all cultured up

getting up to speed

2010-01-14T19:29:00.003-05:00

So it's been a while (as usual) since my last post. Here is what I think about the last 7 or so weeks.

I'm afraid I can shed no light on something as dark as the situation in Haiti right now. Give what you can.
Vic Chesnutt died on Christmas day. I'm just now listening to At the Cut, one of the pair of his new releases last year. You should probably buy this. It won't make you feel any better, but it will sure as hell make you feel, which is something these days.
Very much tired of having to continue to think about a certain former governor. I'm sick of people who are unquestioningly enamored with her. I'm sick of people who think she's the antichrist -- and I don't count myself among that group either. But she and cat hair sure can fill up a vacuum. I just wish some significant Republican -- and it would be lovely if this were also a woman, though I guess I shouldn't get greedy -- would emerge and get all wonkishly excited about some proposed solutions -- conservative ones, I'm fine with that -- to some actual problems -- climate change, the uninsured, illegal immigration, the dropout rate in the African-American community: these are not exclusively liberal problems -- and, whether as an aside or by way of introducing herself, just throw down the gauntlet and say that blind-faith "conservatism" is so last decade. I'm never sure what Fox News's latest addition really wants to do. Or even what she really wants me to do. I want someone from the opposition to articulate a vision for America. Not of a hazy, dazed nostalgic fantasy-past, but a vision for an actual, attainable future -- you know, goals and stuff. Even if this dream-pol were to emerge, I'm not sure I'd go her way, but I just want to feel like thinking people have an option at least. So much to ask?
Broken most of my resolutions so far this year -- though I gave some of the more active ones target dates down the road a bit, so some will be broken in upcoming quarters.

More later. Much later, in all likelihood

On this Springsteen fellow

2009-11-21T10:13:00.003-05:00

My lingering thought is that Baltimore might be a better place if the E Street Band would visit here more often.

Last night's show at 1st Mariner Arena was as uplifting a cultural experience as I've had, and it was no less so for being the thousand-and-somethingth time through these songs for the band. In fact, that worn-in quality was far more an asset than a liability.

I'll admit that it feels a little indulgent to post my thoughts on the show, as if my review might somehow make or break Springsteen's reputation. But I'll get over that.

In terms of shear bang-for-your-buck, this show was an amazing value. My nosebleed seat cost 29 bucks before fees, and Bruce played for about 3 and a half hours -- 30 songs. That's less than a dollar a song. If someone offers you a chance to see this group play a song for a dollar (that's less than your morning latte!) take them up on it. Does a jukebox cost that little these days?

I've always admired Springsteen, but I've not been a fanatic -- while half of the crowd last night sang along with every word, I was in the half that merely joined in on the whoa-o-o-o parts. Listening to a career-spanning set list, a couple of themes emerged for me.

First, I was struck that even though I did know most of the songs, he's written so damn much music that there were a gaggle of songs I know that he didn't play. He's got so much material that there are some "must-play" songs that he simply can't get to on any given night.

Second, it struck me just how important performance is to these songs. As I'm a would-be songwriter myself, I usually focus on the material more than how it's actually performed -- even when I'm at a show. I'm more a fan of albums, songs, even just a great line, than I am of any particular performer/artist. That perspective got really satisfyingly flipped at last night's show. Sure, I can admire how surprisingly perfect a pop song Bruce can write -- "Dancing in the Dark", or how rich and cohesive a song cycle he can keep strung together (Born to Run was played in its entirety). But it's still somehow more about the playing than about what's played. The band, and Bruce in particular, appears to have such a wonderful time playing. I cannot think of anyone else as famous as Bruce willingly crowd-surfing. Clarence Clemons is the exception to my general rule about sax solos in post-1950s rock songs. What other band could get thousands of mostly middle-aged people thrilled to hear a Christmas song (and if you say Transsiberian Orchestra, then you're not my friend anymore). Boisterous as the crowd was, it was telling that Bruce was asking for an encore (coaxing a little extra applause) at least as obviously as the fans were.

So...highlights? If I have to choose, I'll go with "Prove It All Night", "Backstreets", and a stripped down "For You."

I justified buying tickets to the show (that even, while quite a steal, were probably more than I can afford right now) by telling myself that I should see Bruce once in my lifetime. But then that's how he gets you, I guess. Can't wait for the next tour.

