Brilliant And Insane

First of all, let me say that I tried to avoid the internet this Thursday because it was April Fools' Day....
People who are unintelligent and gullible (such as yours truly) are advised to just shut themselves off completely each April first because it's impossible for us to tell what is real and what is a prank for that entire 24 hours. I walk around each year on that day not knowing whether to believe ANYTHING that happens; suddenly, each magazine article and television report appears suspect, even absurd, as I put my guard way, way up. I wait all day for someone to nail me, and no matter how diligent I've been, it always happens. The internet, of course, makes this paranoid ritual all the more frustrating, as every person with a Facebook account or a blog feels a need to post a prank. Seriously -- zero percent of what you read on the web each April first should be believed (compared to the usual five percent).


And while I'm on the subject of cultural items that confuse me, I might as well bring something up that I'm sure we've all heard of: Lady Gaga. Yeah. Now, I don't mean to beat a societal dead horse here, but I simply cannot go another day without getting some Gaga-related concerns off my chest. Of course, there are the obvious questions, like "Why is she famous?" and "Do people really like this crap?" but those have already been asked before by billions upon billions of people. I don't want to be unoriginal and cover ground that's been more than well-explored by others more qualified than me. No, I have another issue with Lady Gaga, and it's much darker.

How should I put this? Well...let's just say that in the music of Lady Gaga, I hear the very essence of insanity. That is, every note and every beat of every Gaga song is woven with the thread of absolute madness. This isn't just some humorous, elaborate way for me to say that Lady Gaga sucks, either. I'm talking about something far worse than crappiness. I'm saying that Lady Gaga's music is so bad that it has a fundamental connection to the dark side, perhaps to the devil himself. It's evil.


You're not going to really grasp what I'm talking about under normal listening conditions. See, in order to hear the true nature of Gaga, once must be in a rather specific, vulnerable, state of mind. I noticed the horrors of her music one day around five AM. I was extremely tired, having caught only two or three hours of sleep before going in to work for an early shift. I was standing there all alone in the bathroom when Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" came on the officewide sound system. It was loud; so loud that in my near-delirious state, all thoughts were drowned out, and the only thing in my brain was a horrifying refrain from the song's chorus.

Bah-bah-bee-bah-bah-bee-bah
Bah bah bah,
Po-ker-face...

Bah-bah-bee-bah-bah-bee-bah
Bah bah bah,
Po-ker-face...

Oh God, make it stop!


That looped in my head for the rest of the day, and I swear to you, I am now convinced that Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" is what they play in Hell. Not the entire song, mind you; just the "bah-bee-bah Poker Face" part. Over and over and over again. Forever.

See, in certain dark, rare moments of my life (say, upon waking up from a nightmare, or deeply under the influence of nitrous oxide at the dentist's office), I've been able to catch a glimpse of what awaits those who are doomed to an eternity of torture, and "Poker Face" fits with my vision perfectly. Lady Gaga has wrapped a subliminal streak of cruel, infectious madness into her music so deftly that the pop-consuming masses have not even noticed it while she sells millions of records (or MP3s or I-Tunes or whatever). What her true mission is, I may never figure out; but I DO know that the insanity of her songs cannot be a mere accident....

Bah-bah-bee-bah-bah-bee-bah
Bah bah bah,
Po-ker-face...

Bah-bah-bee-bah-bah-bee-bah
Bah bah bah,
Po-ker-face...

In Hell, the above refrain dominates all aspects of your consciousness. Lady Gaga takes over; all you can hear is her voice, as every thought shatters into a thousand fragments of what used to be your sanity. The frantic chatter of ten million demons serves as Gaga's backup, completely overloading your brain's ability to process information and, to make matters worse, you're being tortured in terrible ways by the Dark One himself. Then, just as you think you might be getting a little used to it all, you look up and see the most ghastly sight imaginable: Lady Gaga, without makeup.


