"Pray tell, is this a Vice news article with my ugly mug plastered all over the cover photo!?” Yes, somehow my image was used for a Vice article about the band 'The Misfits.'"

Chappelle, The Misfits & Judo

Two thousand and four was a momentous time for sketch comedy. Anyone old enough at that time with even a slight pulse or sense of humor knew the Chappelle Show must be on their weekly viewing schedule. There was one sketch that still makes me chuckle; “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.” In particular it was Charlie’s tale of Prince challenging him to a game of basketball that stands out in my mind. The reason for it coming to mind these days is not because of Charlie Murphy’s hilarious retelling of the story, or seeing Dave Chappelle run basketball plays in the iconic purple Prince outfit; instead it reminds me how far journalistic standards have sunk in a relatively short amount of time.

When Chappelle was interviewed on the Tonight Show about the Prince sketch in 2014 a real-life Prince single was presented to Dave entitled “Breakfast Can Wait,” which was a not so subtle reference to the Chappelle Show sketch. As for the cover image on the single...indeed, it was of Dave Chappelle dressed as Prince serving pancakes from the original sketch.

As Chappelle aptly states in the interview: “that’s a Prince judo move right there,” because Prince used the momentum of Chappelle’s humor against himself.
Using inspiration from Prince I would like to pull a Judo move of my own. I also want to stress these are my personal opinions, because nowadays what used to be referred to as an Op-Ed piece has turned into solid facts.

In the fall of 2018, a friend sent a text. It wasn’t the usual random, disturbing GIF (pronounced GIF not JIF), or plans for happy hour. No, this was something different. This time it was a link. Upon clicking the link an image was displayed that gave me a jolt of bewilderment, and I thought, “pray tell, is this a Vice news article with my ugly mug plastered all over the cover photo!?” Yes, somehow my image was used for a Vice article about the band “The Misfits.”

Author Dave Arnold is an unsuspecting model in a Vice article that used an image of him from the internet

I’m the blonde guy with the stupid grin on his face.

Up until the point of seeing that article I had spent a lifetime happily anonymous, minus my minimalistic presence on social media. I never imagined that an innocent picture with the member of a quasi-famous band would appear over a decade later in a major news outlet’s article. Nobody is safe from the watchful eye of the internet. Like Herpes, our electronic past lies in wait to haunt our present. Granted this was a benign photo of me and some friends posing with Jerry Only of the Misfits, and it by no means skyrocketed me into the spotlight, but it rubbed me the wrong way.

In my anger and annoyance, I looked up the referenced link of the photo only to find a Flickr account a friend had created over a decade ago. The photo had sat dormant for years, until the time was ripe for a desperate enough columnist to pluck it from the ether and insert it into their article. Nothing could be done to challenge the unauthorized use of my personage; the Flickr legal jargon stated the photo fell under the free use terms of their agreement. That’s legalese for “sorry but we reserve the right to treat you like a sock puppet because you glanced over the terms of use and agreed to its stipulations sheerly out of exhaustion from the length of the document.”

The Sinking of Journalistic Practices

The most egregious problem is not the unauthorized use of my image, rather the complete lack of effort used to blend together an article with a random internet image, and chum it off the side of main stream media’s click bait vessel. Besides, the picture doesn’t even go with the entire conceit of the article; that being a Misfits fan will cost loads of money because it requires buying a lot of the bands merchandise. Nobody in the picture is wearing any Misfits paraphernalia, except for the band member Jerry Only. If anything, the picture should be used in an article about the embarrassment of wearing a Redskins shirt in public.

"I never imagined that an innocent picture with the member of a quasi-famous band would appear over a decade later in a major news outlet’s article."

I hope to do a better job of mashing a column together from borrowed pieces of the internet than Vice did. I used to enjoy Vice, because it seemed to be the only news organization producing substantive news about the world. For example, they had the only journalist reporting behind ISIS territory when that situation was in full swing in 2014. They allowed journalists to practice real journalism by going out into the world to investigate salient issues, and then report those stories relatively unfiltered. Those stories are now lost in Vice’s pursuit to compete with the other major networks and fractured viewership of the internet. Today Vice seems more like CNN for stoners rather than an edgy, hard hitting upstart to the news world, but I’m digressing. The point of this article is not to pick apart a poorly written Vice column. I already knew journalism was in trouble before I read the Vice article, it merely reaffirmed my belief.
It is now the year 2020 and journalistic standards continue to sink, largely due to a massive lack of objectivity inherent to the modern business of news. Reporting standards for most major news organizations now consists of low quality, biased and sensationalistic content that is hastily cobbled together in the pursuit of clicks and views. Worse yet is the unabashed corporate propaganda being passed off as news. If there is any doubt this is true, please read William Arkin’s leaked resignation letter to NBC from 2019. 

