29 October 2009
"What kind of place is this? What have we become?"
It was only me-no one famous-straggling about the big arcade in Dawlish. I pass Dawlish on the train at least twice a week, but it's a big tourist haven for people who want to go to the beach (without spending much time there), and avoid the more famous (British Riviera!) Exmouth but still not go far. Everyone there's from, I'd guess between Bristol and Plymouth. But the arcade doesn't have a single....for all the weird mechanical lunacies lining the place and filling up the middle to the point that with a little bit of traffic you can't move...there's not a pinball machine to be found.
Which offends me, personally/culturally, frankly, but we left Myles there to put tuppences in some thing where they eventually give way to erasors ("rubbers" in British, but I didn't want our American readers to get confused, even though it might have worked better ) and keychains of every useless ilk. And it did give Theresa and me a few minutes to run off trawling the better places for things like really good deoderant and the reddest Italian lunchmeat. It is, I assure you, a [local] tourist destination.
It also has a reputation for surfing, though I've never seen even four footers. The waves yesterday were beyond what anyone with any sense would call flat, but there was a lone guy in a wetsuit out there-I swear-standing erect as possible whilst paddling his board with a canoe paddle. There's this balance between destination and dedication and fate and talent and opportunity and everything else....and somewhere in that nasty and demanding malestrom I fear that young man may have lost his bearings...
Not that I digress, just that I want to move on. Theresa and I read newspapers on the beach for several hours, trading things. The best of any of it was a society section editorial in The Guardian* suggesting that Nick Griffin** be driven to take on as many television roles as possible: gaunt and lurid anmesia victim on the soaps, reader of strange tales on children's programs, gameshow host etc.....I didn't just do the author justice with that,...sorry. Anyway Griffin on tv got people watching, how sad. I didn't watch, not because I don't care but because it's too stupid for me to spend 20 minutes on....life is precious, no?
*periodical arm of the Labour Party. A fine, internationally recognized newspaper with a fleet of excellent newspaper writers, nearly all of whom would do a better job in parliament than most Labour MPs.
**leader of the British Nationalist Party, fascism in the UK the leaders actually do worship Hitler. Problem being that they pulled nearly 10% of the most recent national vote against the three entirely gutless major corporate parties (ok, maybe the Lib Dems aren't corporate-more a self contained debate society-but they're at best strategically gutless). A major recent outrage was the BBC allowing Mr Griffin to participate in Question Time or some such silliness....all of my friends were outraged about it, but if he's not allowed isn't it time to overtly limit democracy (this would work for the USA too, and everyone else, and save a lot of time): YOU'RE ALLOWED TO RUN FOR AND HOLD OFFICE SO LONG AS YOU WORK FOR THE BIG BUSINESSES THAT MAKE IT ALL SO WONDERFUL.
I'm thinkin bout celebrity, I don't know why. If I had to guess it's because I just got out of a hearing with/against Capital One Bank (Europe), throughout which I mercilessly trashed their learned but hopelessly unprepared counsel and towards the conclusion of which the judge effectively begged them to just give me some cash before it gets worse and I start enjoying it and want to come back. The more cash you got, the more cache you got in court, for the most part. ( Not entirely different than trash magazines, but...I didn't explain it pure and there's always more to it than that )
But anyway after pouring myself a tall scotch and throwing on some Chili Peppers, and talking to the dog awhile (his responses were considerably more sensible than those of CapOne, and I'm sure the judge would agree), I got to wondering about my greatest ever brush with celebrity....not considering spiritual workings with Jesus, and considering myself in the popularly conceived, rather than personally, magnitude....
WELL....I got within a couple rows of Ted Kennedy at the Special Olympics, by claiming to be a reporter for Rolling Stone, but I never even talked to him so that didn't count. I sat at the feet of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. as he addressed a Sci Fi writing class at LSU (I wasn't in it, but the class was forewarned to show up and not tell, but a member had heard me talk about the man's work...)....he spoke directly to my soul, but not directly to me. I talked to Oliver Stone for at least 15 minutes on the floor of the 1992 Democratic Convention, but neither of us said much beyond agreeing about everything....I was in an elevator with Jon Voigt once in L.A. but didn't even recognize him, though my friend did and Jon fessed up. They had a helluva conversation over the seven floors down (no, they really did!), but again I was a spectator. So much for Hollywood....
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have become one of the biggest bands in the world. Wasn't always the case. Anthony Kiedis is one of the biggest rock stars in the world, and he's probably better than anyone ahead of him (unless you've placed Jack White there).