Fixings and Corrections

2009-11-03T20:23:00.002-05:00

Fixed: The tomcat in our alley (and possibly the father of the sundry infestations of kittens occupying our back porch for the last many months). The wife trapped him and took him up the hill to the Maryland SPCA for a good, old-fashioned neuterin' just the other day. He is doing well.

Corrected: My earlier post on the Egg Babies Orchestra. This was a completely unique set of songs, contrary to my earlier publicly broadcast ignorance. Just shows you what I'm good for after I've had one too many fountain Coca-Colas.

You want updates? I got your updates.

2009-10-30T12:36:00.011-04:00

I was once trying to describe Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish, to my wife, when she had asked "what's that all about" or something to that effect, and my reply went something like, "well, he writes about politics and torture and gay stuff and Sarah Palin and occasionally there's a completely unrelated funny video." Not that that wouldn't be plenty, but there's certainly more to his blog than that. And I don't know that "gay stuff" was a particularly clear representation of his writings on the fight for marriage equality. Anyway, it's a great blog, and if you've discovered my blog -- where I post less than monthly and have a whopping two "followers" at this writing -- then I imagine you've seen his already anyways.

When I started this blog, I thought I would write about pop culture. Because there's a lot of it, and people seem to like it, and I supposed I had my opinions on the Duggers and Bjork and Dan Brown and what have you. That said, if a reader of my blog were to try to encapsulate it, based on the only occasional posts they have to go on, they might fairly say, "well, he writes about loss and death and Vic Chesnutt and kittens and the Egg Babies Orchestra and his old car and Michael Jackson ." Fair enough.

That being the case, this is a big week for this blog. Most of the subjects my blog would suggest I care about came into play this very week. Here are your updates:

The kittens, known to the Interwebs as "Trubz and Chubz", were left at the Maryland SPCA of Baltimore earlier this week. I suspect they will be adopted out soon, if that hasn't happened already. My wife was asked to name them upon handing them over to the SPCA, -- she decided "Chubz" and "Trubz" might not be the most adoptable monikers -- and she chose the name Pammy -- after a pet cat of her youth -- for Chubz. Looking at the paperwork she received, my wife later observed that the intake person at the agency had christened the cat "Panny". That's quite possibly a less appealing name than "Chubz" even. So I make this special appeal to anyone reading and giving thought to adopting your very own kitten in Baltimore: please be on the lookout for Panny, and please give her a better name. "Spotz", as you may remember found a new home some weeks ago, and has since had a lovely time, enjoying chewing on her owners' Wii cable as I understand it.

Discovered earlier this week that my old car -- donated to the very same SPCA -- sold at auction. And for a price that exceeded what I thought it would for its assumed hopeless condition. Which, on the one hand, gives me some second thoughts about my mechanic, but which also makes me pleased to consider that (a)I'll get a bigger-than-expected tax break, (b)there will be that much more money to help Chubz...er...Panny continue to bulk up while she awaits a new home, and (c)that my entirely-too-anthropomorphized old hunk of junk may indeed ride again, albeit with someone else behind the wheel.

I have little further to say about Michael Jackson, but am surprised to see some solid reviews of "That's All Folks" or whatever that new concert-rehearsal movie of his is called. The reviewers I've read have been taken by how fascinating a performer he could be. I may want to see it after all.

Went to see Vic Chesnutt and his current band at the Ottobar on Thursday, and it was as good a show as I've seen from him -- though quite different than anything I've seen from him before. When I told my coworkers that I'd gone to a concert and they asked who I'd seen and then they asked who exactly is Vic Chesnutt, I was left to try to describe the music, and all I could come up with was that it was really slow, really loud rock -- and that probably also describes Nickelback. This was nothing like Nickelback, which just goes to show that I do not have much of a command over language. While he did dip way back in his catalog for "Sponge", the set was mostly stuff from the last few years or so -- with bunches of cuts from the excellent North Star Deserter, including an ear-splitting and plodding (and masterful and inspiring) encore of "Debriefing". To describe the music as heavy conjures up sort of the wrong associations. But this was heavy alright, heavy in the sense of something sitting on your chest. And I liked that? Yes.

Saw the Egg Babies Orchestra again last night. It was their Halloween show, and it was awesome.*

Thanks for reading, and Happy Halloween.

