Dinner and a Polemic

Do you want me to make dinner now? It seems to be what you are saying. I’m saying that the guys over there fighting about whether U.S. Girls is “rawk” enough—maybe in an indie way—but no way “traditional rock” … Why do they waste time? Why do they make these distinctions? Just enjoy the friggin’ music, guys. What’s with the polemics? There’s a pandemic still afoot—a calm before the storm—there’s racism run rampant, food shortage, debt crises of every sort, there was even a wreck — the Edmund Fitzgerald. And on you guys go about Meg Ramey’s too disco, too pop now. You remembered when it was noisy lo-fi DIY. You’re about to come to blows because you say she was better in Philadelphia in 2008, but you prefer her earlier sets from 2011. And isn’t it a shame how she ruined “Red Ford” all these years later. You guys need to relax. Get a room. Wear your god damned masks correctly, not down around your chins, and stop exhaling all this blowhard air into the atmosphere. There. Now what are your issues with Dry Cleaning again?

“We’re headed for empty-headedness,
the featureless amnesias of Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada,
states rich only in vowel sounds and alliteration.”

— Lynn Emmanuel / “Out of Metropolis”