Bill-Bored

As digital as I like to be, with my iTunes, iBooks, iLife, I can still get lost in a used book store for, like, hours, and I still love flipping through the waxy pages of a magazine.

Flipping this morning I immediately skipped over the ads and editorials, must-lists, and interviews with actors that I had have already heard on Fresh Air, and went straight to the charts.

Now I've mentioned this before, since I go first to the Top Songs (in a desperate attempt to consider myself a relevant tune-smith), and am amazed (slightly) that there are only six artists in the top ten.

Six?

Like, of the thousands of commercially produced songs released in the last few months, only six artists are getting the serious airplay.

And then there's the drop to five individual artists when you get to the Top Albums. All the rest are mix tapes.

Gotta say it though . . . mix tapes rule.

Now for the weird part.

Of the Top Ten Movies, seven are sequels/remakes, and the other three are biopics.

Okay . . . so no real surprises there.

John Grisham is still charting in fiction, Anne Lamott in NonFiction, and (God Bless 'Em) The Simpson's still got game.

So after rolling my eyes a bit, I noticed a section on the Top Zines (E-Zines, Pamphlets, actual Magazines) and found a title that I must own at some point in my life:

"How to Talk to Your Cat about Gun Safety"

 Other titles include "Guide to Dating Gangsters Vol 1" and "Smile, Hon. You're in Baltimore." but I'm seriously considering, right at this moment, getting a cat, just so I can talk to it about gun safety.

Felines are also apparently internet gold, now that pistures of my boy are't getting the "Likes" that he used to when he was a baby.

Now, see, the Top Lists are what they are. Probably are what they will always be. The 1%. A heavy handed reminder that we don't really like new things, we like to be reminded of the things that we like.

Give or take a few extremely conservative variations.

But where the real punk artists hang is in the magazine world. Where it's still cheap to produce and distribute, they're set at a reasonable price point, and don't require the commitment of a 700 page novel or flipping vinyl to the other side.

And it can be consumed on the toilet.

Which can't be said of anything else.

Anything else.

Okay . . . maybe a few games on your smart phone, but having several teenagers/twentysomthings in the family, I've seen hundreds of dollars of 4G accesability drop into porta-potties.

yeah . . . looking at you Melina.

(In her defense, of course, she was actually trying to be responsible and set the thing aside, when a series of unfortuneate events jostled the whole thing and alas, an entire Galaxy was no more. A gentle reminder that girls need bigger pockets.)

Teasing my neice aside, there is an entire universe of possibility in an artist's head from on thought to the next, and "All About That Bass" might be catchy for a few seconds, it really doesn't stand up to more than one or two curious listens.

I will take it over anything Maroon 5, so there's that.

Anyway, it is astonishingly good to see that there is always going to be a place where new stuff can find a voice. Finding an audience for something that isn't directed by Peter Jackson and/or written by Taylor Swift will never be easy.

Never.

But it is possible.

Cause it's not all about that bass.

bout that bass.

bout that bass.

My universe screams for treble.