*Origininal post incorrectly stated that the EBO duplicated many songs from previous sets. This is thoroughly false. In my defense, it was late, and I was stone cold sober. It seems I heard a Hall-and-Oates song, and an Alice Cooper song, and a Cat Stevens song and remembered having heard songs by those artists before, and conflated the pairs of, as it turns out, non-identical songs into single songs. I extend my deepest and sincerest apologies to the EBO, to their families, and to anyone else inconvenienced by my shoddy journalism.,

Free to good homes!

2009-09-29T19:05:00.010-04:00

Our fertile alley has produced yet another litter of adorableness. Back on July 22, the feral but caring "Mama Cat" (pictured above, center) brought forth these three kitten-calendar models (and a fourth one that apparently had a ball of yarn in Heaven to chase after a few days in our back yard). Anyway, if you've always wanted an eight-and-a-half-week-old kitten (or three), but just haven't found one that completely melted your heart, this is your moment.

My wife and I have spent the last few weeks getting the kittens used to, even fond of, people (or at least fond of the food we provide). They remain on our back porch at the moment, but as they get older, and as the nights get chillier, we think they're ready to be adopted by someone ready to give them lots of love. Of course, if the kittens go unspoken for, we will take them to the Maryland SPCA -- they are good people -- but we'd be happier seeing the cats find homes with people we know. Besides, that way we can hope for updates on the kitties' progress toward adult cathood.

Meet the kittens:

"Trubz"
"Trubs" gets his name -- (we think it's a he, but the kittens are very furry, and very kinetic, and we haven't been able to certify their genders beyond a reasonable doubt yet) -- from some "troubles" he got into early in his life. He was rescued once from being stuck between our neighbor's fence and their cellar door. Rescued at least twice from standing in yet another adjacent yard and unable to find his way back to mama. He has become more careful since, and has actually become the cuddliest of the whole bunch. He regularly tries to run into our house -- his way of saying "I'm ready!"

"Chubz"
Maybe she (again, we're guessing as to the gender here) isn't as Chubby as she is Fluffy, but the name stuck. A very similar design to the "Trubz" model, though a bit oranger. Chubz has warmed up to us considerably and seems to enjoy a good petting. If soft, fluffy, orange fur -- and lots of it -- are your thing, then Chubz wants to be your kitty (she does insist on a new, less derogatory name, though).

"Spotz" Update: "Spotz" has found a new loving human family. Hooray!
Always on the go, "Spotz" is a ball of energy. She's a sweetheart, and she absolutely loves to play -- with her siblings, with her mother, with us, with a crumpled pepsi box on our porch, etc.... Never late for dinner, Spotz would love to blanket your home with her enchanting white, gray and orange hued fur.

Still not convinced? Check out the videos:

While these kittens have not yet had any veterinary care or shots, we can offer, as a bonus for adopting now, additional photos and videos documenting the kittens first couple of months in the world. This offer is limited, as we are going to try to get "Mama Cat" fixed. These may be your last chance for kittens that are this adorable! Please let me know with an email or tweet (if you know me) or comment to this post (if you don't so much know me) if you are interested and would like to arrange a meet-and-greet with your future cat.

Reserve your kitten today!

Now more than ever?

2009-09-11T22:26:00.002-04:00

I think it may be too soon, guys. I think it's always too soon for this. Sheesh!

Oh What a Feeling

2009-09-04T19:39:00.014-04:00

I'm coming to learn that I do not deal well with loss.

Back towards the end of July, while awkwardly -- as always -- parallel parking my Toyota around the corner from my house, I saw a puff -- not more than that really -- of white smoke coming from under the hood. I Googled "white smoke car engine" and none of the results were comforting. The next day my mechanic confirmed my worst fears: the head gasket had blown. "Mr. Aaron," he said , "I think this is the end of the car." Pure poetry, that.

You'll note that this post appears in September. For more than the complete month of August, my car sat where I'd parked it after the drive back from the shop. After a few weeks of further neglect, it wouldn't start. I emptied it of personal effects, and claimed I would see about how to relieve myself of the car sometime in the perpetual "next few days".

Probably not more than a couple weeks before the engine sent it's smoke signal, I had lost a kitten - the runt of a brood of alley kittens raised in my backyard. I've had - and still have - other cats, but I'd not owned a kitten in my adulthood, and I'd never felt so...responsible for something before. He was sick more than he was well, and he was well only often enough so that I knew -- by virtue of the stark contrast -- just how sick he was when he was sick. He was a fighter -- in a kittenish way, of course -- but he ran out of fight just as I ran out of money.