Arkin is a renowned journalist with decades of experience, particularly in the national security sector. In his resignation letter he aptly points out that news media cannot keep up with the world, largely because of a national security apparatus that ballooned out of control alongside the rise of social media. Arkin wrote, “I feel like I’ve failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system.” Journalists are supposed to guide us to the truth and sniff out corruption and bias, but what happens when we can no longer turn to the news for the truth or trust its intentions?

Even coma patients in the last three years know how incessant the term “fake news” was and continues to be used. We all know that president Trump has blamed the media for organizing witch hunts, or concocting information to fit their narrative against him, while he has equally perpetrated the same offenses. The clash between Trump and the media has played out in a childish tit for tat name-calling game that resulted in a flood of erroneous or meaningless news, while real stories go unreported, but this type of reporting has become standard across the board. Real information is now lost in a sea of twenty-four-hour television hucksters, pervasive online click bait, and erroneous stories emerging from the depths of the internet with no known provenance. 

It's become a carnival side-show, where greasy yes men emerge from corporate shadows to deliver political agendas poorly disguised as objective reasoning, and fringe onlookers attempt to convince everyone the game is flat or that pizza is really a gate. All the while the average person is left exhausted to the point of either accepting the carney’s little ruse or giving up and walking away. The result is a fractured landscape where individuals find their corner of the internet or television and stay there.

What is Driving the Madness and Where is it Going?

There is no one simple cause, but a major factor for the exponential degradation of journalism is an economic one spurred on by the spread of “free” information through the internet. The democratization of information at the click of a button is one of the human race’s greatest achievements, but also had the unintended consequence of shuttering most businesses that could be made digital and couldn’t compete with the low-low cost of free, journalism included.

"The clash between Trump and the media has played out in a childish tit for tat name-calling game that resulted in a flood of erroneous or meaningless news, while real stories go unreported."

The moral hazard created by the internet’s open accessibility is that we are collectively filling cyberspace with so much nonsense, such as low-quality news articles, that we now require the assistance of artificial intelligence to sift through the endless stream of data. For instance, if someone is getting their news exclusively from Google news searches, they are allowing Google’s algorithms to decide what they read. The same is true for Facebook, or any other social media platform one chooses to preoccupy their time. In hindsight it seems inevitable that large corporations will continue to take control over the flow of information, because unbiased journalism was always in danger from large corporate entities.

In 1983 Ben Bagdikian wrote “The Media Monopoly,” which rang the alarm on the tightening grip conglomerates had over the flow of mass media. The book was periodically updated to report on the status of mass media until the early 2000s. I remember reading it in the late 90’s and was disheartened to find that when Bagdikian first wrote the book in 1983 around 50 corporations controlled mass media, but by the late 90’s it was down to around 5-7. Since the internet was not on the general public’s radar through the 80’s and most of the 90’s mass media back then was consumed the old-fashioned way; through print, television, and radio. Media could easily be controlled by large corporations because of how high the barrier to entry is in owning a piece of one, two, or all three of those mediums. I was preparing for a future where fear mongering would be delivered on television by Mickey Mouse, but the internet exploded in the early 2000s giving me hope for the future. The Internet opened the floodgates of information, but over time it became derailed onto the current path.

I haven’t completely lost faith in journalism because I know there are real journalist in the world with the intent of uncovering truth rather than profit, but as a society we must place value on their work and give it support. Unfortunately, the internet holds the promise of infinite knowledge at the click of a button, but it is also wielded by a vast array of profit seekers, nut-jobs, and propaganda mongers the average person must sift through to find truth. What I hope anyone reading this can do is find objective truth through an open mind and their own critical thinking skills. That is the only defense any individual has against the tyranny of ignorance or the misguidance of propaganda.

Everyone is a delicate snowflake with a genius vision that demands realization, but there is no escaping an attention starved bassist who won’t stop playing in the same register as the guitar, the drummer that insists on extravagant fills in every measure, or the five hundred decibel keyboard player acting as if they’re in a one-man band. Granted this was my experience in bands with different friends over the years as an amateur, but even pros cannot escape this creative tug of war.

When new musicians first play in a band it seems like writing and playing will always be a joyous symphony of collaboration, but nobody anticipates how conflicts within the group shape the sound. On the surface it seems like playing with band mates should be something easily achievable by those with enough talent and determination, but too often egos collide. In reality playing in a band is a delicate balancing act to achieve the right sound through either musical chemistry, technical ability or both. In the process of discovering the right blend of people and talent, artistic differences amongst members usually lead to intense conflict. The source of conflict may change depending on the genre of music, but it always either leads to the demise of a group or results in great and enduring music.

"If playing music with certain people can be so contentious then why do musicians continue playing with those they grow to despise?"

