journal . Ben Sommer

Heinrich

In politics is it enough to be brilliant and skillful? Henry Kissinger thought so. Anyone who denies that he was, apart from maybe Thomas Jefferson, our most brilliant Secretary of State, is simply showing that their knee reflexes fire faster than their brain synapses - a reaction I'd excepect from most Liberals. Notwithstanding this truth, and my present need to build up cred as a Right Wing Fiend, I offer this cynical assessment of the man probably responsible for the unnecessary deaths of several million people. Its my 10th song for the next album.

Henry Kissinger

he was a goose-stepping son of a fraulein
until he hooked up with the third reich
then he switched sides and became a GI
the doughboy of intelligentsiae
lobbing pineapples and diatribes on the state

he was the flowering of evil genius
the ends achieved would justify to deceive us
picking fights with slanty-eyed GI Joes
communistas set to be overthrown
brass-balled real politico on the make

henry kissinger was the president's messenger
throwing his weight down every avenue
henry the riddler was a five star semaphore
riding to war on his republican mule

when he reached the inner circle of secrets
he betrayed his masonic allegience
sticking pins in hoover's voodoo dolls
all the chicks were terribly enthralled
with his super-sized mystical balls on display

henry kissinger was a tight rope walker
threading the needle between lies and truth
heinrich the riddler was a statecraft conjurer
casting his spells all over me and you

he wasn't fearful at all
necessarily brash
with an ego the size of New York

henry kissinger was the deputy perjurer
stopping at nothing to pluck the victor's fruit
henry the wagerer was an eight ball hustler
stacking the house against me and you

don't underestimate the sins of your leaders
or you'll be singing songs of slavery later

Here's that song:

Karen Finley Recontextualizes Her Cloaca

let's get down to the brown
the Freudian town of renown
is spelled with a C-R-A-P

she crapped her pants when she was young
and screamed at the top of her lungs
that's when Daddy let loose with his fist

now I'll be scarred for life
now I'll grow up a butch dike

karen as afflicted Child of Zeus
karen as she contemplates the noose
karen is so smart
keran says that in her process
she is very very
I I I I I I
I am very I
let's talk about I

she missed rule number one
remember to never have fun with your C-R-A-P memories

one moment of sweet brown jubilee
resulted in repeal of subsidies

the snobby elites could not agree
on transubstantiation of cloacal memory

karen and her fondue fantasy
was a chocolate pharisee one too many
karen is so smart
karen says that in her process
she is very very
I I I I I I
I am very I
let's talk about I

she's seen all of Jackie Brown
she teases her hair like a clown
she moos like a brown spotted cow

she took the brown up-town
she practices art with a frown
for encores she eats off the ground

she carried it to new extremes
she recontextualized her chocolatey ersatz feces

karen is oblivious its true
but karen is happy in her mileau
karen wants to live off the taxes of me and you
I think I'll start a cult worshipping karen's sacred poo

Procrastinate like there's a tomorrow

I had an epiphany today that I think will give my wife much satisfaction. Since I have been giving her so much guff for not being aggressive enough marketing her massage business, she has been lying in wait for me to start waffling on my own grand marketing plan for this album - which is now really Super Brain. Same thing with Geoff - who I accused of doing the same thing.

The truth is, I am starting to think more like him, that is to say that I don't think I have enough after-day-job time right now to devote it all to marketing this album and work on the next project. So I have to decide which it'll be. Now, if I wanted to spend the next 10 years in seclusion working up a 15-CD boxed set like Prince, then there's no dilemma. But, I don't - I want to quit writing and recording and start marketing as soon as I have some truly breakthrough material to share.

• Next proposition: Super Brain is good - very good, I think - but not likely to attract much more than a cult group of weirdo fans.
• Next proposition: marketing a CD primarily via the Web is a largely untested and open-ended process.
• Next proposition: I have (the afforementioned) day job time-suck with which to contend, though this will probably always be there, so tough for me.
• Next proposition: my wife will probably be pregnant in the next six months, which will in turn set off the 9 month stop watch to get anything meaningful done with my musical hobby before I surrender unequivically to the ox yoke of soul-killing offce work, to support my little kiddies.
• Last proposition: most importantly, 'Right Wing Fiend' - my next album - is within striking distance of being totally composed, and will, I am certain, be a smash hit.
• THEREFORE: I should start on 'Right Wing Fiend' and leave the Super Brain to look after himself for the time being.

One might think that, since income from an intellectual work like an album is by definition passive, in that it doesn't require intensive sales efforts for each single unit (unlike a fridge), I should just press the CDs and set up the website, just to have it on hand for the orders that trickle in. But in music marketing, promotion is such a crucial aspect that for a critical mass of 'buzz' to build around a release, one needs to start the battle with all guns blasting. And it won't harm any future efforts for Super Brain to hold on promoting it for 6 months.

So with that argument out of the way, I eliminated the 'Music for Instruments' page of concert music, which I decided a while ago wasn't going anywhere, and I officially changed the name of MishMosh to Super Brain, and updated the projected release date to September 6, 2003 - my 29th birthday. I'm also finishing up my 7th song for 'Right Wing Fiend' - its about Karen Finley, a popular figure in the fringe area of 'Performance Art' - a dour, pompous, bolshevist-tending, culturally vacuous discipline that strives to be as offensive and useless to society as possible while simultaneously sucking off the teats of taxpayer-funded pimp bodies like the NEA. In fact, in an astounding example of the ingrown nature of contemporary 'fine' arts, Finley has literally made her career for the past decade by publicly 'processing' her reaction to being denied NEA funding in 1990, though to be fair she also gets good mileage out of being a child abuse-surviving, single-parent, ultra-oppressed-feminist, butch-dike trollope. Those grant foundations love a good victim. Too bad she wasn't born half hispanic, half black, half Iraqi, with a cleft palate and hermaphroditic appendage. Actually, I'm not sure about that bit about her being a dike.