I've lost dearly loved relatives, and my best friend through my school years, but I don't remember ever balling like I did when I had to take that scrawny kitten in to the vet and not bring him back. I think I actually experienced most of the stages of grief that you always hear about. Even the next day, I was in a concert hall when a fellow sang Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye". Not such that I caused a scene, but I was breaking up inside.

So, though I was recovering, I wasn't really ready to let anyone -- or as it turns out, anything -- go again for a long time.

And so the car sat there.

This morning, it was towed. It will be sold at auction -- or something like that -- and some parts will probably be stripped to keep someone else's junker going a little longer, and then some amount of the proceeds will go to charity (an animal shelter, naturally), and then I'll get a wee bit back come tax time. But even knowing all of that -- and, yes, recognizing that, after all, the car doesn't feel a thing -- immediately upon seeing the old thing off, I drove my wife's car into work this morning with moist eyes.

I don't want to make too much of my feelings for that car. After all, this seems to be the summer of me weeping at the drop of a hat. I can't say that I've really given a squat one way or the other for Ted Kennedy before, but I found myself touched by many of the speakers I heard on TV at his various and sundry memorial services. That dude who sang "Love Changes Everything"? Totally had me.

And there's a part of me that feels guilty about grieving the loss of a hunk of metal with a broken cassette deck. I mean, people have cancer; people are losing their homes; people's spouses are dying in Afghanistan. It's a car (or a kitten), be a friggin' man, for crying out loud.

All the same, I'd like to say a few words about the car.

Its check engine light started coming almost exactly four years ago, Labor Day weekend of 2005. I heeded the first couple of warnings, but after some expensive repairs settled into a three-and-a-half-year game of chicken with the light. Perhaps the light won, but I fought the good fight.

Maybe two or three days after I bought the car, I was reaching towards the back floorboard to throw out a banana peel -- I don't know that it was ever routine, but I know I haven't eaten bananas in the car since -- when I smacked into the vehicle ahead of me. I think it was a pickup or something similarly riding higher off the ground, because the other vehicle suffered no damage, while my hood crumpled like late-Christmas-morning gift wrap. I hadn't built up any emotional attachment to the car yet, so didn't feel bad, you know, for the car, as such. But God I was embarrassed. Embarrassed, though, and insured!

I believe it was a Willie Nelson and Leon Russell cassette that finished off the cassette deck. It had always played tapes a hair fast anyway. Not all Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks, but just sped up enough that when you heard the same song on the radio it felt like it dragged a little.

The AC broke probably all the back in 2001 or so, maybe just over a year after I'd bought it. I lived in New York state at the time, and it just didn't get all that hot, so after a rather breathtaking repair estimate, I didn't bother to get it fixed. By the time I moved to Maryland, where the broken AC was more of an issue, I figured the car had depreciated to the point that it wouldn't be worth the repair. During those days when my workday began at 1:00pm, and I would ride to work with open car windows barely making a dent in the heat, I got in the habit of bringing a change of clothes, or, failing that, going topless in the staff restroom and holding my sweat-soaked shirts under the hand dryer. One has to push that button at least a good three times to make a nice dress shirt presentable.

Against my wife's better judgment, we took the Toyota when we made our December trip southward to see family last year. I'd gotten it ready with a tune-up, an oil change, and two "new" used tires to replace the most worn pair. The trip went off without a hitch, and, on our way back, we chugged up to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. We stopped at just about every scenic overlook on the portion of the route we'd settled on traveling. I think I actually gasped at the beauty of some of the vistas. Even when we got grandeur-fatigue, we at least pulled over at each overlook, though finally staying in the car for the last few.

When we were done, I remember a nice, slow, winding descent from the heights, coasting mainly, a little proud of the old car that had gotten us up there and that would soon get us back to our lives. I'm under no illusion that the Toyota will be in Heaven soon, but that day it got close enough.

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

2009-06-26T14:02:00.004-04:00

If this is still anything close to the pop culture blog that I originally envisioned (and, let it be said, it's probably not) then I believe I am obligated to comment on the death of Michael Jackson. Here are some things I've reflected upon:

He was arguably the most famous person alive for a goodly chunk of my life
He was a profoundly odd person
He might well still have been wildly famous even without being profoundly odd -- but those two facets seem very much wound up in one another.