I remember one evening in Solana Beach, California....about halfway between San Diego and LA....there's this place that I forget the name of, surfboards and stuff all over the very organic vegetated walls...they had cash for fairly major acts, I'd seen the Neville Brothers there, and Ziggy Marley. So we showed up to see the Peppers, who were unfortunately sold out. (yeah it was already starting, maybe '87)
So I was sitting in my friend's car, trying to figure out what to do. There were four of us, probably seven beers left, a bottom bit of a fifth of Jack Daniels, and probably enough reefer left for the show. "Oh look, it's Anthony!" someone said or something like that, "go get him Hip!"
So I did. I wandered up to Anthony Kiedis and his friend wandering through the parking lot and relayed a lie (concocted by the friends in the car) about how we'd come all the way from Tuscon (lie) and the show was sold out (true). Anthony looked at me through what appeared to be his own fog of confusion, and said something like "Ok, let's get you in."
Unfortunately it transpired-in discussions between Anthony, the Owner and me-that they were already maybe 150 people over fire code, and the band was about 30 over on the guest list. Owner suggested a compromise of letting me in and leave the friends in the car. To his eternal credit, Anthony didn't even ask me what I thought, he just hammered back. It got to the point where they both were threatening to cancel the show and the owner stormed off. I took Anthony aside and said something like, "Don't worry about it man, you go on and we'll sneak in." "Really?" "Yeah, done it a million times, don't worry about it...." He wasn't at all surprised to hear that we hadn't really come all the way from Tucson, and h aving snuck into his own share of shows he was satisfied that we'd get justice done.
But my loaded friends refused to so much as even try and sneak in and I missed the show. I guess I should have, but by then I was pretty much disgusted with the joint, and although I was a legendary hitchiker I just didn't see it happening....
So I missed a Red Hot Chili Peppers show that no less than Anthony Kiedis successfully demanded that I be allowed to witness. Um.... mea culpa. Yo soy....El Stupido! Funny how altered states create unlikely situations, but so often at the same time handicap your ability to take advantage of them...
---------------------------------
Updated some of the film commentaries. Here they are presented in order of how well they would have been received at the ultra-hip Midnight Movie stoner scene in Shreveport in the late '70s:
23 October 2009
Last weekend in Soho, get home and Theresa has the flu, Myles has his first week of half term (no sooner than the British schools get going than they take a week or two off)...I don't know if anyone's noticed, but she does the heavy lifting around here...Amelia doesn't like her haircut. So it's been an exhausting week. I'm not going to pretend to have anything profound to say about it or anything else.
I'm somewhat concerned that the Yankees are going to get to the World Series. Yankee hatred (to the extent that such a thing is sensible, healthy and amusing) has been an article of faith in this family forever...until Myles decided that he's a Yankees fan a few years back. I hope I don't have to write more on this later.
Anyway, here are some wonderful drawings that Myles made of the more recent Star Wars situations.
And he got....well actually what happened is that Kasmira got thrown out of her old place for being loud (oh, the proud papa). Then her new place wouldn't take pets....so she had to give her Dumbo-Eared Rats to Myles. Now Kasmira's getting a cat....um, well played.
Anyway the rats are funnier than I would have hoped and here are a few pictures of 'em.
16 October 2009
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/09/no-peace-no-prize/?xid=yahoo-feat
Closing one war more slowly than he'd suggested, and adding to another more enthusiastically, President Obama no more deserves the Nobel Peace Prize than I do. Less.
Still, it's a cool thing to win, and I do count myself a supporter of the president. Now go earn it, brother!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091013/wl_afp/usafghanistanmilitarytroops_20091013051645
Um, weeeeeel...NO. That's not exactly what I was thinking...
Maybe it was the void, probably it was the void, it musta been the void... When I first started wheeling and dealing, intellectually in its broadest sense, on the internet... in '93 or so...
I lived in the country. I lived...not IN, but NEAR the internationally envied metropolis of Vida, Oregon, about 30 miles west up the McKenzie Valley from Eugene, at the foot of the Cascades. They say John Wayne once took a vacation in that house, but the wood stove was crap. Cool house though, a bit pre-fabbed for a '40s log cabin, but good looking and with the view of the river. I still dream about that house more than anywhere I ever lived (thought it's not my favorite place I ever lived) and so does Theresa (same).
There were, obviously, no bars anywhere nearby, not even boring ones. For that matter, Eugene had a couple pretty good ones by Pacific Northwest Standards (High Street, Good Times, John Henry's, Wild Duck), but the ride was prohibitive; even during the weeks I worked the door of the Good Times. (yes I got pulled over in the '75 Camaro with a 350 and a 4-speed Hurst on the way home one time at 3 a.m., turned out I'd woke up a cop sleeping by the side of the road, he didn't thank me but he was friendly. I think mainly his watch was broke and he wondered what time it was. )
So we drank, to the extent that we drank (me a little bit more than Theresa, but pulling away) at home. So imagine the internet! It kind of half worked in, and we made it work the rest. We'd sit in the kitchen cheering whenever the web page showed the Mets had scored a run....we'd chant "Ochoa! Ochoa!" even thought we couldn't see him. Everything about a computer was amazing, we had a game called Flea Circus, where fleas would jump into a swimming pool. They were just dots! We thought they were wonderful.
