(A note to readers before we start: I wrote this article about six months ago for a local all ages venue that had started and was/is doing shows as a collective in Seattle. As many people know, from hearing through the grapevine or from hearing me rant and rave when I do spoken word shows, the City of Seattle has a policy called the Teen Dance Ordinance which makes the outlawed dance community in the movie “Footloose” look like kindergarden. The Teen Dance Ordinance is the Ph.D. of anti-youth, anti-dance, anti-fun laws and it has been upheld and supported by our idiot Mayor Paul Schell. The collective was started after the Mayor thwarted seven years of legal work done on the issue by a group of people of which I was a part. I wrote this article in support of the new attempt at a venue for their monthly zine update that they circulate in the local community. It is really a great little publication, as they cover music issues and some labor issues as well since the venue is in a union hall. It is a great way to draw new interest toward all ages music. Anyway, when I was asked for a contribution, this is what I had to offer. I think only about 100 people here in the northwest might have read it. Even though the venue is here in Seattle, by substituting the name of your local venue for “Local 46”, the words still have potency. Let me know if you have any questions about Seattle’s all ages community, if you would like to hear me talk a little more about what an idiot the Mayor is, or if you have any comments.)

Having just received my first copy of Local 46 (issue #2), and being not entirely sure for what has appeared here in the preceding issue, I apologize in advance if my words duplicate what others have written. But, we live in a society in which we are used to being bombarded a billion times a day by the same stupid invasive messages in manipulative advertising campaigns. I figure that even if you have already heard a sincere message from someone else about how amazing a place Local 46 is and how thankful they are that it exists, that you will be okay with the repetition. At least this is not the 50th time today you have had to watch a chalupa ad with that psycho Taco Hell dog.

So, I was driving through Seattle the other day shortly after being asked by a performer friend to do some juggling and comedy routines at an upcoming event being sponsored by 100.7 FM “The Buzz”. I am a full time professional juggler and performer, and I get calls ranging from one end of the insanity spectrum to the other. Ever want to be completely humiliated on one day and raised to the status of a god on another? Become a juggler. Highlights include: standing in front of a bagel store on Madison wearing a 2 foot wide bagel around my neck juggling three flaming torches in 1991 announcing to people that I was “a toasted bagel”…juggling on a 6 foot tall unicycle for 3500 people last year at an arena during which the entire crowd had a great time…being forced off the stage by a team of firefighters in full gear while in front of 200 kids in Edmonds when it suddenly became known that there was a gas leak in the theater in 1998. I think you get the idea. If you ever want to find me in the year 2020, just look in the yellow pages under “Psychotherapists”. Call the first office you see listed. I will be on their couch, trying to have the toasted bagel gig erased from my mind.

Anyway, after I got the call from my friend asking about the radio station gig, I decided to turn on the radio and check out what the the station was broadcasting. It is always a good idea to know your audience and your client, so you can work your material out in advance. Even before I turned on the radio, the first association I made to 100.7 was radio “personality” Tom Leykis. Maybe you have heard of him. He’s the guy who autographs women’s breasts at his live appearances and who used to talk about politics on his show until he realized that talking about sex is where the real money is. I personally think Tom Leykis should have his balls burned off while tied to a stake as an opening act for next year’s Ozzfest. I don’t support censorship, and he could say whatever he wanted to while we were frying him, but anyone who is working so hard to promote idiocy and the general American undercurrent of stupidity and short sightedness really does need to be destroyed regardless.

With that in mind, I hesitated when turning the radio on, for fear that I would encounter Leykis, but then I remembered that 100.7 is also the home of the therapy/comedy talk show “Loveline”, which is the greatest thing in the world short of good vegan brownies. Loveline actually helps people, and does so in a creative and funny way. You should check it out. Anyway, ready for just about anything, I pushed the power button and entered the 100.7 radio world.

The first thing I heard was a commercial between two people who I assumed to be well known radio people from the Buzz. I had no idea who they were. A man and a woman, sounding young and hip and “funny”, were bantering back and forth with this safe-for-radio flirting routine which was really an ad for their show, but was set up to interest me with its suggestion of sex between the two of them. Yippee, Buzz. Sex used as advertising? Wow. Never heard that one before. Stop me before I salivate all over the steering wheel.

In the commercial, the woman would say something and the man would make a double entendre out of it. Then this would happen again. Then again. Then again. I was supposed to associate with the repetitive tactics used by the guy to get this woman into bed. Eventually the commercial ended with him asking her to repeat something she had said, but slower and more seductive this time. It was all so goddamn stupid.

After the commercial, something snapped in my head. I realized that here I was, most likely representative of the Buzz’s target audience (age 25-35, white male), and that I wasn’t buying it. At all. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with anything they had to offer. I didn’t want their sex. I didn’t want their show. I could care less who they were.

Keep in mind that I am against censorship in all forms and I am not a nutcase moralist. I think the more explicit and more direct the better for all types of communication and expression. What I am opposed to, is the use of bullshit for the sake of advertising, and for its own sake as well. Leykis is the champion of that. He uses bullshit to create more bullshit upon which he adds even more. The audiences eat it up, he gets rich, and its another great day in happy land. Well, I’m sick of it. I hated the people on the radio for their attempts to use fake sex to draw me into listening to their dumb show. I realized that in the face of an advertising world that envelops us in sounds and images of perfect people with perfect lives who have perfect sex and immortality through the products they own, that there are very few escapes.

By widely accepted cultural standards as a 30-year-old male, I am a nerd. I juggle for a living and therefore have no steady income. I drive a piece of shit car. I am supposed be heading out to get loaded at bars on the weekends hoping to connive my way into sleeping with people who’s first names I don’t know, and then meeting my friends for beef barbecues before football games to tell war stories of these conquests.

Instead, and I want to scream out to this entire alien world and to all those maniacs who would try to fill my head with bullshit and deception, that what I need is not what they have to offer. In fact, I hate every atom of what they have to offer. All I need is the feeling of freedom I get when I am around people who are expressing themselves honestly and openly...people who’s connection to their music and their art is direct and real, defined by their own will and not a strategic marketing plan of some advertising executive.

I want to be around people who are willing to look stupid in front of a ton of people because they think they have something real to say, in the midst of a world of illusion. So to all of us working to make Local 46 a great, safe, fun place to experience genuine and honest music and performance: congratulations.

We are kicking the world in the ass and doing a great job of it. We are giving people of all ages a place to go and to speak and to listen and to share. We are all, from the people running the place down to the people showing up and loving the shows, contributing to the strength of a community, rather than contributing to a marketing mold which salespeople are waiting to exploit.

All ages music is one of the only alternatives left to people who want something more than what the advertisers have to offer, and it is a viable and real alternative if each of us helps make it so. I hope to see you at a show.

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