Artist: Rebekah Del Rio
Song: Llorando (Crying)
Album: Mulholland Drive Soundtrack
Year: 2001
Bonus Song: A Long Goodbye (756 KB)

And that's it. Mingling in the presence of legit art leaves you wholly naked -- a sudden, unapologetic, and irrevocable nakedness with no quarter. Conversely, pedestrian art revels in the one-burlesque-strap-at-a-time, pirouette around some once-shiny pillar of culture that pines for its audience to wholesale believe that effective imagination lies in what is not revealed. Legit art just takes your underwear and hangs it high in a tree.

I first experienced this phenomenon when my mom thought it was a good idea to take her 8-year-old son to see Raging Bull in 1980. Oh-fucking-ambush-shit-storm. Anything -- Debbie Does Dallas -- anything would have been a better choice. Forget the popcorn on this one for sure. At least with Debbie Does Dallas, the plot absurdity would have eventually quashed any uncomfortable feelings I had about watching gratuitous anatomy mingling while my mom was in the adjacent theater seat. Who knows, after a Debbie sub plot or two, maybe my mom and I could have made a run for Junior Mints and popcorn after all.

But Raging Bull. Turn the Aesthetic Page:

At age 8 I couldn't comprehend the art contained within the violence and language of the preceding script excerpt. I was reasonably street smart. I knew fuck and shit and cunt and all that stuff. But I knew them as imitation-swears and cool playground words (think imitation bacon bits for fledgling vegetarians).

Now, when Cathy Moriarty's Vickie says, "I sucked your brother's fuckin' cock!" That phrase gets packaged with all of its denotation and all of its connotation and gets wrapped into a potent singularity of legit art (especially with her lines being bounced off of Robert De Niro). It was a singularity so fierce that it stripped off all of the theatergoers' clothes who accompanied my mom and me. Of course my mom and I were naked too. So I couldn't jump into her lap for protection (extended innocence?) and my pride wouldn't let me cover my eyes or ears. I had to face Raging Bull straight up and naked -- to examine the saint -- to examine the sinner.

I was most recently naked at the movies while watching Mulholland Drive in October 2001. Being an awkwardly tall guy, I either sit in the very front row of a theater (legs can extend as much as desired), or the very back (nobody behind me to crack tall guy jokes -- being tall, conspicuous, and super self-conscious really sucks a thousand and two sucks). Anyway, for Mulholland Drive, I was alone (for a Lynch flick!), wearing my orange Chuck Taylor high tops, and I sat in the very first row: a self-conscious disaster invisibly effervescing. Then Jesus!

Rebekah Del Rio made her entrance giving a soliloquy of sadness by singing an a cappella lament. Her lament did not comfort. It demanded, it screamed, it suffered, it hated, it shuddered. Her sorrowful melody started deceptively sweetly, but after a few recursions of a crescendo-ing wail, the fury is released. She is God and her audience is left scrambling to hide their selves -- ashamed to show their banal nakedness in the presence of her sublime creation.

Certain artists make fortunes bearing lame crosses of suburban angst. In contrast Rebekah Del Rio bares the souls of her listeners to make fortunes in the exultations of art. When she sings (check out the bonus song, "A Long Goodbye") the embodiment of truth is entwined in her timbre, breath, and phrasing. She is a true artist, one that will make you naked without regard to your objections or resistance.

Addendum. It's a collective societal imperative to ensure that artists like Del Rio can live their lives without obstructions to their creative processes. Hmm, hear the naysayers? One way to support the aforementioned Utopian vision is by seeing live music. Fortunately, Rebekah Del Rio will be playing in the Seattle area at the Twin Peaks Festival August 15th - 17th 2003. If anyone wants to go to this, let me know.

While waiting for life that sucks to die, why not listen to my favorite unsigned bands: TQ's Garage Band Playlist.