Bah-bah-bee-bah-bah-bee-bah
Bah bah bah,
Po-ker-face...

Bah-bah-bee-bah-bah-bee-bah
Bah bah bah,
Po-ker-face...

So, yeah -- the afterlife will be less than fun for most of us, and Lady Gaga will provide the entertainment. Well, either her, or Billy Joel.

Hey, as long as we're talking about madness, here's a fascinating documentary.

We Live In Public (2009)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498329/


Netflix description:
Ondi Timoner's documentary chronicles a decade in the life of Internet pioneer Josh Harris, who instigated an "artificial society" experiment in which more than 100 artists lived under 24-hour surveillance in an underground compound in New York City. After FEMA broke up the project, Harris turned the cameras on himself and his girlfriend. Timoner's provocative film (winner of the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at Sundance) includes clips from Harris's projects as well as her own original footage.

OK, We Live in Public tells the story of Josh Harris, an internet tycoon who sort of lost his mind in the late 90s. Harris was the inventor of Psuedo.com, one of the first web TV networks. I actually remember it -- it was a fully-interactive media site geared at young people where amateurs could broadcast shows about whatever they wanted. At the time, Psuedo seemed like a great idea to me...until I realized that it wouldn't work on my crappy dial-up connection. I think that most other potential viewers had a similar problem, as the network faded into Dot Com history after just a few years of operation. It was ahead of its time.

BUT, like everything else in the 90s, Psuedo did enjoy a brief period of intense growth in its earliest days, and during that time millions flowed into the pockets of Mr. Josh Harris. So, what did he do with all of that money, you wonder?

In December of 1999, Harris constructed a huge, self-sustained living compound (that is, "a hotel") in New York City with cameras wired up in every conceivable place. He invited 300 random people to come live there for one month with the understanding that once inside, they would not be allowed to leave. All residents of "Quiet" (as he called it) would be provided with everything they needed, free of charge, but in exchange, every second of their every day would be recorded. Whether in the bathroom or on the sofa, as a resident of Quiet, there was a camera on you at all times. To live there, you had to utterly surrender all privacy.

See, Harris had noticed that the Internet Age was fundamentally altering the human experience. He predicted that, one day, we'd all basically be web celebrities, living under constant surveillance, and always looking for approval. He wanted to subject a bunch of people to a simulation of that -- a life of absolutely no privacy whatsoever -- to find out how they'd react.

We Live in Public documents everything that happened, and it's fascinating. As it turns out, people go kinda crazy when they know they're being watched 100 percent of the time. It's just not natural, no matter how much of an extrovert one may be. Near-riots broke out in Josh's little compound; people freaked out, man! It's all on tape, and put together with skill by filmmaker Ondi Timoner. I admire her ability to take what must have been thousands of hours of chaotic footage, and turn it into an engaging picture.


Eventually, the police came in and made Josh shut the whole experiment down, but that's not where our story ends. NOPE -- his next idea was to wire up his own apartment with hundreds of cameras, and broadcast everything he did there on the web 24 hours a day. To make things more interesting, his girlfriend moved in and, once again, the results were less than happy. Their relationship crumbled under the strain of knowing that everything they did was being watched by strangers all of the time, and Josh eventually gave the whole thing up.

The focus of We Live in Public is usually Mr. Harris himself, but that's OK because I found him to be an intriguing individual. He may be arrogant, self-promoting, and delusional, but he's also quite brilliant. I think Josh's more sociopathic tendencies can be somewhat forgiven in light of the visionary spirit he brought to the early internet days. Guys like him are the reason why we even have Internet. It's a shame so many of them (including Harris) went broke.

We Live in Public is a profound examination of a troubled mind making a statement about the future of our society in the electronic age. It's funny, thought-provoking and stimulating, even if occasionally overblown. Listening to cronies of Josh Harris yammer on and on about how much of a genius he is may start to wear on you, but I still recommend this film. There's really nothing quite like it.

4 out of 5.

b.