It's one thing to say, well, sure, Michael Jackson was a weirdo -- or a creep -- or worse (and worse was definitely alleged). Those associations were always pretty automatic whenever I'd see some new footage of his sculpted, increasingly noseless face. It's a whole different feeling to watch the little 2-minute career-summation obit roll on NBC Nightly News last night.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

What you already know to be a strange life goes just all-out incomprehensibly strange when you see it condensed like this. And as I've watched a bunch of his music videos today -- in throwback style, even MTV has been showing music videos!! -- I realize the degree to which his dancing, and his lyrics (when he penned them), and his outfits were also profoundly odd. This was never the same thing as Gene Simmons painting his face and putting on a good show for the kids. If Michael Jackson's motives and demons were mysterious to us, I cannot imagine how much more mysterious they probably were to him.

Old-Media Fail

2009-06-16T20:37:00.002-04:00

This is a thought I had: Wow. This is a completely new way to get news and information. Sure, you could say it lacks in context and it traffics in guesswork -- but everything's on the table, and it's happening right now.

I had that thought in 1991, as I watched stuff blowing-up and listened to Bernard Shaw, John Holliman and Peter Arnett broadcasting live from Baghdad (and often under a table, if memory serves) on CNN.

In a perfect world, I'd be even more of a luddite than I am. I mourn the loss of newspapers (though not always what newspapers have become in their most recent incarnations). I tolerate and sometimes appreciate public radio on my drive in to work (what can I say? my cassette player's busted). More nights than not, I try to watch one of the Network newscasts that occasionally manage to interrupt a barrage of pharmaceutical ads. And, yeah, I even once found cable news fascinating and relevant.

But seeing Twitter trump all of them in covering the turmoil in Iran is both exciting and sad. I'm not quite one of the new information elites (this is only my first post since like March or something, yo?!), but I at least realize that it's going to take the blogosphere and the twitterverse to actually alert me that there is more to know.

tunes for cans

2009-04-07T19:43:00.005-04:00

Had a lovely weekend with the Mrs.

Saturday night we went to a benefit concert at Hampden's own Village Church. The entry fee was $7 or 5 nonperishable food items per person, with either to benefit the Maryland Food Bank. Only had a couple canned items we felt we could part with (and we did -- so long, Apple Pie Filling) so we went the cash route. I haven't spent a whole lot of time in churches in my adulthood, but it was kind of nice to sit in the slightly chilly, candlelit church and listen to three groups I knew nothing about. The second group to play was the Cameron Blake Band, and their music was church/worship-related, though neither in a "How Great Thou Art" or "Our God is an Awesome God" kind of way, exactly. A sample lyric: "Our fig plant has rot with fever and cough." Some interesting stuff going on. Headlining were Caleb Stine and a couple of his band, the Brakemen. Loved it. Sounded a little bit like the other guy from Uncle Tupelo, and he clearly enjoyed another day to play some of his really solid compositions. Thoroughly enjoyable tunes all around, and a few more full bellies in these hard times.

Then Sunday, my wife took me to the National Aquarium in Baltimore to see some some dolphins and stuff. My wife's wonderfully terrific blog somehow resulted in some complimentary seats at the new dolphin show -- provided we listen to a presentation about buying a timeshare in Boca. No, we were simply asked to spread the word. Well, I must concur that them is some smart and charming dolphins! If you've got some rugrats, find a little time to take them to the aquarium, won't you? The show features not only some astounding vertical leaps by the be-flippered ones, but also a nice primer on conservation for the young set. As for the rest of the aquarium, I'm again impressed by just how much ocean life they can feature in such a relatively finite space. Personal favorite: the porcupinefish.

Saturday Nite's Allrite for Blogn

2009-03-21T19:01:00.003-04:00

I have been neglecting my blog, which is far better than to neglect, say, a houseplant, as the blog will go on with or without me, and the houseplant needs water and sunlight and such. Not that I provide the sunlight, exactly. But I will sometimes move a plant around when I think it needs more or less sunlight and, thus, a different window to sit near. So here's a list (not all-inclusive) of things I haven't written about since my last post:

