Phoenix Rising

Anna's Phoenix

I was walking around in the sun just before, listening to mp3's.

The Breeders were singing to me,
"Still the sun shines! The sun shines!!!
We're gonna rise--
feel the light on my face!"
The sun WAS shining and I DID feel the light on my face.
It felt like the first time I'd felt it since I guess 2001 or so.

I'd been saying to my last partner,
just before we split up,
that the time for trying to fit in and be mainstream was over.
This particular ex-partner sings very beautiful but very
middle-of-the-road music.
I told her that with Obama coming in, it's time for artists
to be ARTISTS again-- visionaries and prophets,
not court jesters, "gangstas," bullies or Britney hacks
(not that she was or is any of these things-- she's still my friend).
I told her that I should be working with artists that were
pulling me to be more daring and original,
not someone that was
pulling me toward the mainstream.
I really wasn't very nice about it, but it was a sudden epiphany
and you have no choice but to go with those when they hit you.
My thinking is that right now,
the mainstream is about to become whatever the
coolest artists who get into the media
manage to MAKE it.


There was nothing like Beavis and Butthead in the mainstream
until Beavis and Butthead was in the mainstream in the early 90s.
Before that, Winger was actually popular (sorry, Reb).
In the later 60's, when the Beatles
decided that songs about LSD were
mainstream boy band music, then they were.
Before the Beatles, Pat Boone was a symbol
of the mainstream in music.
There are times of artistic renaissance
where things become sane
for a short period,
and artists get to have a larger say
in what subjects get talked about,
what attitudes are acceptable,
and
ABOVE: Anna Copa Cabanna on location.

Plus for whatever reason, I'm not happy
unless I have a star walking around for me to videotape.

You can friend Anna Copa Cabanna here: http://www.myspace.com/annacopacabanna