What David Berman has been up to for the past two years...

Last Sunday, a small room of maybe 50 people tops, were treated to an awesome lecture by former lead Silver Jew, David Berman. It was part of an Open City writing program. But really Berman spent two hours bashing his father, you know the evil PR guy who represents the interests of big tobacco, alcohol, tanning beds and anything with high fructose corn syrup and fights against MADD, the humane society and the minimum wage. Yeah, very evil. Berman described his father "as a man who prevents progress from happening" and hasn't spoken to him in over five years. More on the evilness here.

Sadly, Berman said he quit music because he felt his "father's world had subsumed his" and that culture and commerce intersect in really disturbing ways. Basically he hated playing festivals next to banners for beer promotion and other corporate things. I'm not sure I agree, but regardless he feels music can no longer be oppositional, which is why he got into it in the first place.

Anyway he started work on a memoir, but then gave up on it. He was also in talks with HBO to create a television series about his father but he decided that was a bad idea since in his words "television normalizes the satanic" and the audience also always sympathizes with the anti-hero. I mean who doesn't love Tony Soprano. So basically we'd all fall in love with his father which defeats his mission entirely. Now he's completely broke but working on a documentary (again about his father). They also filmed his entire talk so you should be able to see it in some capacity, hopefully not too far in the future.

Best quote of the night: "When you're a writer, it's nice to have a dog or two around the office. Because you know they're not getting anywhere either."

I even got to talk to him afterward and thanked him for his awesome music and he gave me a hug, aww.

Random Rules (live 3/10/06) - The Silver Jews