Murphy's Law

New site for Murphy's Law

2009-01-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

This blog site is no longer active; all new posts (since 11/08) can be found at http://bullmurph.com/

Cheers-
MURPH

They Will Rock You (They Are The Champions)

2008-10-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

Pop Past
22 October 2008

They Will Rock You (They Are The Champions)

This discussion might begin with the innocent posing of an impossible question: who is the all-time MVP of rock and roll? Most people, once the considerable pool of candidates was properly examined, could quickly reach consensus, right? Keep dreaming.

Part One: Introduction (and Apology)

October ’08. In the spirit of two quintessentially American inventions (obsessions, really), baseball and rock and roll, it seemed like a swell idea to merge the two in a lighthearted exercise designed to celebrate the World Series. If one were to imagine fielding the ultimate all-star team comprised of the greatest “players” from the roster of rock music history, how would one begin? Well, for starters, this project could best be understood as falling somewhere in the spectrum of compulsive list making, a passionate engagement with rock music, and the increasingly ubiquitous phenomenon of fantasy teams that exist in the shadow universe of sports freaks. This discussion might begin with the innocent posing of an impossible question: who is the all-time MVP of rock and roll? Or, who are the chosen ones who would find their way onto the roster of any respectable short list? Most people, once the considerable pool of candidates was properly examined, could quickly reach consensus, right? Keep dreaming. The only thing more inimically American than sports and music is our unquenchable compulsion to compete, to choose a side and see what happens.

The whole idea, initially, was simply to have fun with the process. Immediately, I found myself fighting my choices and second-guessing my gut instinct. I realized that an endeavor like this is not dissimilar from what someone (probably a professor) once said regarding the infighting in academia: the battles are so bloody because the stakes are so small. Still, I am, admittedly, one of those idiots who spends an unreasonable amount of time contemplating the various criteria that renders certain artists (and works of art) viable, indelible, immutable. So, the question became: what was I thinking? Especially since I’m the type of person who would probably have an easier time deciding which digit to hack off if the alternative was isolating the one album I could not live without. No man is an island, but my imaginary desert island is all-inclusive: it’s all coming with me or I sink under the weight of its excess, drowning happily with those songs echoing in my mind. In sum, I should have known better. This, of course, is ultimately an agonizing endeavor, and (I know) if I ever saw someone else making a list like this, I’d certainly have a reaction (invariably a visceral one). So with that said, I serve up this offering with the encouragement of any responses, questions, critiques and most of all, alternate suggestions.

Part Two: The Bench, Bullpen and Pitching Rotation

In the interest of fairness (and sanity), some parameters quickly became imperative. The roster: American bands only. The time period: post 1960. Naturally, and necessarily, this eliminates some of the most important artists, the progenitors. But any competitive team must start with proven leaders, right? We need coaches! Problem solved. Question: who is going to oversee this ultimate all-star team? Answer: why look further than the true godfather and indisputable king of rock and roll, Chuck Berry? He pretty much invented the game, so all of the players are by default his acolytes and apostles. Plus, there is nothing that will surprise or faze him; he’s been there, done that. Also, he is eccentric and irascible, as so many of the great skippers in any sport seem to be. He certainly is not lacking for self confidence: if someone needs to ride the pine due to poor performance, are they going to second guess Johnny B. Goode? Finally, there is always the tantalizing possibility of him duck walking out to home plate to argue a close call with the umpire. (That umpire, incidentally, is Rick Rubin. Who else has successfully mediated so many fruitful proceedings involving some of the biggest egos on the planet?)

Chuck Berry’s coaching staff represents the roots of rock music: the ones upon whose backs the British invasion and whitewashed American imitators climbed for profit. Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley make a formidable bunch. The pitching coach is Roy Orbison and the hitting coach is, of course, Jerry Lee Lewis. Buddy Holly, forever young and good-natured, is bench coach. But what about soul brother number one, the fan’s choice as most valuable playa? James Brown, the hardest working man in show business, could be nothing other than Commissioner. As such, he supervises all internal affairs, speaks for the Players Association and oversees the relations with other leagues, including Blues, Funk and Country. (This explains the absence of fellow Commissioners Muddy Waters, George Clinton and Johnny Cash, all of whom have their own franchises and farm teams to organize.) In related news, if the Motown/Soul squad ever got involved, the slaughter rule might need to be put in place. Still, there is one glaring omission. What about the great white hope, Elvis Presley? Elvis, alas, is out: call it the revenge of the Negro Leagues. Not to worry, Elvis—along with Frank Sinatra and John Wayne—is safely ensconced up in the skybox, carousing with the owners and their obsequious entourages.

Before introducing the starters and bullpen, let’s give a shout out for the deep and formidable bench, players who could step in at any time to make key contributions. In alphabetical order we have Alice in Chains, The Allman Brothers, The Cars, Kiss, Metallica, The Pretenders, Santana, Sleater-Kinney, Van Halen and Wilco. Our Triple-A affiliates are confident that up and comers such as The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Fiery Furnaces and Iron and Wine are attracting attention and are all likely to have long and prosperous careers.

And so, without further ado, let’s have a look at the pitching rotation. These are the badasses who can shut down any lineup, and these studs all bring the noise via electric guitar. Starting with the cornerstone, the most important player on the field, our staff ace Jimi Hendrix. Plain and simple, this unhittable southpaw has the best ERA in the history of the game. His career was cut tragically short, but in his prime if you needed to win Game 7 of the World Series, this is the man you wanted on the mound. His complete dominance has never been debatable, and his stuff remains unmatched and inimitable. Next in the rotation is a proud product of Texas, Stevie Ray Vaughn. Another maestro cut short in his prime, he is nevertheless a first ballot hall of famer. Along with Hendrix’s patented machine gun delivery, SRV could always be counted on to release the Texas Flood. The third spot in the rotation is occupied by the quirky and impossibly prolific provocateur, Frank Zappa. Celebrated as much for his guile and élan, Z’s approach was always more cerebral: you never quite knew exactly what he was going to serve up, but more often than not, this long-haired hurler would be laughing at your expense before you realized the ball had left his hand. Vital for more than three decades, there is no question that Zappa was most definitely not in it only for the money. The rotation is balanced out by two insufficiently celebrated living legends, each employing opposite styles to similarly devastating effect. If Vernon Reid can reliably dazzle a lineup with his lightning-fast licks and mastery of an assortment of pitches, Buzz “King Buzzo” Osbourne is the ultimate grinder: his methodical, torrential barrage is on par with the best knuckleball—it is instantly identifiable but exceedingly difficult to master, much less describe.

The bullpen is stocked with singer/songwriters, all of whom are masters of finesse, capable of taking over a game in the late innings. The set-up men, Kurt Cobain and Mike Patton, represent two of the more important and influential voices of the ‘90s. Like too many of his teammates, Cobain’s career was cut short, but Patton is settled in for the long haul, and it seems safe to assume that he’ll own many records by the time he hangs up his spurs. As the game winds down, two old school options emerge: from the east coast we have Lou Reed while representing the gold coast is Jackson Browne. Reed tends to give up too many walks, but he lives on the wild side; Browne serves up the occasional long ball when he’s running on empty. Ultimately, despite some less successful outings, these two veterans are there for you when you need them most. Every bullpen needs the situational specialist (sometimes lovingly referred to as the LOOGY, or Lefty One Out Guy), and on this squad Don Van Vliet (sometimes lovingly referred to as Captain Beefheart) always provides enough Electricity to induce that one crucial out. Last but far from least, the team requires a fearless closer to shut ‘em down and seal the deal. All energy, emotion and raw ability, Janis Joplin is an unflappable and intimidating as anyone who has ever played the game. Big Brother and the Holding Company knew how to hold a big lead, and there was never anything cheap about the thrills Janis delivered.

Part Three: The Starting Lineup

And now, the starting lineup, complete with designated hitter (as it would somehow seem less American not to play by American League rules; all of the National League purists are encouraged to join the conversation about how the game used to be played over at Nogoodmusicwasmadeafter1960.com), organized by batting order:

NAME POSITION

Creedence Clearwater Revival SS
Bruce Springsteen CF
Steely Dan 1B
R.E.M. 3B
The Pixies DH
Bob Dylan C
Lynyrd Skynyrd LF
The Doors RF
The Beach Boys 2B

Question: Where are the Grateful Dead? Three answers: First, they are too busy patrolling the concourse, dispensing miracles, to participate in organized games. Second, and perhaps more to the point, what position, exactly, is Jerry Garcia going to play? Finally, the game needs a mascot, and what could be more appropriate than the Steal Your Face guy flying in and around the stadium, at once part of the game and calmly removed from it; like a beach ball, only trippier. Also, instead of the current trend of singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch, we’re pumping in Howlin Wolf’s rendition of “Smokestack Lightning” because, frankly, it doesn’t get any more American than that.

Leading off, at short stop, is the hits machine Creedence Clearwater Revival. In their relatively brief, but remarkably productive prime, they were not only a force to be reckoned with, but unparalleled as a positive force in American music. They led the league in hits and batting average over three seasons (1968-1970). Their highlight reel runs constantly on FM radio, and it’s worth recalling that these dudes rocked the flannel look long before it was cool (in the ‘70s or in the grunge 2.0 fashion cycle).

Hitting in the number two spot, in centerfield, is Asbury Park’s own Bruce Springsteen. A promising rookie in ’73 who’d paid some serious dues for several years in the minor leagues, his breakthrough season came in 1975 when he garnered MVP honors for Born To Run. Since then he has seldom been out of favor, cranking out timely singles and infusing the game with his unmatched energy and integrity. If the team ever hits a losing streak, the Boss is often at his best when times seem the toughest: Bruce understands (and does his best to ensure) that the glory days are always in the future.

Batting third and flashing some serious leather at first base is the quiet but deadly duo Steely Dan. These guys were as close to a dynasty as anyone else in the much-maligned decade of the ‘70s. Perfectionists, oddballs, studio wizards, the Dan put together a string of winning seasons that any band would happily emulate. Consummate team players (never ones to put their faces on albums), Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were such perfectionists that they stopped touring altogether in the ‘70s so they could concentrate on crafting their meticulous string of albums. Every team requires the quietly obsessed, lead-by-example professional, and in the understated Dan, this squad has the perfect player to keep them grounded, and focused on what matters most.

The clean-up hitter and arguably most impressive player on the squad is that most American of bands, R.E.M. Not only the ultimate run producer and homeruns leader (from their rookie season in ’83 through at least ’96, their prime is one extended batting title). Consistency has always been their hallmark, and only the most versatile, fearless and original band could cover the hot corner year in and year out. If they’ve shown their age in recent years, it does not (cannot) diminish their credentials: a longer heyday than any other American band, hands down.

Batting fifth is highly regarded designated hitter The Pixies. This perennial fan favorite would warrant inclusion in the lineup courtesy of their two masterworks Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. But to put their influence and reputation in proper perspective, consider the fact that Kurt Cobain once admitted that on the Nirvana hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, he was “basically trying to rip off the Pixies…I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band.” Factor in that this is also the band that (sort of) spawned The Breeders, not to mention Black Francis’s metamorphosis into Frank Black, and the considerably satisfactory solo career he’s had. When you contemplate a band that hit long bombs when given the chance (with the strikeouts that are an inevitable part of the DH position), you might be hard pressed to come up with a better slugger. If the bases are loaded with two outs in a tie game, all that needs to be said is “if man is 5, then the devil is 6 and if the devil is 6 than god is 7”. That (rally) monkey’s gone to heaven.

Team captain, and catcher, Bob Dylan hits sixth. To be honest, he could play anywhere and do anything he feels like. It’s rather unlikely that he’d want to be associated with any teams, as he owes allegiance to no one other than Woody Guthrie. Dylan is, in short, the consensus leader of this entire generation: he is the alpha and omega of post-‘60s American music. Everyone from The Byrds to the Beatles and singer-songwriters from Van Morrison to Neko Case are, in their own way, paying homage to everything the bard from Minnesota made possible.

Batting in the number seven slot, it’s the tough-as-nails, first off the bench in a brawl southern boys Lynyrd Skynyrd. And where else but left field for a band that took Neil Young to task for critiquing “sweet home” Alabama, only to befriend him later? Where else but left field for a group with ultimate southern street cred advocating that we toss all pistols to the bottom of the sea (“Saturday Night Special”)? These non-NRA endorsing rednecks wrote songs that were remarkably nuanced (“That Smell”, “Needle and the Spoon”) and unusually sensitive (“Tuesday’s Gone”, “Simple Man”) as well as the obligatory ‘70s anthems (“Sweet Home Alabama”, “Give Me Three Steps”, “Free Bird”). Like too many of their teammates, tragedy derailed their run to glory, but the body of work is versatile, deep and enduring.

Hitting eighth and getting the mojo rising in right field are The Doors. Not too many groups have finished their careers as solid and strong as they began them, but L.A. Woman was almost as perfect a swan song as The Doors was a debut. Overlooked and easy to dismiss (Jim Morrison was to rock music what the oft-suspended and self-immolating prima donnas are to today’s sports), they cast an immense and influential shadow—often on the short list of younger band’s role models. And while right field is arguably the least exciting and uneventful position in the field, when you need that long throw home on a rope, or that perfect song at the end of the night before you slip into unconsciousness, the Lizard King is always ready to light up the fire.

Finally, batting ninth and turning double plays at second base, it’s the forever young angels from the gold coast, The Beach Boys. Obviously, they had enough ammo, early in their career (another runs factory) to warrant serious consideration for inclusion on this team. But some historical perspective is imperative when really assessing the Beach Boys’ place in history: while The Beatles are (correctly) credited with creating rock music’s first commercially embraced work of art with Sgt. Pepper, it is well documented that Paul McCartney’s initial inspiration was to somehow make a record as incredible as Pet Sounds. A second baseman is counted on to stir the pot and produce timely singles, and The Beach Boys delivered some of the most crucial hits ever in postseason play: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”, “God Only Knows”, and, of course, “Good Vibrations”—the single still hear ‘round the world.
So there it is: the ultimate lineup of American rock music legends. While I reserve the right to second-guess myself (that, after all, is pretty much the point—along with instigating discussion!), I am happy to make the case that this team represents the best possible players, based on the various criteria. What do you think?

—Sean Murphy

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/blogs/sound-affects/

Chinatown (from Popmatters.com Cinema Qua Non)

2008-10-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

Chinatown
Director: Roman Polanski
1974

Chinatown does not usually make the short list of best American films. In fairness, it probably shouldn’t. It will have to settle for merely being the only perfect American film ever made. Perfect? Well, perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and the definition of perfect might include the notion that there is no such thing as perfection in art. Nevertheless, by any number of criteria, Chinatown continues to satisfy more than thirty years on. In the final analysis it’s the magnificent sum of its considerable parts: it’s tragic, it’s hilarious, it’s (at times) scary, it’s challenging, it’s complicated, it is unnerving. It is, in short, America. Or at least it does the near impossible: it articulates the symbiotic relationship between greed and power that props up capitalism, a narrative that played an ever-increasing role in 20th century America. Much could—and should—be said along these lines, and how Robert Towne’s meticulous screenplay was ideal fodder for Roman Polanski’s dark and utterly authentic vision (Polanski also deserves extensive praise for resisting the happier ending Towne wanted).

That is all well and good, but why does Chinatown remain compelling, and worthy of repeated viewings? Speaking personally, I’ve seen the film at least 15 times in the last 20 years, and each viewing has revealed new layers or nuance, and has only confirmed that initial impression: it’s perfect. The screenplay, the soundtrack, the casting: all unassailable. Memorable scenes? Really, the entire movie is just a series of memorable scenes. Or, more accurately, a continuous stream of indelible moments: Gittes (Jack Nicholson) in the barber shop, covered in shaving cream, angrily inviting the wiseass banker to step outside and “discuss things”; Gittes sardonically lamenting the loss of his shoe (“Son of a bitch! Goddamn Florsheim shoe!”); Gittes telling the dirty joke unaware of his soon-to-be-client and lover standing behind him; Gittes driving frantically through an orange grove to escape some pissed off farmers whose land he is trespassing upon; Noah Cross (John Huston as the flawlessly named incarnation of evil) persistently, and quite intentionally, mispronouncing Gittes name (Mr. Gits); Gittes calling the officious jerk in the public library a weasel; Gittes imploring Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to let the police intervene against Cross (her father) and her unsettling response: “He owns the police!”… the list could go on.

Perhaps most importantly, this is, quite simply a beautifully crafted work, the type of movie that can be savored without the sound on. One example: Gittes sits patiently at the top of a sloping cliff, overlooking the Los Angeles coastline as day slides into evening. He waits, lighting cigarette after cigarette, totally unaware that he has already stumbled into a hornet’s nest of corruption. The beauty of what he sees (and we see) perfectly masks the brutal ugliness of what is really going on: unwittingly, Gittes is about to lift up the rock and behold the guts and machinery of what gets sold as the American dream.

Naturally, Chinatown passes the ultimate test: is it still meaningful, today? Does it still tell us about something about ourselves? Sadly, it does. Impossible as it may have been for Towne and Polanski to imagine, there would come a time where public trust of those in power deteriorated beyond even the Watergate era nadir of Nixonland. Today, as the fabricated sheen of Wall Street crumbles around us, we might ask the wizards who wrought this mess the same question Gittes asks Cross—and expect the same answer:

“Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can’t already afford?”
“The future, Mr. Gits! The future!”

There it is: the most accurate and succinct depiction of unfettered greed you’re likely to hear. And to see John Huston convey it is to appreciate, and be appalled by, the allure and immorality of depraved power. Jake hears it, and sees it, and for him—and the country—it’s too little, too late. As always. “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown,” his partner admonishes him. But Jake can’t forget it, and we know he won’t forget it. Neither will we.

--Sean Murphy

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/64305/cinema-qua-non-indispensable-dvds-part-1b

An Appreciation of Rick Wright (Popmatters.com)

2008-09-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Sound Affects
The PopMatters Music Blog

Pop Past

19 September 2008

The Great Gig In The Sky: An Appreciation of Rick Wright

Back when Pink Floyd was the first band in space, they remained mysterious, and cool, by being invisible. For being one of the biggest rock groups in the world all through the ‘70s, the average fan would not have recognized any of them in the local pub. With few exceptions, their faces weren’t on the album covers and—as the resulting records prove—they put the music first. In their prime, the records were truly group efforts, and no one cared too much about taking credit. This, of course, changed once Roger Waters decided he was Pink. Not coincidentally, the more Waters set the controls for the heart of his ego, the more the albums started sounding like…Roger Waters albums. By the time an increasingly megalomaniacal Waters turned his attention to The Final Cut, the original band’s presciently titled swan song, he had decreed Rick Wright’s keyboard abilities no longer necessary for his vision. It was an unfortunate power play: the album suffered for Wright’s absence, and the solo albums Waters subsequently made only served to prove how desperately he needed his band mates (and, to be fair, vice versa).

It was not always thus. Indeed, from the band’s first album, Rick Wright’s piano and organ were integral parts of the Pink Floyd sound. Once founder (as well as leader and primary songwriter) Syd Barrett left the group, it was Wright who temporarily assumed vocal duties until David Gilmour joined the fold. In those early, transitional albums (everything from A Saucerful of Secrets to Meddle can be seen as transition records, all leading to what is arguably the greatest rock album ever made, Dark Side of the Moon) made between 1968 and 1972, the dominant sound of the group was created by Wright and Gilmour. The interplay of guitar and keyboards infuses practically every song, including the sidelong epics “Atom Heart Mother Suite” and “Echoes”. The employment of keyboards moved ever closer to the forefront as progressive rock dominated the early ‘70s, and Wright should get his fair share of credit for legitimizing—and popularizing—this evolution.

To properly appreciate Wright’s versatility, it makes sense to consider Pink Floyd’s most overlooked and misunderstood album. The soundtrack to the film More is often, and egregiously, dismissed as an inconsequential stepping stone to more significant work. The individual songs hold up remarkably well, but they also remain illustrative of the ways in which Gilmour and Wright (as musicians, as songwriters) would hone and perfect that signature post-psychedelic Pink Floyd sound. The uninitiated should be pleasantly surprised by the delights contained within: the expansive dreamscape of Wright’s organ solo at the end of “Cirrus Minor”, the almost jazzy action of “Up the Khyber”, and the languidly mesmerizing “Quicksilver”. The album’s centerpiece, appropriately titled “Main Theme”, represents early Floyd perfection, and epitomizes the surreal soundscapes Gilmour and Wright were capable of composing as early as ’69. It is really a remarkable achievement, managing to sound urgent and laid back at the same time—a uniquely wonderful effect Floyd would pull off with uncanny consistency going forward. Many of the ingredients found on More, particularly the blues-influenced guitar and atmospheric keyboards, would resurface, albeit in a steadily refined fashion. The instrumental tracks from this album are blueprints for the slowed down and fleshed out masterpieces waiting down the road.

About those masterpieces. People understandably remember the words to the songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals, but Rick Wright is the not-so-secret weapon dominating the sound and feel of these albums. As ever, Gilmour’s guitar is the engine soaring into infinity, but always, it’s Wright framing the contours—the boundless blue sky behind all the clouds. Consider the sublime (no other word will do) “Breathe In the Air”: Gilmour’s slide guitar (and vocals) dominate the action, but Wright balances it throughout with his ethereal and understated control. Of course, he wrote the music for “The Great Gig in the Sky” and “Us and Them”, two of the group’s best loved, and enduring tunes. The crescendo of the album’s coda “Eclipse” would be unimaginable without his pulsating organ notes.

Perhaps his penultimate contribution is to Floyd’s somber meditation on loss, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. Is there a more melancholy, but beautiful opening to any song in all of rock music? Considering the subject matter (the drug-induced disintegration of former band leader and childhood friend Syd Barrett), it is at once stunning and poignant. And speaking of the aforementioned “Pink Floyd sound”, that’s all you get for the first four minutes of the song: Wright and Gilmour. To be certain, this is Waters’ finest hour as well (those, again, are his words and, on this song, his voice) but let there be no mistake about the sound and feeling, and who was responsible for its creation.

Wright’s role was diminished, but still integral to the final great Floyd album, Animals (yes, I’m of the opinion that The Wall is merely a very good, but not great album—certainly not in the class of the holy trinity that preceded it). After that, if it’s easy to claim that Waters moved himself more to the forefront with increasingly middling results, it also is the truth. Of course, Wright and the others had the last, lucrative laugh, as they soldiered on, sans Waters, in the newer age version of the band. They filled arenas while their embittered ex-mate nursed his indignity, arguably at the expense of his art. No matter. What the band did, from 1967 to 1977, is indelible, and undeniable. In all those years, the refreshingly faceless band focused on the only thing that matters—the music. Fittingly, the quietest member of this most unassuming supergroup possessed the calm contentment of knowing how impossible it all would have been without him.

—Sean Murphy

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/63534/the-great-gig-in-the-sky-an-appreciation-of-rick-wright/

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without: Part Five (Popmatters.com Blog)

2008-09-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

Pop Past

8 September 2008

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without: Part Five

Party Music for the Apocalypse: Mikey Dread’s Beyond World War III

If Mikey Dread (Michael Campbell) had never decided to pick up the microphone and sing, his status would be secure in reggae history. His groundbreaking weekly show on Jamaican radio, the ingeniously entitled Dread at the Controls not only made him a celebrity, but it brought Jamaican music to the masses, making hometown heroes out of otherwise obscure acts. Notably, many music fans have heard Mikey Dread even if they own zero reggae albums. As the ‘70’s came to a close, two things were difficult to deny: reggae’s golden era was over, and The Clash were, as many people acknowledged, the only band that mattered. Of course, The Clash’s kitchen-sink approach (which reached its apotheosis—for better or worse still a ceaseless debate amongst fans—on their fourth album Sandinista!) included the embrace of reggae, first evidenced in their cover of Junior Murvin’s classic “Police and Thieves” from their first album. It made all the sense in the world for Mikey Dread to enter their world, which he did when he became the opening act on their tour. Shortly after, they hit the studio and collaborated on the single “Bankrobber”. Mikey Dread’s fingerprints (and vocals) were all over the aforementioned Sandinista and at this point, it’s fair to conclude that his street-cred, both in reggae and rock circles, was beyond reproof.

With this experience, and bubbling with confidence, he returned to the studio to work on Beyond World War III. All of the albums in this series have featured vocal trios, and one duo, who represent the highest level of harmonizing skills. Finally, here is a record that features one singer—but not one voice. Mikey Dread, the dub master, multi-tracks himself to create a constant chorus that manages to sound fresh and clean. Unlike the glorious murkiness of Lee “Scratch” Perry’s productions, Dread’s sound is crystalline and unencumbered. Each sound from every instrument, each word (sung, chanted, spoken) is precise and perfect. And that voice! Regrettably, Mikey Dread rarely gets mentioned in discussions of great reggae singers, at least in part because he’s appropriately celebrated for his production skills. Allow me to make a case that his name should enter that conversation, with the most convincing testimonial being Beyond World War III.

This is one of the true lost classics. No, that’s not accurate. It’s more accurate to remember that it was never considered a classic in the first place, so it’s not a matter of it being lost so much as never having been found. And that is unacceptable. Words won’t be minced here: this is an outright masterpiece, as close to sublime in its way as any of the other albums discussed so far. Importantly, like the other albums, this one can, and should, easily appeal to casual fans of reggae music. Indeed, like the others, this one truly is recommended to anyone who listens to music, period.

The style here is heavy dub, with Dread (who, again, already had plenty of experience perfecting mash-ups of reggae hits) applying his considerable production acumen to his own songs. The mood is mostly upbeat, at times festive (“Break Down The Walls”) and at times jovial (“The Jumping Master” which features Dread giving approbatory shout-outs to his bandmates and his young apprentice, Scientist, and even name-dropping original “jumping master” Spiderman). The ebullient “Rocker’s Delight” dates back to the Sandinista! sessions, and the spoken word title track anticipates the concerns about nuclear confrontation that dominated the next decade. The most arresting, and timeless track is “Mental Slavery”, which catalogs some of the societal inhumanity that was about to fester in the ‘80s—and beyond:

How can we survive in times like these
When prices rise and wages freeze?

Sound familiar? Mikey was around to see things get worse, and the more things remain the same, the more compelling his message becomes. He left us, way too soon, this past year. His legacy is not in dispute, but his legend is still underappreciated. Beyond World War III is his greatest gift, and it’s one that keeps giving.

—Sean Murphy

The New Cynicism (from Topplebush.com)

2008-09-02T11:32:00.001-07:00

The New Cynicism
by Sean Murphy
August 17, 2008

Friends, Democrats, Republicans, lend me your minds; I come to pillory John Edwards, not to praise him.

Okay: he proved himself susceptible to the same ego-driven misdeeds any run-of-the-mill narcissists (also known as politicians) shrug off as inevitable, even obligatory on-the-job training. While it is almost refreshing to see a political sex scandal not involving a "family-focused" Republican caught soliciting gay love in chat rooms or airport stalls, this more mundane sort of adultery seems somewhat old-fashioned.

That Edwards has indelibly damaged his personal relations and, likely, his political career is both his own doing and his own problem. That his idiocy may harm his party is unfortunate, if inevitable. What his indiscretion does not do, however, is contradict, or diminish his platform. The things he has articulated and championed (his depiction of the "two Americas" from 2004 seems as prescient now as Gore's widely lampooned concerns about the environment from 2000) are still valid, and very real. And herein lies the rub: even if his hypocrisy did run counter to his stump speech, the ideas being espoused always were—and remain—much more important than the person promoting them.

As it happens, Edwards' exposure provides an ideal and overdue opportunity to acknowledge something Democrats have been unable, or unwilling to articulate. Something that goes a long way toward explaining our past candidates, as well as the unprecedented enthusiasm that greeted Obama this year, much to Hillary Clinton's consternation: in the past it did not, ultimately, matter so much how convivial, dynamic or charismatic a particular candidate was, his job was to advance the Democratic platform, period. Or, certainly since the Reagan/Bush years (the mendacity of which seem almost quaint now, which only goes to show how historically, unimaginably incompetent our current administration has been), the overarching idea was to prevent further destruction to the increasingly imbalanced status quo.

Yes, but isn't the conservative candidate's job to advance the Republican platform? Well, it definitely is, once elected. Of course, since there is approximately zero percent chance these drugstore patriots get elected by talking about the things they actually intend to do—to, and at the expense of, the voters—once in office, they shuck and jive, using their predictably simplistic playbook. That is why God, guns and gays have comprised the basic boilerplate of virtually every campaign since Nixon's insidious (but effective) Southern strategy forty years ago. This is also why it's crucial for them to get a face to sell—and spin—this horseshit, which explains how we got a washed-up actor and, more incredibly, a former president's semi-retarded son, as spokesmen for the brand.