I attended the opening reception for "How We Dwell", an ongoing (though possibly defunct by now, I haven't checked) series of art installations in a lady's apartment. The installation I was present for featured photographs of the artist trying on all of the hostess's clothes. There was a young girl also at the apartment that evening who played Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the keyboard and talked about making sauces with Grape Jelly. It was kind of weird, but in a really nice way.
I just bought a record by Of Montreal, which I thought might be the new one, with the single I like, but it turned out to be an older one, with "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" which is already being loosened from the grip of its association with Outback Steakhouse. (Incidentally, I would never had cried sellout against OfM, if only because the use/corruption of this song was such a vast improvement on the drunk-Paul-Hogan-impersonator jingles of Outback's prior campaigns.) So, anyway, it's just exhilarating to have any new (to me) record on my turntable, and it's a nice bonus that this one is just awesomely good.
Went duckpin bowling again a few weeks back. I haven't gotten any better at that. But it was nothing like the Special Olympics. I'm not even going to say "Special Olympics"
Spring started happening. I saw robins in Hoes Heights and daffodils blooming along the side of Druid Hill. Spring is far and away Maryland's best season, and I'm psyched.

Naw, naw. Whatchu gotta do is t' free up more capital.

2009-02-20T22:18:00.004-05:00

Thanks to all (one of you) who voted in last week's poll. I shall indeed write this post "about" the economy.

I've been reading some newspapers and blogs and whatnot, and it seems to me everyone is looking to report on the silver lining that surrounds this massive cumulonimbus mess we've got hovering over us. I've seen reports about how cobblers are having increased business as more people look to mend their shoes. Saw something today about how there are less divorces during hard economic times (though I don't know if the marriages preserved solely by depressions are walks in the park). And I'm sure we're just months away from the "hobo-chic" trend sweeping the runways in Milan.

But despite all these sunny goodtime scenarios, I'd like to nominate another candidate as one of the worst spinoffs of the current downturn -- people trying to talk economics. People who shouldn't. People who aren't, by any stretch of the admittedly already-loose definition, economists.

I'm a real big hater on cable news generally these days, but man -- unleash these blabberlips on the subject of fiscal stimulus or capital markets or protectionism or anything this side of missing 3-year-olds and they instantly make clear that they don't know what they're talking about -- even to me, who also doesn't know what they're talking about.

In my line of work, I find myself privy to the musings of a pretty broad cross section of the public. These people are not idiots. When we tackle the usual small-talk niceties, they just nail it. I mean, when it's a cold day out, by God, they aren't going to tell you it's hot. Y'know? When the Ravens looked overmatched against the Steelers the next weekend, they weren't coming in crowing about Baltimore on Friday -- and they showed reserve enough not to tell me "told you so" on Monday.

But, dude, people I run into at work and in my own life are letting some under-their-breath things slip about what they don't like about the stimulus bill or about TARP or about the plan to bail out homeowners. If their complaints were only that the plans were too obtuse, that would be one thing. But people have watched just enough cable news to think they know something. By and large, I think most people in the country are just letting the educated guys and gals we asked for (or didn't) give things their best shot. Some are hoping for success and some are hoping for a perception of failure that lasts at least long enough for their political advantage. This is all well and good. I just cannot take much more of the vocal minority of people who loudly express their barely-informed opinions on matters which learned economists themselves struggle to grasp the complexities of.

Nevertheless I reserve the right to vet my ill-considered remedies for our malaise whenever I see fit. Perhaps I will next discuss nationalizing the banks. It's my blog. Suck it.

If it's Tuesday...

2009-02-10T21:49:00.001-05:00

...it must be singing cartoon horses. I'm about a minute and a half in, and I'm not tired of it yet.

Scape goats...er, fish

2009-02-06T21:34:00.003-05:00

When I was much younger, I had a couple of goldfish. I know that I told my family, and I believe that I told myself that these fish preferred whatever the "soft rock" station out of Atlanta was at the time. I also made it clear that I didn't particularly care for the music, but I would occasionally switch over to the soft rock station for a while, in deference to my fishes'...um....wishes. I think I knew at the time that this was all a fraud -- that I just kind of wanted the soft rock now and then, but it sure helped to have the fish around to explain this away.

And We Will All Splash Down Together

2009-01-17T10:58:00.005-05:00

I don't presume myself to be the first to either have this thought or publish it online, but here goes anyway.

The idea I want to explore is not exactly that the USAirways flight that ended in the Hudson River the other day was quite a bit of good news, nor that this Sully guy is one hell of a pilot, nor that Canada Geese (unverified culprit as yet) can be quite problematic.

