Failure is not an option

Proselytizers of unconditional joy face the heavy burden of always losing the race to reach as many desperate broken souls as possible before the timer runs down, as I mentioned in my recent post about Alexander McQueen. There's always an optimistic pledge to reach the next person on the ledge, but always the letdown when someone isn't reached in time.

It was a bad weekend for goodwill hunting. No one got to Mark Linkous, the brilliant man behind Sparklehorse, and the sometime-collaborator with David Lynch and Danger Mouse. Many people expressed what I felt, particularly Venice is Sinking in their blog item, and Deral Fenderson in his open letter to Linkous:

Mark....

Why did you do it?

You know I think about it everyday, and I ACTUALLY LOST WAY MORE THAN YOU DID. It wasn't even my fault. I didn't take a bunch of drugs and overdose and pass out on my legs... I was at work, and I stepped backwards into a hole.


And yeah, it fucked me up hard. But it humbled me. And besides.... I thought you had gotten way past all of that. I get sadness, Mark. I fucking get it. I'm sad every day of my life.


I feel like some beautiful flower that was planted in the middle of a field, away from the things that used to nourish it. Wanting the sunlight and the rain, but they never come. I pursue people, only to have them disappear because I'm "broken."


I THINK OF FUCKING DYING EVERYDAY, MARK. EVERY FUCKING DAY. You had it, Mark. Love, respect. You had the skills. Your skills have informed MY skills. I wanted to maybe work with you some day. You know, one weirdo getting it with another weirdo.


Guess I'll never get that chance.


I told Deral the rules are simple: 1. Keep up the hunt for the hopeless. 2. Provide those in need with a joy infusion. 3. Lather, rinse, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Accept the paradox that there will always be a failure rate of a few percentage points or so, but that failure simply is not an option. And never let the dead extinguish the joy or the mission.

No Dark Night for You, Sailor!

The June Wired magazine had a nice little article about America's favorite mash-up pirate, Danger Mouse, getting together with the mysterious Sparklehorse, and with filmmaker David Lynch, to give the world the star-studded album Dark Night of the Soul. Alas, by June 8 it was clear that EMI would not allow this project to proceed.

It's not as though this could not be foreseen. Johnny Rotten was warning us about EMI in 1977. Danger Mouse had his own problems with the non-release of the Jay-Z/Beatles Grey Album. I guess that the realities of certain projects like Gnarls Barkley just stood in the way.

In any event, this should clarify the stance taken by Trent Reznor, Jeff Tweedy, Terra Naomi, and thousands of other artists: Musicians must be a sworn enemy of their record label. The hand that feeds you must be constantly bitten. And piracy is the only ethical and moral means of acquiring music any more. Yo ho.

(This can be found, though I won't tell here. See me backstage.)