Hopefully, no one will strain themselves trying to rationalize Edwards' error, because whether or not the man is much weaker than many people thought, his message is strong as ever, and it is, for the most part, a message Obama is also advocating. The Republican message is so frivolous (in sum, no one cares about your personal relationship with God, no one wants to take your guns away, and no gay people hope to be alone in your company), or so offensive (please excuse our appropriation of your culture and creed so that we can enlist your vote for a party that will actively make your lives more miserable, by any measurable criteria!) that they have to construct a paint-by-numbers plan that delivers a readymade mythology (e.g., the "CEO president")—one the supposedly liberal mainstream media never exposes and scarcely scrutinizes—to quarterback the country.

This is America, the game is rigged, and everyone who can read is aware of it. For this very reason, there is no acceptable excuse to sit '08 out or stand idly by while the wolves in the barn eat and plunder with impunity (got that Hillary fans? Remember that Nader fans). Despite the Messianic fervor his born-again constituency brought to the carving table, there was never anything close to a mandate. No chance Bush would have been nearly so successful at ruining everything he touched without 9/11: that tragedy, and the ways it was manipulated, provided the blank checkbook he was provided. Only fairly recently, it must be noted, have those checks begun bouncing; Bush was, after all, playing with (White) house money.

Ultimately, as we observed in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, and eventually, inevitably in the current state of affairs, only once it starts to affect everyone do the tardy bells of accountability begin to toll. It's never enough to simply witness the cavalcade of cons and clusterfucks, (e.g., disappearing health insurance, rising unemployment, Katrina, Iraq, zealous deregulation and careless devastation of the environment—remember all the people who gleefully ridiculed Gore's green initiatives? Thanks folks!) it's only—as always—once the shit begins to stack up on the aloof American's doorstep and he walks out one morning and steps squarely in it with both feet that it finally sinks in: Hey! What the hell is going on here?

How does this happen? Don't ask, it's happening again right now. You can explain it as eloquently, or plainly as possible, you can utilize PowerPoint slides or put it in a children's book, but these folks (and each of us knows some of these people) claim that they vote for the person, not the party (yet managed to pull the lever for Bush not only in 2000, but in 2004) are actually as bad as Republicans. This is the latest breed, these nattering nabobs of know-nothiningism, the Libertarians who are clever enough to manage their financial portfolios but not quite equipped to see through a Swiftboat campaign that lampoons, in John Kerry, the type of war veteran who usually gives conservative males better erections than Viagra.

And so, to a certain extent it's the mundane matters such as, to list a few, not making a mockery of the Constitution, not starting wars (or, not get into them by utilizing the exact type of propaganda employed by the same tyrannies we've traditionally fought against), not aggressively—and blatantly—providing repeated (permanent?!) tax cuts for the wealthiest percentile of citizens, especially the corporations that practically trumpet their intent to further enrich themselves, literally at the expense of American workers (Hello Enron! Thanks again, Exxon!).

In other words, understanding that social Darwinism is invariably espoused most passionately by those fortunate enough to be born several steps ahead of the starting block, and that the filthiest rich wouldn't piss on the impoverished if they were on fire, it is not good enough to lament how nothing ever seems to change. Only very recently has there been any sort of pushback that points out how this faith-based (and faithfully enabled) balderdash flies directly in the face of the same New Testament these culture warriors have so eagerly appropriated for their most insidious of agendas. A blonde, muscle-bound Jesus, who hates fags, loves guns and endorses unfettered capitalism…really? Even Orwell could never have conceived cynicism this despicable, or people this willfully ignorant.

Once again, Democratic policies effectively do little more than police the powerful; only the most obdurate idealists actually believe that progressive politics are possible. Not when people who endeavor to increase the minimum wage are (successfully, consistently) caricaturized as being out-of-touch elitists. This is why Bill Clinton, in some folks' eyes, did the most he could with what he had (having had to fight hammer and tong with the repugnant Newt Gingrich and his merry band of nitwits) while for others he never ceased to disappoint from the second he triangulated his way into the oral office. (Incidentally, while Clinton managed to survive the transparently prurient and partisan obsession to nail him on something, anything, Slick Willy is now soul mates with Edwards in that he was, in the end, congenitally incapable of keeping his head out of the lion's mouth—for lack of a more appropriate, and graphic metaphor.)

All of this being said, I suspect that Obama represents the first politician in ages (possibly combining the better aspects of Clinton, Carter and J.F.K. without, Democrats pray, any—or too many—of their weaknesses) who can not only attain the requisite objectives, but perhaps go several steps beyond them. This, of course, is especially crucial in a post 9/11 world, but it's also imperative after the post-Katrina epiphany that illustrated, once and for all, the GOP's entire point is to prove, preferably through example, that government is incapable of taking care of people. Remember, Reagan's most famous talking point was the intelligence-insulting proposition that government itself was the problem. One wonders, in the wake of our subprime mortgage shit storm, and seeing how quickly the wizards of Wall Street worked their snouts around Big Government's tit, how many folks are eager to invoke the Ill Communicator these days?

We can certainly count on less than a little from our mostly timid media, and watch, slack-jawed as Fox News provides cover for these post-Goebbelsian architects of the apocalypse. It is beyond pointing out the obvious, or griping about it, because more than the moral disintegration and metastasizing national debt, the Bush years have come close to perfecting a complete degeneration of American political discourse. Tapping into a collective tendency to disdain critical thought, the actual process of advancing debate based on established facts is successfully (remarkably) dismissed as intellectualism. And everyone knows that is elitist. What else could compel an individual (or heaven forbid, a reporter) to follow the blood and whispers from the pocketbooks of the shrinking middle class up the daisy chain to CEOs accepting billion dollar buy-outs after systematically crashing a company—all in the calculated design of driving up its stock price for the shareholders? This is simply good business and, after all, the free market will sort it out. Eventually, something approximating a day of reckoning arrives (look around, it's sort of happening right now), and the same folks who are down with drowning the government in a bathtub are compelled to take Grover Norquist's cock out of their mouths long enough to cry out for a taxpayer financed bail-out. All in the very American attempt to keep the capitalist crazy train from crashing into their McMansions.

And yet, here we are: McCain who—no matter how desperately, and cravenly he tries to crabwalk away from the rotting corpse of Bush/Cheney—has a platform promising (indeed guaranteeing) at least four more years of leadership that yields similar setbacks. One reason Obama is so electrifying is because, if we were to run with yet another perfectly competent, respectable nominee, it may well play into the pattern we've seen emerge since Carter's term: the Democrats dedicate most of their time in office tidying up the disasters they inherited, getting things back on track so that, once a new Manichean Candidate emerges from the tar pit, the country can hand the keys back to a corporation-loving, government-hating simpleton who keeps the rave going until eventually, inevitably, the ecstasy wears off and everyone awakens, again, wondering how we all got into this ditch. Perhaps Obama, who has galvanized some of the demographics that have not voted in any significant numbers in the past—and whose indifference the GOP depends upon—will take it a step further and, with their help, create a more enduring legacy. The type of landscape where it is less likely, four or eight years on, that Americans will reflexively begin to reminisce about the bad old days. At the very least, a Democrat victory will signal change for the simple reason that the incalculable destruction inflicted so far this century will cease.

Could it happen? I admit, I am no longer quite as optimistic as I once was. But I'm not cynical, I'm sentient.

Posted: September 1, 2008

God Is Dead (Again): Remembering Stevie Ray Vaughan (Popmatters.com blog)

2008-08-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Sound Affects
The PopMatters Music Blog

Pop Past
27 August 2008

God Is Dead (Again): Remembering Stevie Ray Vaughan

With art, it helps that we will always have the gifts the artist left behind. It’s never enough; it’s more than enough.
Eighteen years ago today.

First day of classes, junior year. Standing in the bathroom with too much shaving cream and not enough whiskers, getting geared up for another semester of partying too much and studying too little. No e-mails to check, no cell phone messages to return, just listening to the clock radio on the counter, because that’s how we rolled. Not that we had much choice in the matter.

Roommate walks into the bathroom with a look on his face like someone told him that Milwaukee’s Best raised the price of six packs.

“Dude, Eric Clapton is dead.”
God is dead? I thought, reflexively.
“His helicopter crashed.”

Not that again. You get used to the overdoses, no matter how pointless or accidental or idiotic. It doesn’t make them easier to accept, or justify, but there is some semblance of accountability. But these random acts of mechanical destruction? Intolerable. Unacceptable on any level.

Of course, as we shortly found out, it was Stevie Ray Vaughan who had actually died (part of the confusion came from the fact that he was on tour with Clapton, and had just played on the same stage the night before). Same principle applies: shocking, inexplicable, unacceptable.

And even worse, in a way. To put it in as respectful and delicate fashion as possible, this one hit home a lot harder. Eric Clapton was another, earlier generation’s Genius. Stevie Ray Vaughan was my generation’s guitar god, the one whose albums coincided with those crucial high school years, the formative times in your life when each album is a revelation. And, with an artist like Vaughan, a living chain connecting the past to present. This is the dude who, not to put too fine a point on it, had the audacity to cover Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” and take it places even the best guitar player who ever strapped on a Stratocaster didn’t go.

Plus, I knew Stevie. Not personally, of course. But the summer before, I worked at the local record store just as Stevie’s new album In Step dropped. We used to spin that baby a few times per day, and it wasn’t even personal, it was strictly business. The album sold well, as it should have. The back-story elevated its import: after years of struggle with drugs and drink, Vaughan had cleaned up and was enjoying sobriety (indeed, the album’s title refers directly to his recovery process, which he was understandably proud of). The album remains top notch, but—as last albums from artists taken entirely too soon tend to do--it has an almost eerily elegiac feel that is difficult to deny. That the last song on the last album released in his lifetime is the sublime “Riviera Paradise” seems, at once fitting and devastating. It teases and cajoles with its promises of what should have been—all the great music this man undoubtedly would make. It also, being a near perfect song to end any album (much less a final album), feels entirely fitting. That is not nearly enough in terms of consolation for our loss, but it helps. And, as always, with art, it helps that we will always have the gifts the artist left behind. It’s never enough; it’s more than enough.

God is dead, again.
I can’t say for sure that I thought this, but maybe I did.
And speaking of God:
The 20 year old kid couldn’t help but wonder: “What kind of God would take a man like this from us?”
The 38 year old kid thinks: “The same one who gave him to us?”
That, of course, is not good enough. It’s never enough.
But it will have to do.

—Sean Murphy

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without: Part Four (Popmatters.com blog)

2008-08-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sound Affects
The PopMatters Music Blog

Pop Past
22 August 2008
Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without: Part Four

After more than five years of struggling, sharing and singing, Israel Vibration's vision -- and sound -- was fully formed when they entered the studio.
Walking the Streets of Glory: Israel Vibration’s The Same Song

The cardinal rule for any serious appraisal of art involves a necessity to separate all discussion of the artist from the artifact. Mostly this is essential because so many unsavory characters have managed to create amazing art despite—or because of—their self absorption and nastiness. Monomania is sometimes obligatory, as we have seen from masters ranging from Tolstoy to Miles Davis. In short, it seldom sheds meaningful insight on a famous (or infamous) work to stand either on a pedestal or in the trenches, attempting to offer up easy (or difficult) analysis.

The list of artists known as assholes—or worse—to their friends or enemies is not short, but it’s a mistaken assumption that only difficult people create works that last. On the other hand, the list of genuinely decent human beings who have managed to make meaningful art is short but sweet: John Coltrane, Curtis Mayfield and Eric Dolphy come immediately to mind. However, hagiography rarely augments an individual’s oeuvre; in fact, it usually besmirches it. The only thing excessive praise and inappropriate criticism share is that they almost always say more about the commentator than the art being commented upon. The proponents of either extreme usually betray religious leanings that render their insights instantly dated and ultimately irrelevant (postmodern literary criticism and political correctness have been the more popular—and culpable—cults of the critical arena in recent decades).

And yet. All of that being said, sometimes it is impossible to ignore the life and the way(s) it influenced an artist’s development. With one group in particular, it is not only impossible, but negligent to make no mention of their exceptional trajectory from obscure and impoverished kids to adored legends of reggae music. Make no mistake, Israel Vibration’s debut, The Same Song is an indispensable classic, and would be loved—and discussed—if no biographical information on the artists was available. Nevertheless, the blissful sense of wonderment these songs provide accrue additional layers of meaning, and import, when the lives and circumstances of the young men who created them are considered. Long story shortened: Jamaica endured a polio epidemic in the latter years of the 1950s. Three of the boys disabled by the disease, Lascelle Bulgin, Albert Craig and Cecil Spence, met at a rehabilitation facility in Kingston. They bonded over the love of music and a dedication to Rastafarianism (legend has it that once they grew out their dreadlocks they were summarily evicted from the Mona Heights Centre).

Eventually they formed a vocal trio and, calling themselves Israel Vibration, began singing for change on various street corners throughout the city of Kingston. They were rescued from performing (and living) on the streets by the Twelve Tribes of Israel, who helped fund the recording of their first album. After more than five years of struggling, sharing and singing, their vision, and sound, was fully formed when they entered the studio. The results, quite simply, are staggering. The title track is, like the Mighty Diamonds’ “Right Time”, an opening salvo that also serves as a powerful—and empowering—statement of purpose: young men who had faced little other than hardship and discrimination, wise beyond their years, crafting an open letter of acceptance, unity and inevitability.

They tackle similar issues as the other landmark albums already discussed (this being roots reggae, the themes and sounds are not dissimilar), but where the Mighty Diamonds and Culture confront injustice and preach peace with, respectively, heavy doses of soul-influence and celebratory abandon, Israel Vibration balance the two styles with their own unique groove. On the more upbeat songs, like “Why Worry” and especially the ebullient “Walk the Streets of Glory”, the voices are appropriately buoyant; on the more topical, defiant songs, like “Weep & Mourn” and “Ball of Fire”, the pace—and the voices—are languid, even solemn. This manages to be powerfully elegant (or elegantly powerful) music, and it’s in part due to the unforced, easily-invoked vulnerability in these voices, but mostly it involves the very notion of underdogs speaking out for the underdog—without pity and with the gentle perseverance of faith. These last two songs describe the plights of the have-nots and the pitiful apathy of the powerful on par with the best efforts of Bob Marley and Burning Spear. And yet, even when the subject matter is deadly serious, there is a ceaseless air of celebration and joy that makes all the sense in the world: the people making this music are, when all was said and done, happily aware of how lucky they were simply to be alive.

—Sean Murphy

Dog Days of Summer (Dealerscope Article)

2008-08-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Dog Days of Summer Breed Some Prize Pets

Sean Murphy | Senior Account Manager, Market Research | CEA

August 01, 2008

By the time the dog days of summer truly settle in, discussion inexorably turns back to the weather: “Hot enough for ya?” On the other hand, the word on the street regarding the CE industry might invoke an opposite season: “How cold can we get?” Actually, we have not reached that point, but there are few who would argue that concerns about the economy and the housing market have taken some of the sizzle out of CE. Of course, there is plenty to remain optimistic about, with overall sales steady and the holidays just around the corner. With consumers less eager to hit the roads and beaches, the collective retreat indoors suggests new opportunity for the industry.

On the other hand, things have never been better in select categories: flat-panel televisions are on a tear, with sales exceeding even the most cheerful expectations. Unit shipments of flat-panel displays are already at 9.2 million through May, a 43-percent increase from the same period a year ago, while revenue is just under $8 billion, a 29 percent improvement from last year. This news serves not only as a silver lining for the overall industry, but also as a warning for dealers: the accelerated dominance of flat-panel televisions is in direct contrast to the declining fortunes of direct view and rear projection displays.

With the respective proliferation and reduction unfolding faster than expected, the foreseeable future for flat panels is quite encouraging (for more sales numbers on TVs, please turn to our stats section on page 48). Correspondingly, dealers should be admonished that the future has already happened and hopes of unloading old inventory might yield less than fruitful holiday tidings. Closer examination portrays a bleak landscape for old-school TV solutions: year-to-date shipments of rear projection televisions are down 71 percent through May, while flat panels (including plasma and LCD) are up 43 percent. The verdict is in, and it is unequivocal: the production and merchandising of large screen flat panels (LCDs in particular) is not only where the opportunity exists but might present the only way to remain relevant in this space.

More food for thought: 20 percent of DTV sets in 2007 were 1080p; by 2011, nearly 80 percent of sets will be 1080p. In sum, flat panels are pushing rear projection and CRT displays off the shelves and out of the sales channel, so dealers are advised to plan now for their fall assortments.The good news is certainly not restricted to the display arena. As the U.S. household penetration rate of flat-panel displays expands, it stands to reason that consumers, having optimized their viewing experience, will eventually seek to augment their audio environment.

Understandably, concerns linger that as the housing market goes, so goes certain CE markets, particularly home audio. The flat-panel explosion tends to confirm that, regardless of any economic apprehension, the appetite for consumption remains voracious. Indeed, as high-end TVs become increasingly ubiquitous and more HD/5.1 content is made available, consumers will turn to surround-sound solutions. Sound bars could be a sleeper here and provide an excellent solution for both consumers and dealers who are concerned about floor space and competitive price points. More importantly, CEA data finds sound bars showing growth in an otherwise declining category. Channel sources indicate that even turntables—only recently consigned to irrelevancy—are making a discernible, if modest, comeback. Is this a predictable retro resurgence or a positive harbinger for the entire home audio market? Likely, it is a bit of both, but the message is becoming unmistakable: perceptive dealers will do well to keep home audio in mind and focus on the areas where greatest opportunities await.

http://www.dealerscope.com/story/story.bsp?sid=114920&var=story&publication=Dealerscope&publicationDate=8/1/08&slug=DS0808_col_cscope&category=Consumer%20Electronics§ion=Unknown&page=1

Melvins: Nude with Boots (Popmatters.com Review)

2008-08-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Good News! Melvins are back.

Melvins are not a band so much as a machine. For almost a quarter of a century they have rumbled and rolled over the earth, leaving a trail for anyone bothering to look, and inventing an entirely new language for anyone able to hear. Hear this: Melvins are at it again, not wasting too much time following up on their last release, 2006’s A Senile Animal. That album was remarkable, and ended up surprising even longtime fans with its variety, and the sheer quality of practically every song. It also managed the semi-impossible, incorporating as it did, more polished edges into the Melvins’ patented sound: a shadowy diffusion that manages to sound glacial and molten, sometimes at the same time.

A considerable amount of credit was correctly given to the group’s newest members, bassist/vocalist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis—on loan from their other jobs as the demonic duo in the band Big Business. The two drummer/two singer strategy was risky and potentially misguided, but in hindsight, it seems like a no-brainer. The band sounded more invigorated, with the new blood clearly pushing the others—guitarist/singer/mastermind King Buzzo, and drummer extraordinaire Dale Crover—to reinvent ways of distributing similar sludge. It was, in short, a newer take on a tried and true formula, and it yielded spectacular results. The line-up is unchanged this time out, and expectations were high for a return to form, or—if such a thing is reasonably imaginable—an improvement. The bad news: Nude With Boots is not better than A Senile Animal. The good news: it is undeniably a success, albeit on a slightly smaller scale.

Early on in the opening song (“The Kicking Machine”), it’s clear enough that the M.O. from A Senile Animal is in effect: the twin drum assault and the synchronous vocals, and a discernibly enervated pace to the proceedings. More of same on track two (“Billy Fish”)—rolling drums introducing the action, then the always reliable Buzz Osborne unslinging (yawn) yet another nasty, tasty riff. But, like the previous album, it’s on the third track that the band truly locks in. That initial minute is pure Melvins bliss, that familiar, stuttering death crawl, unsettling yet irresistible. Not for the first time, and likely not the last, one cannot help marveling at Buzzo’s brilliance. How does he do it?

How does Buzzo do it? Perhaps it’s because he’s not human. That has to be it. Indeed, it is this fact that it’s a tad disconcerting, at times, to hear him sound like one. Or, to be more precise, hearing a regular human being singing alongside him. Probably because Jared Warren is mixed too high on the harmonies (it sounds, on most songs, like he and Buzzo are at equal volume, which means Warren is, in fact, mixed too high), the songs lose some of their otherwise insistent power when Buzzo’s voice is not front and center. A much better balance was subtly achieved on A Senile Animal, where Warren’s (and on some songs, the others’) voices embellished and accompanied. On Nude With Boots they come dangerously close to interfering. Ultimately, this might well be a matter of taste, and to some ears the novel, “fresher” sound might rate as a positive development.

Along with the occasionally claustrophobic harmonies, there is a little more light and air in several of the songs (the title track, for instance), which causes them to come near to being not only accessible, but even (gasp) catchy. Not to worry, no one is going to confuse the current incarnation of Melvins with, say, Vampire Weekend. Nevertheless, the band has evolved. The more fundamentalist-minded Melvins’ fans might protest—not without justification—that this is the one band that should remain in the muck, neither swimming nor walking, but sort of slithering in the boiling primordial ooze, making their prehistoric noises ... like the sounds made on the album’s best track, “Dies Iraea”. Every Melvins album has at least one song that separates itself from the others, and this is it. This is the music playing at that last dinosaur house party before they all toppled drunkenly into the tar pit.

In sum, Melvins fans, do what you need to do. Newcomers might want to check out A Senile Animal, but then again, perhaps this one will make the last one easier to understand, and then it may be more enjoyable working backward. The question persists: how do they do it? Melvins remain a contrary respite from the gumball machine sensibilities of so much modern music: put in a penny, suck on some sugar for a few seconds until it all turns sour. Melvins are already sour, but instead of turning sweet, they do something even more surprising. They remain unsullied. And so, if you hear one of your semi-jaded friends whining about how no good music gets made anymore, you can hold Nude With Boots up as merely the latest example of how good it can still be, even today. And how fortunate we are that this band continues to thrive, sucking on the carcass of banality and spitting out gold.

— 15 August 2008

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without: Part Three (Popmatters.com blog)

2008-08-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Pop Past
8 August 2008

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without: Part Three

This is the reggae album for people who do not know, or claim not to like, reggae music.

Go and Seek Your Rights: The Mighty Diamonds’ Right Time

Big misconception about reggae music: it’s all happy, at the beach, drinking music. Biggest misconception about reggae music: it all sounds the same. Even Bob Marley (and it is both respectful and required to at least mention the great man’s name in any consequential discussion or reggae) had markedly different styles he embraced throughout his career, as his sound evolved from straightforward ska and rocksteady in the ‘60s to the full-fledged rastaman vibration everyone has heard on the radio—or at Happy Hour. Indeed, Marley serves as the most obvious case study for the distinctive sounds reggae has produced: anyone unfamiliar with songs not included on Legend, but curious to explore what else is out there, are encouraged to start with the crucial transition albums from the early ‘70s. You cannot go wrong with African Herbsman, the culmination of his brief but bountiful collaboration with Lee “Scratch” Perry. Or to appreciate the incomparable harmonizing of the original Wailers (Marley along with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer), Catch A Fire and Burnin’ are indispensable cornerstones of any halfway serious reggae collection. And, above all, if it’s possible to single out one work that encapsulates Marley’s genius, Natty Dread is the alpha and the omega: not only is this his masterpiece, this one holds it own with any album, in any genre.

Okay. Even for those who are not sufficiently intrigued by the notion of a deeper dive into reggae’s abundant waters, there are more than a handful of sure things right on the surface. Enter the Mighty Diamonds and their first—and best—album, Right Time from 1976. Like the Wailers, the Mighty Diamonds are a harmonizing trio (with a killer backing band), and these three men, Donald “Tabby” Shaw, Fitzroy “Bunny” Simpson and Lloyd “Judge” Ferguson, created songs that stand tall alongside the very best reggae. Right Time manages to combine several styles and merge them in a seamless, practically flawless whole. This, to be certain, is roots reggae, yet at times it sounds like the most accessible soul music, closer to Motown than Trenchtown.

The group’s allegiance to Rastafarianism is skillfully articulated in the socially conscious lyrics, but the ten tracks on Right Time tackle romantic turmoil, violent crime, and redemption—sometimes all in one song. The title track, equally an ominous call to arms as well as a rallying cry against the system, sets an immediate tone that predicts chaos while promising resolve, pre-dating Culture’s epochal Two Sevens Clash by a year. The brilliance of the songs that follow must be heard to be believed, and it’s difficult to imagine how singing and song craft this tight, spiritual, and emotionally rich could fail to convince. The next two songs, “Why Me Black Brother Why?” and “Shame and Pride” constitute a one-two punch that manages to invoke Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Otis Redding: Gaye’s authentic words, Smokey’s silken voice, and Redding’s gut-rending fervor. If the world was right side up, all of these songs would be standards, familiar to anyone who listens to the soul legends mentioned above. The album’s highlight may be the resplendent anthem “I Need a Roof”—-a rather uncomplicated piece of poetry that invokes Marcus Garvey and Jesus Christ with its (obvious) insistence that without shelter there can be no peace, and without justice there can be no love. Listen: even writing about this record, albeit while offering the highest possible praise, inexorably mutes the message. That message is conveyed with voices that must be heard so that the music can make sense. Go seek it out.

—Sean Murphy

Love Story (Popmatters.com Review)

2008-08-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

Love
Love Story [DVD]
(Start Productions) Rated: N/A

by Sean Murphy

A Story to Fall in Love With

One is tempted to suggest, if sardonically, that now is the time for a reappraisal of Love. But that is unlikely. It’s never been time for Love, then or now, and this one-two punch of bad timing and bad luck tends to encapsulate the band’s maddening legacy. Love could never quite get over, and this certainly contributes to the enigmatic air that hangs over their history.

Of course, the music they made (their first four albums in particular) insulates them from easy analysis, so fans and especially critics are unable to neatly pigeonhole them into a particular period. This is remarkable in itself, considering the year they made their masterwork, Forever Changes: it is, in so many agreeable ways, utterly of its time as a reflection—or, really, a refraction—of 1967, but it also remains fresh and unfettered, more than 40 years later.

Don’t think so? Consider how much of the music, circa 1967, sounds not only dated but instantly identifiable. Even records by the better bands (The Rolling Stones and, yes, even The Beatles, to name two of the top dogs on the scene) have not necessarily aged well. While Sgt. Pepper is not quite as lionized as it was, say, 20 years ago (it is venerated, appropriately, for its symbolic import as much, or more, than the songs on the album), it is still considered one of the all-time masterpieces of rock ‘n’ roll.

With that in mind, if you put Forever Changes alongside Sgt. Pepper and did a track-by-track comparison, Love would, at worst, be in a dead heat. That aside, it is difficult to deny that Forever Changes stands up to repeated listens, and it remains an exciting album simply because of the sheer quality of the individual songs.

What might get lost in the discussion of Forever Changes is the fact that Love existed before that album, and more surprisingly, they existed after it. More, they managed to actually make some worthwhile music. Not enough people know this, but it almost does not matter; plenty of people know that Forever Changes is indelible: not for nothing does it consistently pop up on “best albums” lists; it is a perennial favorite of musicians as well as critics.

Which brings us around to the question of whether there could possibly be an audience for a DVD detailing the band’s history. The answer, of course, is yes. Love Story is an overdue gift for the converted, and will serve as a valuable introduction for the uninitiated.

Love Story is, by any reasonable criterion, a considerable achievement. The first-time film makers, Chris Hall and Mike Kerry, have assembled tons of footage, including insightful interviews from Arthur Lee and his band mates, as well as Jac Holzman (head of Elektra Records), Bruce Botnick (producer) and John Densmore (drummer from The Doors)—among many others. The story unfolds chronologically, tracing Arthur’s (and childhood friend Johnny Echols’) upbringing in Los Angeles. Generous portions of interviews culled from 2005 and 2006 (again, featuring both Lee and Echols) make up the bulk of the narrative. In an early sequence, Lee is filmed driving through the LA streets, and it is sobering to consider all that has changed (in his life, in his city), and the things that will never change.

Lee was a star athlete in high school, but when he saw Echols playing guitar and—in classic rock cliché fashion—saw the girls seeing Echols, he understood immediately where his future lay. Lee was precocious, with ambition to match his gifts, and his confidence made the subsequent success seem all but inevitable. By the time they got serious about their musical careers, Lee and Echols hooked up with Brian Maclean, a guitarist so keen on joining up with The Byrds he’d become one of their roadies.

