"Cubs salary: 95 million.
Reds salary: 60 million
Sox salary: 120 million
Royals salary: 47.3 million
I believe I quote one of the four Gospels when I say, "I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright..."
After a couple of seconds of reflection, I realized how twisted back upon themselves these references are. One of the things I'm interested in (eventually) studying in more detail is, very broadly, how do you pin down the confluence of meaning in a media-saturated age? The relativism of any message is dictated by its multitude of recipients - only someone with the exact same background could pretend precise understanding when our phrases' references can spin off into infinity. Take the above example - to fully "get it," you need:
1. To know that those are all baseball teams, and that the attached numbers are their team payrolls in US dollars. You also need a general idea of what the average payroll is and where these figures stand in relation to it.
2. To know that those two sets of teams played one another yesterday, and that the two underfunded teams won (convincingly).
3. A working knowledge of these teams respective histories, most notably the historic ineptitude of both the Cubs and Red Sox franchises despite big market advantages AND the recent relative ineptitude of the Kansas City and Reds franchises. It also helps to know that KC in particular has a recent history of being unable to retain star players via free agency to richer clubs.
4. Perhaps to know that both the Cubs and Sox plunged A LOT of money into long range contracts for non-sure-thing players, and that the Cubs have been burned by multi-million dollar contracts of late (see Kerry Wood and his 12 million dollar per year sore shoulder).
5. To know what the Four Gospels are, and that quoting them usually connotes claiming something of extraordinary truth / importance.
6. To know that those four Gospels are named Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
7. To recognize that quote as the first line in the first verse of "Can't Buy Me Love," and that the song contains the line "I don't care too much for money / 'cause money can't buy me love."
8. To know that the Beatles wrote / performed that song, and that they have very gospel-sounding names (John Paul George Ringo, but you've got bigger problems that anything I could possibly propose if you don't know that).
9. To know that the Beatles, or namely one Beatle (John), had a rather cataclysmic run-in with the Gospels when he claimed that they (the Beatles) were bigger than Jesus. So confusing the Beatles with the Gospels in any context carries its own weight of knowing winks.
10. To know that those Gospels had some rather famous lines regarding both LOVE and MONEY (something about riding a camel through the eye of a needle...)
11. To know that the Beatles' careers represent a kind of height of financially rewarded notoriety, while at the same time they performed in an era when baseball players made considerably less money.
12. To know That the latter half of the Beatles' career was very "LOVE" and hippie-centric and even contained a song as straight-forward as "all you need is love."
13. To be familiar with a contemporary definition of love that includes a less romantic notion of displayed acknowledgment or favor or (economic?) assistance, e.g. "Come on, man, show me some love."
14. A healthy appreciation of the idea that fans' "love" and adoration is tied to performance and not to salary (or maybe even against salary)
All of this turns the youthful puppy-loved Can't Buy Me Love lyrics into a dirge of frustration at futility, that the owners of the teams don't care too much for money because it can't buy them wins (love). They, and by extension the two big spending teams' faithful, are dejected at this prospect - their best intended expenditures ultimately amount to no reward. Throw the Gospel overtones on top, that there are really bigger fish (fish - get it?!?!) to fry then all of this, and our concentrations are best directed elsewhere.
All of which is to say that a fairly innocuous joke requires a lot from the hearer and contains a bevy of cross-indexed references and implications that, given the sea of info and dispositions and veiled irony implicit in the usual mode of delivery of this age, are all but impossible to reliably derive. The sayer and the hearer of a message will almost inevitably fail to successfully truly convey a message.
It seems to me that there are two options. One, become so homogenized that we share all experiences and our quips are rendered more universal. Two, ignore the subtle inflections of all that we say in favor of a dumbed down general idea. Are we doing both?
The last point of this rather pointless post is that that wall of information, that "White Noise," if you will, provides a fairly thick veil for the deliverer of knowledge to hide behind. I'm as guilty as any.
Take the name of this blog: The Ballad of a Tin Man. It's a rather overt reference to both a Bob Dylan song about a somewhat and to the Wizard of Oz - in particular, a character in the Wizard of Oz who is searching for (and initially lacks) a heart. And it's authored by a Mr. Jones, but it's a Nyet Jones, a "not" Jones... so there's no grabbing at whether it's a self-deprecating jab, and honest assessment of the alienation that occurs when your default is negation, or... well, or anything. the allusion comes so pre-wrapped with whatever you think it is these things mean that you probably either have your mind made up OR you've never even paid attention to it before this moment. Or you hide in the lack of meaning, like I do.
Anyways, this stuff strikes me as interesting. Nyet!
No comments:
Post a Comment