The neo-twang outfit Hank
Floyd (from, appropriately enough, Bakersfield, CA) was already half-way
through their set when in the darkened room the only open seat that I could
find was towards the front, past the woman who had obviously passed her prime
but danced as if she had not and next to a rather-attractive girl with dark
brown-hair - a girl who I'm sure has had Van
Morrison songs dedicated to her by ex-boyfriends many times too often…
The rather-attractive girl soon began shifting into her "Don't Hit On
Me"-mode, unaware that the long-neck
Budweiser that she was attempting to elegantly sip already had me in my
"Not Interested"-mode. Once again, I decided to accept that this
night, like so many others before it, was not going to end in anything that
amounted to any sort of new beginning with some sort of intelligent and gorgeous
female soul mate. So, I decided to focus on the reason that I actually found
myself at the Knitting Factory LA this evening - another person's unfulfilled
desires, or, more specifically, the death of the Los Angeles New
Times…
Granted, in these days of Republican-initiated
wars with Iraq and D.C. Snipers, this was a rather minor incident. But,
for many of us (to use the vernacular), it still sucks…
Undoubtedly, many of you are saying "The New What?" Let me explain:
Several years ago, the Los Angeles New Times was founded as an alternative
newspaper to the self-important LA Weekly. An alternative, ironically, to
the alternative. An alternative to an "independent" weekly newspaper
that had become too corporate and too large for its own "independent"
good.
The "problem" (and I use that term rather sarcastically) was that
the New Times had actually become not only a well-respected alternative to
the LA Weekly, but also one that was drawing away quite a lot of advertising
revenue from both the Weekly and its parent company, Village
Voice Media Publications. Of course, no one had cared until they started
seeing $$$ siphoned away. When this began to happen, doors were closed, meetings
were held, and a non-compete deal was struck between the two parent companies,
the end result being that the LA New Times was no more… Thus, we found
ourselves at a New
Orleans-style funeral for what was a truly insightful and entertaining
independent alternative newspaper. Going out with a bang, but going out nonetheless…
And, as tragic as it was to see print-media succumbing to the demands of the
all-mighty dollar, the even-greater tragedy is the larger trend I see this
as representing - that of social laryngitis,
that of the people losing their voices and doing nothing to get those voices
back. Now I'm not saying that the prescription is a sixties-style social revolution
where everyone decides to strip and shout idealistic but empty slogans about
making love instead of war. But, we, and by "we" I mean the general
population, need to be cognizant of the fact that while we are force-fed much
more information than we could ever hope to digest, it is being fed to us
by a few virtual-monopolies, the Clear
Channels and AOL
Time Warners of the world. And as the death of the New Times shows, our
independent voices and outlets are shrinking daily…
I guess that that is why we are doing this thing we call thebendies.com
- to get our voices out there, despite, or maybe in spite of, the giant media
conglomerates. Or at least that is what I'm going to keep telling myself to
justify the time that we are all putting into this… Whether or not we're
saying anything relevant really is a completely different article (and
you can let us know if we are by clicking here). But, what really matters
is that we're
saying it and you're
hearing it… Viva
los bendies!