The alchemy was immediate: Maclean’s folky influences embellished Echols and Lee’s blues and R&B leanings, creating a sound that was both bigger and better than it might have been. The name the band chose was not only a no-brainer for a west coast group in the mid-‘60s, it was more than a little appropriate for the first racially integrated rock outfit. Love started gigging on the sunset strip, catching the attention of Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman, who quickly signed them to his label (which, to this point, had primarily focused on folk music).

A classic—and prescient—Arthur Lee anecdote followed: the singer split with the $5,000 advance and returned later that day in a new Mercedes. He then proceeded to give the other members (Echols and Mclean, as well as bassist Michael Stuart and drummer Alban “Snoopy” Pfisterer) one hundred bucks each, because that was what was left. It’s hard to say what is more astounding: Lee’s audacity or the fact that a Mercedes convertible cost less than $5k!

Entering the studios, the band was tight and focused from months of steady gigging. Their self-titled debut was recorded quickly—the band essentially came into the studio and performed their regular set. From the first, there was never the slightest question about who was in charge: Love was Lee’s band. Holzman credits Mclean with lightening Lee’s intensity and broadening the scope of his compositions; Mclean was an accomplished—and determined—musician in his own right, and a natural, if inevitable, competition evolved. For a while, it was a fruitful partnership, and the two men brought out the best in each other.

The hit from the first album was the band’s annihilation of “My Little Red Book”, giving Burt Bacharach a menacing edge a few years before Isaac Hayes did his own extraordinary deconstructions of songs like “Walk On By” and “The Look of Love”. Another dark, unique tune is the appropriately entitled instrumental “Emotions”, with Echols creating something like surreal surf music; it sounds like The Ventures after a sketchy acid trip. And here was another harbinger of Love’s unique M.O.: taking the (mostly) sun and fun vibes of guitar-heavy surf rock and giving it a solemn edge, turning something simple inside out, exposing the shadow beneath the glow (this ability to see, and insinuate, the darker side of the free love ethos is arguably what made Love difficult to fully embrace, and what makes them still sound unique, now).

Love quickly became the Kings of Los Angeles, with celebrities like Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane dropping by “The Castle”, the large house up in the LA hills the band shared. They immediately commenced work on the next album, partly to capitalize on the collective energy and excitement, but also (crucially) because the band was not interested in hitting the road to promote the first record. Da Capo is an album that most fans (including this one) consider a 50 percent masterpiece: the six songs on side one are stunning, and represent incredible forward steps, full of sophistication and inventiveness (The Stones happily stole/honored Lee’s words in “She Comes in Colors” for their own hit “She’s a Rainbow” and there is little doubt Robbie Krieger studied “The Castle”—a song that introduced flamenco guitar to rock music—before composing the music for “Spanish Caravan”).

Side two, notable as the first side-long track (an innovation that was embraced by other acts, much to the rock critics’ collective disdain when this practice reached its prog-rock apotheosis the following decade), was, according to Lee and Echols, a scorcher in their live set. They failed to capture the energy—or whatever it was that captivated the crowds—in the studio, and the result is a kind of half-assed blues romp with plenty o’ noodling that mostly goes nowhere. Nevertheless, the sum of Da Capo is far greater than its parts; or, perhaps, the parts, assessed one a time, constitute six songs out of seven that are homeruns, and no athlete (or artist) could ask for much more than that.

Around this time another young group was starting to develop a reputation on the strip. Lee took them under his wing, going so far as to convince an initially unimpressed Jac Holzman to sign them. This band, led by a charismatic young man named Jim Morrison, famously stated that their original ambition was to be “as big as Love”. The rest, of course, is history.

Holzman fondly recalls The Doors being eager and, compared to Love, more obsessed: in a nutshell, they were willing to pay the obligatory dues, touring the entire country and steadily cultivating an audience. Echols and Lee both express bitterness that Elektra latched onto the Doors, ignoring the band that had delivered them on a platter. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to give a great deal of credence to these sour grapes: by all accounts the escalating internal tensions, Lee’s control freak tendencies (in and outside the band) and of course the increasing drug use—along with the aforementioned refusal to tour—arguably combined as an imperfect storm to prevent Love from striking while the Zeitgeist was glowing.

The subsequent Forever Changes sessions almost never happened. By the time they returned to the studio, Lee’s band was a mess: exhausted, apathetic and strung out. Eventually, Lee cajoled them into pulling themselves together and, against some serious odds; they hung in there long enough to make one of the greatest rock and roll records of all time. The album failed to break the Top 100, and Lee was crushed. According to Jac Holzman, people simply needed to see the band performing the songs, but it wasn’t to be. A fuller analysis of Forever Changes can be read in “Forever Never Changes” (PopMatters August 2006).

Lee admits, in addition to his band mates, “I was kind of spaced in those days.” To a certain extent Lee’s defiant nature is understandable, or at least explicable. When you are that naturally talented, it has to be more than a little challenging to jump through the necessary hoops in order to connect the dots of pop star accessibility. Many years later, Lee acknowledges, and regrets, his self-defeating intransigence. To Holzman’s credit, he flew Lee out to New York City, but the singer was the opposite of Woody Allen in Annie Hall: he was allergic to the big apple and only felt comfortable in L.A. Lee begins to sound like rock music’s Jake LaMotta: he understood the game, but because he saw through it, or felt above it, or was willfully sabotaging himself or—most of all—he simply couldn’t be bothered, he never seized the gold ring that was gleaming right in front of his face.

The proverbial writing was on the wall: even Lee had pushed himself to the edge (to the point where he became certain he was going to die; that the world was going to end), and the band was unable to return again to the well (although subsequent sessions produced some incredible songs, found on the Forever Changes reissues). Heroin was the drug of choice, and almost the entire band succumbed. As Echols summarizes, “You chased the dragon until the dragon catches you.” After the January ’68 sessions, Maclean left the band and an oft-repeated rock tale played out: neither Mclean nor Lee was ever as good apart as they were together. Nevertheless, Lee carried the banner, and while the results were decidedly mixed, Love (with a rotating cast of backing musicians) made some meaningful music in the ensuing decades. Four Sail, while never approaching the heights of its predecessor, is somewhat of a lost classic, and is overdue for reassessment.

Unfortunately, Lee received more attention for his behavior than his music in the years that followed, culminating in his controversial jail sentence for a firearms charge (courtesy of California’s three-strikes law). Fortunately, he was released half-way through his ludicrously harsh 12-year term, and soon after began touring with a revamped Love line-up. The tour, where the entirety of Forever Changes was played, won critical praise and drew large crowds.

Finally, it seemed, Lee was beginning to get his due. Tragically, in the midst of his latest return from oblivion, Lee was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and he passed away in August 2006, before filming of Love Story was completed. The post ‘60s years are somewhat glossed over, and while there is (obviously) a great deal of material to cover there, Lee is probably the only one who could speak about those darker days. Of course, the only people who will be disappointed by the lack of dirt are the ones for whom the melodrama is more important than the music.

Lee left his mark, and he knew it; and before he died, he had a decent opportunity to witness the collective appreciation. That he was able to tour the world in his last years is just, that he was taken before he could add to his legacy is regrettable. That old fans and, hopefully, legions of new listeners will continue to discover his work is exactly as it should be.

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without (Part Two) --Popmatters.com

2008-07-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Pop Past

11 July 2008

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without

Part Two: Make a Joyful Noise Unto JAH: Culture’s International Herb

Culture is immortal for their 1977 tour de force, Two Sevens Clash, one of a handful of albums that can justifiably be uttered in the same sentence as Heart of the Congos. Unlike the Congos, however, Culture continued to make important records after the summer of ’77, and were still going strong when bandleader Joseph Hill abruptly died—while on tour—in 2006.

Anyone in the know already knows two things: no self-respecting fan of music can tolerate the absence of Two Sevens Clash from their collections, and Joseph Hill’s voice is enough to make even the most recalcitrant atheist at least contemplate the possibility of a higher power. A single line from any Culture song makes it abundantly, wonderfully apparent that Joseph Hill was put on this earth, above all other things, to sing.

Fans can—and do—argue over what the second-most essential Culture album is, and most votes would probably be split between Baldhead Bridge (1978) or Cumbolo (1979), both of which are entirely worthy of consideration. But, for me, the closest they ever came to Two Sevens Clash is 1979’s International Herb. This release is endorsed and derided for a simple and silly reason: it’s blatant title (and if that wasn’t sufficiently provocative, the cover, featuring the group blazing spliffs in front of a huge, healthy marijuana plant, leaves little to the imagination).

And that is an appropriate enough segue to discuss—in perfunctory fashion—the dilemma of drugs and music. I mean dilemma in regards to certain types of music being automatically (and lazily—and in many instances, erroneously) associated with drugs. Or to put it more bluntly (pun, obviously, intended): music for which the utilization of mind-altering chemicals is imperative. This topic could, and should, be an entire discussion unto itself, but for the purposes of brevity let’s focus on the album at hand.

Clearly, the title track is an anthem for marijuana; it is also—and in this it is similar to the vast majority of reggae music—an endorsement for acceptance and understanding. In other words, this is post-‘60s hippie music that uptight politicians and the lemmings that follow them—the ones who most need to hear it—can easily assail as “drug music”. Aside from the myriad sociological reasons this type of dismissal epitomizes a typical myopia (and, in matters of appraising art, one that is not restricted to right-leaning reactionaries), it does the music a considerable disservice.

The reality of this music is quite simple: one need not be under the influence to appreciate it. Indeed, an argument might be made (and I’m about to make it) that it can be more fully enjoyed without the aid of any type of chemicals, be they smoked, snorted or swallowed. The sheer musicianship is so tight and first-rate that it is an insult (to the music, to the musicians) for one to even imply that any type of “full effect” can only be attained through the assistance of a substance. This, of course, does not apply solely to reggae music: so many great bands (Pink Floyd in particular leaps to mind) are denigrated and, in some ironic instances, lauded, for being ideal music to accompany an altered state of consciousness. How many times have you heard someone proclaim: if you aren’t high, you won’t be able to truly experience (insert album or artist here)? What a load of bollocks. That certain types of music do undoubtedly lend themselves to certain experiences is undeniable, but the best art is never so one dimensional or short-sighted. In fact, an alternate case can also be made that only an engaged and clear mind can fully fathom the depths and dedication of serious artistic expression. None of this is intended to demonize the harmless (or even the occasionally harmful) use of any type of intoxicants—that, again, is a very separate and sometimes serious matter. Again, the only issue here is the facile association (and/or promotion) of drugs and music, because on a purely aesthetic level it debases both the art and the artist.

So, getting back to Culture and International Herb: what’s it all about, then? “Make a joyful noise unto Jah,” Hill sings in “The Land Where We Belong”, and that pretty well captures the M.O.—not only of this particular album, but Culture’s career. As is often the case, the thematic scope of so many reggae songs revolves around Rasta, and that means a heavy rotation of tributes to Jah, the righteousness of Upfull Living (to quote Augustus Pablo) and the solidarity of underdogs everywhere. What separates Culture’s treatment of these familiar concerns, aside from Hill’s inimitable voice and the typically top-tier musicianship of the backing band, is the conviction with which the material is conveyed. Hill is equal parts preacher and cheerleader: speaking tough truths about intolerance and injustice, but also encouraging (often exhorting) the downtrodden to rise up. Some of the song titles, “Too Long in Slavery”, “Ethiopians Waan Guh Home”, and “Rally Around Jahoviah’s Throne”, provide a glimpse into Hill’s heart and mind. This, for the most part, is very serious music about very serious matters. And yet, Hill can’t help but make just about all of it sound celebratory and life-affirming. If, quite understandably, you read the words “life-affirming” and reflexively start to gag, I understand. I also encourage you, if you’ve not already done so, to immediately improve the quality of your life by ensuring that Joseph Hill has a place in it.

—Sean Murphy

Joel Dorn, R.I.P.

2008-07-10T08:21:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Joel Dorn R.I.P.

A great man has left the building.

Although Joel Dorn produced a ton of artists across several genres, I personally tend to associate JD with the inimitable Rahsaan Roland Kirk, particularly since he did so much, in the mid-to-late 90s, to promote what he termed the "Rahsaan-aisance". Some great reissues came out of those efforts, and his liner notes for the "simmer, reduce, garnish and serve" CD are the best i've ever read by any producer about any recording. Find a copy online if you can: he essentially discusses RRK's last recording session--where they both knew the end was near due to the increasingly insurmountable physical ailments RRK was inflicted with--and the literally heroic efforts RRK made to complete the album (and the challenges--which he always embraced, and even welcomed--that recording and producing it entailed). Suffice it to say, it would be a remarkable enough achievement by any artist (under any circumstances, for that matter) but, for my money, it's actually one of RRK's best: 'watergate blues' alone is such an incredible masterpiece i can't imagine music, or my life, without it. JD is an american legend that all serious fans of the music owe an ongoing debt of gratitude to: he dedicated his life to helping promote great music (and did the dirty work and heavy lifting of ensuring that great artists had an outlet to record and distribute their work). i say without hyperbole that he is one of my heroes.

Five Reggae Albums You Cannot Live Without (Popmatters Blog)

2008-07-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

Part One
HalleluJAH: Heart of the Congos

Great art knows no seasons. Nevertheless, some music is made for—or at least can be fully appreciated during—specific times of the year. Reggae music, which many people still believe means Bob Marley’s music, tends to get broken out only once the flip flops and hibachi grills come out of hibernation. And so, since summer can be considered in full swing with the holiday weekend coming up, the time is right to talk about reggae. Where to begin? How about with the best.

Released in 1977, Heart of the Congos is generally regarded as the greatest reggae album ever (certainly the best roots reggae album). It isn’t. It’s better. While it would be neither accurate nor fair to call this a one and done masterwork, it’s beyond dispute that the Congos never again came close to the heights they reached here. It’s okay, no one else has either.

The ‘70s were, without question, the golden age of reggae, and aside from the ubiquitous (and, let’s face it, omnipotent) Bob Marley, no single figure loomed larger during this decade than Lee “Scratch” Perry. His own albums (as the Upsetter, with the Upsetters) are more than enough to secure his legacy, but it’s his work as the Dub Shepherd—producing everyone from a baby-faced Bob Marley to the mature Max Romeo—that seals the deal for his enshrinement. Although he had more immediate commercial and critical success with Party Time (The Heptones), War Ina Babylon (Max Romeo) and especially Police & Thieves (Junior Murvin), Heart of the Congos has come to be fully appreciated as his masterpiece—and the Rosetta Stone of roots reggae. While Perry’s patented production skills are in overdrive on everything he touched circa ‘76/’77, this is the one where everything went right.

(Sidenote: these 24-odd months are a veritable embarrassment of reggae riches, considering that the albums mentioned above, as well as Culture’s Two Sevens Clash and Right Time by the Mighty Diamonds, also dropped during this time. Not only was this a high-water mark for reggae, it’s always interesting—and instructive—to consider that this unsurpassed creativity was churning out of Jamaica while, stateside, prog rock sat, constipated on the sidelines as punk and disco duked it out on the dance floor.)

Heart of the Congos is a sufficiently suitable title, but this album could very plausibly have been called Back to the Future. It is an uncanny document that in every facet—lyrically, vocally, sonically—seems to be stretching into the past even as it strains toward the future. Where virtually any reggae album of this (or really, any) time has the expected—even obligatory—shout-outs to Jah and the invocations of Rastafarianism, Heart of the Congos dives even deeper into biblical texts and—crucially—the civilization that preceded Jamaica, and everything else in the west: Africa.

Send my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the world...

This line, from “Open up the Gate” crystallizes the powerful consciousness the Congos are tapping into here: in one line they capture the essence of both the Old Testament and Repatriation—from slaves to immigrants to artists. It is spoken (quoted) as the voice of God (literally), but more, the voice of memory, summarizing the story of our time on this planet.

Virtually any song could be singled out for analysis, but the second track, “Congoman” best represents the culmination of Perry’s—and the Congos’s—vision. This song, a timeline of history invoking “songs and psalms and voices”, is an effective, almost unsettling tapestry of deep cultural roots. This might be, if one were forced to choose, Perry’s ultimate achievement: listening to what he constructed in his (by today’s standards) primitive studio is breathtaking. This track (and the entire album) remains a living testament to the more natural, (if old-fashioned, and/or out of fashion) instinctive abilities of fingers, ears, brain and especially heart. Just as the most incredible effects can be manufactured with the click of a mouse in today’s movies, the technology certainly exists to embolden a million paint-by-number producers. In other words, what Perry did does not merely epitomize ingenuity from the oldest of schools, it stands apart as an honest, utterly human artifact.

“Congoman” brings all of Perry’s innovations into play: after an undulating beat unfolds with percussion, piano and bass setting a trance-like tone, all of a sudden an overdubbed refrain (heard repeatedly throughout the song) jars the moment: all sound ceases and it’s only the voices: “Out of Africa comes the Congoman”. It is at once eerie (or, Irie) and astonishing. With one masterstroke, Perry makes the composition future-proof: it is already deconstructed on the first go round: no mash-ups or remixes (then, now) are necessary, or even possible, since the first version is already reworked as a work in progress (and make no mistake: everyone with an MC or DJ before their name sprung forth from the tradition the mighty Upsetter originated). Perry takes what would have been a stirring, melodic and beautiful song and makes it richer, messier, more complicated, and inscrutably tantalizing: he transforms a masterpiece into a miracle. As the song unfolds it establishes the deepest of grooves (naturally, most of Perry’s regular posse is on hand here, including “Sly” Dunbar on drums, Ernest Ranglin on guitar and Boris Gardiner on bass), while Cedric Myton’s falsetto blends with Roy “Ashanti” Johnson’s tenor to cast their spell of longing and redemption. Perry’s production sounds like a remix already, providing a slightly disorienting tension between the push of straight ahead riddim and the pull of the echoing voices: Gregorian chants funneled through the heart of darkness into the light—a higher place, deeply spiritual yet entirely human. It is unlike anything you’ve ever heard, yet it’s somehow, impossibly, familiar.

We come with our culture to enlighten the world…

Any questions?

—Sean Murphy
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/blogs/post/60484/five-reggae-albums-you-cannot-live-without/

John Belushi's Greatest Performance (Popmatters.com blog)

2008-06-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Pop Past

23 June 2008

John Belushi’s Greatest Performance

How many people who would care to quibble that John Belushi’s endlessly quotable turn as “Bluto” Blutarsky does not represent his finest work? Not me. And yet, he had to be Blutarski; he needed to be Blutarski. He was Blutarski. Just like he was the Samurai, The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave, and the cheeseburger-dispensing counter jockey at the Olympia Café, among many other unforgettable characters he embodied. Belushi was not a black man. And, in truth, he didn’t even play one on TV. He played a white man emulating a black man, first as a Bee, eventually as a brother—a Blues Brother. Enter “Joliet” Jake Blues who, along with Elwood, had the chutzpah, or brilliance—or both—to step behind the mic for real and record music.

Best known for the movie they made, a kitchen-sink comedy that, despite it’s shoehorned, yet incredible, cameos by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker, remains hilarious and retains a strong quote-quotient. Less known is the fact that, in addition to the movie soundtrack, they made two other albums. Impossible as it seems, the first one (1978’s Briefcase Full of Blues) went to the top of the charts, fueled by their cover of Sam and Dave’s “Soul Man”. So, 30 years later, how do we assess this brief body of work? First and foremost, the only thing that prevents it from being the most ill-fated, vainglorious and embarrassingly ego-driven debacle of all time is the simple fact that Belushi really meant it. He cared, and however he did it—ability or acting, or most likely, both—he pulled it off.

It only takes a cursory glance at the tracks the band covered to see where they were coming from: not a ton of obvious “hits” there, aside from the aforementioned “Soul Man” (which still was—and remains—a shockingly unpredictable success for mainstream radio during the height of the disco era!), and the rather pedestrian “Gimme Some Lovin’” (which, incidentally, is a rather pedestrian and pallid song in the first place). Of course, it also didn’t hurt that Belushi had the best working blues band in the world behind him, featuring Steve “The Colonel” Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn (of Booker T. & The MGs—the Stax band that played on some of the original tunes being covered). It was, in short, a dream band, and it would be a travesty of the highest order for Belushi—or anyone—to make a mockery (intentionally or not) of the proceedings. Fortunately, this possibility was avoided for one single, simple reason: it works.

(Sidenote: even if it hadn’t worked, it speaks volumes about Belushi’s character and his 33 1/3 street cred that he knew very well the caliber of men he was lucky enough to be associated with. Likewise, they were lucky too, since Joliet Jake bent over backward to give them ample time in the spotlight: this was a win/win in the sense that the paychecks couldn’t have hurt, and it was exposing the great music these men had made—and continued to make—to an entirely new audience. In the end, if the worst crime he committed was getting some generally unsung heroes some well-earned time in the sun, and turning some of the world on to some essential music, then Belushi acquitted himself quite nicely here.)

The first one was the best. While the movie soundtrack and Made in America are okay, Briefcase Full of Blues remains an album that can be returned to often and with considerable satisfaction. Forget the movie, and SNL, and the outfits: on an album it’s just the voices and the music, with no shtick to save you. And to oblige the predictable protests of those most cynical purists, even if it is acknowledged that Belushi was, in effect, acting as a blues singer, it remains his most challenging, and convincing role. Or put in more realistic perspective, he is, obviously, acting, but it’s a role—and a world—he is more than casually acquainted with. After all: even white boys get the blues. Think Belushi didn’t know a thing or two about the blues? Think about the other super-sized SNL alum, the wealthy and much-loved Chris Farley. Think either of these men had those voracious appetites for destruction because they were unreservedly happy?

Consider the last song on side one, “Shotgun Blues”: even though this song is a showcase for Matt “Guitar” Murphy, it is a tour de force all around, from Steve Jordan’s explosive drums to Aykroyd—I mean Elwood’s surprisingly effective harmonica and especially the vocals (singing lyrics that are especially painful to hear considering Belushi’s not-too-distant death). In fact, if you pulled Belushi’s vocals and had the exact same track with Junior Wells (circa 1978, or 1958 for that matter) singing, it might come close to miraculous. And speaking of Junior, the band’s take on “Messin’ with the Kid” presumably inspired some folks to seek out the real deal. Again, that too would justify the entire endeavor. In the end, you can see it with your ears: Joliet Jake was, in more ways than one, the role of John Belushi’s life.

—Sean Murphy 4:00 am

Here's The Thing... (from Popmatters.com Blog)

2008-06-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

Past Perfect

18 June 2008

Here’s The Thing…

In the late summer of 1982, two distinct entities from outer space infiltrated planet earth. One was a prehistoric creature with the ability to kill, then imitate its prey: it could attack its victims while remaining disguised amongst them by, in effect, becoming them. The other was an unusual looking but friendly creature, a voyager from another place with god-like powers of healing, an odd voice, and an affinity for Reese’s Pieces.

Guess which one fared better?

Of course, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was the hit of ’82, and John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing had the famously unfortunate timing of opening two weeks later. That many people did not see it is a shame; that many critics dismissed it is typical. To be certain, it didn’t help matters that the assembled brain trust agonized over the relatively brief, but exceptionally gory special effects. Inevitably, they aged quickly—and rather poorly. While one can appreciate the attention paid to these ostensibly “scary” scenes, they are (ironically? inexorably?) the weaker moments in the film. It being a Carpenter production, cohesion and plot are occasionally undermined in ways that seem half-assed or ham-fisted. Still, after repeated viewings it manages to work on multiple levels, and despite any nitpicking it seems impossible to improve upon. The definition of a classic, perhaps, but it is something more, something more complicated than that. It is a unique and enigmatic movie; in hindsight it is easy to understand how it evolved, over time, from a cult classic to its current status as must-own DVD material (alas, no 25th anniversary deluxe edition arrived in 2007, but the existing Collector’s Edition—from 1998—is quite satisfactory): it needed time to truly find its audience.

So, aside from bad timing and a final product that feels, at times, oddly forced despite the obvious (and well documented) care and consideration that went into it, what is it that remains so right about this movie? For starters, it is to Carpenter’s credit that he assembled such a spectacular cast: virtually all of the actors make the absolute most of their relatively limited screen time, but Keith David, Richard Dysart, Donald Moffat and Richard Masur are in particularly fine form. As for Kurt Russell, it is amazing to recall that his role as R.J. MacReady came only a year after his testosterone-athon as Snake Plissken in Escape from New York (also directed by Carpenter), making this quite the one-two punch for both men. Considerable credit must also be given to Bill Lancaster’s excellent screenplay (to read John W. Campbell’s novella Who Goes There? is both to appreciate where the spirit of this film comes from—more so than the sci-fi classic The Thing from Outer Space that it was ostensibly updating—and appreciate how much Lancaster did with relatively little, in terms of actual plot, character development and drama).

It is, as intended, Kurt Russell’s film, but special mention must be made for the near miraculous performance of Wilford Brimley—a man who is perhaps best known as the wise-cracking senior citizen from Cocoon or as the Quaker Oats guy, or recently (and, thanks to the brilliant monkeys working around the clock on youtube, amusingly), the spokesperson with a tendency to mispronounce the most unamusing word in the English language, diabetes. As Dr. Blair, Brimley’s presence provides an austere integrity and the necessarily brainy moral grounding for events that would otherwise be in constant jeopardy of degenerating into parody. His dead-serious assessment of what is going on—before anyone else has figured things out—invests the growing unease inside the camp with a gravitas that makes it painfully clear, to the viewer, what is at stake. Later, after being secluded in a storage shed, the men visit him in a scene that manages to be sad, disturbing and comical.

One scene in particular offers perhaps the best illustration of why this movie continues to resonate, and why it was not fully successful as either a slam-bam action flick or a serious drama: Blair sits alone, at his desk, running a computer simulation of the diabolically efficient way the alien is infecting his team. In less than thirty seconds, the look on his face turns from world-weary stoicism to resigned acknowledgment of the likely consequences—for the men, and the rest of the world. Interestingly (and again, ironically?) it is probable that the impetus for this particular sequence, in addition to the obvious and necessary advancement of the plot in as succinct and clear a manner as possible, was to show-off the high-tech computer programming, circa 1982. Like the over-the-top transformation scenes, it is more hilarious than harrowing to look at the extraordinarily primitive technology, today. And yet, it worked, then, and works now, because of its stark imagery: in its way, it’s ten times more terrifying to watch the simulated organism at work, one blob on a screen capturing and assimilating its prey, than it is to watch the scattered “money shots” when the creature reveals itself.

Perfection is a word that should never be used lightly, but no other word will suffice for the wonders Ennio Morricone works, scoring this film. The name Morricone is—and should be—associated with brilliance, variety and superhuman productivity, just to pick a few obvious choices. While the list of only his very best efforts is not short, his work here must be considered amongst the top tier: The Thing would be unimaginable without it. Rather than overwhelming, or distracting the action on the screen—as film scores do with distressing regularity these days—Morricone’s music exists mostly on the periphery, in the corners and inside the shadows. Its effectiveness serves an almost opposite purpose to the handful of over-the-top alien transformations: the real horror of the story lies in the tension of not knowing, the dread of isolation and the fear of being assailed by an inexplicable enemy. Morricone subtly embellishes the otherwise silent scenes, where the only sounds are the Antarctic winds, the silence and the darkness. As the paranoia increases, strings are plucked like raw nerves, while stark, almost soulless keyboard drones mirror the growing desperation: the music exists as a wind chill factor, making everything colder and more forlorn than it already is.

And last but certainly not least: The Thing provides one of the best endings of any movie, ever. To use the word perfect, again, would seem silly, but there is no getting around it: the ending is perfect. Indeed, it’s even better than perfect, considering the pressure Carpenter must have felt to inject the type of horseshit heroic conclusion American audiences usually require. Carpenter’s decision to go with the ambivalent ending (which, actually, is truly heroic as opposed to some manufactured deus ex machina sequel-ready sendoff) very likely killed his chance at commercial viability. Carpenter knew this and did it anyway, saving both the movie’s integrity and his soul in the process. The fact that The Thing has attracted video sales ever since is wonderfully poetic justice, and confirms that you can occasionally scoff at the big studio machine and come out okay. Bottom line: Spielberg’s alien may have won the box office battle, but everyone knows that his maudlin Peter Pan wouldn’t have stood a chance at Outpost 31.