It’s been said before by many musicians; being in a band is the equivalent of being in a relationship. Rarely do all sides agree on decisions made, it takes commitment, compromise, and inevitably people grow apart from conflicting desires. Where bands differ from standard relationships, unless you’re a duo, is in the fact that members have to deal with the added challenge of multiple competing egos and creative desires. For any group in any genre to last years or decades with the same people is simply amazing. The real irony is that some of the longest lasting and most popular groups secretly, or openly, hate each other. Google the phrase “bands that hate each other,” if you want to be horribly disillusioned. This is not to say band mates can never coexist peacefully throughout their careers, but no matter how much people in a band get along something inevitably breaks the peace. Of course, it could emanate from some of the human apes' lesser qualities, like cheating, lying, or greediness, but for the purpose of this article the focus is on the creative process of writing and playing music. Sometimes it is a temporary bump in the road, but for many groups they either learn to live with the tension or allow it to fester into a wound that kills the band.

If playing music with certain people can be so contentious then why do musicians continue playing with those they grow to despise? It can’t be for money alone. If that were the case every band in existence with any amount of notoriety would stay together until old age, or until relegated to the state fair circuit. Conversely, bands already worth millions would have no reason to continue enduring their disdain for one another, and yet bands like The Rolling Stones, who have famously battled one another, still tour well into their golden years. It might also be that musical chemistry between certain people is so strong they are willing to set aside their differences in pursuit of the rush awaiting them onstage, or writing a great song, which they cannot achieve with any other configuration of people.

Open conflict amongst band mates seems to be prevalent in popular music, but rarely do we hear jazz artists, or Classical musicians airing their creative dirty laundry in public. It's hard to imagine a flautist for the New York Philharmonic having thoughts of jamming a wand into the conductor’s aorta, but certainly some level of creative drama exists in the lesser publicized musical arts.

One of the most famous Jazz drummers of all time, Buddy Rich, was notorious for having a short temper with band mates, and even audience members, if they did anything that went against the grain of his musical temperament. He was once quoted berating a woman in the audience by saying, “This isn't the Metropole. Would you act like that if this was Segovia playing at Carnegie Hall? When I go to hear somebody, I don't want some broad screaming in my ear.”

Aside from being abrasive with an audience member he draws the parallel between himself and Segovia, arguably the most renowned classical guitarist of all time. The implication is that jazz musicians deserve as much reverence and respect as classical players receive, because of the intense virtuosity and dedication required to perform either type of music at such a high level.

Of course, Rich’s band mates received much worse tongue lashings from him than rude audience members received. Just listen to the expletive laden tirade of Buddy yelling at his band. Jazz and Classical musicians are focused on serving the music through mastery of their instrument and painstaking deliberation of every note, which likely explains Rich’s attitude towards anyone that doesn’t perform to his exacting standards. The cultivation of technical ability in instrumentation or composition is usually not the focus in other forms of popular music. It does not rely upon virtuosity or strict adherence to a style of music, and instead affords bands in genres, such as Rock and R&B for example, the freedom to be fluid in cultivating onstage personas, developing signature sounds, and defining their role in the zeitgeist.

"The difference in other forms of popular music is that conflicts within a group usually center around control over song writing or direction of the band's sound and aesthetic"

For instance, Jazz musicians refer to practicing their instrument as “woodshedding” or “shedding” for short. The term implies that mastering an instrument and a piece of music requires hours of practice each day in an isolated environment before stepping foot on stage. Similarly, Classical musicians will practice 6 or more hours a day for weeks or months prior to a recital in order to prepare. I know this because a good friend of mine studied classical guitar performance in graduate school. He and other classical guitar players could never acknowledge how amazing their ability was because of the hypercritical nature inherent to playing classical music. If one note wasn’t sustained a tenth of a second long enough, or a slight miss pluck occurred, the performance was garbage in their minds. This obsessive pursuit of perfection is the source of drama between musicians in genres like Jazz and Classical, in my opinion.

The difference in other forms of popular music is that conflicts within a group usually center around control over song writing or direction of the band's sound and aesthetic, not so much about technical prowess or obsessing on how every note is played. However, the common thread in all genres seems to be that great music is achieved by an indefinable chemistry amongst those playing.

Although Jazz and Classical music tend to adhere to a particular sound and structure, there is still a great deal of personal interpretation imparted into the music. There is a reason why Buddy Rich, Charlie Parker, or Miles Davis are synonymous with Jazz, or why Segovia is universally known as one of the greatest classical guitarists to ever live. Their playing style resonates with the audience and is an unmistakable sound that only those artists are capable of creating. When Segovia played Bach, to the discerning ear there is no mistaking his rendition of Bach as coming from a different guitarist.

This is one characteristic that spans across musical genres, and any artform for that matter. Every artist leaves a unique fingerprint of themselves in their work. That is what makes group dynamics amongst musicians interesting. Each person brings a particular sound and playing style to the table. Serious musicians will relentlessly play with different people to practice and find a group configuration that produces the sound they are seeking. Sometimes there is nothing particularly interesting about a certain configuration of musicians, but every once in a while, with the right group of people, the musical chemistry is undeniable. While this may not be the only reason for a group staying together in spite of their mutual hatred for one another, it certainly is a good reason.