You could sit there with your microbrew, looking out over the river, and there were all these groups dedicated to everything you'd ever want to talk about anyway: Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Patti Smith, Irish politics...
The Stones groups were frankly lame, the Zeppelin suffered from horrid wheat to chaff ratio, the Patti Smith people were artsy and diffident, and I eventually took part in an internal revolution in one of the Neil Young groups...Neil Young separatists on the loose! Anyway the whole thing could have been stupid if some of what we were saying wasn't smart, and if it wasn't all mainly entertaining. Got me writing regular, anyways.
So I've basically used the internet like a bar (and used the real ones increasingly less)...since...you know, '93 or so. You walk in, the music's great, you have yourself a drink, you pitch your schtick, you walk out with the best girl imaginable (because you're married to her, and she's been waiting for you to get off the stupid internet). Wow.
------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/10/11/inla-ira-renounces-violence.html?ref=rss
The Irish politics discussion group was one of the best. Everyone really cared a lot about what they were saying, and they disagreed about most of it, and they weren't particularly shy people, so it could get really good.
I never quite got a grasp on the subtleties of it all, but the Irish Republican Socialist Party (and sympathists for its armed wing, the Irish National Liberation Army) was particularly well represented. They presented as the true-believer socialist alternative to IRA/Sinn Fein, and had several very articulate spokesmen. They were always doing something or other, the revolution never stopped.
At one point their prisoners in Long Kesh were seeking sponsorship for a "fun run" whereby the prisoners would trot around the exercise yard and any money raised would go to their families, suffering, obviously, with their men away. This was advertised on the group.
A loyalist fired back a snippy reply to the effect that they had a lot of bloody gall asking hard-workin' folk for their money, and why don't they go out and make their own.
"Sure, an' are you recommending any banks or post offices in particular?" was the reply.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"how you doin outlaw?"
It was an entirely innocuous Facebook comment from a guy, wasn't even never was a close friend of mine, thirty years ago in Cuba, a good guy then I imagine a better one now, just stuffed in the snow with his rig trying to get through Wyoming.
I responded coherently, but it set me off.
I've never defined myself much in terms. "Hippie" or or "lawyer," or "tortfeasing lunatic...." you get the idea.
But Outlaw. It's so clear, and late at night—with everyone having given up on me and gone to bed except for Laural and some great Scotch...it hit a chord. There is something outlaw-like about me, I thought, or at least there was.
Left me scrambling to figure exactly what laws I might be breakin', these days. Historically I was good for the anti-Dionysian laws at the lower levels: drinking beer near a beach or at the age of 17, wondering what might happen if I smoked that....lots of variations of violations of laws that should never have existed in the first place.... I guess I got a lot of parking tickets too, at one point. Ah, it wasn't all that innocent-I got a well deserved drunk driving too, I did some stupid things (but not as stupid as Nixon, but I digress).So my old friend-turned me on to the great metal band UFO-was stuck out in his big ol truck somewhere in the Wyoming hills in the snow, sending everyone he could think of a cyber rum& coke ("Thanks for the rum," I said, "I've kind of sworn off coke"), and all these wires that Al Gore once irrationally claimed to have created were linking us up....
And he'd just said something, first thing he'd said to me since maybe '78, struck home.
"how you doin outlaw?"
Well fuck man, the question isn't even how I'm doing. I'm doing great: great wife, incredible kids, occasional paychecks, good health all around, dog that'll eat anything....I wasn't at a loss for response.
But if you allow yourself to be defined as an Outlaw-and you want to live up to it-what do you do when you ain't breakin' no laws? I mean there are lots of laws that I consider stupid and unnecessary, it's just that I'm not actually, personally breaking any of them. It's one hell of a realization.
I wonder if there's much more to it than just defining yourself, or allowing yourself to be defined as an outlaw at some point, and then never changing the setting. Could it possibly be something that you only have to earn once? Or is it a mind set, as opposed to case history or set of intentions? Like, you're an outlaw if you'd be willing to break a law, even if you can't find one worth breaking. Or maybe...gave me plenty to think about until sleep crept up too close for me to jump out of its way.
Thanks, man.
