In Episode 5 we approach, apprehensively, and wearing a hazmat suit and nitrile gloves, Dietz’s song “Sometimes I Talk To Myself,” an item that would, in most cultures and during most times, even if they were primordial, be categorized under the heading ‘Toxic Abomination,’ along with large, quick creatures with fangs, claws, and a taste for red meat; singing sphincters; and Wednesday’s tweets from the Commander-In-Cheat.
Warning: An illustrative link to a found fragment of the tune that is today’s subject is attached to the accompanying text, which you will find, if you dare, on the Ottoman “Blind Squirrel” Dietz website or in the Dietzbin of History at https://blindsquirrel.bandcamp.com/track/sometimes-i-talk-to-myself. There is a thin line between brave and foolhardy. Know that if you follow the link you have crossed it.
It’s not easy to be an ethnomusicologist. Take this tune, for example, which, according to Dietz’s voluminous and yet nearly illegible lists, is to be played first in his largely hypothetical set. First position in a musician’s set is customarily the total shit-kicker, the one that encourages folks who had trouble with traffic or parking or getting a sitter for the grandkids or getting out of the truck after that last joint to do better next time. It’s the one that I am just now not going to share with you.
And here’s why –
Consumer protection advocates have gotten into the music industry, and thereby into the field of ethnomusicology, which may in this case be a good thing. I am told that no less an authority than Tipper Gore herself slapped the warning label on this one and spat on it for good measure afterward. The product warning label for this particular tune is as threatening as the seal on the tomb of King Tut, and in this case it may not be over-reach.
There are some things that I cannot in good conscience subject my audience to without warning. Our editorial decisions have ethical (and now, legal) implications. What, and how much, can we share? How much of the obscurity of one’s subject is deserved? How much could we be sued for? But on the other hand, is it possible that a piece challenges the foundation of our ideas of what constitutes the essence of music, or of performance, like 4’33”, by John Cage? In support of this possibility, Dietz mentions in his notes that he once considered performing 4’33” with a kazoo band, but also notes that his peers considered it to be “putting clown shoes on the ineffable, whatever that means.” There is also the plausible rumor that seems to have no interest in dying that Dietz, undaunted by the prevailing, and highly critical, winds, or perhaps simply plagued by the visionary spirit for which a judicious application of an antifungal ointment might have proved to be a more successful management strategy, chose instead to persuade his brothers, who were at that point in their storied careers willing to play under the assumed name of The Bleeding Hearts and Assholes Orchestra and Ladies’ Aid Society, after having been promised, no doubt, with riches, chemical correctives, women, and snacks, to perform Cage’s 4’ 33” live, on dog whistles, with an unwitting, and inadvertently (at least from his point of view) absent, neighbor in the role of Max Yasgur. As the dog whistle orchestra launched into the piece, dogs throughout the neighborhood began to howl, and some even approached the concert venue, getting as far as the neighbor’s swimming pool around which the composition was being performed. It was at this point that several of the more astute audience patrons demanded that their tickets be refunded, arguing, and with what was soon acknowledged as impeccable logic, that whatever the orchestra was playing, it was not 4’33”. By the time critical mass had accumulated, however, Dietz had gone missing, as had the evening’s receipts, leaving the remaining brothers to make his excuses, precipitating yet another of their fraternal fallings-out that persists into the current era.
Dietz calls this piece his “magnum opus.” His high school transcript shows that he dropped out of Latin I before the end of the first semester, so we can take that assessment with a grain of salt. But he seems to have worked on this tune for several years, and his notes say that he found composing the second verse to be particularly difficult, and mention that Herman and His Hermits were hugely influential in helping him solve that challenge.
While ethics, morality, and a profound respect for hubris and karma, not to mention court judgments, prohibit my mounting a public performance of the piece, I can at least describe elements of “Sometimes I Talk to Myself” for you, and probably without doing most of you any lasting harm. First, I must at this point remind you that for many who call themselves singer-songwriters, instrumental and melodic proficiency are incidental vehicles for their lyrics. Occasionally, those roles are reversed. Dietz, however, seems somehow to have neglected all three compositional pillars in this song. To begin with, here are the lyrics. I will not share the melody or the chord structure. “Sometimes I talk to myself, Sometimes I talk to myself, Sometimes I talk to myself, Just to see what I’ll say.” As far as any insight or enlightenment we might glean from the “message” is concerned, Dietz could have scribbled the lyric on half a post-it note, crammed the note in his pants pocket, forgotten it for three months until the pants made it to the washer, and the next time he stuck his hands into his pocket, wondered briefly what that lump was, decided it was nothing important, and tossed in onto the sidewalk, leaving us none the worse for their loss.
For those of you of the majority opinion, who agree that these words are benign, or even stupid, I offer you this one constructive warning: “Jumanji,” and at least there was a way out of it. There are repeat signs – two parallel, vertical lines with colons following them – (||:, :||) – like railroad tracks being approached by the headlights of tiny cars full of even tinier people trying to escape the piece – at either end of the only verse, and Ottoman neglected, either deliberately or otherwise, to include a coda. The effect is that of pointing two mirrors at each other: infinite recursiveness, a song that embodies the alpha and the omega: the circular nature of the universe … or is it a clerical error, made by a pompous idiot unfamiliar with musical notation? I leave that for others to argue, but I have my own suspicions.
It is clear to anyone who listens to the music of Ottoman Blind Squirrel Dietz hoping for insight, or even entertainment, or with anything other than strictly academic intent, that he had his head stuck up his ass, but the question that makes him an interesting study is this: just how far? Is he simply another navel-gazer, albeit from the inside out, or is he, like the Worm Ouroboros, a curiosity of mythical proportions? Is his head so far up his ass that he can actually see constellations of stars out of his mouth, like someone looking up at the sky from the bottom of a deep well?
At the other end of the spectrum of interminability are his a Capella pieces, “A Million Dollars,” “My, My, My. Cat Fat Pie,” and “All Dose Unhappy People,” which I feel comfortable sharing with you here. And to those of you who asked yourselves, “Well? Did Dietz describe these songs as a Capella?” I applaud you. You have the makings of ethnomusicologists. And no, he did not.
“A Million Dollars”
A million dollars, a million dollars, and change … and change.
The aptly named “My, My, My. Cat Fat Pie”
My, my, my. Cat fat pie.
“All Dose Unhappy People”
All dose unhappy people got dey tiny little heads; take off dey shoes, make ‘em watch de news, send ‘em to bed, send ‘em to bed.
(But wait. There’s even a second verse.)
All dose unhappy people got dey tiny little heads; run ‘em upstairs in dey unnerwear, send ‘em to bed, send ‘em to bed.)
Until the next one.