—Sean Murphy 1:45 am

All Hail Me: Veruca Salt (Popmatters.com blog)

2008-06-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

Pop Past

30 May 2008

All Hail Me: The Golden Goddesses, Exhibit A

Not sure if any band quite captures the waiting-to-exhale extended moment of semi-innocence that was the mid-90s (you know, the post-grunge, post-Reagan/Bush, pre-9/11, pre Bush/Cheney era when casual Fridays were infiltrating offices everywhere and music—as always, for better or worse—reflected the times in a sort of holding pattern that mixed ennui with an always unfashionable optimism) than Veruca Salt.
To recap: what was the appeal of this band? Irresistible melodies? Check. Smoking hot, sexy singers (who also played better than passable guitar)? Check. Utterly ingenious band name? Check. Glorious debut album title? Big check. Most folks recall “Seether”, as well they should; it was their big hit and a truly infectious piece of pop perfection. But as anyone who did—and still does—worship at the altar of American Thighs, it needn’t be belabored that Veruca Salt was most assuredly not a one-hit wonder. Among the better moments, “Forsythia”, “Number One Blind” and especially the almost-too-good-to-be-true “All Hail Me” (how about another shout out to the days when music videos were actually capable of being almost as great as the songs that inspired them?). All in all, pretty ideal fodder for a one-and-done minor masterpiece.

But the dream was not dead, yet. A tide-us-over EP, Blow It out Your Ass It’s Veruca Salt, featuring the delectable “Shimmer Like a Girl”, found Veruca Salt poised for real superstardom—for whatever that’s worth. Their shot at glory came in ’97 with the (once again, brilliantly titled) Eight Arms To Hold You (incidentally, the working title of the Beatles’ album Help!), which had the addictive single “Volcano Girls”. The rest of the album wasn’t terribly shabby, either, but, it seemed (unfairly? impossibly?) their moment had already passed. And so, while the album didn’t do badly, it didn’t quite put them over.

What happened next is truly difficult to believe, particularly if you saw the doe-eyed adoration Louise Post and Nina Gordon obviously had for one another—as late as ’97 during interviews (check out youtube): a combination of bad blood, ambition, stolen boyfriends and terrible timing resulted in best friends on the wrong side of that thin line between love and hate, not to mention rock and roll cliché. Gordon set off on her own and in the summer of 2000 released Tonight and the Rest of My Life, while Post pulled a David Gilmour and retained the brand name. Almost simultaneously, the “new” Veruca Salt put out Resolver (another Beatles reference and another incredibly inspired album title, particularly considering the content within).

The results, predictably, separated fans into two camps: those who thought Tonight and the Rest of My Life successfully proved that Nina Gordon was the true talent in Veruca Salt, and those who felt that she sold out. Conversely, there were fans who insisted that the new albums made it clear that Post was the soul of the band and the one who rocked. Even in 2000, it was immediately obvious to me which album was superior (Resolver, by far)—Post picked up the banner and crawled with it. Time has been less kind to Gordon’s overly polished, ultimately safe and brazenly ambitious (not in the good sense of the word) project, while despite—or because of—the considerable warts and rough edges of Resolver, it retains an immediacy, daring, and furious venom that eight years has scarcely cooled off.

Incidentally, and understandably, Resolver remains one of the angriest albums ever. After all, losing a boyfriend and best friend (and, almost, a band?) is enough to piss anyone off. Fortunately, for the fans, it also inspired some raw and ragged art: the ex-boyfriend (a pretty famous drummer from a pretty famous band whose pretty famous singer infamously killed himself) gets the scorched-earth venom of “Officially Dead” and her former band mate and soul mate get the kiss-off (actually, the fuck off) treatment in “Used to Know Her”. While there are many worthwhile moments on Resolver, these two tracks are the bookends of bitterness that give the album it’s M.O.: Post is pissed, Post is alive; the old Veruca Salt is (officially) dead, Long live the new Veruca Salt; the Seether seethes, et cetera.

So: should the fans who lamented Salt’s split—and how personal strife prevented more magic—be perversely grateful for Post’s grief, since it directly inspired—if not demanded—her subsequent, pulverizing statement of purpose? No reasonable person should take joy from another’s pain, but there is probably not a better, or at least simpler definition of a certain type of art—this type of art. What ultimately separates a song like “Officially Dead” (where the word dead is repeated over a dozen times) from the clichéd cri de coeur of the depressed and sensitive artiste is that catharsis through art can (should?) be both a survival tactic and call to arms. When Post sings/screams “I still have a heart”, it is a defiant shout that she is, indeed, still alive, and a declaration that her relationship (with that dude, with that chick) is finito. Resolver is difficult yet delightful, painful yet pleasing: it is ugly beauty.

And today? It seems clear that Veruca Salt is alive and pretty well, while Gordon has fallen and can’t get up. Actually, to be fair, the latest Gordon effort, Bleeding Heart Graffiti and Veruca Salt’s IV (did Post finally run out of brilliant album titles or is she, once again, giving props to past pop—this time Black Sabbath?) are a bit of a wash. The efforts are not as divisive as before, mostly because the stakes aren’t the same, and the results aren’t especially memorable (although a case could be made that “Sick As Your Secrets” is as good as we could reasonably hope or expect from Post, twelve years after American Thighs). Fans can’t be faulted for nostalgia, and who wouldn’t be hungry for more of what we used to have? It begs the unanswerable question: if the gory backstage drama had not pushed them apart, would (could?) they have continued to make it work? The silver-lined other side of this same coin is that it took the dissolution to make Resolver happen, and those bruised memories will invariably propel whatever they each have left in the tank.

In hindsight, it seems increasingly obvious that Nina Gordon was Veruca Salt’s McCartney and Louise Post its Lennon: Gordon’s work is more catchy, poppy and effortless; Post’s work is often more raw, honest and, at times, indelible (overly simplistic? Sure, but then, so is the whole sweet and sour McCartney/Lennon dynamic in the first place). Cases in point, perhaps: Gordon wrote “Seether” and “Volcano Girls”; Post wrote “All Hail Me” (and, of course, “Officially Dead” and “Used to Know Her”). The edge could go to Gordon since she wrote “Forsythia”, but then Post wrote “Spiderman ‘79” and “Victrola”. Bottom line: “All Hail Me” would be unimaginable without Gordon’s background wailing, and their collective harmonizing—no matter who wrote what song—was what made that addictive engine run. Kind of like McCartney and Lennon, it is indisputable that they needed each other, and like many great collaborators before them, they have not come close, on their own, ever since. And finally: even if they found a way to reunite, what are the odds that they could approximate the angry candy they created in the mid-‘90s? In the final analysis, it’s probably best that we never find out.

Nothing Golden God Can Stay (Popmatters.com Blog)

2008-05-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sound Affects
The PopMatters Music Blog

Pop Past

29 May 2008

Nothing Golden God Can Stay

Aside from the requisite stints in rehab, the Botox and the damage done, and the increasingly profitable reunion tours, not a lot of memorable music gets made after age 30.
Nothing gold can stay, wrote Robert Frost. And believe it or not, he wasn’t actually talking about the Greasers and the Socs, or even Ralph Macchio’s ability, post Outsiders, to convincingly play high school kids well into his mid-20s (making the other ageless wonder, Family Ties era Michael J. Fox look like Methuselah by comparison). Frost, of course, was speaking of more poetic matters, like springtime and flowers and innocence and all that CliffsNotes crap.

What he was not talking about, since it had not yet been invented, was rock and roll. So he could not have known that he was providing a very prescient epitaph for what is often the rule and seldom the exception with every great rock band: they age poorly. Aside from the requisite stints in rehab, the Botox and the damage done, and the increasingly profitable reunion tours, not a lot of memorable music gets made after age 30. Consider how many groups have blazed like fevered comets into the public consciousness, then flamed out, leaving a body of work—and sometimes their bodies—behind.

Not counting the careers cut short by death (think Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain or Clapton…wait, Clapton didn’t die? Never mind), and not cherry-picking the no-brainers like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and the Who, it’s actually easier to identify the groups that have managed to produce work worthy of their salad days—much less work that is worthwhile. The very recent efforts by Portishead and the Breeders, as well as the fairly recent masterpiece by Sleater-Kinney (please come back!) prove that it can be done. The fact that those three bands are fronted by females is noteworthy, and fodder for further discussion: women rock harder and make better music, after 30, than men? It would seem so. Then again, King Buzzo might have something to say about that, although he is probably too cool to even be considered human, much less a man.

But why is this so rare? Certainly the impetus of lean and hungry desperation (not to mention drugs) inspires rock music in ways not especially amenable to other types of art, like literature. Robert Frost was 49 when he dropped Nothing Gold Can Stay; Pete Townshend was 20 when he wrote “I hope I die before I get old”. By the time he was 49, The Who were already recycling their better days on the arena rocking chair circuit.

There are still some legends thrashing about in the mud and the blood and the beer: Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, for instance. Their best days are undoubtedly far behind them, but at least they’re still trying. And yet, the issue isn’t really about trying, it’s about an end result that passes the smell test (mosh pit or mothballs?), regardless of intent or integrity. Perhaps it’s appropriate that one elder statesman who is defying the trend is the golden god himself, Robert Plant. While the world waits to see if the mighty Zeppelin will glide again, Plant paired up with the beguiling Alison Krauss to create Raising Sand, an effort that, not so ironically, sounds better with time. In fact, it surpasses just about anything Plant’s peers have been able to manage since John Bonham died (doing his part to ensure that the best band of the ‘70s would not embarrass themselves in the ‘80s). Granted, Raising Sand is not (nor is it pretending to be) rock music. Perhaps that is the entire point. To be a rock and not to roll? Perhaps this is what Plant meant, way back whenever. Or perhaps it is just the forests, echoing with laughter.

TO BE CONT’D.

The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder [DVD] (Popmatters.com Review)

2008-05-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tv/reviews/57999/tom-snyder-the-tomorrow-show-with-tom-snyder-dvd/

The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder [DVD]
[John, Paul Tom and Ringo]

by Sean Murphy

Before Conan O’Brien in the ‘90s and David Letterman in the ‘80s, there was another—even ‘whiter’—dude who regularly hosted many of the hippest artists and promoted some of the best new music week in and week out: Tom Snyder. That this overly earnest bundle of contradictions turned out to be the ideal advocate of cool seems increasingly less ironic in hindsight, considering the bleach-teethed, teleprompter reading robots who currently spoon feed the masses with what is supposed to be ‘entertaining’.

By turns ostensibly too eager or too serious, or else too anxious to ingratiate himself to his guests, it eventually becomes clear that once the viewer’s cynical defenses are charmed into submission, the impossible is the case: Snyder was, quite simply, a decent and genuinely nice person. He was goofy, gregarious, and utterly without guile; in other words, he was perfect. The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder was not just big in the ‘70s, it was the ‘70s. And so, it was understandable, and more than a little appropriate for him to re-air an interview with John Lennon from 1975, the day after he was shot in 1980, to officially close the books on one decade and begin another.

AmazonThe cleverly named John, Paul, Tom and Ringo is one in a series of DVDs commemorating some of Snyder’s more memorable moments, focusing on a particular theme (other DVDs include his “punk and new wave” musical guests as well as those associated with the ‘60s counterculture), this one being his interviews with all the members of The Beatles, sans George Harrison—hence the amusing title. Who is the audience for this DVD? Beatles fans, rock ‘n’ roll fans, and pop culture fans—anyone interested in some authentic recent cultural history, straight from the proverbial horses’ mouths.

With the abundance of unauthorized biographies, critical appraisals, and testimonials dedicated to this most influential of bands; it is astonishing to consider how little (relatively speaking, in our instant karma Internet age) actual footage exists of the Beatles talking about the Beatles. And so, for a couple of priceless hours, this DVD provides the still-living legends in a mostly unguarded environment, reminiscing about the world and their considerable place in it.

John, Paul, Tom and Ringo’s first disc is devoted to Lennon, and Snyder introduces his April 1975 discussion (Lennon’s last televised interview), reprised the day after the music died: 9 December 1980. The initial jolt for the viewer, particularly a viewer like me who remembers the day of Lennon’s assassination, is hearing Snyder downplay the importance of the interview, since it was “five years old”, considering that it is now 33-years-old. Snyder (who was so brilliantly and, I think lovingly, lampooned by Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live) should be appreciated for being consistently up to the task of taking on big players like Lennon, because his M.O. was straightforward: he was genuinely curious, had done his homework, and was actively invested in the culture of his time; he was, after all, not only commenting on it—but he was a part of it, and he knew it.

Perhaps most importantly, his square-shooting credibility offered a refreshingly opposite vibe from the insufferably serious, or self-important, ever pretentious arena of journalists talking to rock stars, elevating themselves by elevating the relative import of the act. In this case, Snyder was speaking with one of the genuine heavyweights, and he understood (and respected) that Lennon actually did have something (some things, really) to say about the bigger picture, and engaged him accordingly. Lennon, through his lyrics and recalcitrant remarks, had always been easy to label as “subversive” (think of the controversy his “Beatles are bigger than Jesus” joke instigatated), but by the mid-70s, he found himself experiencing official interference with his attempt to become an American citizen—a topic he discussed in some detail later in the show.

Lennon was typically honest and amusing when asked some of the obligatory questions. What is the initial goal of every aspiring musician? To get laid. Why did The Beatles break up? Boredom. Why are you not bored now? Because I can play music with whomever I choose. When Snyder puts on his curmudgeonly old crank hat and pushes Lennon to comment on how the music may not change much with imitators always aping the best of the past, Lennon graciously suggestes that the influence of The Beatles (and others) will linger and resonate—just as the blues music the lads from Liverpool loved found its way into their tunes, first as paint-by-numbers covers, later as vividly reimagined original work—but musicians will be using new instruments to create new sounds: one thinks of the evolution of funk to hip hop to trip hop and beyond, and can appreciate the prescience of Lennon’s appraisal.

One thing is certain: they don’t make ‘em (rock stars or talk-show hosts) like they used to. In a moment that could only be real (otherwise the irony would suck the action right off the screen), Snyder pulls out another in an endless stream of cigarettes and, as he lights up, asks Lennon his views on drugs and whether he feels an obligation to speak out against them. Only in America.

The proceedings lose considerable steam when the topic turns to Lennon’s immigration woes. To be certain, this was a serious issue, and it was unfortunate that Lennon had to dance around the petty politics of officious reactionaries. Nevertheless, listening to his lawyer pontificate is rather less than compelling video. Later in the show, journalist Lisa Robinson reflects on her numerous interactions with John and Yoko, and producer Jack Douglas reminisces about his collaboration with Lennon on albums ranging from Imagine to Double Fantasy. While it is truly touching to hear Douglas (who had been with Lennon in the studio hours before his death) talk about how optimistic and excited his friend was about the future, it is inexorably an unwelcome—and still quite painful—reminder of how much life Lennon had left to live, and how much poorer all of us are for the loss.

Disc two is dedicated to Paul and Ringo, featuring interviews that originally aired in December ’79 and November ’81, respectively. Snyder interviews Paul and his wife Linda via satellite and seems as excited about this cutting-edge technology as he is about having the opportunity to speak with the man he introduces, correctly, as the most successful singer/songwriter on the planet (at the time in the middle of a successful run with his group Wings). The show commences with Snyder promoting a “videotape to go along as sort of a visual counterpart to their latest album”, a quaint way to describe the phenomenon that would launch its own TV show less than two years later. Time has not been kind to the song, “Spin it On”, and it’s hard to say which is worse: the tune or the video, but it remains a worthwhile artifact of a medium that would be perfected to great effect in short order, if not by McCartney, by many others.

As is often the case, McCartney comes across as grounded, amusing and self-deprecating. He talks about being happily married, and is an obviously dedicated father and family man. Watching him interact with Linda, and knowing he was with her until her death, only reinforces why Paul remains so universally revered and respected. This is not to imply that McCartney is uncomplicated; rather, his comfort level with the world carried over, always, to the music he made. Snyder asks at one point if he wishes he could do it all over again with The Beatles and he replies, without rancor or sarcasm, that he has no need, since they already did it. When discussing his involvement in the pre-Live Aid concert for Cambodian aid, Snyder inquires if he has every done anything political like that, and McCartney provides the inspiring and satisfactory response: “Well, I don’t think about it as political, I think about it as human.”

And last but not least, Ringo! Hooking up with Snyder in Los Angeles to discuss his new album and his starring role in the cinematic tour de force Caveman, Ringo is in fine form. Although his struggles with drink are well documented, Ringo—perhaps more than the other Beatles, and arguably because he was slightly less worshipped—always seemed a bit better equipped for a post-Beatles life. Doubtless this can be attributed to his wisdom in recognizing that, despite his own considerable talents, he was fortunate to associate with Lennon & McCartney, the twin towers of 20th Century pop music. Ringo discusses how he came by his famous nickname, invites his new wife Barbara Bach to join the conversation, and mostly invites any and all questions that Snyder will ask. The Beatles are, ultimately, inconceivable without Ringo, so it is appropriate that he gets his due on this DVD.

In what could (should?) be considered bonus material, the original show that aired with Ringo also included an interview with Angie Dickinson, who was then coming off the controversial and (mostly) critically acclaimed role in Brian de Palma’s Dressed to Kill. She talks about the insurance policy taken out on her famous legs (true story) and mostly charms the pants off a smitten Snyder: even though she was no longer the white-hot Hollywood vixen (she was almost 50-years-old by then), she is still gorgeous and gracious, and the inclusion of her interview can be regarded as the sexy icing on an already decadent cake.

RATING:

— 12 May 2008

The David Lynch Dilemma

2008-05-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

Sound Affects
The PopMatters Music Blog

12 May 2008

The David Lynch Dilemma

David Lynch is very much like God. I watch his movies the way I look at the creation of the world: most of the time I can’t claim to discern what’s going on, but someone seems to have gone to a great deal of trouble.
There are some movies that require a certain commitment of time to figure out what is going on. David Lynch’s movies, I’ve become convinced, are about trying to figure out what’s going on. And that’s fine, as far as it goes. In its art-for-art’s sake, uber-pretentious, anti-commercial, anti-audience sensibility, Lynch hoists a freak flag that is, upon closer inspection, a fuck you flag. The question, as it is with all challenging art, ultimately must be: is it worth it? His films are odd and unsettling, and they are often unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. And yet: is that enough?

Well…take any of his films, then take away the attractive female characters, their inexorable (contractual?) nudity, and the handful of very brief—but very brilliant—scenes, and Lynch’s work seems to be a series of somethings that seek to defy being identified for what they look and smell like. You are left with an oeuvre that seems to separate viewers into three camps: the good (those who claim to “get it”), the bad (those who don’t, or can’t), and the ugly (or, the angry; those who tried to get it, failed, and then, upon repeat viewings, determine that they are unworthy and, most importantly, uninterested).

Consider me ugly. Not angry, but certainly perplexed at the consistent, and reflexive, critical accolades. And let’s acknowledge the fact that Lynch does not merely have fans, he has advocates. Defenders of the faith. Crusaders. As a proponent of acquired taste anomalies running the gamut of high and low culture and all points in between (especially the points in between), I appreciate the allure, and I don’t begrudge it. What I am curious about is, who are these people, and what is it they actually see in these films?

First—and this may well elucidate my dilemma—the only Lynch film that has spoken to me, post Elephant Man, is Wild at Heart, which generally seems to be ranked amongst his weaker efforts. For my money, this one could practically be validated by Willem Dafoe alone: Bobby Peru is not only indelibly sinister, sick and hilariously oleaginous, he represents what is best about David Lynch: extreme weirdness in adept (and mercifully brief) quantities. But the movie abounds with minor tour de force performances by all involved, with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern doing some career-best work, even when their clothes are on. Wonderful supporting work is delivered by a wickedly over-the-top Diane Ladd and a typically sullen (here bordering on docile) Harry Dean Stanton.

But, of course, Blue Velvet is the one that, in order to assert one’s pointy-headed credibility, you have to sanction. I call bullshit. To be sure, I don’t fall in with the camp who loves it, but I also don’t loathe it; I just think it’s…okay. More bad than good, but containing enough intriguing scenes (“Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!”) to make it memorable. But still. I saw it in the ‘80s, saw it in the ‘90s and have seen it during this decade, and it’s simply impossible to look past the (typically) improbable—bordering on intelligence-insulting—story line, the (typically) maudlin, fifth-rate dialogue, and the ostensibly bold assessment of American sadomasochism that quickly unravels like so much stylized soft porn. Granted, an authentic sense of surreal tension is nailed—then hammered into submission, and Dennis Hopper’s (overboard, over-praised) Frank Booth is scary enough, kind of the like the boogeyman is frightening, despite being fake. In terms of peeling back the layers of plastic conformity of an older (or even contemporary) America, captured in the notable but not revelatory opening scene, it works. That it is considered one of the seminal films of the ‘80s strikes me as disconcerting, akin to the way I’d concede that New Kids on the Block were one of the most successful bands of that decade. Mobs are mobs, even when they are different sizes.

But the mystery train truly goes off the tracks with Lost Highway, the ultimate “you’re with us or against us” entry in the Lynch catalog. For me, it really boils down to two pretty straightforward questions. One, can anyone claim to know what the movie is about? Two, can anyone claim to have actually enjoyed it? Hearing ten different people offer ten different interpretations of a movie is, in one regard, evidence of a successfully engaging work of art. But that sure seems to be setting the bar embarrassingly low for a director with Lynch’s obvious talent. (My personal favorite bent-over-backwards attempt to put lipstick on this pig is the claim that Lost Highway is a highly illusory homage of Ambrose Bierce’s masterful short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Even making the exceedingly generous indulgence that this is the case, an adaptation of any classic work of literature should actually be good, shouldn’t it?)

Listen: weirdness for the sake of weirdness is fine, and in shrewdly doled out doses, it can be instructive and enjoyable—like eating fish eyes, for instance. And I don’t begrudge Lynch one bit for being that one-in-a-billion artist whom remarkable numbers of critics and fans have designated as their go-to guy. My issue lies with the same fans and critics who lazily defend his work by asserting that anyone who doesn’t like it simply doesn’t get it. Remember Gary Larson’s The Far Side cartoons? It was true that if you had to explain one to someone, it was hopeless. However, if you had to explain it, you could; it would lose most of its humor and punch, but virtually every one of them was explicable. In other words, it’s a much more impressive—and worthwhile—piece of entertainment if it provokes or even befuddles, but is still, on some level, intelligible.

Granted, all willfully difficult artists will attract ardent (I won’t say fanatical) proponents—to a certain extent, that’s the point of their excessively abstruse vision. Too often, a self-indulgent, or unpersuasive (I won’t say incapable) effort is credited for being authentic because it is impenetrable, and that is where the fans and critics come into play with Lynch. Analysis is unnecessary, it’s already understood that the work is brilliant, and it’s a given that, with Lynch, you are about to see something that confronts your puny, preconceived notions of reality. The less sense it makes, the more adeptly he is revealing how ensnared you are in the linear charade of conventional storytelling. Or the system. Or something. Where this becomes insufferable is when esoteric artistes inherit a priori acquiescence in a fashion too similar to the ideological blank slate politicians count on from their compliant bases. We know how this works: an already-accepted conclusion is invoked, or promoted, and the appraisal (of the product, of the candidate) is liberated from subjective analysis, it’s already understood. Discourse is discarded for absolution in ways that say more about how the viewers view themselves than the film. And perhaps that is, if unconsciously, the entire point?

In the final analysis, I’ll admit that David Lynch is very much like God. I watch his movies the way I look at the creation of the world: most of the time I can’t claim to discern what’s going on, but someone seems to have gone to a great deal of trouble. Beauty, not to mention intelligent design, is always in the brain of the beholder. The question remains: is that enough?

Requiem for The Regal Beagle: A Mostly Fond Recollection of Three's Company

2008-05-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

Requiem for The Regal Beagle: A Mostly Fond Recollection of Three’s Company

The last thing I want to be accused of is venerating the same sitcom that, it seemed, virtually everyone who was not a teenager in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s felt certain signaled the end of the world as we knew it. But we felt fine. Hey, I lived through those dangerous days and survived. I watched Three’s Company and not only enjoyed it, then, I certainly don’t regret it, now. I regard that show kind of like I view my Catholic upbringing: it was probably not necessary and it’s likely that those hours (in church, in front of the TV) could have been better spent. But, for better or worse, they helped make me what I am, so I’ll make no tardy attempts to excommunicate Cardinal O’Connor or Jack Tripper from my memory bank. In this much-maligned shows defense, and unlike the Catholic church, it never pretended to be something it was not: an enterprise that puts profit above product and always answerable to a higher authority.

Not sure, in hindsight, if Father So-and-So’s sermons gave me more nightmares than Joyce DeWitt’s curious allure, or who was the worse actor—my divorced CCD teacher or Suzanne Somers (I’m pretty sure Somers wins purely on aesthetic points). We can point to Don Knotts’s (R.I.P.) floral crimes against fashion, but at least he was a product of the times, unlike the enduring sartorial styles still in vogue at the Vatican. And let’s get real: if Jack Tripper (R.I.P.!!) were, well, real, and he was running for president, which candidate would you rather have a beer with at The Regal Beagle?

But special props must be set aside for the immortal (yes, I said immortal) Norman Fell (R.I.P.!!!). If there was ever a “sixth man” award for TV shows, Mr. Roper would be a lock. In fact, it should henceforth be known as “The Norman Fell Factor” when a minor—but indispensable—character is given props by fans in the know. His sardonic asides to the camera were revolutionary in their own understated way; breaking the fourth wall to make inside jokes with the audience, edging toward something approximating postmodern long before, say, movies like Ferris Bueller or subsequent TV shows like Moonlighting made it an almost obligatory—and far less subtle—device. Of course, this strategy already existed on TV, dating as far back as stories have been told to audiences, and are recurrent in Cervantes, Shakespeare and Sterne, not to mention Melville (call him Ishmael) and the late, great Kurt Vonnegut. In other words, Fell was neither the first nor the most effective practitioner of this tactic—he was simply one of the funniest. In his relatively quick moments on screen, he could throw the audience, and himself, a bone each week—his antics would not have been nearly as amusing if his role were larger.

Maybe it’s a guy thing. Check that: did any women ever watch Three’s Company? Stanley Roper’s self-satisfied mugging was a highlight of each episode, and while the mere name Ralph Furley prompts a chuckle, by the time that bug-eyed, pants suit wearing rascal came on the scene, the shows best days were behind it (bet: that is the first time the words “the shows best days” have ever appeared in any appraisal of Three’s Company). And don’t kid yourself: I’m not about to forget our favorite used car salesman, Larry Dallas. Larry was more than just Eddie Haskell grown up and acid-tested; in many ways he anticipated both George Costanza and Cosmo Kramer (in other words, he was the original poor man’s Larry David). Okay, that’s stretching it, but one thing is for certain: while the Ropers got their chance to grasp the brass ring, the biggest crime Three’s Company ever committed was not spinning off Larry’s character for his own series. Just kidding. Sort of.

—Sean Murphy

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/blogs/sound-affects/

Curtis Mayfield (from Popmatters: "Say It Loud! 65 Protest Songs")

2008-05-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

1970

Curtis Mayfield: “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go”

From the album Curtis (Curtom)

Listen: “Sisters, Niggers, Whiteys, Jews, Crackers… Don’t worry: if there’s Hell below, we’re all going to go!” The closest thing popular music had to a biblical prophet was Curtis Mayfield, the man who delivered stern moral messages with the voice of an angel. His sweet falsetto and musical arrangements (harp, flute, and fuzzed-out wah-wah guitar blend together in unimaginable and still incomparable fashion) had their apotheosis in his out-and-out masterpiece, the soundtrack to Superfly, but it’s the first song of his first solo outing that stands as his abiding message. He had already made history with the Impressions, and more than a few of the civil rights anthems of the ‘60s ("Keep on Pushing”, “People Get Ready") were written and sung by Mayfield. It is no coincidence that as the next decade commenced, not enough had changed, and both the music and the message assumed an unfamiliar, but necessary edge. It’s not a new Mayfield so much as the same singer tired of having to tell the same sad story. No one here escapes unscathed: his outrage is, appropriately, aimed at the powers that be (mostly white, then as now), but importantly, he also calls on the carpet the slackers, apathy-ridden hippies, and religious hypocrites. “Everybody’s praying and everybody’s saying / But when come time to do, everybody’s laying.” This has everything art could ask for: a savage indignation delivered by a voice steeped in soul and history, shouting a message that grows more urgent, more loud, to make certain we’re listening.