---------------------------------
9 October 2009
It being birthday week, I'm not gonna lie and say that I even tried to get a lot done, in the way that the phrase is most typically interpreted. Fair amount of sitting around and hearing people tell me how great I am in some way or another, and a balance of wondering what I can do to make any of it true. A couple fleeting moments of wondering how much time I have left to make it true, and then the flowing flexible ones where the day rolled through it easy, looking forward across the beauty and rolling hills of the understanding that of all the illusions of this life, time is the easiest one to see through.
So it was a good birthday, but not without the double-edged sword that birthdays now invariably bring. Somewhere along the way someone's probably noticed that I suffer and enjoy a particularly gluttonous helping of egocentrism, and birthdays are perfect times to just kind of wade around and slop through the whole thing like it makes sense. I'm not suggesting that's a bad thing, obviously, the art of the essay is the result of a Frenchman for whom the will to express his feelings about himself transcended all extant art forms. Whatever you think about the essay, he must have felt even better about himself then. Nice one, Jacques!
----------------------
http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2009/10/albert_belle_calls_in_advice_d.html
I'm willing to agree that Albert Belle probably wouldn't be a very good manager, but I'd rather hire him than Jim Riggleman or Joe Girardi! Wrote this about Albert a year or two back...
Albert Belle, then in his Joey days, was also an LSU guy, and…there's a story that I believe to be true [note: since confirmed by many sources] , but even if it isn't it's one of those things that as Ken Kesey said is “true even if it never happened.” Anyway, when I got to LSU in 1980 Playboy magazine had allegedly recently rated the party schools, but disqualified LSU on grounds of “being professional” (as Olympians were then disqualified).
Whatever the case, LSU parties harder than any place I've ever seen, and I did spend nearly a decade in Southern California, currently hop down to The Ship's Inn (pub, in Exeter UK), which Sir Francis Drake once declared his favourite (note British spelling) place in the world besides his boat…incidentally Sir Francis' was eventually urged to only show up in the presence of a responsible adult, and now allegedly haunts the place, but I digress…
I did actually read this story that I'm about to relate, but I forget where. Sporting News maybe, somewhere reasonable like that. Joey, like so many LSU alumni, left town with not only a degree but a suitcase full of vague but happy memories, and a full-blown drinking problem. Some hack fan was heckling him about it from about the tenth row and Joey threw a ball and hit him in the chest…so far as I know there were no lawsuits, and one would think that Joey could have defended himself on a “fighting words” defense in most states, even though there might have been a temptation to assign guilt on some kind of “increasing hostilities” grounds, but I keep digressing …
I respect Joey for what he did that day, and I've always wondered, since, how much of the difficulties that he had were more the result of his strong response to provocation, as opposed to a malignant soul.
--------------------------------------------------
Cleaned out my jPOD this week. I don't really have an iPOD, I have a Sony* variation that's called something else. Myles gave me an Indiana Jones sticker to put on it, and now we call it my jPOD. It only holds 300 songs or so, so I rotate things through it every couple months. Last time I loaded it I was having trouble sleeping sometimes, so it had more quiet '70s pop (all the better to replicate Armed Forces Radio, which I used to listen to on the steps of sleep when I was young) than usual. I'm not having any trouble sleeping right now (moving into the hibernation time), so they're leaving in a flood.
*I love Sony products, and have for more than 30 years. They're always quality. When there's a new technology I tell us to buy a Sony. Theresa still uses her Sony mobile phone that she bought in 2001. This is not a paid announcement. My point being that I'm not against corporations per se, and I'm not even against the corporate legal form (no denying it encourages gambling in a big way; and I've always been in the "big gambling can pay off big" camp). I'm for corporations making products, I'm agains them limiting political choice to suit their desires, and that's where we are.
I'm taking these off
Led Zeppelin – The BBC Sessions (disc 2). I guess you can argue back and forth about the greatest live band of all time. I sure can, even amongst myself. Zep's my pick, in largest part because they were probably the greatest collection of uninterrupted musical genius, and their improvisational sections are just unbelievable. Robert Plant's described it as "telepathy," and it was nothing less. The Grateful Dead had a similar psycho-spiritual dynamic, and even more approaches to way more songs. The Rolling Stones have a strong claim based largely on the charisma of Mick Jagger in his youth. There's a Dionysius of the 'burbs purity to the Bob Stinson-era Replacements, though it translates to audio even more roughly than Mick's charisma. I think it's really between Zeppelin and the Stones, but Neil Young, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, any of the great talents & huge personalities... Disc 2 of the BBC Sessions may be the single greatest disc of rock and roll music ever released commercially. I'm not taking it off because it's no good or even because I'm sick of it: I'm taking it off because I'm going to throw on a similar (but all wildly different) bootleg.