What I've spent some time thinking about is why this story resonates so strongly right now. Why I'm still thinking about it a day and a half later. Why Chris Matthews gave the pilot something called "the Hardball award" (he was pretty excited about this story, but apparently didn't quite reach the point of chills or thrills going up his leg). Don't get me wrong, I know this is a fantastic story that would get a lot of play no matter when it happened. Still, I think that a lot of people are looking at this wanting to read it as a metaphor for our whole situation at this moment in history. This plane crash is not just significant as one of the happiest accidents we've seen.

You don't have to watch CNBC these days to feel like the American economy -- hell, the world economy -- has lost both engines, and we find ourselves passengers aboard what has become a mammoth glider, the controls of which we don't understand. While our pre-crash moment is stretched out over months instead of minutes, we've heard the "Brace for Impact" announcement, and nobody's flipping through the SkyMall catalog anymore (not that we don't still secretly lust after that hot dog roller they sell). Most of us board planes without any real understanding of how the things get airborne, and investors have made and lost money investing it things they couldn't begin to explain.

I think many people have accepted that we're going to have to ditch this plane, so we're inclined to take a lot of comfort in this crash, where a couple legs were broken, and, of course, the plane was lost, but most everyone came out just cold, wet, shaken, and thrilled to be alive. People are putting a lot of faith in a new president to steer us away from the skyscrapers and come in at precisely the right angle so we don't crack up completely. We know that things are going to get even more chaotic once we're down, and the cabin starts filling with icewater. We know that it's not going to be particularly orderly, and that some people are going to block the aisle trying to retrieve items from the overhead bin (alright, so I'm not sure what that's a metaphor for). But with enough people looking out for others, we might all come out alive.

Isn't that a nice thought?

Happy New Year! (so ten days ago)

2009-01-10T20:46:00.000-05:00

Kind of hoping that the word doesn't get too far out, but Baltimore's 34th st kicks Times Square in the dropped ball, 'sfar as I'm concerned. While my new years eve plans have rarely moved past the point of eating Too Much Chex Mix -- and still haven't really gotten much better than that -- I did actually find myself out and about on this last December 31. We wandered the cold streets of the neighborhood of Hampden until we got to the famous (well, just a little) Christmas displays adorning a certain block of 34th st (think nativity scenes with Minnie Mouse, multiply that by "what?", and you're almost there). See a video someone shot here -- not sure what's going on at first, haven't been inclined to find out -- the ball drop commences around the 4:50 mark).

Things I liked about this:

- It was awesome

- You could arrive about 4 minutes to midnight and get a great vantage point

- Some hippie-ish types with a guitar and (?? - some spoons, a coffee can, don't remember) were asking one another "what could we sing that we could get everyone singing along to?" and then sang Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" -- and none present let not knowing a word of the verse stop them. Good song, and great that night.

- I got just inspired enough to yell "BALL!" several times, at the absolute top of my lungs, by way of encouraging said ball to drop.

- I still got to eat Too Much Chex Mix

Happy New Year Everyone!

live-blogging the new Vic Chesnutt record!

2008-12-30T20:12:00.001-05:00

Happy interregnum! Thought I'd take a moment as we sit here between holidays and presidents to weigh in for a first time on Dark Developments, the newish LP by Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power and the Amorphous Strums. I am so listening to it now. Or, if listening is too active a verb, then you can at least count on the fact that it's on in the background as I write.

This is my second time through, and I like it almost (but not quite) three times as much as I did the first time. And it's not that I was just crankier the first time and feel much better now thank you. The album is now a bit more familiar, and a little bit of familiarity -- at least with music -- can go a long way. With halfway decent music, I do get something of a rush from being able to think, "oh yeah, here's this song that goes like this." And you don't get that the first time through -- even if a piece of music is terribly derivative, I find myself having to discover the specific ways in which it's derivative. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even "Oops, I Did It Again" probably had to grow on me through a listen or two.

I don't think this can be a proper album review, because either you're going to listen to Dark Developments or you're not, and yes, perhaps I could sway your fate a little one way or the other, but I don't think I particularly want to do any convincing. Thus, I don't feel like saying too much about the album itself (not that commenting on the actual musico-lyrical content is any sort of requirement in most album reviews anyway -- I mean what am I going to say? "It sounds like Chrissie Hynde dry-humping a bust of Shostakovich"? Because, fwiw, it doesn't sound much like that.)