—Sean Murphy

"Haitan Fight Song" and "Alabama" (from Popmatters.com: "Say It Loud! 65 Protest Songs")

2008-05-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

1957

Charles Mingus: “Haitian Fight Song”

From the album The Clown (Atlantic)

Charles Mingus had many things to say, and he used his mouth, his pen, his fists, and mostly his music to say them. Of the myriad words that describe Mingus, passionate would trump all others. Mingus cared—deeply. Of the many compositions that could be chosen to define him, “Haitian Fight Song” endures as the best articulation of the inequities that consistently inspired his best work. The song is, of course, about everything (as is pretty much all of Mingus’s music), but it is mostly about the tensions and turmoil inherent in the lives of the dispossessed. Not for nothing was his autobiography entitled Beneath the Underdog. The momentum of the song (after a snake-charming sax solo from Shafi Hadi) stops in its tracks when Mingus breaks it down and, as the band slowly drops out, deconstructs the theme with only his bass, then goes on to say some of the things that needed to be said in 1957. And for anyone who understandably does not wish to analyze or sterilize music that can easily account for itself, let’s cut to the chase: “Haitian Fight Song” is one of the most angry yet eloquent, ardent yet erudite and—this is the key—most jaw-droppingly swinging and kickass compositions ever. It is a statement that speaks volumes and not a single word is spoken. Significantly, this was quite a few years before artists’ statements regarding racial strife became commonplace or mainstream. But this is just one of many instances where Mingus was ahead of the crowd. Mingus led several big bands later in his career, but listening half a century later to the sheer force of sound this quintet made remains a revelation. It is a hurricane that blows through your life and changes everything.

—Sean Murphy

John Coltrane: “Alabama”

From the album Live at Birdland (Impulse!)

Inspired by the disgraceful 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, Coltrane said of his elegy: “It represents, musically, something that I saw down there translated into music from inside me.” It is one of Coltrane’s enduring and devastating performances. Recorded with the “classic quartet” (McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass), Coltrane, already considered one of jazz music’s most emotional and sensitive players, managed to articulate the grief and the rage the occasion called for. A deeply spiritual man, Coltrane also conveyed the immutable senselessness of violence instigated by ignorance, but also, miraculously, managed to hint at the redemption of peaceful power through unified awareness. If Mingus’s “Haitian Fight Song” in part predicted the turmoil around the corner, “Alabama” was directly inspired by an actual event that demanded an outraged reaction. As only he could, Coltrane crafted a solo that is angry, somber, and somehow hopeful; a subdued epitaph for the innocent dead, but also a rallying cry for the not-so-innocent bystanders who needed to join the cause. The Alabama bombing was a tipping point in the civil rights movement, and Coltrane captured that moment where confusion and rage inspired an outpouring of solidarity.

—Sean Murphy

Five Easy Pieces (from Popmatters.com: 50 DVDS Every Film Fan Should Own)

2008-05-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

1970

Five Easy Pieces

MacMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Jake Gittes in Chinatown; Jack “Here’s Johnny!” Torrence in The Shining—these aren’t characters from famous movies, they are permanent fixtures of American culture. Robert Dupea from Five Easy Pieces seldom registers on the short list of all-time great acting performances, at least in part because the character—like the movie—is not easy to admire or understand. The type of role tailor-made for an artist who insists upon working without a net, Bobby Dupea is at once emotional, withdrawn, silent, boisterous, ambitious and lethargic to the point of apathy. Five Easy Pieces is a study of the restless soul of a gifted individual (who could have been, and still could be, an artist) who is too smart for his own good, and has thus far squandered his youth, talent and energy in an ennui-ridden funk where he drifts from job to meaningless job, woman to faceless woman, sensation to numbing sensation.

All of us can discern something of ourselves in the unsatisfied, insatiable drifter; the citizen who is not content to live in a banal, preordained existence even as his every action (and lack of action) further ensnares him in a perpetuation of the life he abhors. In this regard, Five Easy Pieces is not only a commentary on the itinerant American rebel, it also examines the suffocating dynamics of a dysfunctional family, and the paralyzing dilemma of an individual blessed with extraordinary faculties he feels compelled to suppress. Dupea leads a life of not-so-quiet desperation, equally out of place amongst the working class and the class-conscious, condescending academics. And then there is the scene, which is one of the most amusing—and satisfying—in cinema history, when he clashes with the truck-stop waitress and the system she represents. In the disquieting climax, when he unsuccessfully attempts to persuade the first woman who seems perfect for him, she poses a rhetorical question that underscores the tragic paradox his muted antipathy: “How can a man who has no love of himself ask for love in return?” His inability to answer her, and his unwillingness to change himself, creates the taciturn resolution which leaves the viewer both saddened, and exasperated.

This DVD is an essential addition for any collection, and can be returned to over time: the nuances of the story and the subtle mastery of Rafelson’s direction are to be savored. All the performances are stellar, yet special kudos are warranted for Karen Black, the patient yet pathetic girlfriend and Helena Kallianiotes, the furious yet refreshing hitchhiker. The currently available DVD offers no extra material, but if any movie warrants the critical reissue with commentary, interviews and (if available) deleted scenes, Five Easy Pieces begs for the bonus treatment. This could be Nicholson’s penultimate performance and the reverberations from this urgent yet honest portrayal still linger on the lower frequencies of our collective consciousness.

—Sean Murphy

Earth Day (Popmatters.com Blog)

2008-05-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sound Affects
The PopMatters Music Blog

Yesterday's Jukebox

3 May 2008

Earth Day

Question: Is it possible that a band could sell over one hundred million albums, be referenced constantly by groups spanning multiple genres, and whose very name is considered synonymous with an entire type of music be underrated?

Improbable as it may sound, Black Sabbath is quite possibly the most misconstrued super group of all time. This certainly is not to imply anyone should feel sorry for these very loved—and very wealthy—avatars of heavy metal. Shed no tears for Tony Iommi. He is widely—and appropriately—acknowledged as one of rock music’s seminal guitar gods, the architect of a sound that, while distinctly his own, is anything but stagnant or formulaic; indeed, his body of work, considering only the music he made in the ‘70s, is varied, nuanced and deep. No, really. Of course, he’ll always remain in the shadow of Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page—just to name two of the undisputed heavyweights (not unlike Ray Davies will forever play bridesmaid to Lennon/McCartney and the Glimmer Twins). And that is as it should be. Still, there are two crucial elements working against a more sober and salient appraisal of his genius: the name of his band, and Ozzy Osbourne.

The all-too-easily disparaged (and, for the easily offended, objectionable) appellation Black Sabbath ensures that the band could never really be taken all that seriously. Not only is this a damn (albeit not a crying ) shame, it is enough to make one wish they had simply stuck with their original name. Earth, as the band was initially known in industrial Birmingham, England, is, incidentally, a much more appropriate word to associate with this very blue-collar and bruising band. Earth is the opposite or air, the ground is not ethereal, and water turns it to mud; if ever a band basked proudly and beautifully (and always unabashedly) in the mud, it is Sabbath. And despite all the silly mythmaking, the only thing demonic about this band was its proclivity for employing the musical tritone (also known as the Devil’s Interval) in its music.

Then there is Ozzy. God bless this clown prince of darkness; his antics often undermined the band even as his vocals made them immortal (if any live footage exists of him ever getting the lyrics right to a single song, let me know). And this was before he became Ozzy, , the moon-barking , PMRC-instigating Supertzar who conquered the world. Osbourne, to his considerable credit, was never in danger of taking the act, or himself, too seriously, and he was certainly enjoying the ride—not to mention the drugs—all through Sabbath’s decade of doom and domination.

And yet—and this is the larger and often overlooked point—the music this band made was, for the most part, dead serious: from the live-in-the-studio cauldron of blackened blues debut album, to the riff-heard-round-the-world title track from their follow-up Paranoid, this was an act with a considerable chip on its shoulder, and few punches were pulled until Ozzy, muddled and miserable, was asked to leave in ’79. From their eagerness to take on tough-talking politicians who can never quite find the courage to fight in the wars they start (“War Pigs”), to the dangers of hard drugs (“Hand of Doom”), to the pleasures of soft drugs (“Sweet Leaf”), to the ambivalence of drug-induced oblivion (“Snowblind”) to proto-thrash metal (“Symptom of the Universe”) to all-encompassing attacks on the system (“Over to You”), it is ignorant, even a bit hysterical, to dismiss this group as a simplistic one-trick pony. Granted, their music is not for everyone, but in this iPod age it would be a compelling experiment to cue up a track list that includes “Planet Caravan”, “Orchid”, “Embryo”, “Laguna Sunrise”, “Don’t Start (Too Late)”, and “It’s Alright”, then give an uninitiated listener ten guesses to name that band.

To be certain, Sabbath made some serious mistakes along the way: while the irreconcilable sludge of Master of Reality did (and does) augment its murky charms, the ham fisted (or red-nosed) production on Volume 4 does grave disservice to Iommi’s 40-minute guitar clinic—equal parts symphony and assault. And the band’s one truly mixed bag, the occasionally brilliant and mostly uneven mess that is Technical Ecstasy not only slowed momentum, but made it way too easy for critics (and even fans) to hastily—and wrongly—overlook their final album and possible masterpiece, Never Say Die!. Once Ozzy exited the picture, it is fair to assume that the band would have faded into the void if they had made the courageous decision to soldier on with drummer Bill Ward assuming vocal duties (the aforementioned “It’s Alright” and the last song on the last album, “Swinging the Chain”, offer evidence that this experiment may have worked out quite nicely). It was never going to happen, but they would have arguably made better albums in the Ozzy aftermath if they had given it a shot. Instead, with the very unsatisfactory Ronnie James Dio grabbing the mic, the good old bad days stayed in the ‘70s.

Looking back, one wishes they had just pulled a Brian Wilson and gotten Ozzy his own sandbox, or let him work the wet bar in the caboose of his custom-made crazy train. But then, he had to leave; it had to end so we could have the subsequent Behind The Music special. Without Ozzy hitting rock bottom there would be no rebirth, no Randy Rhoads, no PETA protests, no reality TV show. The Sabbath singer had worn out his welcome, but Ozzy’s work was not yet done: there were ants to snort, dove’s heads to decapitate, and most significantly, the Alamo to urinate on (and let’s face it: someone had to urinate on the Alamo).

And so, in the end, it is as it should have been: one band, one decade, one legacy—everything that came after comes with an asterisk. Nevertheless, the records need to be set straight: Sabbath is one of the very few bands that is actually better than it sounds. And we haven’t even begun to talk about Bill Ward’s (overlooked) drumming and Geezer Butler’s (criminally overlooked) bass playing…Still, with a name like Black Sabbath, it is tempting to associate the music with a band that only comes out at night. Nonsense. Looking at the sad state of affairs in our wicked world, we need them now more than ever.

Got no religion, don’t need no friends
Got all I want and I don’t need to pretend
Don’t try to reach me, ‘cause I’d tear up your mind
I’ve seen the future and I’ve left it behind.

True in ’72; true today. And when you look at it that way, every day is Earth day.

TO BE CONT’D…

It's Not (Only) About Obama

2008-03-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

It's Not (Only) About Obama
by Sean G. Murphy
topplebush.com
February 22, 2008

It is curious, yet oddly illuminating, that so many media blowhards (the predictable conservative and especially the liberal) who seem most surprised—and increasingly nonplussed—by Barack Obama’s success are the ones with the most to lose. Not their notions of safety and security or their concerns for country and community; but rather, the one thing that matters above all: their relevance. Their credibility, of course, has already taken a beating, at least what shreds of it still cling to them, having been beaten about by the proverbial winds of change—change now being the dreaded C word for those scribes allergic to introspection and unwilling, or possibly unable, to consider their culpability for the sorry state of our union.
To be clear, these are the same pundits who sniff with haughty exasperation at the so-called “cultish” elements of the Obama phenomenon. It seems quite safe to predict that there will be much more of these holier-than-thou admonishments in the weeks ahead, and it is a certainty that more ink will be spilled over Obama’s ascendancy than tears shed for the current war—that one without an end in sight, which they did much more than they’d care to admit in helping to facilitate. It will be instructive to keep in mind that most of these inside-the-beltway intellectuals were not exactly thinking outside the box during most of the Bush years. At least until it was way too little, way too late. Effectively herded into the bullpen that Bush, Inc. built, their collective wisdom was nowhere on display during the unfolding of Operation Iraqi Freedom. To recap, this pusillanimous posse displayed exactly what makes them so often insufferable, and predictable: a pack mentality without the will to confront, much less question, the obvious spin, spoon-fed from a crusading pack of Neocon hyenas who, with the zeal of true believers and the arrogance of true imbeciles, dedicated all of their energies toward conning a country—still susceptible from 9/11—into what (shock and awe!) is already considered one of the foremost, and costliest, blunders in American history.
But everyone already knows that, right? Herein lies the rub: some people predicted it all. Tons and tons of them. Alas, not many of them had access to their own bylines and MSM readership. And yet, the prevailing myth these myopic enablers now desperately hope to propagate revolves around a malevolent administration that hoodwinked us all into war. Shucks, if only we knew then what we know now…Nice try. The (literally) silent majority of news-actors, columnists and Sunday talk show circuiteers couldn’t be bothered to do anything as radical as actually examining what was painfully apparent to anyone with a modicum of knowledge about anything relating to the Middle East (a PhD in Iraqi relations was not a prerequisite here). Or, anyone who might have taken the time to revisit the rationale provided for the U.S. exodus from Iraq—a carefully considered diplomatic decision that, not quite ironically, was widely reviled by the armchair architects of the current fiasco. And yet these are the same folks who wish to be taken seriously, now, when commenting on current events involving everything from the surge to the (suddenly) suspicious ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In short and in sum, no one should be surprised if any (or all) of these self-appointed legislators of what comprises (and compromises) the status quo protest a tad too much, as they collectively represent the antithesis of change.
Which brings us to Hillary Clinton—she of the steely resolve, years of experience and judgment to lead on Day One. The same Clinton who, with one and a half eyes already on ’08, calculated, then, that the only way to bolster her credentials as a would-be Commander in Chief for an eventual (and inevitable) White House run was to out-hawk the more bellicose self-preservationists in her party (Hello, Mr. Lieberman!). In short, she sold out principle, common sense, and a distressing slab of her soul (or, at the very least, anything approximating genuine concern for innocent lives—American and Iraqi) when she, along with many others who should have known better (Hello, Mr. Edwards!), rubber-stamped Pee Wee’s big adventure. And, importantly, she has since steadfastly avoided articulating anything other than an unconvincing, and often incoherent, string of cop-outs and equivocations. This, to listen to her stump speech, is the type of leader America desperately needs following the same Bush years she did more to help than to hinder.
(A quick and semi-painless side note about the punch-drunk driver of the stray-talk express, the man who has—with astonishingly little ROI—pandered his blackening heart out to the lunatic hardliners who, apparently, still can commission the GOP’s seal of approval. The former prisoner of war was—famously of infamously, depending on how far to the right you can tilt without falling over—against torture before he was…for it? By his own admission he has recently come to refine his views, all of course in a timorous attempt to assuage the party Poobahs, begging the question: where does that leave this prototypical one trick pony, now? Big Mac without the moral authority—or at least moral indignation—on whether the U.S. can tolerate torture is like Rudy G. without the opportunity to pimp the deaths of several thousand New York citizens. Put simply, the real McCain has assumed control, and no further discussion of his otherwise nonexistent platform is necessary.)
But getting back to Billary. To their credit, the worst couple have outdone themselves, surpassing even the most skeptical critics’ depiction of her as a callous, divide-and-conquer Queen Bee. The Clintons, clearly, won’t do half-measures. The earth cannot be too scorched after their machinery has made its way through town. It is, to be fair, a remarkable achievement: to alienate some of the most devoted advocates of Bubba’s eight-year tour of duty (which, in any reasonable analysis, was more than half-hindered by the best efforts of those monomaniacal GOP goons who, in Slick Willy, found their once-in-a-lifetime white whale; just like in the book, the final confrontation was brutal and bloody, but the behemoth, coasting on the goodwill of forgiving, and/or appropriately indifferent citizens, remained mostly unscathed and lived to dive again into safer, and more lucrative waters).
For anyone who, understandably, is exhausted from that “us vs. the world” mixture of triangulated antipathy and distasteful entitlement, it is understandable why one would not exactly look forward to four-to-eight years of an all-in, Winner-Take-Little war of attrition, played with (White) House money. Everyone knew Hillary’s wrecking crew would resort to any available tactic from the dirty tricks arsenal, and invent new ones on the fly. But who could have imagined her husband, the so-called “first black president”, pulling a thinly veiled Strom Thurmond after Obama’s South Carolina victory? Again, this was not politics as usual so much as the most sickeningly cynical of appeals to the worst angels of a historically red state. Not to mention an electorate that would otherwise be justifiably celebrating authentic progress (for the party, for the country).
And yet, it has been the awkward attempts to explain how she was on board with respecting the agreement to officially ignore the Florida and Michigan delegates before she came to her senses, (of course, in a fashion that could only be described as Clintonian, she had ensured that her name was on those ballots, just in case), that seemed to serve as the final straw for many fence-sitters. Who, in the end, could stomach an administration that, at best, is going to be loathed by 49% of the population? We’ve had eight years of animosity, and that commenced with a candidate who—as opposed to Hillary—had an ostensibly clean slate coming in. (This, of course, is not meant to insult the many millions of voters who saw through the prepackaged snake oil that substance-free clown prince was hawking in 1999; if anything, it should serve as a rude reminder for the voters who, overcome with apathy—or naiveté—endorsed Ralph Nader or, worse, sat it out in 2000 altogether.)
None of the above, incidentally, is to suggest that a Hillary Clinton presidency would not be incalculably more genuine, productive and rewarding than George W. Bush’s imbroglio. It would. Nevertheless, to see the imperfect couple perfectly content to engineer a campaign that believes a divided—if not partially destroyed—party is preferable to the unimaginable notion of actually losing, it remains refreshing, and quite fortunate, that we have other, better options.
Obama, as all but his more intractable foot soldiers would concede, has some work to do. And frankly, even that is in many ways a relief. Playtime is over and we can’t afford another cocksure child who knows that he has no qualms with not knowing shit. Besides, as we learned from Gore and Kerry, (among other things) policy wonkishness is overrated in campaign season, particularly when the competition is John “100 More Years” McCain. Also, anyone who actually suspects that Obama is, thus far, a triumph of stylish rhetoric over substance is advised to pick up a copy of Dreams from My Father, or take a closer look at his achievements in Illinois or, tellingly, the unassailable success of the campaign he has overseen.
The smart money says he is up for the challenge and, crucially, will most certainly surround himself, as intelligent and secure adults tend to do, with intelligent and secure associates. Still not convinced? Try this: the names Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Gonzales—or any of their ludicrous ilk—will be invited to influence or infest an Obama administration. And, unless she wakes up soon and accepts that an inevitable force of history (not her story) has passed her by, neither will Hillary Clinton.

Posted: March 3, 2008

Flashback: An Essay

2008-02-25T09:15:00.000-08:00

Flashback

Take a guy.
Let’s say he is about my age: old enough to own a place and pay almost all his bills sometimes; young enough to understand that he is not getting any younger. Add a dose of fresh alienation—not enough to be unhealthy, of course, but enough to enable him to function in a world full of imbecility and indifference and all those unattainable happily-ever-afters awaiting him on the other side of his flat screen TV. Take this guy and give him enough stability so that he has no excuses, but plenty of alibis. Most likely, he is utterly average in every regard, except for the fact that, unlike almost everyone he knows, he is aware of it. Finally, add the oncoming collision of a twenty-year high school reunion and there’s no choice but to buckle up and insert all applicable clichés, complacent epiphanies and the half-earned angst that is awaiting an ideal opportunity to boil up to the surface.

Time to pay tribute. Yes, at this point it would seem appropriate to tip the 40 and pour out some beer for our dead homeboy. But we don’t because we are not drinking beer. Also, he is not dead, and we are not in a music video or even a bad movie, and above all, we are too cynical, self-conscious, or married to imitate such affected gestures. Unless, of course, we were being ironic, but it’s too early in the evening for that type of commitment, so we’ll stick to doing what we do best: retelling stories that never happened exactly the way we insist on remembering them. No harm done, a little bullshit and bourbon on the rocks never hurt anyone. Besides, I am increasingly aware that it is because these stories are so obviously embellished that we need them to be true. Add a few hours and more than a few drinks and once again, here we are: backs to the future, looking in the mirror for someone who should be standing alongside us.
This is not exactly what they mean by flashing back, and yet I’m trying to stay in the moment, knowing I can if I try hard enough. But first I need to make sense of that old saying, how does it go? If I knew now what I didn’t know then? No. If I knew then what I did know, now? I don’t know. I’m here, but now—and not for nothing—I’m recalling the mistake I did not make, almost two decades ago.

Remember Love Boat? Not the TV show, but a blunt laced with PCP, also known as angel dust. The boat. This was the holy grail of illicit drugs, and considering the fact that all drugs were illicit, period, even a dumbass underclassman knew this was filed under Fucked Up. I didn’t know shit but I knew that alcohol was off limits, marijuana was out of the question, and Love Boat was officially off the charts. This was the stuff that longhaired actor took an accidental hit of and then quickly found himself perched on a rooftop, trying to fly (or perhaps that was the surreptitious tab of acid in his fruit punch, same difference). We saw that movie in the ‘70s and it scared us even straighter. Nevertheless, every so often when we were shooting hoop after school, some older brothers would show up, commandeer the court and show us all the things we knew we could never do. Inexorably, one of them would see us seeing them, raise his eyebrow and say the dangerous words: “You lookin’?”
Most likely, the question never presumed a possible transaction, and was more an offhand (but not ironic, because nobody knew what irony was at that age) way of reminding us, at once, who they were, who we were, and most significantly, who we would never be. But some other kids were in on the action; they had to be. Why else would we constantly be on the receiving end of these perfunctory solicitations? Eventually, we agreed that it could only be one group of unusual suspects: the freaks. Older students, the rock concert t-shirt wearing army of outcasts; the rebels who at one time had been athletes, or nerds, of drama dorks, and then popped through the pimple of post adolescent purgatory and found themselves born again as deadbeats. The ones, we belatedly recognized, who saw through the self-immolation of Izod shirts and feathered hair, the ones who shirked intramural activities and the safety of numbers, the ones who could no longer belong to any Key Club that might accept them as members. The ones who never even got hassled by the jocks because they simply were not worth the aggravation; a cafeteria-style ass kicking would not earn a striving sophomore any status. These were the guys, everyone knew, who dared to flick their middle fingers at student governance, decorum and the future: they were going nowhere and seemed to be in a real hurry to get there. These were the ones, we decided, who had the audacity, when the brothers asked if they were looking, to say yes.

Just say no? Remember, this was a world before computers and consoles and cell phones and even CD players. Not an innocent era, by any means, but a time when some of us read books because we couldn’t think of anything better to do. A time when growing pains were the physical kind and the one thing everyone agreed upon was that we couldn’t get older quickly enough. A time, most likely, that comprised the formative years so many adults feel an almost unbearable longing for, mostly because whatever it is they were feeling can’t ever be felt that way again. Sentimental? Shit, I still find myself craving the same things I hoped for then: a pretty girlfriend (remember going steady?), a decent report card (also known as a performance review), to be considered cool by the types of people who are considered cool, and mostly to be accountable, at last, and free to do whatever the hell I want when I grow up. Someday.
We didn’t know how much we did not know, but we knew what everyone else seemed to understand. Such as, the U.S.A. could kick some Soviet ass if it had to (ask Rocky), that God existed (and, assuredly, was a Capitalist God), that he who dies with the most toys wins, and we all knew exactly what we’d become after graduating from our first or second choice colleges: some of us would be practicing L.A. law, some of us would be sporting Top Gun bomber jackets, some of us would get wealthy on Wall Street, and the rest of us would have the old-fashioned types of jobs that you could actually describe in one or two words. What we were not going to be was forgettable. We did not know where we were headed, but we were emboldened by an instinctual understanding that our parents’ wallets would insulate us from too much reality, or at least break our fall if any of us tripped climbing up that American ladder.
Not quite everything we believed turned out to be wrong, and life is usually kind enough to wait a while before it reveals some of the answers to questions you never knew needed to be asked. But even before graduation we were disabused of at least one illusion that took us down a notch or two: it wasn’t the freaks that dared not to just say no, it was ourselves.

Not me, you understand. I was too chickenshit, or at least too Catholic, to dabble in the dust, and while I reckon there was a vague contentment underlying that decision, I am even more relieved, looking back. See, I went to college, and I saw the reefer (smoked it too), smelled the shrooms (ate them too), saw the unsnorted remnants of white powder under the noses of blissed out fraternity brothers (fortunately for all involved, I did not have the funds for that type of fun). And, obviously, the alcohol. None of us were ever the same after those first dozen or so hangovers: no matter what it dished out, we kept going back to the unwell, looking for something to…what, exactly? Provide pleasure? Instigate adventure? Derail inhibition? Seek fleeting solace from the cold, cruel world? Sure, all that crap, but something else as well. There is a reason the most expensive advertisements are still allowed to promote an activity that kills more kids each year than any boogeyman on amphetamines—or Nancy Reagan for that matter—could ever conceive in their darkest dreams. There is something that alcohol almost, but never quite delivers, that keeps everyone in the game. Just like back in the day, there’s safety in numbers, and it would sure seem Un-American to cast aspersions on something so many people need to believe in.
Nevertheless, I saw a handful of buddies brought low, churned up and rehabbed before they turned twenty-one, and every year at least one friend or acquaintance finally finds something else to look forward to on Friday afternoons. What I’m saying is, I’m lucky. Because I never pushed my luck and ended up biting something that bit back and wouldn’t let go. But if I knew then, what I know now, I may have unwittingly joined a few of the guys—who got better grades than I did—when they took trips across town in a borrowed car.
Get this: not only were some of the guys we knew in on the action (and for the record, as far as they knew the freaks never touched the stuff—more irony wasted, like everything else, on the young), their escapades were abetted by a teacher. Put another way, a teacher at our school was paying them to make drug runs. To an adult, today, this shouldn’t seem shocking; indeed, it is practically expected. But that is only because we are too well acquainted with irony, which merely proves that we no longer have the capacity to surprise ourselves, if we ever did. In any event, it turns out that the mastermind of these Love Boat runs was quite possibly the least likely culprit and therefore (in hindsight?) the most obvious. Mr. X., as he was not known, since this is not his name, was at the time—and still, in my mind—ageless, simply an adult, although he could not have been much older than thirty. If this story were depicted in a movie, the car the kids borrowed would have been nice, perhaps ironically nice, instead of the unremarkable piece of shit it actually was. And, crucially, Mr. X. would be played by George Clooney, or a lesser star that still emanates the slick celluloid charisma no real people can ever obtain. In the movie, the teacher would have a tragic flaw: a college football injury that derailed his obvious path to the pros, or some type of self-loathing resulting from a dark secret that he finally confronts in the end. Or something similarly redemptory, and ridiculous. In truth, Mr. X. was a mess—not quite morbidly obese, but working on it with the inimitable dedication of a junk food enthusiast. To look at him, even then, it seemed exceedingly improbable that he was once a varsity wrestler (in another state, in another world) and an offensive tackle. Well, it was a little easier to imagine him as an offensive tackle. And he had the pictures to prove it. Nonetheless, those days behind him, he had really gone to the (hot) dogs, a second-rate high school jock who had peaked at age seventeen, then metastasized into a third-rate high school geometry teacher. At least, looking back, he’d had the educational upbringing (in another state, in another world) to have sufficiently mastered mathematics. Today, after TV and YouTube had their way with him, he would have been fatter sooner, and the best he could have hoped for was teaching P.E., although (again, ironically) the gym teachers are in better shape today then they were then. Hopefully they are dressing better as well.
Even today, it’s difficult to determine which revelation is the most unsettling: that one of our boys was casually smoking Love Boat with older, cooler guys (it was enough that, as a junior, he could hang with the senior wrestlers, the ones who walked through the locker room like Greek gods with acne), that he could dabble without fear of addiction (he could hit it and quit it, precisely what the rest of us, with our after school special sensibilities, were terrified of being unable to do), or that the assistant wrestling coach, and teacher (!), was a more than recreational user. He was crazy, and brazen, enough to loan his car, and his funds, to a group of varsity lettermen so they could cross the bridge into D.C. and get the goods. Or maybe they snuck right across town, in broad daylight, to the basketball court, near a neighborhood that was verboten even before rap music, and guns, were invented.

