{"id":2,"date":"2010-11-02T19:59:52","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T00:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2011-02-22T03:43:46","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T03:43:46","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do I do this? To quote the great Australian band you may remember known as Midnight Oil, from their title track to their 1998 album \u201cRedneck Wonderland\u201d, \u201cEverything that is near and dear is old and in decay\u201d. When I first heard that lyric upon acquiring this great album at Friz B\u2019s CD Exchange, it hit me right in the heart. It summed it up. My life has always been based around a love for things that are old, in decay, and add to that \u2013 obscure. Starting out with a mother who loved going thrifting before the term existed and would drag me along for the ride starting at 4 years old set me off on my clearly charted path. She would buy me stacks of 45\u2019s that the radio stations did not want and donated to the Goodwill or Salvation Army Thrift Stores. So while the kids at school were listening to bad nursery rhyme junk, I was spinning psychedelic rock like Blue Cheer, the Shocking Blue and the Great Society. A lot of obscure soul crept in there as well \u2013 like my long lost beloved \u201cI\u2019ll Be Coming Back\u201d Greg Perry promo 45 on Casablanca Records \u2013 stereo mix on one side, mono reduction on the other! In an effort to replace this gem, I found the entire album eventually and what a great album it is!
\nThis mirrors my own life as well \u2013 my music, my art, my video work \u2013 all too \u201cobscure\u201d to really \u201cbreak\u201d mainstream. As you may have guessed from some of my writings, I love music. Much of the music of the 90\u2019s that I loved involved many Rust Belt area garage rock bands \u2013 which leads to this observation \u2013 how come so many the things I consider truly important and pivotal are constantly deleted from that bastion of mainstream re-enforcement, the Wikipedia? If it gets deleted, chances are that, to me, it is something I consider IMPORTANT. Where is the cataloging of public access tv shows? That was my main source of viewing in the 90\u2019s \u2013 again- obscurity! That\u2019s where the bigwigs and fatcats scour for new ideas to pilfer, as noted in books like The Deviant Advantage by Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker \u2013 the subterranean fringe that never gets the credit it is due. This book has an undertitle of \u201cHow Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets\u201d. I guess it\u2019s been that way for a long time \u2013 heck, I think of Elvis (who I love) covering Big Mama Thornton\u2019s \u201cHound Dog\u201d (who did the essential version of the tune first, but didn\u2019t receive the accolades the King did).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The King<\/p><\/div>\n

My life has been like a constant replay of the best early Doors song \u201cBreak On Through To The Other Side\u201d \u2013 beating my head against an invisible wall. I have since figured it may be due to the fact that yes, what I do value, and who I am is obscurity and decay. The People of Now \u2013 they are all concerned with the \u201cnext big thing\u201d, chasing the \u201cShiny and new\u201d illusion. They don\u2019t value much of anything \u2013 to them it is all disposable. Tear down that once-shiny new building of inferior construction, and build another, then repeat the process. Much the way these People of Now view relationships. With architecture, with things, with other people. Replace, replace, replace. Not preserve, treasure, or reuse. Look at the dreadful sham \u2018architecture\u2019 of today\u2019s strip plazas. People never refer to that very disposable trash architecture as an \u201ceyesore\u201d, when that is exactly what it is! Nope, they pick on my favorite Art Deco and Mid-Century beauties. They bash the Central Terminal, they tear down the Buffalo Drive- In. Old and beautiful. Perhaps in decay. But that is the natural AGING PROCESS our society so fears, but a necessity in incarnating in the Material World! I do not chase the illusion of the new, shiny, next big thing. It always disappointed me. So I rot, sort of. In my obscurity. Amidst my decay. For that is where the BEAUTY is. And Beauty, TRUTH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do I do this? To quote the great Australian band you may remember known as Midnight Oil, from their title track to their 1998 album \u201cRedneck Wonderland\u201d, \u201cEverything that is near and dear is old and in decay\u201d. When I first heard that lyric upon acquiring this great album at Friz B\u2019s CD Exchange, …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62,"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/obscurityanddecay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}