"Beware My Love" – Paul McCartney & Wings. It's a great song, I've just heard it enough for awhile. I thought teenage guitarist Jimmy McCullough would be a legend in Scotland, but I didn't run into anyone who'd ever heard of him. I bet if you get into the best of the dingy places in Edinburgh and Glasgow you can hear some stories, though. I'm still looking forward to them, I hope the best ones are happy.
"Hot House" – X. They were always one of my favorite punk bands, but other than the Ramones I never really got all that into specific punk bands. More of a mood, "Yeah, I'll listen to some punk, ok...." and then it could be anyone. Of course most of those bands-even the Clash (though they were much more versatile to start with) eventually broadened their horizons, with mixed results. I really liked X' rockabilly stuff, though in general terms I considered the rockabilly revival pathetic and dull. I was playing pool with a friend of mine in the Spirit Club in San Diego waiting to see somebody, the Meat Puppets I think, and he noticed Excene Cervenka alone, drinkless, at the bar. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even recognize her-I rarely recognize celebrities in public because it's just weird (and the sad fact is I wouldn't have recognized her anyway) . Anyway, he abandoned our game and bought her a Bud longneck and she was telling him about drowning her sorrows or something...
[ ok, hang on a second...it's time for the first sip of coffee of the day, and I pretty much always take the first couple sips outside, scanning the horizon for augurs. Usually you can just ask 'em if they're augurizing and the big ones won't lie to you.]
"Love Train" – Wolfmother. It's a cool song off of one of my favorite albums of the last couple years, but I'm going to listen to that album again some time very soon and put on a different cut, or two. I think that I read somewhere that they're already having trouble keeping together with their success, after one record. World moves faster these days I guess, what with all the googles and widgets and such.
"New Church" – Lords of the New Church. It's a good song, but hearing it a few times will do me for awhile. It reminds me of that terrible generational confusion where contemporary desperados were under the impression that they would replace Led Zeppelin and the Stones with something just as great... and shiny and new !!
"Runaround Sue" – Dion & the Belmonts. One of the greatest singles of all time, obviously. Probably the all-time "can't miss" cut to open any jukebox succession in any properly indecent bar in the world. They'll know you're cool right away.
"Crazy World" – ABBA. OH shit this is the main song I want to get off my jPOD. It's not a bad pop song-in that awkward English as a second language Europop tradition-but I was at the train station in Newton Abbot waiting to make a connection...and a can of Carlsberg Special Brew that I had in a very thin plastic bag suddenly started kind of exploding....fatigue on the aluminum casing or whatever, I don't know....anyway it started spraying around just as the train was coming. So obviously, in order not to waste beer I was trying to get it out and shotgun it without too much getting into my hair. Although I had my jPOD set to only play songs in the "loud" grouping some beer got on the device or something, and suddenly it started playing this, over and over while I was trying to not lose any beer, and get the sticky fucking bag off my hands and get on the train... Yes-I'm sorry-I do see the irony. But I refuse to be amused by or acknowledge it. Out!
"Sweet Home Alabama" – Thelonious Monster. Very ragged version from a bootleg where they opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Missouri. I suspect that the Chilis were more concerned about "making it" (and did), but this show finds Bob Forrest very lost-emphasis on lost-in the moment. It's fun and obnoxious, and very open to misinterpretation, and is sitting out there on the periphery gambling everything on all these things that could only have even meaningful subjectivity in the most random way....wonderfully Monster. I'm positive that Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins would recognize and applaud the authenticity, just like Neil Young and the Who did for Skynyrd.
"The Day They Set Jim Larkin Free" – Black 47. Probably my favorite song released in the past decade or two. The problem being that I'll get stuck on it and play it repeatedly, particularly if I've had a cocktail or three, and then it just dwarfs and drowns out everything else for weeks.
"Ring the Alarm" -Beyonce'. I really liked this once when I heard it, and then I saw a video of her falling down some stairs while singing it on YouTube...but I can't find what I heard in it.
"Dancing Barefoot" – U2. I'd been wanting to hear this Patti Smith cover for years, though I guess I hadn't thought of it much since '88 or so. I wonder what they thought they did with it.
"Sky High" – Jigsaw. Great '70s pop cut, but every couple years is enough. Even heard it on BBC the other day, too (Theresa listens to the radio in the morning).
"Dune Buggy" – Oliver Onions. Haha! That's cool, now back into the closet for another ten years. I really want to get a copy of the film "Watch Out We're Mad" though, it makes me think of the freewheelingness of that. That scene where they're pretending to be in the church choir whilst running from the evil mob....haven't seen it in more than 30 years, but I bet I'll laugh again....laughed about it several times since then, anyway. It was a great success, no matter what happens from here.