You know how this story ends: nothing happened (wait for the movie). The star athletes went off to school on scholarships and our boy, we assumed, grew out of his bad habit or, with his willing accomplices removed from the scene of the crimes, had no one to instigate further misdeeds. Mr. X.? Long gone; no idea where, not even worth Googling. Besides, unless he found Christ or Jenny Craig, the smart money says he’s currently kickin’ it in his oversized coffin. Full disclosure: it’s not his fault that I never understood parallelograms or gave a good shit about the Pythagorean theorem (remember that? Me neither), but he certainly didn’t do much to ameliorate my apathy.
In any event, everyone had plans before graduation; everyone had plans for after graduation as well, but that’s a different story altogether. Some of the guys were still pilfering liquor from their parents’ supply—that eternal fountain of youth; some guys (the smart ones, the lucky ones) were still trying to get laid for the first time before high school ended. Allegedly, some of them succeeded. Some people were busy doing whatever it was everyone did before you could live your entire life online. The rest of us, bored and boring, not knowing enough to be careful what we wished for, felt begrudgingly grateful to stand on the ostensible threshold of adulthood. We posed for pictures, we put on the caps and gowns, and eventually, inevitably, we strolled across that stage.
But one of us wasn’t there that day: our boy, who need not be named, and in the interest of fuller disclosure, was only on the periphery of my circle (that would need to be addressed in more detail for the movie). Still, we knew him, we grew up with him, and those of us who weren’t doing the things he shouldn’t have been doing were just as surprised as everyone else when, (it seemed) he was abruptly yanked out of school in the middle of the year. Just like that, he was gone, sent to one of those discreet asylums that only upper-middle class parents and pop stars from the cover of People magazine can afford. He wasn’t there, but he was with us, ensuring that we did not, in the name of good dumb fun, become unwitting apprentices to the Sorcerer who, with one angel-scented spell, could send us careening into an early adulthood. Or, even worse, some of the lives none of us would ever have imagined ourselves growing into.

Myself When I'm Real: An excerpt from the novel

2008-02-24T08:01:00.000-08:00

I am not alone. I have a best friend, who happens to be a dog. He is really good for me, reminding me to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and generally making sure that I get out a few times a day. He walks me whenever he gets the chance and our favorite time is after work, when we reenter the building and the walls and halls come alive, warm with the savory smells of home-made meals (you can never smell fast food, although that scent lingers in the elevator, as if ashamed to be associated with the honesty, the effort and industry of these prepared productions).
No one sits down to dinner anymore, but all around me, people are sitting down, eating meat loaf, or some sort of roast that has simmered on low heat all afternoon. Maybe there is even a pie prepared for dessert. Maybe, inside someone’s kitchen, it’s still the 1950’s.
And I remind myself that someday, if my cards play me right, I will enjoy a real meal around a table, and experience all that I’ve been missing during these efficient years of isolation. I will clear the table and clean the dishes, I will sit on the couch and take a crack at the crossword, or catch a made-for-TV movie, or go run errands or consult a book of baby names for the offspring on the way, and eventually I will work on improving my bad habits and attempt to overlook my wife’s inadequacies (the quirks that were so endearing in those early days). I will, at last, learn to communicate openly and as an adult. Mostly, I will not be alone.

My dog is a trooper.
He’s never called in sick a single day of his life: up at the crack of dawn every day, including weekends, stretched, eager, and anxious to take on the world. Or at least take a walk.
My dog takes his work very seriously, and has succeeded in making more friends than I have. He does not discriminate: men, women, cars, trees, and other dogs—especially other dogs. He wants to meet everyone, and he patrols the neighborhood like it’s his job. I, for one, admire his dedication.
Thanks to him, I am on a first-name basis with all the other dogs in my building, though I have a hard time remembering what to call their owners.
Take this guy: an older man (I don’t want to call him an old man), whose name I’ve never gotten around to establishing. I sort of prefer it that way, as he provides me with a mystery I enjoy embellishing. Where most of my neighbors are obviously what they are: mothers, fathers, bachelors, wives, working stiffs, senior citizens, anonymous law-abiding entities, et cetera, this man alone retains, for me and my imagination, an enigmatic air. He wears a wedding band, but I’ve never seen or met his spouse. He is friendly, so much so that it initially took me a while to warm up to him.
Maybe this is the way other people saw my old man. Yes, he is definitely someone’s father: he has rolled up his sleeves to punish, praise, clean, counsel, inspire, admonish, argue, approve, second-guess, support and silence. In short, things I have never done. And I think (I can’t help myself): he is a way I’ll never be.
All of us, of course, are more or less the same: we live, we work, we sleep, we eat, we love, we fight, we forget, we try to remember, we think, we break down and then we die. In this regard, all living creatures are more alike than not.
But humans are different.
We know who we are, so we wonder (we can’t help ourselves) things like: What has that man done that I’ll never do? What has he seen that I’ll never see? What parts of the world he once lived in are gone forever, replaced by newer things that younger people, not yet born, will wonder about, in time?
If I had lived in the ‘50’s, that man might have been a spy, a professor, a pedophile (I would have called him a pervert), a recluse, a con artist—but above all, he most certainly would be a Communist.
If I had lived in the 50’s, I would eat an egg for breakfast each morning with either bacon or sausage or sometimes both, I would also eat pastrami sandwiches, drink whole milk and smoke endless streams of cigarettes, I would be father to as many children as God (most certainly a Capitalist God) saw fit to provide, I would live closer to my parents, I would miss church service seldom on Sundays and never on Holy Days of Obligation, I would know how to fix my toilet and sink if they dripped, I would never have had a shirt professionally pressed, I would drive an American car and never wear a seat belt, I would have a job that I could actually describe in one or two words. I would be, quite conceivably, content.
My dog is content. One thing is for sure: if my dog lived in the ‘50’s, he would be content, just as he would be content fifty years from now. After all, all dogs want is other dogs (I think my dog thinks I’m a dog). People aren’t like that, which, I suppose is why people love dogs. The older man and I love our dogs, and for a few seconds we watch them sniff each other.
“Hot enough for ya?”
“Yeah well, it’s the humidity!”
(To ourselves we say this).
Then we go our separate ways, exchanging pleasantries.
I say: Have a nice day.
Likewise, he replies, then smiles. Not to mention a nice life.
I smile, then walk away, still smiling. Who the hell does this guy think he is, saying something like that? How dare he say something like that. Unless he means it. No one says something like that. Unless they are actually, inconceivably content.
I’m still smiling, but then a sobering thought sideswipes me (again): That man is a way I’ll never be.

There is a man who sits near the pumps at the gas station I drive by to and from work each day. He is very obviously from somewhere else and has that certain look—the meek, awestruck eyes, the apprehensive gestures that indict him as someone who speaks little, if any, English—a stranger.
He remains respectfully distant from the customers who incessantly fill their tanks, like bees returning to the nest before heeding the urgency of their instinctual obligations—but near enough to the action to remain in plain view. He sells flowers. Actually, he doesn’t seem to sell anything, he pretty much sits there, on an upturned milk crate, often from early morning until well into the evening, after the rest of the weary warriors have commuted past him, home from work and their worries of the wicked world. He silently, stoically plies his wares, content to play his part in the charade: he is not accomplishing much, he is begging, and the milk crate and collection of fading flowers at his feet communicate his inexpressible anguish. Please help me, his unscrubbed face, his unlaced sneakers, his oversized slacks, his filthy, fidgeting fingers—everything but his voice—all ask, saying what he cannot, and will not, say for himself.

Once you reach the age where you want to begin lying about how old you are (signified when you start losing the hair on your head and find it turning up in places it has no business being, like your back, your shoulders, your ears and especially your nose) you want to slow down, avoid the wreckage that is ruining everyone around you.
You spend your formative years cultivating your own unique set of issues and get to a certain age (some people actually become adults) where you realize you have issues, and they are the only things you own that no one else wants. Then you work toward eradicating your issues, and the strongest amongst us survive and eventually some of them make money sitting there, listening to people (who are paying them) talk about their issues. Then, inevitably, sitting around and listening to people talk about their issues helps them develop an accelerated, more complicated set of issues.
No one gets out of here unscathed, and you may think you’ve got life beat, but it waits, then sucker punches you in sudden death overtime.
Take this guy, for instance.
Laying low at the stoplight, I have no choice but to get a load of this specimen strolling down the sidewalk, a big shit-eating grin stretched across his face. Immediately, instinctively, I roll up the window.
“What a shame,” (to myself I say this).
What kind of sick-ass world are we living in when the sight of some happy-go-lucky son of a bitch, some idiot who actually seems to be enjoying life, arouses a feeling of fear?
And yet. It’s always the smiling psycho who slips out a sawed-off shotgun in the supermarket, or takes a hostage at the playground. It’s never the guy grimacing in line behind you; it’s never the sketchy character with the five o’clock shadow and fedora that shoots up the 7-Eleven—those faces only exist in films. Besides, no one smiles when they’re walking down the street, not in real life, not these days. Anyone who does is already living in the future; beaming at visions of the bomb they just detonated, causing a twenty-car pile up on the freeway. Or else they are smirking in silent acknowledgment of the helpful voices in their head admonishing them to be ever vigilant for anal-probing aliens, or eavesdropping federal agents, or the guy in my car looking at them with envy in his eyes. No, it’s infinitely more refreshing, and routine, to observe a stranger, swearing and scowling his way down the street. That’s a person you can trust, a person hiding no secrets, a person ensconced in the painful prison of the here-and-now.

I’m listening to the old woman again.
This is another part of my daily routine: every time I enter the building after walking my dog, or if I’m stopping to get the mail, or anytime I am anywhere between my front door and the main entrance, this woman (I have no other option but to say she is an old woman) whose name I of course cannot remember, appears like a mosquito at a campfire.
She is there every time—every time—if I’m walking out (I’ve learned not to step out of my door in only my boxer shorts) to throw my trash down the chute, she’s there; if I am coming or going to work, she’s there; if I open my door (I’ve learned not to open my door without my boxer shorts on) to get the newspaper, she’s there; and especially if I’m returning with rapidly cooling carry-out food, she’s there.
I had half-seriously begun to consider whether or not she had rigged my door to some sort of honing device, and then I slowly started to notice, over time, it isn’t just me (of course it isn’t just me)—it’s even worse than that. It’s everyone, it’s anyone: anyone she can see or talk to, anyone she can make that human touch with, however fleetingly, any excuse she can find to escape the oppression of her immaculate isolation.

Bang: another day ends with a whimper. Cooked on the surface but still raw inside, it’s all in a daze work as I drive home through disorienting yet familiar streets. Survival suburban-style; a metropolis in transition, trying its best to live up to the image it was designed to imitate—sprung from the minds of forward-thinking people who are trying to recreate the past. On the corner high school punks stand beside a phone booth, making no calls; a quick right turn and I’m feeling the money dread as I cruise past several blocks of four car families. Being outside the city is safer, particularly if you prefer the sound of crickets to cop sirens. Eventually, I arrive somewhere in the middle ground of this middlebrow town, and for lack of any other options, I am relieved.
And yet. This is supposed to happen later, with wife and kids and a basement to be banished to after hours. I’ll deal with that later. I think.
My front door is the one mystery to which I have the key, but for some reason I still feel as though I’m sneaking up on a stranger every time I return from a dishonest day’s work; I’m not sure who I expect to see, who might be hiding from me, who possibly could have found the way into my modest refuge from friends and memories.
With Pavlovian precision, I make my way to the medicine cabinet and pour myself a bracing plug of bourbon. If this were a movie (I think, mostly in the past, but even today), I would grab my crystal decanter, filled with obviously expensive spirits, and administer that potion the old-fashioned way, needing no ice cubes, especially since I would never get around to drinking it, as it’s only a prop, a cliché. No one reaches for that tumbler these days (except in movies); the question is: did they ever? Even in the ‘50’s? Or has it always been part of the script?

I still have hangovers, thank God.
Everyone who has known an alcoholic knows that as soon as you stop feeling the pain, it’s because you are no longer feeling the pain; you are no longer feeling much of anything.
So, I welcome the horrors of the digital cock crowing in my ear at an uncalled for hour, and am grateful for the flaming phlegm in my throat, the snakes chasing their tails through my sinuses, the smoke stuck behind my eyelids, the shards of glass in my gut, and the special ring of hell circling my head. Because if it weren’t for those handful of my least favorite things, I’d know I had some serious problems.
All of us can think of a friend whose father (or mother for that matter), we came to understand, was in an entirely different league when it came to the science of cirrhosis. The man who falls asleep fully clothed with a snifter balanced over his balls, then up and out the door before sunrise, like the rest of the inverted vampires who do their dirty work during the day in three piece suits. Maybe it’s a martini at lunch, or several cigarettes an hour to take the edge of. Whatever it is, whatever it takes, they always make it out, and they always come back, for the family and to the refrigerator, filled with the best friends anyone can afford.
Our friends’ fathers came of age in the bad old days that fight it out, for posterity, in the pages of books, uneasy memories and the wishful thinking of TV reruns: the ‘50’s. These are men who have never opened a bottle of wine and have no use for imported beer, men who actually have rye in their liquor cabinets—who still have liquor cabinets for that matter. These are men who were raised by men that never considered church or sick-days optional, and the only thing they disliked more than strangers was their neighbors. Men who didn’t believe in diseases and didn’t drink to escape so much as to remind themselves exactly what they never had a chance to become. Theirs was an alcoholism that did not involve happy hours and karaoke contests; theirs was a sit down with the radio and a whiskey sour, a refill with dinner and one before, during and after the ballgame. Or maybe they’d mow the lawn to liven things up, tinker under the hood of a car that had a long way to go before it could become a classic. Or perhaps friends would come over to play cards. Sometimes a second bottle would get broken out. This was a slow burn of similar nights: stiff upper lips, the sun setting on boys playing baseball, mothers sitting on the couch watching TVs families did not yet own, of forced smiles battling bottled tears in the bottom of a coffee mug, of amphetamines and affairs, overhead fans and undernourished kids, of evening papers and a creeping conviction that there is no God, of poets unable to make art out of the mess they’d made of their lives.
It was a hard time where people did not live happily ever after, if they ever lived at all. It was a time, in other words, not unlike our own.

Daydream notion. Sitting on the porch on a Sunday afternoon. Too early to start drinking, too late to stop myself from the too many drinks I had last night, and wondering things like: how seriously should one consider the expiration date on a jar of mayonnaise?
Hung over. Overhung. Hung out to dry heave. Name it, if it’s bad, that’s me.
Inhaling fast food (obviously), wondering how much my liver will let me push it around before it stands up and says I’m not going to take this anymore! It’s too hard to think and eat, so I concentrate on the food, trying not to acknowledge how incredibly awful this crap is (bad for me, bad for the environment, bad for the people who make minimum wage selling it, bad for the people who make less than minimum wage manufacturing it, and especially bad for the miserable animals whose synthetic lives are sacrificed so that we can do all these bad things).
Every time I eat fast food it’s like having sex with an old girlfriend. I’ll start to think about it: lustfully, then obsessively, then violently. I need to have it, and when I’m finally enjoying it there is nothing better, nothing else in the wretched world exists while I’m getting it on, getting it in me, devoting every iota of my being into the dirty enterprise. Eventually, inevitably, it ends, and the second it’s over those intolerable feelings of guilt begin. The sloth, the lack of control, the sickening pangs of self-loathing. Et cetera. And I promise myself never to do it again. Then the whole room reeks of what just went down, and it hangs in the air, imploding like an enraged cloud until, in my defiant fashion, I get hungry again and the smell starts to distract me until I can’t take it, and I need more. Immediately.

Later: it’s late, we’re alive, and I suddenly wish I were alone.
It was as good for her (I hope) as it was for me, and after, we lie down in darkness, with no choice but to talk since neither of us happens to smoke.
Tell me about it, I say.
Tell you what? She asks.
What’s your story? I ask.
I got laid off, she says.
Shitcanned? I ask.
No, downsized, she says.
Everyone gets downsized, I say.
They do these days, she says.
Unless you’re lucky, I say.
You’ve been lucky so far, she says.
Yes, that’s why I’m so miserable, I say.
Tell me about it, she says.

Now get a load of this guy.
My neighbor, whose name I’ve of course forgotten—if in fact I ever knew it in the first place—(and, being roughly my age, never objects to and always answers my irrefutably cordial salutations which include chief, dude, bro, and the ever appropriate and all purpose man) is standing outside my door: I can see him through the peep hole.
While I wonder if I should wait to see if he’ll knock again, he knocks again. It’s eight-thirty in the morning, what’s the worst thing that could happen?
“Hey man,” he says, embarrassed or anxious. Or both (at least he doesn’t remember my name either).
“What’s up my man?” I say, not missing a beat.
“Listen, sorry to bother you…you on your way to work?”
“Yeah, actually…why, is everything okay?”
“Uh, yeah, listen, do you mind if I come inside for a second?”
I back up obligingly, resigned to roll with it. What choice is there? After all, I did open the door.
He corners me in my kitchen and asks if I know anyone who might be interested in buying a condo. His condo, for instance.
“I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love to live here,” I offer.
“Yeah, I know, but…I mean, do you know anyone who’s looking to buy a place?”
“I’d be happy to ask around, you know, put the word on the street and whatnot…”
“Yeah, that’d be cool, I’d appreciate that.”
He looks away and it’s my turn to say something.
“Everything okay?”
‘Yeah, well, I got laid off, you know? So I’m just gonna move home for a while, with my folks. You know, ‘til I get my shit straight.”
“I hear you,” I say as encouragingly as possible, but it’s only half true. I do hear him, but I also hear myself (saying I hear you) as well as the voice inside my head, which is processing this situation and repeating the verdict: Not good, not good, not good.
He is sweating, his hands—which seem puffy and pale, I’ve never noticed what unbelievable meat hooks he has, though admittedly, the only times I bump into him are in the hallway as he disappears into his end unit with a case of Miller Lite cans under one arm, McDonalds or some other fast food monstrosity in the other—his hands, exhibits A and B, are shaking like the lid on a boiling pot, they are very obviously not obeying their master, and before I have half a chance to put two and two together he interrupts my internal assessment and looks at me searchingly.
“Hey, uh, you got any beer?”
At eight thirty-three in the A.M., there is only one possible answer to a question like this: “Sure,” I say.
I open the refrigerator and remember: I drank my last beer last night, which makes me a liar.
“Actually, I don’t,” I start, but sense that will not suffice, so I hold the door open and let him inspect for himself, which he does, making us both feel better—or worse—depending on how you look at it. He accepts this answer, but is clearly not satisfied with my response.
“Oh. I have plenty of liquor, if…”
“Yeah, do you care if I take a shot of something?”
Are you sure you’re okay? (To myself I say this).
A pint glass is obviously inappropriate, so I grab a juice glass and put it down on the counter, sliding it over to him like a bartender from a black and white western. He has eagerly grabbed my fifth of Jack Daniels and I tell him to help himself.
He pours a generous, bordering on unbelievable, belt of my booze and inhales it in one febrile motion. This is strictly business (to myself I say this).
“Better?” I inquire, and actually mean it, I actually want to know.
“Uh…do you mind if I get another one?”
“Hey bro, knock yourself out,” I say. Stupidly.
He doesn’t notice because he’s too busy securing the second round in case I try and give last call at the last second. Even the sweat on his forehead seems relieved. Although I know exactly what time it is, I can’t help myself from looking up at the digits blinking on my oven: 8:34.
He looks at me and nods his head, expressing gratitude with his burning eyes. The eyes never lie. Then he snatches a tube of toothpaste out of his front pocket, puts it in his mouth and pulls the trigger.
“So, you wouldn’t mind asking around, you know, just see if anyone is looking to maybe live here…I’ll cut a deal…”
“No problem,” I assure him.
“…I’ll hook you up with a finder’s fee too…”
“Oh don’t worry about that man, I’m happy to help.”
Not good, not good, not good.
“Let me give you a card,” he says, putting the toothpaste back and reaching into his other pocket. I’m surprised, in spite of myself, that between the shaking and the sheer size of his hands he can even fit them into his shirtsleeves.
“Fuck,” he says, frazzled or furious. Or both.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“I left my fucking cards in my place…”
“Well don’t worry about it, let me just write your number down and…”
“No, let me run and get them, and you can hand them out and shit…”
“Okay.”
After a few painful minutes pass, I go down to get them myself.
On the way, I think: Gambling debts? Drugs? Or both?
Drugs, it must be drugs.
Whatever it is, it’s something I know I want no part of. It’s obviously something my neighbor wants no part of either, or we wouldn’t both be here right now.

I knock on the door.
It opens, quickly, and my neighbor walks out, shutting it behind him. Apparently I’m not supposed to see inside. Perhaps I don’t want to see inside.
He follows me into the hall.
“Hey man, I appreciate anything you can do.”
“No problem dude, I’m happy to help…”
“Listen,” he leans in close. “Do you mind if I grab another shot?”
“Sure thing bro.”
I’ve already locked my door on the way out, so I let myself back in, tricking my dog into thinking a full day has already passed.
The bottle and glass are still on the counter, forming sticky circles of an early morning crime scene.
“Do you mind if I pour a stiff one?”
“Help yourself chief.”
You want to take the bottle with you? (To myself I say this).
He pours a shot that would give Liberty Valance pause, polishes it off, and then pulls out the toothpaste from his holster.
I ask no questions, he tells no tales.
I tell my dog to hold down the fort (again) and my dog looks confused or disappointed. Or both. I lock the door (again) and escort my soon-to-be-ex-neighbor out.
“Thanks again,” he says, then looks at me meaningfully. “I appreciate it.”
“Okay man, take care of yourself.”
“Give me a call if you hear anything.”
“Will do.”
Both of us seem to understand, as we go our separate ways, that we’ll never see each other again, and we are each somewhat deflated, probably for opposite reasons.
On the way to work I have a memory that’s more like a dream: Newark Airport. That shithole. A place has to be exceptionally beautiful, or exceptionally appalling, or incomprehensibly pointless, in order to be easily remembered years after a brief visit.
When I was a kid, (I couldn’t have been much older than eight) my father and I had a layover in Newark airport. Even then, I was perceptive enough to understand that this was no place I ever needed to return voluntarily.
An unassuming older man (at any rate, he was noticeably older than my old man, which made him old) sat in one of those impossibly plain plastic chairs, with his pants leg rolled up. It wasn’t until we got closer that I realized two things: he was alone, and he was scratching at a series of scabs on his shin. For some reason he looked our way at the moment we passed him, and after sizing us up, he stood and amiably approached my father.
“Sir, did you need someone to help you and your son carry your bags?”
“No thanks, we’re okay,” my pops replied, looking ahead and picking up the pace.
The man was persistent. In the space of fifteen seconds—my father denied him three times—my emotions slid from the appreciation of possibly having someone carry my suitcase for me, to the vague, uneasy sense that my father was being somehow rude, a jerk, to the unsettling awareness of recognition. I sensed something I’d seen plenty of, but never before in any person older than myself: fear. I saw it in his eyes, and felt it in my insides.
As we walked away my old man waited until we were at a charitable distance, then looked at me meaningfully and offered the somber assertion: That’s as low as you can go. I asked him to elaborate, as I was apt to do, and he was either unwilling or unable to add anything to his observation, as he was apt to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what my father was saying, I understood him perfectly. It was because I understood him that I needed him to say more, to talk to me a little longer about it, about anything, anything to interrupt that silence and the sudden thoughts that accompanied it.
It’s easy to believe that people like this exist for our sakes: they are dying lessons on how not to live, warnings of what could happen if you weren’t careful and found yourself scratching at scabs in the world’s ugliest airport. We forget, or we don’t allow ourselves to entertain the idea, that these people have histories, that these shadows and signposts don’t happen to serve a purpose for anyone else; they were once actual people themselves.
I realize, now, my father was wrong about one thing. That’s not as low as you can go. You can go lower, a whole lot lower. But perhaps it’s more disturbing to see the ones that are on the way down, it’s somehow easier to accept the ones at the bottom of the ocean; it’s the ones who are sinking, who are still within reach, who are drowning noisily in front of you, who sometimes have the temerity to ask you to hold out a hand. These are the ones we can scarcely tolerate, because every so often when we look at them and see ourselves.

If I had lived in the 50’s, I would have taken a real job right out of college, or I may not have gone to college. I would have had to start earning a living to support my family: married at twenty-two, a father within the year. That’s just the way it would have been.
Maybe I’d like my job; maybe I would be content. Maybe I would consume so many steaks and cigarettes and whiskey sours that nothing could touch me—I would be obese, an impenetrable fortress of flesh, and no pain could get past me.
Or maybe I would work and eat and smoke myself into a muddled mess and punch the clock prematurely—another casualty of the Cold War. Maybe I would be smart enough to have left my family something, and maybe my wife would remarry and live off the fat of my labor and I wouldn’t begrudge her because I was in a better place, drinking Bloody Marys on the great golf course in the sky.
Or maybe my wife, being of her time, would not wish to remarry and instead focus her energies on the grandchildren and church functions and the increasingly mundane exigencies of old age. Maybe she would want to meet another man but her prospects would be poor—after all, she was married to a big slob who she somehow stayed devoted to and still mourned. Plus, there were always the kids to contend with. Used goods are used goods, whether you’re talking cars, real estate or relationships.
Maybe she would solider on, alone, oblivious to the insanity of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, indifferent to the surreal psychosis of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, and grow into her shrinking body the way a spider’s nest settles into a windowsill.
Maybe she would eventually understand that the family home—the house in which she lost her virginity, raised her children, cleaned a thousand rooms, cooked a million meals—had outlasted her, and embrace the inevitable.
Maybe, in the end, she would be a lot like the woman across the hall. She’s had a good life (please allow her to have been happy: in my mind if not in actual fact). She, at least, once had a husband, and maybe a son and daughter that she dotes on and who love her dearly, but they live so far away and are so busy with work and kids and life and time just slips away and so it goes.
Or maybe it is even worse than that: maybe she was never married, never found exactly what she was looking for, or the right ones overlooked her until it was too late. Maybe she was cursed with the blessing of being always apart, in all the important ways, from the utterly average, anonymous faces she came into contact with day in and day out, and like almost no one else she knew, she was unaware of it.
I want to walk out my door, but I can’t.
And this time, for once, it’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because I’m desperately certain that she won’t be out there waiting for me.

Running out of gas.
My car needs fuel too, and as I pull into the station, sure enough my man is out there, like the sun setting in the west. Out there, always, in the heat and the rain and mostly in the ceaseless, crushing boredom. Out there every day, very likely taking away a lot less than some street-corner wino stuck in any second-rate American city.
As I pump manifest destiny into my machine, I can feel the stranger behind me, screaming his same silent song. And then, finally: enough is enough. I turn around, but he is not looking at me. He is sitting on his milk crate, clocking the traffic, reluctant to make eye contact even with the cars. He says nothing, sees nothing, but surely hears everything. How can he not, when it’s all there, right in front of his defeated face? And it occurs to me, I’ve never once seen a single person buy a flower or even acknowledge him.
What can you do?
“Hey man, I’ll take one of those flowers, I’ll take all of them…”
The stranger looks at me suspiciously and shakes his head. He has not understood a word I’ve spoken.
“Listen, I’ll buy all of them…”
I pull out my wallet and start speaking the language everyone understands.
I keep giving and he keeps taking. I don’t count and he doesn’t complain.
Finally, I’ve done all I can do, and he smiles. He says a lot of things, suddenly, with those grateful eyes. I need to leave before he tells me any other things I probably should hear.
I almost make it to my car and then, before I can stop myself, I turn around to tell him a thing or two with my own eyes.
He’s gone: the man, the milk crate, even the flowers I was just holding in my hands. A mirage? Maybe a miracle. Now it’s only me and an endless stream of traffic, blowing by in both directions.
“Have a nice day,” I call out, to whomever might be listening.
Not to mention a nice life.
To myself, I say this.

