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Music

Once upon a time in the west

written by Adolf Alzuphar February 18, 2018

In 1990, Mike Davis wrote one of the great books on contemporary Los Angeles: City of Quartz. In it, Davis offers a Marxian social history of Los Angeles rooted in investigation and analysis of the power blocs, and practices, that gave way to de facto segregation that characterizes LA’s today. LA, as Davis observes, has been run by real estate and homeowners’ associations for quite some time now, those who hire their own police and covet military style architecture, and it may be the reason why the city has, as it’s classically the case in Europe, produced music in the city’s shadows that expresses the very opposite of the endless summer that fuels LA tourism. Bands like X, and artists like NWA are just a few of these radio dissenters, out to shock and rally. Rank and File is a musical aesthetic in the city of angels: Rage against the machine, etc.

 

Davis’s book foresaw the now infamous LA riots of 1992, in the South Central that was a base from which Mayor Brady launched a coalition to run LA as the blocs coveted. The city feels. Antonio Villaraigosa, the major name after Brady would build the same sort of coalition as a Latino in a city full of Latinos: at the service of blocs of influence. The riots sought to break through the absurdity of situation that is LA, “beauty” felt as a jail for many.

 

Nonetheless, LA remains the future of American humanism. The truth is that thanks to the fact that LA has been a giant experiment for aesthetics, activism, a home for the muralism of the Mexican Revolution, etc., it is today a battleground. Labor Unions have made LA history, as have poetry workshops, and educational institutions.

 

I’ve sat on the beach many of times thinking about the future of LA, and what’s so beautiful about it today. I’ve decided that LA is a city made beautiful by struggle. In his book, Mike Davis writes of a certain LA type: the booster, eternally optimistic about LA. An example of a very important booster is Eli Broad, financier of LA art with the LACMA and the Broad. What if one is instead a booster of the beauty in LA’s struggle, in punk, and the “ethnic rock” that Davis writes of. I wrote the following lyrics to celebrate that LA, the LA of those who feel that meeting someone at a coffee shop and discussing how to further an education or help a homeless person is as great as the Broad.

 

“Once upon a time in the west”

 

1.

Our lady of moonlight and poinsettias is a rainbow this time

It’s been raining for two whole nights

There sits that milkweed dressed in orange in black

Monarch butterflies that come along for the ride

I’m right where I wanted to be sitting perfectly still

No one’s had to ask I’ve written down the day’s thoughts

O, but Medea’s nowhere around

It’s time that I decide

 

2.

It’s our own Monte Alban we’re living in can’t u feel in the look u give off

Teotihuacan we’re living in

Let’s not waste our desires

 

3.

Colorful beaches not waiting for the end of sunlight

It’s cold as hell everywhere else

O nice to meet you you’re pretty cool I think just want to say hi

This is the way to my heart

This is the way to my heart and this time we’re right at the start

 

Chorus

You can only live like this in southern California

Watch the sky turn pink in southern California

Sing till your lungs turn blue

Feel your eyes burn out

Live mythology right here in Southern California

 

4.

Faster rhythm

On my way to get a high five

I cross a giant eggplant

I’ve got to make a phone call

Meet me at the park friend

Bring a giant bag and

Some cash for the get down

The sun is destined to set

But I will not be there

Bounty in its box

I will be drawing a smile

In red and in brown

Once upon a time in the west was last modified: February 17th, 2018 by Adolf Alzuphar
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Adolf Alzuphar

Emmanuel Adolf N. Alzuphar is a critic and works in politics. He writes primarily about music and art. He is especially fond of Abstract Expressionist art and Jazz music. He dreams of being given the chance to one day advise an elected official on 'beauty' and on 'fun.' He has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, MIC, Blavity, Skin Deep, and other publications.

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