those video channels evoke in me today. The problem is that I have too much of a sense of how the sausage is made and I’m discomfitted by a lot of their cooking methods. I see a video with some teenage boy singing about how wrong it is to beat your girlfriend and the song is catchy enough and the boy is okay-looking and has a nice enough voice which works for the material. But I can’t stand the pretense that some teenager wrote the song.

Cablevision Systems Corporation, the corporate parent of FUSE, has sports holdings which account for nearly 20% of their revenues. I wish music understood teamwork like the world of sports does. Sports fans know and understand that, while some people are really standout stars, there are a number of positions which need to be played and the coaches get airtime too. If someone gets too flamboyant in drawing attention to themselves, they can get penalized for showboating. In the world of music, there is this desperation to pretend that the lead singer just came up with everything. Unfortunately, the product is so manufactured that a lead singer who really can come up with his or her own songs, style, and message is likely to be buried and ripped-off and asked to change, but never played by the music video stations. A headstrong artist is a pain in the ass and nowhere near as desirable as a compliant and good-looking youth who can sing and dance and sign contracts which offer a low percentage.

And I can’t stop myself from thinking about how the singer doesn’t understand the words he is singing. I can’t stop myself from thinking about contract law. I can’t stop thinking about how roughly seven companies own most media in America. I can’t stop thinking about how the music industry’s response to YouTube was not to offer kids in Peoria the video-directing opportunity of a lifetime, but to offer those talented kids in the boonies the opportunity to line the industry’s pockets for nothing. I can’t stop myself from thinking about how many talented musicians I know, who will never get a real chance, precisely because they are the whole package, in an industry which has come to prefer people who can fit snugly into small roles.

And then I find myself wondering about a band like Evanescence. The band has sold more than fourteen million albums worldwide and they tend to be marketed somewhat as a Gothic band. I’ve had some interaction or other with someone from most bands which are marketed as Gothic or industrial or deathrock or anything along those lines. If I haven’t, then someone I know has. Either I or someone I know will have interviewed someone from the band, partied with someone from the band, had sex with someone from the band, or at least shown up at a nightclub and had a conversation in line for the bathroom with someone from the band. But nobody I know has ever mentioned having anything to do with anyone in Evanescence.

Dictionary.com defines the band’s name as “to dissipate or disappear like vapor” and the Gurl.com top interview in a Google search for amy+lee+evanescence+interview explains the band’s name as “The word Evanescence means to dissipate like vapor, it puts an image in your head of like a ghost/specter that isn’t really there.” The Gurl.com interview has no interviewer credit. So I watch videos late at night and I finally start wondering if Evanescence really exists in any man-in-the-street sense of what a band is or if some enterprising producer for the surreally-named Wind Up Records just made up the whole thing to, you know, wind up the public. And sell fourteen million records. Which is a lot.

The question is, if Amy Lee and Terry Balsamo don’t really write Evanescence songs, don’t pick out their own clothes, don’t have the personal lives claimed for them, or maybe don’t even speak English, does that make their performances less enjoyable for their audience? If it does reduce the pleasure, does that mean it is good and reasonable to hide the origins of the music and the performers? Is it okay to lie, if it makes listeners happier? Is it still okay to lie, if it makes listeners happier, but the lies mean a genuine struggling band, who tells the truth, can not compete?

Someone, please tell me you have met Amy Lee from Evanescence and she speaks English like a goth girl from Arkansas. Someone, please tell me how to block the part of my brain which wonders if Evanescence is a hoax, when all I really want to do is watch some cool videos.