The American Dream of Don Giovanni: excerpt from the novel

2008-02-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

Overture

Listen:
When some of your best friends are people who exist elsewhere—characters in books you’ve read, musicians you’ll never meet, people from the past who died decades (even centuries) before you were born, or people you knew intimately who are no longer around—it might be time to ask some complicated questions.
Who are you?
That is, or should be, the first question, as well as the last question, and it should be asked as often as possible along the way.
You see, all men are islands. After all, no one else is inside you when you’re born, no one is going with you when you die, and between those first and last breaths, the decisions, actions and accountability are your own. All, all yours.
So: you find friends, you seek solace in yourself, you learn to discern redemption through the aimless affairs that comprise the push and pull of everyone’s existence. You realize, in short, that you are going through it alone, so you should never go through it alone.
Thoreau was quite correct about quiet desperation and the long shadow it can cast over us all, but you don’t want to run off to your own unseen island. For one thing, there are no islands anymore, except the ones you pay admission to enter; plus, it’s already been done; and above all, when Thoreau got lonely or hungry he walked home and had his mother cook dinner for him, a fact he forgot to mention in his quite convincing case for individuality. Besides, everyone is already on his or her own island. You can’t run away, and the farther you run, the closer you get to yourself. And you’re all you’ve got.
If you are fortunate enough to figure this out early on, you find friends: the real ones who exist in your everyday world, and the more real ones who have been there all along, the ones you can always turn to, wherever or whoever you happen to be.

Biographical

Call me Jackson.
An automatic response—a defense mechanism of sorts— to the question that everyone always asked, obliging him to confirm that yes, his name really was John Johnson.
His father, a conservative bureaucrat—the archetypal patriot—never was at a loss to justify his decision and explain to his only son how unique his name actually was. “How American can you get?” he would always ask, with a red, white and blue grin. “Now how many people do you actually know with that name? If you think about it, you really are one in a million.”
Actually, his father never said that—and likely never thought it. His name was John, and his father’s name had been John, and being a traditional, sentimentally austere (or austerely sentimental) sort of man, it seemed entirely appropriate to pass along the name with the genes. Unoriginal on the surface, a cop-out; and yet, upon reflection, one of the few instances where a name actually signifies something. Of course, people named John do not always call themselves John, and his father—or Jack, as most people knew him—was no exception. And that is how Jack’s son became Jackson. It did not merit explanation or justification, so when people asked, he simply told them the truth: his name was Jackson.
And yet: what is there, after all, in a name? Not much, especially in America, a country where people consult best-selling books to help them determine what names are historically acceptable, currently embraced or otherwise in vogue. One result is that the more familiar, common and safe your name, the more assured you can be that your parents complied with the mundane mores of their time, and treated the naming of their child almost exactly the way they would purchase clothes or choose a car: comfort and conformity above all. The other trend, of course, was to choose the most outrageous, or mystic-sounding name—extremism that is another, equally unfortunate sign of acquiescence.
Names tell us so much about ourselves, except who we are.
Naming names is always important when recounting events that actually occurred and even more important when the events may not have occurred.
So: if you want to know who someone is, ask them where they’ve been, and where they are going.

Baggage

Saturday, 11:40 a.m.
He was running away.
Sometimes running away requires courage, because staying is the only thing a coward can consider.
He was running away; he was going home.
You’re only allowed to go back home when you have no home.
Listen:

When I leave I don’t know what I’m hoping to find
When I leave I don’t know what I’m leaving behind…

When you listen to lyrics from a song and hear your own life, one of two things is occurring: you are in love, or you have not found what you are looking for.
When you have not found what you are looking for, it’s best to travel light. He had more than his share of baggage, but he could carry all of it with him—in his car and in his heart.
Question: what do you take with you?
He took everything.
He did not have any desert island albums, or books, he needed all of them, he needed everything. He already lived on an island, and he had found a way to make everything fit.
The peripatetic existence of the perpetual student has its advantages, particularly in regards to traveling light. College, then graduate school, then Ph.D. work invariably require moving about from tiny room to tiny room, and this destitute condition necessitates as little baggage as possible. Of course, this is a benefit primarily for one who is not particularly concerned with material possessions, and anyone who would even contemplate pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature presumably (and hopefully) would have less than little interest, or at least harbor few illusions about the eventual acquisition of such things. All of which is to say, the circumstances of compulsory attrition enabled Jackson to fit everything he owned—his life—into one small car.
There is, of course, a difference between the things one wants with them in a car for a road trip, and the things you require when you are in transition from one destination to another; although, if you are odd, poor or lucky enough to be living in accordance with the aforementioned Thoreau’s counsel for simplifying one’s world, they are all the same thing.

Driving

Driving.
It is easier to run away when you have a car, it’s even easier when you have a reason.
Everyone around him, insulated in their imported armor, had a reason. They were all coming or going, it was just a matter of time.
That’s America: everyone, it seems, is striving to get somewhere else, to be something else, to arrive someplace they’ve never been. Something better, they are certain, is there for the taking. And everybody is anxious to secure their share of what they know must be waiting for them, evanescent, just out of reach.
Behind: color (blue)—a car, noise (loud)—a horn, finger (middle)—aggression.
Welcome home to the real world, sports fan. Nothing like a near-death experience to bring you back to earth and the ugly here and now of I-95.
The phallus-shaped vehicle that had just upgraded its status from impatient tailgater to perilous leader of the pack was already moving down the road (ninety miles per hour? One hundred?), no time for accountability or the old-fashioned exchange of insults, no time to see a face or read a license plate, no time to stick around.
Had the highways—the world—changed this much in only two years? Maybe. One thing was certain: the already near-extinct evidence of defensive driving had degenerated to the point of self-parody. Anger and impatience prevailed on the black and blue highway. Music, as always, should tame the savage beasts, but little relief was to be found on the radio. More talk than music (talk radio? Isn’t that an oxymoron?): all these babbling blowhards whipping their half-witted audience into a reactionary omelet, alone in a crowd on the ever-insular freeways. Who said there were no second-acts in American life? Has-been politicians, washed-up athletes, even once-respectable reporters were cashing in on the act, relishing their reincarnation as paid professional voices.
This ain’t life. With the suspension of soul and shame, these screaming-heads, along with their cranky congregation, go a long way toward illustrating all that is not right, all around us. No need to psychoanalyze, no point in plumbing the depths of this despondency, because the answer is easily ascertained: this ain’t living.
And then, as if on cue, the car next to him made the noise cars owned by angry individuals make, so Jackson looked over at the miserable man, his mouth sucking up to an Unlucky Strike. Somehow, no smoke escaped and this was because the windows were all rolled up. Self-abuse? Stubborn defiance? Unfathomable stupidity? Nobility? Never. It was old school, plain and simple. This man, clearly constipated and full of consternation, simply refused: he was not going to share his lane, he was not going to share a smile, he was not going to share even his smoke with the unctuous odors of I-95. Old school? He was ancient school.
Welcome to Rhode Island, the man did not say.
Welcome, the sign overhead sang, announcing that his destination was one state closer. As the South slowly became more inevitable, Jackson finally noticed he was being followed.

He had not seen it in a long time, but as soon as it appeared in his rear view mirror, there was no mistaking who it was: his father, tracking him in his egg-yolk yellow ’76 VW Thing. Few sights can take you back faster than the car you rode in as a child, particularly when it’s a model that ceased production half a lifetime ago. There it was, limping along with an inextinguishable, upstart rebel yell.
That he was being followed presented problems, such as preparation: exactly what do you say, what do you do? He had no idea. And then there was the inescapable fact that his father was no longer alive.
I can’t deal with you right now Pops…
And fortunately, fate intervened, embodied by the fool in front of his father, who helpfully had chosen the exact change lane without realizing he had no coins. Smiling, he saw his father screaming at the jackass who could not summon up the strength to just drive through the toll. Stalled, he sat there; panicked, a paralyzed zombie—playing his part in orchestrating a minor traffic jam at the worst possible moment.
Seeing his chance, Jackson pulled ahead, not even thinking about the toll. He heard the mechanized alarm, indicting him like an electronic tattletale, but he was already gone. Only the innocent ones look over their shoulders, and he was never looking back. There was no looking back, because he was not innocent, having pretty well lost that privilege before knowing he ever had it.
So: success. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Never out of mind. Not for him. He knew he was going to have to grapple with his father, and the questions. He knew he needed to be prepared, so he tried not to think about it.
What had happened?
July 20, 1969. I watched you come out of your mother’s womb and then I walked out into the lobby and saw those men walking on the moon. How could I not believe in God? How could I not feel our lives were richly blessed?
Actually, his old man never said those words, as far as he knew. But there was one thing he had learned, and that was that it is acceptable, even imperative, to take a little liberty with one’s memories of deceased loved ones. When one lives with another person, particularly a parent, then a certain amount of authorial license is entitled. In other words, it is, at times, more important to remember things that might not have been said. It is easier to create fiction out of what someone did say as opposed to imagining what might or should have been said. And so he recognized that part of moving on and accepting the good with the bad was being able to make sense out of memories and put those moments in the balance of feelings, which supersede actions in some cases.
We do our best to raise you right, and make sure you are never hungry, hurt or alone. Then we pay for you to go off to college so you can take classes with pot-smoking professors who tell you to renounce your faith, your family and your freedom.
His father actually said those words, often. And Jackson occasionally looked forward to the day he might have the dubious privilege of saying them to his son.
What had happened?
The fact of the matter was that his father was dead, and of somewhat less significance was the possibility, no the probability—no, the certainty that he had taken his own life. Alone, while his only child was several hundred miles away, and unavailable for consultation or intervention. Unavailable, not a factor. It left one cold, culpable, incomplete, with anger and an inability to understand what had been done and why. And with questions. Questions that required following his mind to places he did not care to accompany it.
The kind of questions that often can’t be answered:
Perhaps your father suffered from depression! Perhaps.
Maybe he never completely crawled out of the cavern of his despair after his wife died. Maybe.
Probably he wrestled with demons above and beyond those that most people contend with; so carefully concealed that even his own son could not perceive them. Probably.
Or maybe he simply was not willing to withstand the ineluctable afflictions of this world and ultimately sought solace in a self-induced sleep. That too.
And this: how about the possibility that there was no compelling, cogent explanation? For his father’s actions, for any of it. That in a random, disjointed universe, it was only one of the infinite, inexplicable occurrences that erode the soiled sands. The sands along the shore that reside in an individual’s mind: memories. This, more than anything else, caused him to grieve.
And so, what do you say? What do you tell people? What do you tell yourself?
His father was no longer alive.
He had decided to stop living, or, life decided it no longer had anything to offer him. Et cetera.
Invariably, these feelings led to thoughts of his mother, also gone—more of which later.
Also, these thoughts led to feelings of his own—more of which later.
For now, there were more immediate matters to concern himself with, such as his own life. Fortunately, when he finally looked up he saw the sign, his partner in crime, welcoming him to the Constitution State and he noticed that the feeling, like the Thing, was no longer there.

On the road.
The road was going to require every bit of his cracking concentration, so he could forgive himself if he did not think about death and tried to stay alive. So he thought, Connecticut: concrete, creation, orange cones, congestion. Exactly when, he wondered, had Connecticut become an extended construction zone?
Connecticut was busy, and it had every right to be. After all, this was America and the Constitution State was just as entitled as any of its sisters to reinvent itself. Still, this was not the same old stretch of unending, empty interstate. So many buildings. When was it enough? It’s never enough. And who asked him anyway? Who the hell was he to admonish evolution, to protest progress? Particularly when, a generation or two down the line, some fresh-out-of-college, smug pseudo-cynic would commemorate his time, an era he neither saw nor celebrated. He would do what everyone does, and lament a lost, unsullied city, the city his grandfather called home. And above all, this: he would be right, just as Jackson was, now.
Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past…

Yeah, what he said.

On the road: music helps.
It helped Jackson get this far, and it would take him the rest of the way. It always did.
The road, and rock and roll: there is nothing that can touch that. Nothing. And when you finally find yourself in Jersey—in between the rows and rows of wooden houses: yellow, green, blue, red and brown, solemnly staring each other down across the searing streets of the Garden State Parkway—music is a must. Loud music. The type of music that is not meant to be heard in a living room, through a carefully calibrated system and expensive speakers fashioned out of imitation oak. The type of music made for a car. Driving fast. Too fast, freedom and bliss, so fast that nothing can touch you. No one, not even…
Ouch.
When you get pulled over, it’s time to face the music.
Music!

License registration, no I ain’t got none,
But I got a clear conscience ‘bout the things that I done…

When you find yourself singing Bruce Springsteen lyrics in New Jersey to a state trooper in the hopes of avoiding a ticket, you might as well close your eyes, see what happens:
Maybe you could talk to the cop and explain that it was not disrespect for the rules of the road, but love of—and getting lost in—art that caused you to forget. To forget where you were and who you were—to find yourself in the unfamiliar role of fugitive.
And maybe he would understand.
Maybe he would engage you in a discussion about music, and how it helps us, how it is always there, and occasionally compels us to do things we would not otherwise do.
And maybe, after everything was said and done, you would stop, and ask him if he was real, if this could ever actually happen.
And maybe he would wink familiarly, as if to say: This is America, ain’t it? Anything is possible.
And maybe you would believe him, even as you heard his footsteps fading away.
And by the time you opened your eyes, maybe you were still rolling down the road, the only reality being the speed and the sky, and the siren song of metal and machinery.

Finally, his car needed fuel, he needed fuel, so he had no choice but to stop at the godforsaken rest area. Everyone, it seemed, had stopped at the same rest area: equal parts public toilet, food court and concessions stand. It was at once appalling and extraordinary; it was, in short, America.
There was no shortage of lost souls, standing or sitting, shuffling around in search of sustenance. And there was no scarcity of choices: lukewarm cheeseburgers suffocating in their Styrofoam shells, long-suffering chicken wings getting skin cancer under the heat lamp. The oleaginous ham and cheeses that would give even the paunchy postcard Elvis pause, parched slices of pizza that would make Pavarotti puke. Was there anything here that did not get destroyed in a deep fryer? It was a mess, it was America. It was nothing he wanted, it was everything he needed. When traveling alone, on I-95, one needs to fuel up. He was traveling alone, on I-95, and he was running on heavy fuel, so he needed this unreality: a raunchy, American sort of sustenance.
For who? Who were they, the people all around him? They were everyone: departing or arriving, leaving for vacation, returning to work, delighted, delirious, above all, anonymous. In New Jersey, or in any small town, or everywhere in America, there are people who find themselves lost; the people with nowhere left to go. A cliché? Sure. But clichés are made, not born. Reality, of course, is a cliché, and we have discovered that clichés—even as they are the enemy of art and authenticity—can be our friends. And so: going to church makes us sense spirituality, so we go; playing carols at Christmas facilitates a feeling of festivity, so we play; falling in love makes us feel loved, so we fall. We need all the help we can find, so we find friends and never look back.
Jackson looked back; he looked around and in front of him, seeing the stereotypes: the ones in his mind that everything but experience had created. Or was the Cliché unfurling itself, the one that perpetuates from a particular place: experience, repetition, pattern, tradition? He saw them, he saw how he wanted to see them, he saw how they saw him, he saw how they saw him seeing them, and so on.
And who was he?
What was he all about? What had he done? Where had he been? Where was he going? Who did he think he was? Everyman? No man? Or worse: the type of person who actually asks questions like this.
Walking away, stomach sagging, life-saving milkshake in hand, Jackson saw her. He could not help noticing the forsaken sister walking in circles, seeking a corner of the room that wasn’t there. How old was she? Eighteen? Eighty? Somewhere right in between? Satisfied with a meek drink in the water fountain, she was the type of person who unthinkingly drank from public water fountains. Does anyone drink from public water fountains anymore? Do they still exist? Does anyone even notice them?
It was hard not to notice her, impossible not to notice that pain.
Pain: Raskolnikov, disconcerted as he was with crime and punishment, saw all the suffering of the world in a prostitute’s eyes, and sobbed when he witnessed a peasant, hard-pressed with impotent anger, beating his horse to death. Jackson opened his eyes and half expected to see this woman whipping herself while Nietzsche—knowing full well that God was dead— held his head and wept. Who was she, and what was she doing here?
A hooker, a homeless person? A mother, a case of mistaken identity? A human symbol of hope, or Hope herself—a deity deferred, paying the price for us all, all of us sinners and those sins we can scarcely describe.
She’s just like me, a voice inside attempted to say, a voice he very well may have listened to—a voice he had come dangerously close to growing into, under the shadow of the ivory tower—had he opted to make certain decisions along the way.
He walked over, ready to help: offer money, lend a hand, do whatever needed to be done, even and especially the things he had neither the ways nor means to make happen. He walked over and smiled, and she spoke, making him an offer he had no choice but to refuse.
Enough, after all, is enough.
It was enough to make one wonder if (and even wish that) the stories in the bible, and those fairy tales and myths men have made all have a foundation in fact. That the slow, ceaseless suffering some of us occasionally see is in accordance with a plan, a motion picture we have no part in producing. That it was not even personal, all this erstwhile, enigmatic madness, it was strictly business. It was enough to cause the hardest of humans to hope for a beneficent Big Guy (or Lady, but it is asking too much for God to have the decency to be a woman) upstairs, shuffling that proverbial deck. Or cutting and pasting the appropriate pieces of the puzzle, always keeping a wise eye on the endearing idiots underneath, and generally doing and saying the things that the creator of an entire universe says and does.
But how the hell are we supposed to have hope when Hope herself had been reduced to this, turning tricks at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike?
Is this what it’s come to?
It was enough to make one want to get out (and everyone, eventually, wants to get out).

You know you’re getting out there—out of the North anyway—when you find yourself paying for the privilege of crossing the Delaware. Just like George Washington, only instead of throwing your dollar over the water, you toss it into the basket, or hand it to the unsmiling tollbooth attendant. Just like the dude in front of you—God Am—did. How did he know it was God Am? The bike’s tags said so, and he wasn’t about to argue.
Picture this: a Harley chopper (obviously), no muffler (naturally), as clean and well-groomed as its owner was not, sporting the obligatory, sleeveless skull shirt, black jeans, chaps, wind-whipped leather boots, the shadowed cheeks that could light a match, the sandpaper skin on either hand, kicked back in the saddle, Camel—of course it was a Camel—dangling dutifully from lip, and the helmet, if it could actually be called a helmet, looking more like a black salad bowl (he might just as easily lift it off his head and eat cereal out of it, or, more appropriately, nails). And the kicker—stuck to the back of his seat two signs: POW/MIA speaking loud and proud, and beneath that, perhaps more to the point, a message brilliant in its brevity, terrible in its antipathy; just right in its genius: NOT FONDA JANE! COMMIE BITCH.
Realizing that he had just witnessed an unrecognized wonder of the world, Jackson smiled and shook his head approvingly. That’s America, he thought. And then, immediately and unexpectedly, his life flashed before his eyes.

That ladder is coming out…
These are the things that happen before metal meets metal and the nightly news crews show up, armed with cameras and commiseration: a depreciated, much put-upon pickup truck with an overused and undervalued ladder, obviously not properly procured, shaking and stuttering in its rusty, rattling limbo, unequipped to hold on for dear life, at the mercy of its less-than-conscientious caretakers. Or maybe it simply had had enough and wanted out of this world, gearing itself up for the last, big leap. In any event, the ladder was coming out, and someone was getting hurt.
The last thing you want to do on a long road trip is go and get yourself killed, but like all the truly consequential things in life, it is often out of your control. Whether we are making a quick trip to the grocery store, or en route to work, or making an impulsive return to our hometown, we are not unlike the mates who followed Ahab aboard the Pequod and into the open sea, uncertain if the gods will bless or betray our best endeavors. And those irascible forces, ever out of our control, are always in the mix, doing the things they do: if, say, an angel’s harp string breaks in heaven, or someone steps on a butterfly in a Ray Bradbury short story, then the karmic gate is going to swing wide open, ushering an unsuspecting civilian into the past tense. It takes a collective effort, a diligent faith, and an honest regard for the collective welfare, to pursue our elusive white whales without allowing selfish obsessions to endanger others.
That ladder is coming out…
Certainly, it would be morbid, if counterproductive, to consider that you were taking your life into your hands (or, if you prefer, putting your life in fate’s hands) each time you hit the human highway, which is always a poker game, even if you don’t want to play. Or each time you ate in a restaurant, or boarded a plane, or crossed the street or swam in the ocean. Et cetera. As evolved, if insulated human beings, most of us reluctantly recognize that there ain’t much you can do: if your number is up, it’s up, whether on account of the cosmic cards dealt upstairs, or the statistical calculus of a chaotic, careless universe. There is a necessary denial that enables all of us to do what we do on a daily basis. Unfortunately, self-preservation is an increasingly collective kind of affair. You do your best to stay sober and remain sane, and then you have to pay attention to the inanity of some idiot who can’t be bothered to exert a sliver of common sense.
That ladder is coming out…
If your number is up, and you have to go, then that’s the way it goes. Those are the rules, inviolable and established long before the late twentieth century burst onto the scene. And yet. It is exceedingly difficult to justify a carelessly loaded ladder crashing into your windshield and taking you out. Entirely intolerable, no acceptable explanation.
Unless.
Unless there is a God. Then all kinds of things are capable of occurring. Then, it’s a matter of the divine order of things and a ladder can just as easily become an instrument of God’s wrath. Then, when a hunk of metal comes clawing through your window, you are simply another dog having your day. Then a certain, sublime symmetry holds sway, and there is little we can do to get out of the way.
That ladder is…
There it goes! Like a satellite, it sailed toward its target, right at Jackson’s window. But then the wind, or wrath, or whatever, took it in mid-flight and discarded it safely to the side of the highway, where it crashed on the concrete. A shower of sparks conveyed a simple message: Behold the brimstone brothers and sisters.
Thanks for that, Big Guy…
When you catch yourself talking to a God you are not sure you believe in, you should cut yourself some slack. We’ve all been there. We’ve all, on occasion, looked up to the clouds and wondered if there was a kingdom beyond the skies, the place some of us were told our dearly departed looked down from. We’ve all, on occasion, taken comfort from a one-way conversation we forgot to be self-conscious about, unable or unwilling to entirely abandon the idea that someone else is listening.
And so: you talk. And, maybe, everyone listens. And it follows, then: if you can talk to God, you can also talk to Abraham Lincoln, for instance; or even Einstein, and see if they can help you make sense of the mess we’re in. Anyone might be listening up there, and that’s more comfort than anything you could ever find in a church. And so: you talk. Say something, everything—anything you need to say to survive.

Eventually, the skyline turns from gray to green, with trees instead of telephone poles and hills instead of hotels on either side. On the tops of these hills, in between the forest and the freeway, the animals stood around, detached and mostly disinterested. Not quite believing what they looked down upon, they wryly observed the random madness rushing past. Instinctively, it seemed, most of them kept a safe distance, not wanting to partake in or become a part of the carnage of the twentieth century as it cruised by.
And then you slowly enter the South. Everything gets a little heavier: the scenery, the air, and the nonexistent breeze in the late afternoon of an unseasonably warm May. It’s not unlike the languid buzz bourbon delivers: you taste it and sense what is coming, and the deeper you go, the more intimate and intense it all becomes, and before you know it, you are exactly where you set out to be, whether or not you ever intended to get there.
The first thing you notice is the green. The trees, an impervious halo, hover around the highway. Suddenly, somehow, everything is green, greener than anything you’ve ever seen, so green it’s arresting and almost unreal to actually behold. You cannot believe how green it is: at some point it compels you to consider that for all the billions of trees we’ve butchered, it is extraordinary in its own marginal way how they have managed to remain relatively plentiful. It’s almost impossible to imagine how things used to look, in the days before before Cortez and Custer did their manifestly destined duties that are well-documented in textbooks made from the paper made from the trees they helped tear down.
And then a minor sort of miracle occurs as Maryland, without warning, becomes Virginia. Trees, with roots and branches extending into either state, stand at attention, hoping never to choose sides if brothers take up arms against one another for a second time.
Northern Virginia is an anomaly, it is neither here nor there; it is the gateway to the real south. The Washington Metropolitan Area is, in many ways, a bulwark against identity, a sort of spurious, neutral ground between North and South, Mason-Dixon Line be damned. Everyone to the north of northern Virginia correctly considers it the South; everyone south of Northern Virginia feels, not infeasibly, that it is the North.You are nowhere near Faulkner country yet, but you are also, already, half a world away from Cheever’s concrete commotion, from Whitman’s lazy leaves of grass, from Updike’s arrogant New England imbroglio. When you open your eyes, you are somewhere else, staring expressively at the world around you, at the verdant trees looming overhead, at the inestimable expanse of lucid skies that stretch up and away. You see different colors, fully flowering in their fleet glory: the air has changed from salt to soot and again to honeysuckle, the taste of almond—the bounty of Spring—is on your tongue. You hear strange birds calling, and somehow you can understand this other language, words welcoming you into another world, words that welcome you home.

2008-02-24T07:53:00.002-08:00

Old School

This is old school, I say
To my niece who, at five years old, is now
The same age her uncle was when his parents
Transported him to this place—new then, old now.
Old school, she repeats, repeating things
I say because I am older, because I am
Still interesting, because I am…old school.
Even I can see that.

You Can’t Go Home Again, someone once wrote
And he was wrong.
Of course you can—all you have to do is never leave—
Leaving it behind does not mean it leaves you.
(And certainly I can’t be the only grown child
who returns often—in dreams, in memories and yes,
in my mind, I must confess: earnestly, ardently, often—
to the old streets that I came to outgrow
the way we outgrow games and bikes and friends
and exchange them for jobs and cars and co-workers).

You can always go home, and you need to go home,
It is only when you want to go home that you should
Start asking yourself some serious questions.

“Did you play kick the can?” my niece does not ask.
Nor does she ask if I ever played
Red Rover Come Over or Smear the Queer.
Those games got outgrown, or else we learned
To play them in ways not measured in bravado & bruises.
And I wonder if we are better off:
Growth granting us the eventual awareness that everyone is
Queer and no enjoys being…

I put away childish things each time I think
About them, storing them safely inside my heart
Where grown-up games can’t make them say Uncle.

“Uncle, did you play?” she does not say.
(She does not know everything but she knows
enough to understand that her uncle was never young
the way she is and the way she’ll always be and
far be it from me to tell her any differently).
Question: Can you play?
Remember when that’s all we used to say—
Summers summarized in a phrase we learned
Eventually to outgrow.

This uneven field (Field of Dreams, I’ll never say)
Was our Fenway and with tennis ball and wooden bat
We righted the wrongs of an evil world, where
Yaz never struck out, Bucky Dent was a blip
And the Curse of the Bambino played off-Broadway
Those days, that ceaseless, sweltering summer in 1978.
(Summer, seventies, Schlitz—not malt liquor, my friend,
this was strictly old school—no bull. I remember
block parties, warm beer, burnt marshmallows, mosquitoes
and putrid bug repellent that didn’t kill anything
but made us stronger (Don’t let the bed bugs bite, I’ll never say).
I had no idea how much I did not know but
I knew this much: if there was a beer besides Schlitz or
Bud I was unaware of it—that’s all
The adults drank back in the bad old days.

Play ball! no one needed to say because we played ball
Anyway—ball was our business and business was good,
Get it: the ball would invariably make a break for it
Ending up in the gutter (we called it sewer but, of course,
We were old school). Without a second thought
We pried off the manhole cover and dashed down into semi-darkness.
We never thought twice about it—we were young.
The game must go on! no one needed to say, we knew.
(I look now, and think: I would not go
into that hole for all the allowance money I never earned—
I know there are rats and who knows what else
Down there: the things our parents never realized
They should warn us about).
We never worried about the things that were not
Waiting for us, down there in the darkness.

“What are they doing?” I do not ask aloud,
Noticing—just in time, before I can call attention to it—
Two cats in coitus, doing what they do when they are young & free.
That’s something I’ve never seen and as I worry about
My niece asking me about it I understand: I’m old now.
Old school, I cannot say (to myself I say this).
That’s how it happens.
This would never have happened, then—
(I did not know much, but I knew this:
cats did not fornicate and kids fought only with fists).
But this is what happens when you go away.
Back then, in our close and cloistered community
Even the cats had discretion (they were old school)
Or maybe they were mortified, because
Bent over with booze or barbiturates they were
Silently screeching behind closed doors—
All of us, unknowingly, out in the light
Winning the World Series, while wicked women
Garrisoned themselves in dark alleys, behind
The anodyne of automatic garage doors.
It is quiet, now. Our mothers were so quiet, then.
Please allow them to have been happy,
In our memories if not in their actual lives.

I don’t remember but I have a feeling
That if I think hard enough I will recall
The things that were never said and therefore never forgotten.

I drink in the past and am reminded of youth,
Which tastes unlike anything other than what it is: freedom.

Cold, sour Schlitz (of course I took a taste)
With those incredibly awkward silver ring-tabs
We pulled off for the privilege of first sip.
That is old school, I do not tell my niece.
It’s only when you’re older that beer tastes
Like freedom, but it’s a borrowed brilliance,
A manufactured feeling, just like in school
How it’s cheating if the answer is already in your lap.
It’s the things they can’t package or make you pay for:
Those things that they never tell you about until you are old enough
To know better: that is what freedom is.