"Señor (Tales of Yanqui Power)" – Bob Dylan. I've been listening to Street Legal so much when I'm sitting around the house, that I have to remove this from the jPOD lest I lessen its impact due to familiarity. An apparently unnecessary precaution, given the historical record.
"Meet the Mets" – Glenn Osser Orchestra. Baseball season's over--well yeah the playoffs are going on but who cares if the Mets aren't in 'em? It was a rough one for me too, I didn't realize how badly I'd hurt my arm in a snowball fight until I tried to throw in (Little League) Spring Training. Spent the entire season throwing lobs, or submarine style, even from the outfield.
I'm keeping these on:
Street Sweeper's Social Club - Yeah I'm leaving the whole album on. It's great for walking around and it reminds me of something unidentifiable about Southern California (edge, identity) that anyone who's ever lived there gets to be stuck with, probably for life. And it's very political and ambitious and decadent...stuffed with the kind of unrealistic revolutionary fervor that had the other farmers assuring George Washington that he'd end on the gallows.
"Atomic Punk" – Van Halen. Because it's loud and obnoxious and funny, and it's even funnier how it makes me swagger like a dumb 16 year-old. The band's masterpiece.
"No Surprize" – Aerosmith. Every single Aerosmith album through and including Night in the Ruts is brilliant. That's the case even though Nights pretty much documents a great band going down for the third time in that lethal mix of ego and narcotics. Incredibly they all survived physically, though the extreme genius of the band hasn't been evident in more than maybe one or two cuts since they re-grouped more than 20 years ago. So here at the end of the halcyon era, this track finds them looking back onto the night that they made it: playing Max's Kansas City for an audience largely composed of stoned record executives. It's a wonderful scene in the band autobiography, with them all being hopelessly intimidated by the New York Dolls, whom Steven Tyler described something along the lines of "not just the greatest band we'd ever seen, but the greatest thing we'd ever seen...." Song makes big things feel possible, every time.
"Pollo No Bueno" – Retox. Are these guys still out there? I really should check. Great latter day punk band, in the cynical, spoiled, warped to the point of redefining naivety Santa Cruz, dope smokin' morons....
"I Feel Love" – Donna Summer. I always kind of liked Donna Summer, but being of a somewhat anti-disco inclination I didn't appreciate how historic what she was doing really was. (I was more impressed with stories of her legendary parties) This is just an incredible groove to get into while you're walking around the city.
"Black Coffee" – Ella Fitzgerald. Because it's so great that it made me start drinking coffee again. Because it's so great that it also somehow goes perfectly with a shot of Scotch by an abandoned train track.
"Calling Dr. Modo" – Shitdogs. I'm going to have to write a brilliant historical piece on the Shitdogs some day. For now just let me say that I appreciate them even more now than I did when their soundman was my roommate at LSU. I hope Madman's alright, out there on a street corner somewhere knockin' back pangalas..
"Stukas Over Disneyland" – Dickies. I had a friend who lived in Hollywood in the mid '80s with stories about seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Guns N' Roses open for these guys at keggers. That's different than saying that they're half as great, but they're a nice window into the L.A. alternative scene before GNR and Mötley Crüe and Faster Pussycat and all those guys ran it out of business.
"Electric Feel" – MGMT. Heard this coming out of Amelia's room long enough that I actually started to get it. I don't always get music right away-I most often don't-and I don't clear out a lot of time to listen to new stuff. It's got a great bass line (lifted from where I can't think of).
"What U See (Is What U Get)" – Britney Spears. I've really got to make sure that I don't play this in the wrong mood and ruin it forever, but deployed properly it reminds me of when Kasmira was a little girl. I don't think that anyone in the world could be more proud of all of their children, and it was a golden time when...they were all children. We'd take turns picking records while we played Monopoly, this brings that back.
"Memory" – Elaine Paige. Never seen Cats, never wanted to see Cats, nothing else about the soundtrack leaves me any interest in seeing Cats, probably never gonna see Cats. Don't even like most real cats. This is a perfect pop song, though. I was sick, watching anything that came on tv a few years back, and some typically dull talk show host was failing in every effort to get Ms Paige to say anything interesting. Then of course she had to sing the song. It was so lifeless, so devoid of anything, she was so obviously over the hill that I felt bad for her...then she got to that part and just fucking busted the glass off over every television and window shop from here to Penzance. I'd got played, my friend. One of the best interview segments I've ever seen. I was sitting in the corner still blabbling about it when Theresa got home, she thought the fever had taken a turn for the worse.
