Return from Summer Away: Graffiti Camp (KC Found Art I)

Well, if you're reading this I'm back. If you're not reading this then I'm lost as to how you're hearing my thoughts. Oh well, I took a break from updating the blog and went on hiatus for a while, but here's a post I've been planning for awhile. I've been collecting random graffiti images around Kansas City for a few years now. Graffiti represents a very public and confusing art form to me. You rarely see the people "defacing" the property in real time, so there's a mysterious quality to it all. Some could rightly be called artwork on its own merits, but some is clearly public disobedience, social commentary or even nonsense; the best work probably lies in the middle where all these designations meet. I don't know how to compare local graffiti in KC to anywhere else, but these images are open to interpretation. I spared no expense searching grimy city bathrooms, hollow over/under passes, deserted warehouses and desolate street corners. Most of these photos were taken in and around midtown, but a few are from the northland and Lawrence. Here they are in all their glory with my own titles where applicable:







"West Bottoms Woman"























































"D'Bronx Cheer"















































"West Bottoms Ride"







"Johnetta"















































"Super Flea Scrawl"























"Troost Life"







"God's Indiscretions"







"What a Long Strange Journey..."















(Photo credit for "West Bottoms Ride" with the bicyclist actually belongs to Cobra. I'll post more graffiti as I find it. Next time look for some found images.)

What's Going on with Kansas City's Middle of the Map Fest?

Last weekend marked the third edition of Ink's Middle of the Map Fest, with a lineup that once again is described as being "curated" by local label The Record Machine. Let me first say, that I've attended each year and I think this is a well-intentioned and positive event for the city and midtown/Westport specifically. Each year hundreds of fans throng in and out of the bars, venues, coffee shops and restaurants in what is surely a boon for the economy of Westport and the local bands that are often highlighted. This year we lost the Beaumont Club, which seemed to create some locale problems, but we gained the Uptown Theater which typically serves as a better concert going environment.

Still, I'm left wondering after this year's incarnation what exactly Middle of the Map Fest intends to be. The promoters don't seem to reach out much beyond their core base of fans and local groups that they book every year. It's obvious that in name and spirit, MOTM wants to be a successor to Austin's famous SXSW Festival. People from Kansas City or Austin will probably wince at the comparison, but perhaps for different reasons. As one patron of Buzzard noted on Saturday, "This looks like Kansas City trying to do SXSW and doing a shitty job."

It pains me to criticize anything local that brings in business and gives a platform to deserving local musicians, but somebody has to offer a critical perspective in what is largely an insular and self congratulatory music scene. (We can't expect this from the Star since they own Ink and by and by are therefore directly involved with organizing/funding MOTM. I don't know what to expect from the Pitch, but giving MOTM too much coverage is basically promotion for a competing rag.) 

The majority of core local bands booked this year were present in one or both of the two previous years, and although some of them are my favorite bands, I don't really see this as a productive use of MOTM. The Appleseed Cast are not an up and coming act, and anyone involved in local music has probably been seeing them annually for a decade+ (I've seen them about 30 times). On the other hand, great local acts like Cowboy Indian Bear and Soft Reeds are on the bill every year because they're signed to The Record Machine (absent this year was Capybara, which surprised me a bit). Then you have the rest of the usual suspects, which are often older indie musicians entrenched in the local scene that currently do booking/run venues, or are still kicking around town in one form or another. Hello Roman Numerals, Thee Water Moccassins, etc.

And oh yes, don't forget the Beautiful Bodies. We can't have a local show without the Beautiful Bodies.

Every other entry in the fest appears to be a crapshoot after this. Typically, bands that just happen to be on tour show up and breeze through as if they were playing any other show on their current tour. As I watched Grizzly Bear Friday night at the Uptown, that's basically what it felt like. Location wise, the Uptown had little connection to the fest and besides two puny banners hanging from either of the sides of the box seats there was no indication that this was anything but another concert by another touring band.

But don't forget the twelve dollar beers. After paying a mostly reasonable 45 dollars for a three night pass, music fans were expected to pony up twelve dollars for a beer at the Uptown. You might've thought you were at Arrowhead Stadium at this point. (Sadly, not even the Chiefs charge this much for a beer.)

At this point, you might be wondering how exactly the fest is highlighting a broad swath of local talent when a lot of the bands basically play every year. I've wondered the same thing myself, and I've concluded that either: a) the local scene is a lot weaker and more limited than we realize, or b) the organizers simply aren't trying very hard or just don't have the pull yet. Let's not forget, this isn't SXSW. Bands probably aren't dying to play the Middle of the Map Fest in Kansas...City. (I'm sure more than a few visitors echoed that same confusion so many of us on the eastern side of state line have gotten used to hearing.)

I'm bringing some of these issues to light because I love local music, and I love Kansas City but this festival could be a lot better. Why not try and get someone like the Get-Up Kids to play? The recently reformed band is arguably the biggest thing to come out of the area in decades, but they have a national appeal as well. Perhaps the promoters have tried and the scheduling or money simply didn't work out.

What about having another high profile reunion rather than seeing the Casket Lottery play again every year? It was great to be there when they got back together for MOTM in 2011, but am I supposed to feel nostalgic for that each year when I see them open up with "Code Red"? Maybe just maybe if the circumstances were right and the offer was there, we could see Kill Creek or the Anniversary come together for an evening. Is our scene really so limited that we have to trot out the same tired act every year? Are we that challenged in our booking capabilities that our options remain either aging local bands, not ready for prime time players, a few random national acts or bands that are easily booked because the "curators" happen to be releasing their new album?

