Pluggin’ Away: Holy crazy queer nerd-rap… again
By Mark Connery
I’d promised myself to not write about off kilter hiphop this column, but… Holy crazy queer nerd-rap, Batman! Courtesy of the fabulous Audra Williams (www.leftylucy.ca), I was recently exposed to “How to Express Your Dissenting Political Viewpoint Through Origami” by Halifax hiphopper Jesse Dangerously from Backburner Recordings (www.backburner.ca). It took a while to get into the CD’s 22 tracks – they drift from relatively conventional hiphop to the more abstract realms of sampledelic instrumentals to a cover of 60s comic Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements”! As is noted on the back of the CD, “Any sample rules I bent or broke, it was because I was teenager at the time.” Perhaps this lack of interest in commercial propriety is what gives this album its sense of general craziness. Dangerously plays around with his persona in interesting ways – a sample refers to “Don’t you know your last name is an adverb?”, to riffs on Jesse Ventura and the most fabulous “A Single Gay Man On His Thirtieth Birthday.” There are several purely instrumental tracks on the CD and they’re beautiful. This CD should appeal to fans of Gangstarr, Macy Gray, Slick Rick and k-os.
For years, Toronto has been haunted by the specter of Torpor Vigil Industries (www.torporvigil.com), a multi-dimensional number of art projects or purveyor of Fine Quality Reality by local Surrealist Steve Venright. His most recent projects have been the release of a CD of Dion McGregor’s stories told while McGregor was sound asleep. Amongst other recordings are Sam Andreyev’s compositions and an audio version of poet Christopher Dewdney’s A Natural History of Southwestern Ontario. Venright is also the author of the fine books, Spiral Agitator and Straunge Wunder, both very brilliant sketches and documents of that weird stuff that goes on between words and the constant shifting of brain matter. Be sure to take a look at “A Day in the Life of the TVI Mobile Reality Inspection Lab” (www.torporvigil.com/vortunportal1.html) on the TVI website.
Finally, please support the US-based Christian Alliance For Progress (www.christianalliance.org/site/c.bnKIIQNtEoG/b.592941/k.CB7C/Home.htm), a group of Left Christians sick of homophobic sexist war-mongers claiming morality as their own. Their stated values are: pursuing economic justice, responsible environmental stewardship for today, equality for gays and lesbians, effective prevention vs. criminalizing abortion, seeking peace, not war, and health care for all Americans. If an effective Left is to emerge in the US, it needs to take into account progressive Christians and not give the hawks, neo-conservatives and sexist homophobes a monopoly on so-called morality.
While on the subject of neo-cons in the US, readers might find David Horowitz’s Discover The Network (discoverthenetwork.org) a hoot. As a long ago Trotskyist turned neo-con, Horowitz and his associates have a fine eye for sectarian detail and understand the importance of economics, politics and ideas. It’s not a completely bad map of the US and international Left, though the insinuations of a cabal between Mumia Abu Jamal, Hillary Clinton and George Soros are a bit hard to stomach.