"God, God, God" – Nina Simone. There are lots of ways of being a great piano player, and some of 'em are even accessible to those of us who don't bother playing much. Thanks to Keith Richards and Neil Young for making that point for me, and Nina for this shining example.
"Hold On, I'm Comin'" – Sam and Dave. One of those perfect pop cuts, it's always appropriate.
"Come And Get Your Love" – Redbone. I remember being bitterly disappointed when this peaked at #25 or so back when I used to listen to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 every Saturday afternoon. It was way better than that! ( What's wrong with the world?!) And so those suspicions start sneaking in. I also suffered this misconception, for several decades, that this was a highly atypical Leon Redbone effort, when after all it was a band of young American Indians.
"Black Uhuru Anthem" – Black Uhuru. Some kinds of music just don't really fit in well with the ways I use my jPOD (classical, serious jazz, the meaty but ponderous prog bits). Reggae is a high summer thing, but I'm keeping this on because there's a determination and grit to it that could inspire Springsteen. Lots of times I could use a little of that, too.
"L'Isle joyeuse" – Noel Lee. Debussy's simple piece is another good example. Simple enough to let you go to sleep if you're trying, or a pleasant weirdness for a side break somewhere.
"Messin' With the Kid" – Blues Brothers
"Mr. Cool" – Rasputin. Early '70s Black American culture was an incredible thing; unbelievable rhythm standards, faith and hope beyond any measure supportable by the evidence surrounding it...in my opinion the greatest fashion/style movement in history, but the social movement was so much more important than any of that. This is a funky pop photograph of something great enough that it's enough that it ever existed...kind of a Black companion piece to David Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair," in the aesthetically artificial connections created by the very real axons and dendrites in my brain.
"Sonantine beaurocratique" – Anne Queffelec. Whatever petty functionary pissed off Erik Satie couldn't have been expected to know better....but he set off a joke at the expense of his kind that's going to last forever.
2 October 2009
JAZZ PIANO BOOTLEG OF THE WEEK: OSCAR PETERSON - Funkhaus, West Germany 12/14/72 Was there fever in that Funkhaus? Well yes, I'd imagine so, of a sort. In Close Enough For Jazz Mike Zwerin breaks down the relative attribues of different forms of jazz (and bodily functions) in terms of "swing" and "funk." Some musicians straddle the forms, though they might favor one: to put it in populist terms Mike notes that Keith Richards is downright funky, but also swings a little bit. So funk might be considered in terms of the attitude of a dark barroom with dangerous and illegal activity going on in the shadows, and swing for the sensations of hip classical musicians on a particularly raucous holiday. Oscar's towards the swing end of the spectrum. He won't startle you, because technical perfection is inherently relaxing. He grabs your attention not by pounding the keys or jumping around, but by sliding up and down the keyboard in that ultra-smooth way. That's different than saying that it's all calm and predictable. You'd think no one would have had anything new to play about standards like "Mack the Knife," for example...but though it's crystal and distinct it's hardly recognizable for an extended period of time. When it becomes recognizable, the purity of message is such that you wonder what's wrong with everyone else for missing all that stuff. So Oscar plays a bit to the right from the epicenter of my jazz spot, but he's too great not to transcend such trifles. I saw an old special with him and André Previn on tv a few weeks back.
...first let me say that I laughed out loud the first time I read the quote where Truman Capote says, of Ernest Hemingway, "That's not writing, that's typing." The bold dismissiveness of it was even enough to fog the reality that Hemingway wrote better novels. Of course the quote has teeth too, because Truman may have been the more naturally gifted writer. I think that it's safe to say that Hemingway did about everything he could with what he had, and Capote showed flourishes of the most intense genius when he couldn't think of anything else to do...
So André Previn asked Oscar Peterson about his influences. This sent Oscar into paroxysms of Art Tatum hero-worship. It was wonderful, it was so incredible. Here's this guy who's so great...one of the greatest people who ever lived at what he was doing...and he couldn't stop going on about how great someone else was. The stories were terrific and André even had one, about how Vladimir Horowitz had spent some months working out a variation on a theme of Tatum, and eventually invited him to his hotel room to hear it. Tatum listened, first respectfully and then enthusiastically.... The great, great (I'd probably go greatest) classical pianist finished and looked over. Art goes "YEAHHHHHH..." and jumped to the piano, "...and we could do this...... or this..... " and played about 42 extemporaneous variations dancing around the variation that Horowitz had been working on for months.
Those jazz cats were cool. And Oscar Peterson was so great that he was mainly amazed at how great other people were. Wow.
----------------------------
FAVORITE CHARITY: WAY OUT WORLDWIDE ARTS FOR YOUTH This is our good friend Hazel's charity. She's incredibly dedicated and has created an aesthetically radical, socially effective, and fun charity out of a tragic mess.