In this, it's third year, we might begin to expect more from Middle of the Map. But it ends up being a  mediocre representation of local talent that's even starting to wear on an ardent fan like myself.

Kansas City, we're better than that aren't we? Or is an unfocused, largely unoriginal and somewhat disappointing indie rock festival all that we have to offer?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Domestic Violence: Assigning Blame in the World of 21st Century Pop Culture

By all appearances, Rihanna and Chris Brown are now officially a couple again (and may be engaged). The negative press their relationship has engendered can now ostensibly go full throttle or secede to the next example of domestic violence. In that case, those of us in the blogosphere are now free to imagine a world where the two are described as a celebrity power couple rather than just typified as members of an abusive relationship where the man holds power over the woman. Pop culture has a short memory and an even shorter appreciation for stories that go beyond soundbytes and have relevant issues at their crux. (Apparently Rihanna does as well, but she'll be continually reminded of the situation by Brown's newest tattoo.)

At the same time this week, those of us in Kansas City (and anyone at all associated with the NFL) were greeted with another incident of domestic abuse of a different magnitude when Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher murdered the mother of his child and then committed suicide last weekend. Despite calls from many to cancel last Sunday's game against the Carolina Panthers, the NFL and Chiefs ownership decided the show must go on at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs happened to win that game, and despite their hapless 2-10 record this season, stories of redemption and hope were floated around the city and the league. What's lost in the shuffle as the story quietly gets swept under the rug is the message we're sending to our young people in this country.  As the story of concussions, drug/alcohol abuse and domestic violence (because the murder of a woman by her significant other is the ultimate act of domestic violence) has unfolded, we've lost sight of seeking answers in the name of assigning blame. The average teenager or college student could pull several narratives out of these events, but in large part they've been lead by the media and our culture to place value in only a few possible explanations. 

Twice in recent weeks some of my female freshman/sophomore students have told me that they not only don't blame Chris Brown for what he did to Rihanna, but that they also enjoy seeing them together and think that getting back together was a positive move. I openly reacted with disgust and asked them to explain their position. Neither could beyond some vapid exclamations of love and non-sequitors that went nowhere and so we were left at a stalemate. We often discuss feminist literature and critiques in class, so it might trouble me more than others when I hear these sorts of unjustified responses. It's not my place to assign value in a situation such as the Rihanna-Chris Brown scenario but I feel a duty to call into question unfounded logic in the same way I would in an essay for class. Supporting and justifying an abusive relationship does not make sense unless you yourself are the abused. 

In some sense I have to conclude that feminism has failed the broader populace of young women. Send out the white flag, pop culture's lust for blood and rampant nihilism has won out over what could've been a chance to teach our young people about the dangers of co-dependence, abuse and the still hegemonic patriarchy itself. My students, by all counts midwestern women from small towns or suburbs are the ones who need feminism the most and instead they've been fed a diet of sex and celebrity worship by the mass media. You could ascribe their naivete to youth, but accepting domestic violence and encouraging or applauding a victim who returns to her abuser is not acceptable at any age.

The midwestern domestic women will be the ones most likely to face domestic abuse within their lifetimes, not the empowered urbanites working at start-ups in New York or Los Angeles with no time to settle down, the ones ultimately so full of confidence in themselves that they they no longer feel they need a man in their life (at least one that does not measure up to their standards). The Kate Bolicks of the world will probably never face the situations that those in the flyover states will, and it's telling that many in this area seem much less prepared to avoid or leave an abusive partner. Postmodern theories about gender and the reclamation of sexuality by third-wavers will not reach the masses nor will it teach any of these women anything about avoiding abusive relationships. Feminism may not be "radical" as some have continued to claim, but its certainly become abstruse when, at it's core, it should be a simple way to teach our young women self-confidence and female empowerment.

Assigning blame to a victim is essentially what we do when accept abuse and violence in our culture. Belcher's girlfriend Kasandra Perkins was a student at one of the colleges I teach at (although I did not know her), so I feel a responsibility to address the situation in one of the final class periods of the semester. Where would I start though? It's so easy to assign blame in what was obviously a situation that defied common-sense logic; should we blame the NFL for not having a better policy on domestic violence or for not better protecting it's players against head injury?; how about blaming the ownership and management for not clearly recognizing a player who was suffering from addiction?; perhaps we call it a day and take the easy way out and accept that Belcher was solely responsible for his own actions and it's pointless to try to make sense of it all (as someone on Facebook told me this week in not so many words). Any or all would probably satiate the media enough and serve as an excuse to move on to the next soundbyte. (Thankfully the NRA has released a rare statement that makes sense of the entire situation, claiming simply "...one thing missing in that equation is that woman owning a gun so she could have saved her life from that murderer.")

It's all a moot point though. Influenced by an anti-feminist and sensationalist media, young people have already begun assigning blame. Yesterday I heard two young men (also in KC but not the same school where Kasandra Perkins was a student) discussing the case in the student union of the other college I teach at part time. I sat quietly munching on some holiday chex-mix, cookies and M&Ms while one male student detailed a revelation in the case to another. He asked his friend if he'd heard what had been discovered about Kasandra Perkins. The other said no, but listened with rapt attention. Apparently it had been divulged to him by an unknown employee of the Chiefs that Kasandra Perkins had cheated on Jovan Belcher and given him AIDS. The second student reacted in surprise, questioning whether the story had been confirmed on the internet, but then woefully accepted the hearsay as he even went to the lengths of calling someone else on his cell phone to relay the story. With that an abuser has been absolved in the minds of several young men and an explanation weighted heavily enough against the victim but sensational enough to entertain once again has gained traction.