I will say that I'm grateful to the good folks at Orange Twin records for getting my mail-ordered copy of the album to me after an apparently unsuccessful first attempt -- I wonder if my mail-lady secretly hearts Vic Chesnutt.

I will also say that I cannot listen to the closing track, "Phil the Fiddler", without inserting "Joe the Plumber" into every stanza. The album came out, to the best of my recollection, just before McCain tried to revive the medieval name-article-occupation formulation. In this weird time of experienced people coughing up "depression" every now and then, this is an album worth reading some portent into. In a way that I haven't quite heard since Dylan's Modern Times, it opens itself up to a little interpretation -- feeling like a message in a bottle from someone stranded in the very near future (like three-days-from-now near). It's obtuse without being particularly obstinate. (I don't know what that sentence means, exactly, and I'll have you know that I wanted to work "oblong" in there somewhere, but it just didn't cut it.)

And I think I will be returning to discuss this album again. What's everyone else hearing these days?

Tribute

2008-12-13T20:42:00.001-05:00

So I saw the Egg Babies Orchestra last week at the Metro Gallery. EBO is a local cover band, but they somehow rise beyond the discomfort that the words "cover band" inspire in the hearts of some music fans. Their schtick is that they perform each song in their vast and ever-expanding repetoire once and once only. And I guess it amounts to more than schtick, in that there's a bit of the new on display (even in the fairly straight delivery of these well-known tunes that the band has clearly practiced into the ground). Standouts included their renditions of "Video Killed the Radio Star", " "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)", which they prefaced by saying they were about to play a song by Edison Lighthouse (as, indeed, that song is). I knew that I knew a song by said group, and thought that I probably liked it, but couldn't immediately recall what one that was. For a moment, I thought maybe "Ride Captain Ride", but then I remembered that's by Blues Image. Those Egg Babies should try that one some day. Anyway, that's about as far as I got with guessing, because they started in to the tune, and its opening brought me back around.

Such a great song. But, then again, no...

It's a very good song, but not great. But the arrangement and the production and performance on the recording add up to something great, and the EBO brought it that night. I'm still taken aback by how much I enjoyed the show overall. There was a sort of reverence for the source material, and everything was played pretty striaight, so what were we enjoying, really? I've seen wedding bands where they're not really doing anything profoundly different, but the fun factor just isn't there with the wedding bands. Was it knowing these were our one shots at these covers (at least by this group?). Was it the, dare I say, professionalism with which these tunes were rendered? Am I just too closed off and set in my ways to really take in new music, and was I really feeling relief as much as enjoyment to hear a whole bunch of songs I already knew? I dunno.

So I saw something perhaps a bit more perverse a few weeks back when I sat in on the local arts collective Wham City's production of They Should All Be Destroyed: A Jurassic Park Play. Yes, this was Jurassic Park, performed live on stage. The play, while of course taking its story primarily from the Crichton novel, paid heavy tribute to Spielberg's film of the same name, faithfully recreating a host of scenes that seemed ripped from our collective unconscious: the uncomfortable flirtations...the silly animated double helix...the arrival of the grandkids...the t-rex attack...and -- dear God -- "I see the fleas, mummy! Can't you see the fleas?"

Some of the pundits who seem to be omnipresent in just about every medium I encounter often pontificate on how we no longer have regular collective experiences in our society anymore -- usually the "there's just no Walter Chronkite today" argument or the line that goes something like "kids today with their walkmen, I mean, wuddayacallem, IPods are always walking around off in their own worlds." I'm worried about this too. The movies do seem to be one of the healthier remaining repositories for collective experience, so much so that Disney takes its movies and turns them into, well, everything: broadway musicals, ice capades, etc. The reason we have to do this, rather than just watching the movie another time (we'll do that too), is that we still feel like once in a while we should actually go see something happening before our eyes, not just something on a screen. I don't really know for sure, but I've always thoughts that the results would be, while perhaps enjoyable, kind of unsatisfying. With They Should All Be Destroyed, however, I was captivated. While some liberties were taken to comedic and other effect (the character -- whose name I don't recall but who was portrayed in the movie by the actor who also played Seinfeld's "Newman" -- sloppily ate [sort of] the better part of a raw chicken in the first act ), the overall approach seemed to be appreciative recreation of scenes from what has become a cultural touchstone. I left feeling both touched and stoned (metaphorically, in both cases).

So here's your homework. Is Barack Obama trying to "cover" Abraham Lincoln, or do the talking heads just really want him to?