As you may know I have historically been partial to charities fighting cancer, indecencies to dogs, or supporting the hopelessly impoverished. Hazel thinks "hopelessly" means "do something about it." I wish I had the maturity and generosity to match her energy and selflessness, I hope that some day I will. Until then I'd like to at least help a little bit, and I hope you might, too.
---------------------------------------------------
EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THE NANNY STATE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090922/ts_nm/us_heart_smoking_ban
I remember when I was at law school at the University of San Diego School of Law*. California was pioneering anti-public smoking legislation, first San Francisco then the rest of the state. I was the only liberal student who opposed it. I still do-even in the face of this compelling evidence-but not as loudly.
*yeah, yeah it's not easy to do since I rarely showed up, prior to graduation. But tuition was more than Harvard, dammit!, so show some fucking respect.
People not dying prematurely is a great thing, but we're all going to die and that doesn't eclipse the question of how we're going to live. The strain on any healthcare system is real, but can be counterbalanced by appropriate "sin taxes" (and I'm not against this for alcohol either, which does affect me). But when it comes to the point that you can't smoke a cigarette in a Dublin pub I think it's safe to say that the world's become too damn "Californicated" (in the derogatory, Southern sense of the word).
If you don't want the first- or second-hand smoke of smoky bars, don't go in. I admit that I'm the only non-smoker I know of that misses barroom smoke. It's just not the same. (Truth of the matter is that I spend next to no time at all in bars these days anyway, but it's not for lack of smoke, and so an immaterial confession)
That being said, there's a very demanding voice in the back of my head screaming something like "If people are too dumb to protect themselves, the government must protect them. Don't even try and tell me that the joys of smoking, or even more pathetically-being around smoke, are anything in the face of the horrors of cancer." All I can do is mumble back about where I think the lines of demarcation are, between decisions that are the government's and decisions that are your own. Bright lines and slippery slopes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIGNS THAT THE APOCALYPSE ALREADY HAPPENED:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/sep/25/robots-to-mark-english-essays?CMP=AFCYAH
Anyone who needs an explanation of why this is the dumbest of all amongst the myriad dumb things that educational bureacratic wonks ever did (since the inception of Californication in the early '70s) would never understand the explanation anyway. To arms!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PHOTOGRAPHS THAT THE APOCALYPSE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED:
AMELIA: Have you seen yourself in the mirror, Papa?
ME: Well, yeah, I've...
AMELIA: Well, I think you should!
---------------------------
ALEXANDRA: Oh Papa, they're going to make you look so old....
ALEXANDRA: Ha ha! Papa, they make you look so old !
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITICS 101, FOR A MAJOR PARTY
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/talking_politics/article/67293/
Echoes what I've been saying since I started figuring out what's going on here. You can't act gutless, and vaguely stand for the right things, and expect to beat more established parties that are genuinely gutless and bigger. People like to vote for something, and I'd be particularly enthusiastic about that in elections where I vote for the Lib Dems*.
*I typically vote for the Lib Dems in elections where no Green is standing, and once in awhile I vote for them anyway. I occasionally vote for representatives of other parties, usually because I'm impressed with the candidate on an individual basis.
------------------------------------------------------------
ANDY ROONEY-ISH LITERARY FLOURISH OF THE WEEK: Josh Walker, Cardboard Gods
Is there anything more unshakably cheerful than the back of card text on a baseball card? The statistics and even the picture might hint at sheer desolation, but the text will always seek out the one thing that escaped the leveling storm of failure:
• Threw Complete Game Victory as Blue Jays won their first game ever in Metropolitan Stadium in 5-1 Toronto Triumph, 7-26-78
• Had 1.69 ERA vs. Twins in 1978.
You'll notice that the second of the two nice things the Topps writer could think to say about Balor Moore overlaps the first nice thing. In fact, Balor Moore only pitched twice against the 73-89 Twins in 1978, and he lost the game not mentioned in the first point. The undertone of desperation becomes even more apparent in the text when the reader notices that the year mentioned in both bullet points is the year before the most recent season on the card, implying that nothing at all positive, not even one good game against a mediocre team, occurred in 1979.
----------------------------------------------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_bi_ge/us_rel_meltdown_religion
What do you expect, when you equate material gain with metaphysical preference? Neither Jesus of Nazareth nor Jesus of Jerusalem nor Jesus Alou of the Astros, nor any other sensible Jesus that I ever heard of did that....and if it's coming home and biting you in the coffers, do better!
There is a reality of spirit, and a historical event of cleaning the temple of banker/corporatist types. Who's going to bail out organized religion's Recession?
---------------------------------------------------------