Curiosity killed the cat, someone once said and
Maybe they were right.
But something is going to get all of us
Eventually, whether we ask for it or understand it.

The cats are gone, maybe they have gone home
(they can always go home), back to their families—
The heavy silences and signified banality of routine
(do they still have strict rules about no TV
and everyone present around the table when
dinner is served at six-thirty sharp?
I certainly hope so, for their sakes).
Or maybe they are getting down to business—
Dirty deeds and dirty work go hand in hand—
Down in the darkness, doing their thankless task,
Keeping the sewers safe from rats and reality.
Curious or content, we know enough to take
Whatever it is that life decrees.

We went into the sewers the way we went into the world:
Unafraid, unwavering, unencumbered and
Above all: unconcerned about all those things
Older people were kind enough to never…

“Old school!” my niece repeats, curious
because she does not comprehend at all.
Old school, I do not say, reticent
Because I do remember it (all).
If curiosity doesn’t kill us, contentment gets there quicker.

How did we go down there, then?
How do we go out there, now?

Sean Murphy, 3-20-02

2008-02-24T07:53:00.001-08:00

October 20, 199_

Jim Morrison, I saw you today at a Chinese Buffet (6.95 all you can eat).
And I could not help but notice:
The dull complacency and exhaustion
That I saw in your eyes;
An obese stumbling gait imitating
Your once svelte Lizard King Prowl;
A resigned beard,
An indifferent slouch,
A southern drawl (scarcely audible)
Has replaced your butterfly scream.
Is it the tyranny of boredom?
A dream deferred:
To the safety of TV dinners
And the comfort of insipid re-runs
Before bedtime.

How was it?

To grow old and die at 27
Then: To start over again.
A play-thing of the gods.
The frenzied productivity
Of acid-fueled creativity;
A papier-mache soul,
A black and blue ego.
Everyday was Saturday,
A lifetime of summers
In only six years.
What was it like?
To die nightly
And live only to die:
Prurient fodder for the public eye.

How is it?

Now: Mysterious no more.
Burned inside-out
From your wandering, aimless rebellion.
Now it's Church on Sunday:
A banana peel reality.
Once you told us to wake up but have you
yourself awoken?
Trapped in this new-fangled slumber.
Do you remember? The message:
Even now its cadence echoes, falling
On the deaf ears of idle purchasers.

2008-02-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

As Opposed To Prayer

Nervous and unnerved this evening, alone:
Searching for solace, something not unlike prayer,
A hope that the past will not repeat itself,
Progress: a preemptive strike, this procedure
(They call it a procedure when
They expect nothing unexpected).
Precedence and percentages: our family has a history,
Meaning that some part of someone who has died
Might be alive and unwelcome and somewhere inside.

Remembering: immeasurable moments, IVs and all
The unpleasant things you can’t force yourself to forget:
Bad days, worse days, glimpses of serenity then grief,
A flash focus of forced perspective—this too shall pass.
Then, inevitably, earlier times: I recall
When doctors and dentists handled us with bare hands.
Still living, then, in a past the future had not
Crept up on, a time when the truth was believable,
Because the only lies that children can tell
Get told to escape tiny troubles they’ve created.

And so I am uneasy and it’s not even myself
I am thinking about: frightened all over again
For my mother, and I can do nothing for her
Now, just as I could do nothing for her, then.
A cycle: she had seen her own mother suffer
While each of them made their anxious inquiries,
Appeals assailed the darkening clouds, out of time.

Like her son, she eventually became acquainted
With the white-walled world of procedures
And all that happens—before, during, after and beyond:
Hope and fear, faith then despair—the nagging need
To believe in men and the magic of machines
Or the things we say when no one is speaking.

I’m so scared, she said, to anyone who was listening.
I know I was, and we hoped that God was,
The God who may have done this and a million other things
In His austere, always unaccountable way.
In the end: she feared the truth but not the reasons why
Awful things always happen to almost everyone.
Me, I envied the armor of her fear, I understood
I could not even rely on those lovely lies
About a God I can’t bring myself to believe in.

We were there: a child and the man
Who brought me into this mess
(Something I’ve always acknowledged him for,
Something I’ll never quite forgive him for).
He said what needed to be said: nothing,
And I said what he said, after all,
What were we supposed to say, the truth?
The truth was this: we too were scared.

I’m so scared, she said, and we told her
It was going to be okay, we told her
We had reason to believe and we told her
Other things when the things we’d already told her
Turned out to be untrue: we never told her
The truth, which was that we were lying.

Fear and faith are useful if you can afford either/
Or, fear is free and lingers always, longer,
After it has served its purposeless point,
Like a stain on the street, days later.
Dying is nothing to be daunted by, it’s living
That takes the toll: living with death,
Living with life, being unprepared or unwilling
To be unafraid when it’s finally time to die.

I’m so scared, I say, to anyone
Who may be listening in the silence,
Wondering if they can do more for me
Than we could manage to do for her.
There is no one left to lie to—yet
The truth, as always, is immutable.
And so, if you are out there, please help me
To absolve this dread that no one can hear.

Sean Murphy, 3/17/03

2008-02-24T07:51:00.000-08:00

She Walks On

She walks on, alone.

Leaving shadows and their secrets,
Bronzed backs broken, miseries muted,
Their once-sweet souls sucked clean.
Used up and useless now,
Digested and then discarded,
Secured and purpose served,
Savored—not in memory, forgotten
Like so many candy wrappers,
Picked up by the wind and
Put down by the rain and
Smothered in the snow:
All those seasons accounted for
In their empty eyes that no longer see.

She walks on.
But make no mistake, she knows:
She knows what she’s done and
She knows what she will do again,
And again she understands, inside
She can control time and defy the devils
Of age and faith and fear,
And the misfortunes of the flesh
That come calling, always too early
And always after—it’s already over and then
Her heart is hollowed-out, eaten up
By the same urgency that was once her ally.
Impatient and insatiable, unyielding even as her eyes
Cry, mirrors of the memories she made:
Her heart, used up and useless now
She walks on, alone.

Sean Murphy, 9-15-02

An Interview with Adrienne Miller

2008-02-24T07:44:00.000-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Adrienne Miller

What's going on in Akron? Ohio, that is. First the Akron-bred Black Keys drop Rubber Factory, easily the best rock album of the year, and now Adrienne Miller, who until now would understandably be associated with the Big Apple because of her role as literary editor of Esquire, releases her debut novel, a sprawling, earnest and unwieldy homage of sorts to her hometown. And it's the real deal. The Coast of Akron has hit the streets like a set of Goodyears, already garnering reviews any novelist would run over a relative to receive: accolades from Dave Eggers and Joanna Scott, and The Village Voice which (accurately) hails it as "a big, brashly ambitious novel that does not deal in half-measures." It is equal parts encouraging and refreshing—as we lurch into a new century's literary landscape increasingly compartmentalized, fast-sales-oriented and fad obsessed—to watch a writer announce herself with a work that is substantial, intricate and occasionally messy—a work, in short, that is not unlike life.
Adrienne Miller was born in 1972 in Columbus, Ohio, and grew up around Akron, Ohio. As Esquire's literary editor (since 1997), Miller has published stories by Don DeLillo, Aleksandar Hemon, Arthur Miller, Tim O'Brien, George Saunders, and Elizabeth McCracken, among others. Under her literary stewardship, Esquire won the 2004 National Magazine Award for Fiction, as well as numerous Best American and O. Henry Awards.
Murphy: First and foremost, congratulations on the early and positive buzz for The Coast of Akron! It must be equal parts gratifying and terrifying—as perhaps only a handful of people could understand: well-known literary editor of highly regarded and historically important magazine now about to have her work reviewed and critiqued…How different (or similar) would you say your experience has been to any other writer hoping to break through?
Miller: Well, in terms of the actual writing of the book, my experience was absolutely no different from that of any other first-time author: I had a job, I had a life, and I had a book to write. There is no public expectation for anyone's first book -- there is an audience of precisely zero awaiting your arrival – and there was certainly no audience waiting for me. When I finished The Coast of Akron, after about five years of work, I had very little confidence – because it is such an idiosyncratic and personal novel -- that it would even find a publisher. My job seems to be both a help and a hindrance to the publication process. Unlike a lot of other first novelists, book reviewers might recognize my name, so I'm very aware that my job in itself seems to help the book get reviewed. However, I'm finding that the book is often reviewed in a much more skeptical, more jaundiced -- and sometimes less generous -- way than most "debut" novels are. I feel as if the bar is set much higher for me. Of course, I feel that I shouldn't be treated as if I'd skipped a grade. I mean, it's only my first novel! And believe me, I know that I, like any other first-time novelist, have a lot to learn. Also, my book isn't necessarily straightforward realistic fiction, and it's risky in a lot of ways, so I know that it won't suit everyone's tastes. But I have to be suspicious whenever the book is reviewed by a writer whose work I haven't, for whatever reason, been able to use for Esquire. I'm surprised by how often that has happened – the book being reviewed by someone I know (and wish I didn't). People warned me all along about this.
Murphy: Did you always know you wanted to write fiction? One on hand it would seem that being immersed in the writing of very talented authors would naturally impel—and enhance—one's creative endeavors; but it is easy to imagine how the sheer volume of words might be overwhelming or perhaps intimidating. How are you able to wear both hats with such an impressive degree of proficiency?
Miller: I know many novelists and short story writers who also teach, and I don't think it seems remarkable to anyone that they do both. My job as a fiction editor at a magazine isn't a whole lot different than a creative writing teacher's job – I read lots of manuscripts and make comments on them. When we accept a short story, I work on that piece at a very detailed level, as a teacher would in a creative writing workshop. So I don't really find an interest in teaching/editing and an interest in writing to be all that much at odds. It would be a much more interesting story if I had a job as an astronaut or a cop or something entirely unrelated to writing.
Murphy: When I used the word "messy" before in describing The Coast of Akron, it was intentional but not meant in a critical way; on the contrary, a bad novel can be—and often is—a mess, but to convey the messiness of contemporary life (in general) and the effort, illusion and obsessions your characters (in particular) are pushed and pulled by is not an inconsiderable achievement. Or put another way, sometimes messiness—certainly in art—has its own sort of beauty, and I think your novel admirably illuminates the methods to the madness, and vice versa, of these little people with such big hopes and hugely derailed dreams.
Miller: I'm not really a tidy writer, and the books I like the most are pretty untidy themselves. I was really trying to capture some of the feeling of what it's like to be alive right now – what life looks like, sounds like and feels like, and it's messy. I also attempted to write a book in which the reader feels about the characters the way we feel about real people. I wanted the characters to be maddening, irritating, and good – or capable of good -- like us. And just like real people, I wanted the characters' actions to sometimes make sense to us, and sometimes not. An example of this is Merit's weird, creepy affair with her stoner assistant Randy – you kind of understand the attraction, and you kind of don't. I mean, how many affairs – or couples, for that matter – do you know who make sense? Human beings' motivations are often quite muddled, confused and confusing. Tidy motivation doesn't exist in messy real life. We wouldn't spend so much time talking about other people if motivations were clear.
Murphy: Much of the action—and certainly the denouement—occurs in the mansion (one review described it as a "massive faux Tudor", which I think is perfect), named (and anytime anyone is wealthy, or weird enough to name their house, serious trouble usually festers not far beneath the fastidiously polished veneer) On Ne Peut Pas Vivre Seul—"One Cannot Live Alone." But it becomes increasingly clear that all of these characters do live alone, and are lonely.
Miller: I wanted to write about characters who were deeply alienated, characters who were desperately searching for a connection to other people, as we all are. I set out to write a novel that was, above and beyond everything else, sad…although I didn't really think the novel was all that sad until recently. (When I was writing it, some of the stuff, especially stuff involving Fergus, really cracked me up, and I mean audibly.) But a couple of months ago, when I was reading over the last set of proofs, I came pretty close to having a nervous breakdown. I literally couldn't look at the book anymore and remain semi sane. And I'm finding that now it's actually very difficult for me to have to read aloud from the book, because I find a lot of it truly upsetting. The humor in the book now strikes me as a desperate gallows humor, a laugh before dying, like Rita Lydig's famous last words (while being fanned on her deathbed), "Is it a Spanish fan?" (And then she died.) Whatever humor exists in the book is used by the characters to mask a very deep, and very real, psychic pain. That's why the laughs are so uncomfortable. I should also say that if a line, a moment, a scene, was making me uncomfortable to write, then I knew I was on to something. I had to follow that strain of discomfort.
Murphy: With a cast of characters that includes a wealthy fraud of an artist, a quietly desperate housewife and her compulsive, priggish husband, a delusional gay bon-vivant wannabe who is both home wrecker and host, as well as an alcoholic who turns out to be an unrecognized genius—mostly by her own machinations, one is obligated to at least inquire about your inspirations!
Miller: Oh boy, I was afraid you were going to ask this. This book is not my adorable little memoir about my adorable time in New York, and I promise you that there are very few autobiographical elements in it -- I don't have a crazy Uncle Fergus, or any Fergus-equivalent in my life, thank God. But I did start with the name "Fergus" – several years ago, in London, I heard of someone with that name; I wrote that name down, and I let that name guide me. As cheesy and as mystical as this sounds, I let all my characters tell me who they were. I started with the names, then the voices followed, then the characters. I really didn't have any guiding principle during the writing of this book other than: follow it if it's working; get rid of it if it's not. Fergus's voice was probably inspired, in part, by the last couple of lines of Diana Vreeland's memoir D.V., a really outrageous and insane piece of work, and one of my true favorites. The lines are: "Don't ask me her other names. People called Pink don't have other names." Very few of the other people whom I've recited these lines to – and there are many such people -- seem to think they're as great as I do, by the way. So Fergus and Pink are probably how it all started. I also knew that I wanted to write about a young woman, and wanted her voice to be a slangy, colloquial third-person – I wanted her to sound like a midwestern woman around my own age. I wanted to have a statistician character, because I happen to like statisticians (a familial weakness), and I thought it was time for one to get his due in a novel. Lowell exists because I initially thought he and his voice were funny (I no longer think either of these things). I wanted to write a book in which much of the information is traded through gossip (because that's how the world works, as far as I can tell), but I didn't set out to write a sprawling family drama – after about two years of work I had these three very distinct and (at least to me) addictive voices, but I didn't know how they fit together. So I just stuck them all in one house and made them into a family. I wouldn't recommend this formless way of writing to anyone. The writers who start with a rigid outline seem much saner to me, and much more productive…although I certainly don't understand them.
Murphy: How difficult is it for a writer to appear in Esquire? How many submissions will you typically see in a year? Presumably you've compared notes—so to speak—with other literary editors…what is the percentage of quality vs. quantity in terms of unsolicited stories the top tier publications receive?
Miller: This is a difficult question to answer, because not only am I looking for good stories, but I'm looking for good stories that are appropriate for Esquire. Often I'll have to reluctantly pass on a really great story – a story that I, as a civilian reader, love -- because it doesn't match the magazine's style or sensibility. So, that is to say that I'm not only reading for quality, but also for appropriateness. During the year, there seem to be busy submission periods, and less-busy submission periods: during the busy months, we can receive a thousand or so stories; during less busy months, we can see a hundred. Most of the stories I read are quite skillfully done, but, by and large, most seem to lack a certain…what? Zest? Call it tension, drama, a fire in the belly. It's what separates all the merely good stories from the really exceptional ones. When a piece of fiction – or any kind of art -- works, you can feel it viscerally. But I don't need to tell anyone that. We all know what we like, and how what we like makes us feel.
Murphy: What were the circumstances that led you to your position at Esquire? Did you know you wanted to write during and immediately after college but reckoned a "day job" was unavoidable? Did you purposefully avoid graduate school and the MFA scene?
Miller: It so happens that I actually was intending on getting an MFA in fiction, and, by the second semester of my senior year in college, I had even decided on a grad school. I knew I wanted to write, but had no clue how else to make that happen other than the MFA track. The spring before my college graduation, I remember enrolling (as I recall, they wanted a check to hold my place), but, through a professor of mine, I found out about a job opening as an editorial assistant at GQ. I called the editor in question at GQ – after a shot of Maker's Mark -- and for whatever reason, he offered me the job. I'm a horribly pragmatic person – it's one of my least-attractive characteristics – and I knew that I'd probably never have another chance to work at a national magazine (the whole set-up seemed impossibility glamorous to me at the time), so I took the job. And, for my first years in New York, I supported myself as an assistant at a glossy magazine, making no money, often wondering why I was doing it at all, living in a studio apartment so tiny that its kitchen was nothing more than a hot-plate, subsisting on pre-sliced, semi seedless deli watermelon and Annie's macaroni (the brand with the rabbit on the box, prepared on that much-used hot-plate). A few years were spent like this, then, long story short, the job as literary editor at Esquire opened up. I interviewed for this position many times, and wrote a few passionate letters that laid out all the reasons why I, naturally must be hired as literary editor. Much to my astonishment, I got the job. I freely admit that luck and timing have both played important parts in my editorial career, but, I must say that luck hasn't been so much a factor in my writing life. In fact, my professional (meaning: editorial) luck has meant a fair amount of frustration in my writing life. Having a job you like is about the worst bit of luck a fiction writer can have.
Murphy: You've commented that working closely with other writers has helped and not hindered your own creative process. Do you think your professional experience accelerated or impeded your own path to publication? For instance, I remember being told repeatedly back in college workshops that the best (and perhaps only) way to learn to write good fiction is to read good fiction. Then, after enough emulation and hard work and the years of awful, unworthy writing one needs to get out of one's system, perhaps—at some point if you are lucky and ambitious enough—a distinctive voice inevitably emerges. I tend to buy this theory. What about you?
Miller: If I hadn't been making my living as an editor for these last years, I would have probably found a way to make a go of it as a writer. That means I probably would have published a novel or two by this point. I'm not saying that the novel or two would have been any good, in fact, probably just the opposite. And, yes, I definitely do think that reading and evaluating fiction for the last decade or so has made me a much better writer than I otherwise would have been, chiefly because being a professional reader means that I try to read my own stuff with the same dispassionate judgment with which I have to read other people's stuff. I'm not saying I can always read my own writing with a kind of coldly critical eye – who can? -- but working as an editor has at least trained me to try.
Murphy: Several of the writers interviewed for this series teach fiction at the college level. While not in the classroom, you undoubtedly see more manuscripts in any given month than most professors receive in five years. How do you feel about the quality of fiction in the 21st century: What positive trends have you noticed? What awful ones? Is it true to presume that regardless of genre or generation, good writing will ultimately rise above the fads and formulas?
Miller: I'm really quite resolutely unfaddish in my literary taste; I hate faddishness of any kind, in literature, art, fashion, everything. It seems to me that an author must write about one thing: life. That's it. Culture changes, but life –and human beings – do not. I'm really a traditionalist in my tastes, I guess. Character and language: what else is there? Other readers have other values, but those are mine.
Murphy: MFA or No-MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs? I've read some highly regarded book reviewers (Jonathan Yardley from The Washington Post leaps immediately to mind) who comment frequently on what they feel are the deleterious effects of "workshop" training on contemporary fiction. Again, as someone who has been very much on the front-lines of what ostensibly passes as the "best and brightest" short fiction, do you have any opinions one way or the other?
Miller: Writing workshops seem to be valuable mainly because they provide the great gift of time to writers. Whenever someone asks for career advice from me – "I got into grad school. Should I go?" – I'll usually advise them to go, especially if the program gives them money. And they'll have a book-length manuscript at the end of their two years. But I also think writers should be forewarned that grad school won't really help them get their book published later, or help them get a job (although a job is probably not what any MFA grad really wants). But what they will have is a book. And that's very cool. That's all that matters, really.
Murphy: If you had to say which writer influenced you most, and which book, what would they be? Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
Miller: Many of my artistic influences have been musical. I have obsessions with both Cole Porter (one of whose songs plays a cameo in my book) and Mozart. Oh, and I loved the Smiths and The Legendary Pink Dots, and lots of other arty-type bands that would take an hour to list. I really wanted to be a musician more than anything else, but a conspicuous lack of discipline, and talent, kept me from pursuing that dream. In college, I started out as a poet, so, initially; it was poetry that melted me into a puddle. I can't really say what or who influenced the book – all writers probably want to feel that they are influenceless – but I can say that early literary ardors include Martin Amis (London Fields, which I read when I was eighteen, made me decide to become a writer), Gore Vidal, M.F.K. Fisher, and – I know this is a weird one, and from out of left field -- Quentin Crisp. (One of the book's most probing and perceptive critics noticed a Quentin Crisp connection, which I was amazed, and a little frightened, by.) I should add that I do recognize that my early influences were all supreme stylists; style was, when I was extremely young and impressionable, the literary virtue I most prized. But my literary taste has, I think and hope, become a lot more expansive than it was then. (Oh, and I love Flannery O'Connor, beyond measure.)
Murphy: Lastly: any advice for aspiring writers?
Miller: Apply seat to chair. Concentrate. Apply seat to chair. Concentrate. Repeat daily, for the rest of your life.

An Interview with Carolyn See

2008-02-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Carolyn See

Carolyn See is the author of several novels, including The Handyman, Dreaming," Making History, Golden Days, Rhine Maidens, Blue Money, The Rest is Done with Mirrors, and Mothers Daughters. She is a book reviewer for The Washington Post and is on the board of PEN Center USA West. She has a Ph.D. in American literature from UCLA, where she is an adjunct professor of English. Her awards include the prestigious Robert Kirsch Body of Work Award (1993) and a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction. She currently lives in California. Lucky person!
There are certain writers you know without ever meeting them. It's not necessarily because they articulate their vision and expose themselves in their works (though that certainly helps), but more often because the artists who really grapple with-and are invariably in touch with-life are the sorts of artists that audiences fall in love with. It is easy to love Carolyn See, whether you are a fan of her fiction, or her weekly book reviews in The Washington Post, or her non-fiction, or if you are lucky enough to be one of her students. She is, in short, the type of writer that you'd die to have a drink with, so that you might pick her brain, hear her opinions, and possibly glean a tiny bit of insight from her teeming mind regarding how to write, and more importantly, how to live. Fortunately for all the folks who would kill to meet her, especially those who have read her work, and most especially everyone else who should read it, she has done every aspiring artist a favor by making her wisdom easily available in what will certainly be considered one of the most indispensable books about writing, "Making A Literary Life."
Murphy: Unlike most books that talk about the author's "process"--which invariably, and necessarily, often apply only to said author's acumen and are therefore neither applicable nor particularly encouraging--you talk about the small stuff, the less romantic (i.e., less clichéd) nuts and bolts of the million little things that make up a writer's world, and the effort required to produce real work. How much of this successful presentation of "Making A Literary Life" the result of dissatisfaction with other books you've read (or heard about) by writers or is it safe to say you *had* to write one of your own?
See: I absolutely love Annie Lamott's "Bird by Bird," of course. But outside of that marvelous chapter when she says your life won't "change" when you publish, I missed stuff about how she managed to actually make a living -- I'm not even sure those are the right words --as a writer. I think many writers -- although they talk about it to each other all the time in kind of an aimless way -- don't really KNOW why or how they made it as a writer; they harbor the dreadful thought that it may be some peculiar fluke. (Or they take the tiresome attitude that they made it because they're GENIUSES, and so the common person need not even apply.) The teachers who repeat how hard it is are telling the truth. They experience it as hard because it's hard for them to do it.
I have the disconcerting experience of having come to all this from the outside, of having had to learn a lot of this stuff from scratch, and then, luckily, having had a fair amount of pleasant moments and some success. MLL is like a beginning cookbook. It only attempts to talk about the basics.
Oddly enough, except for "Bird by Bird" I don't like books on writing very much. For instance, E.M. Forster is probably my favorite writer, but I find "Aspects of the Novel" fairly insufferable. Writers can get awfully pompous when they talk about their craft.
Murphy: Put another way, you talk about the "dirty work" involved in creating a beautiful product. Any workshop professor or self-help screed can talk about how much toil and trouble writing transcendent work requires, but you do your students/readers a real service by not only acknowledging the *work* involved, but by taking the time to offer suggestions and more than a handful of tricks from your own hat.
See: I don't think of it as "dirty work." I do think that writing -- and maybe all activities we're crazy about and committed to -- offers up an opportunity to experience the entire human condition. There's the inspiration when you're doing something you're absolutely crazy about and the words seem like honey to you, and the despair when they don't. There's the rage when you get rejected. The revenge, which very often, you get to indulge in. There's the calming activity of reading an eleventh draft, and there, you find a word that's out of place. There's the nerve it takes to go up to someone at a party and say, "I'm a fan!" There's the fun of doing your taxes, seeing the money you made or didn't. The envy when you think someone else is getting more attention that he or she deserves. The charity when you buy a book from a writer in trouble. Mainly, OF COURSE, the beauty of the vision when it comes to you. But it's about a lot more, and less, than the vision.
Murphy: You do a marvelous job of demystifying the "aura" of the artist. It could be said with only a fraction of facetiousness that you are not only a writer's writer, but also a writer-who-reads-writers-who-write-about-writing's-writer! In terms of the advice you offer, I think you hit upon the all-important balance that any sort of artistic endeavor demands, and at once you are able to make the act of writing accessible and real, but also reveal the underlying, redemptory enigma: by doing the work, and having FUN doing it, you are almost inexorably making your life more "artistic". In this sense, only good things can come of this.
See: Today, and this is probably about a week before war breaks out, I spent the afternoon at my women's group (I mention it at the end of MLL). We've been meeting for eight years. We're writers and artists and psychologists and television people. There's a woman who makes art objects, "aterns," from the ashes of folks who have been cremated. Very smart, kind and stylish women! We eat great food and drink a lot of wine and laugh ourselves sick and sometimes cry, and talk about our lives.
So today we talked about Rome, autism, a GORGEOUS man named Dean, a girl who got her first violin, a persistent cough, obsessive compulsive behavior, more about that gorgeous Dean, how science is making blind men see, and how the UCLA Medical is trying to screw us. Then, back to Dean. Hugs and kisses all around. Laughing and more laughing. In the kitchen, toward the end, we mentioned how we hadn't talked once about the war, the horror, the sorrow the sadness. It was all raspberries and wit and silliness and lust and love, and ART, because that's what we MAKE, and Mr. Rumsfeld just had to find somebody else to scare. At least for this one afternoon.
Murphy: One of the pieces of advice you give is to write one thousand words a day, five days a week for the rest of your life. It's hard to imagine too many folks (particularly folks who have made some sort of attempt at serious fiction) offering any resistance to this. On the other hand, you advocate the regular practice of composing "charming notes" to writers, editors and/or agents. What would you say to people who, even after reading your book, resist this?
See: "A thousand words a day, and one charming note, five days a week, for the rest of your life." The "18 minute chili" version of the writer's life I mention in MLL. First, the notion is figurative. It's what we OUGHT to do, not necessarily what we always do... It varies, with the exigencies of life. And there are other pieces of "advice" in MLL that don't get nearly the attention that the '''charming notes" do, for instances, building a mailing list, starting a savings account for when your first book comes out, planning that first trip to New York hour by hour, etc. It's as though people read about the "charming notes" and just STOP. Then they argue about whether or not they can do it. I could mention that another way to address the problem of not knowing anyone in the writing/publishing world is to move to New York, intern at a publishing house, live in squalor, and get to know everyone without ever having to lick a stamp.
Murphy: If you could succinctly summarize the trajectory (thus far!) of your writing life, how different is it from what you imagined, as an earnest but unpublished author? How is it better? Worse? What things (possibly not mentioned in the book) would you have changed?
See: What I imagined about a literary career were conditioned by my own innocence and the cultural imperatives of the moment in time when I was twenty or so. All I could really look to as a woman -- and I didn't even really think of it that way -- was Virginia Wolfe and Kay Boyle. Or E.M Forster or Nathanael West. Or, I had the example of my hard drinking, charming, womanizing dad, who was a "failed" writer until he turned 69. So I had hazy fantasies of tea parties and T.S Elliot, and afternoons in Paris cafes -- the usual stuff.
Then I became obsessed with creating the perfect literary life here in LA, and writing the life that I saw around me, and writing about it again. And again. The interesting thing is that the world allowed me to do it. That is, I've been able to publish all my adult life, and the rewards have been unexpected. At an evening when I was talking about MLL, a woman came up to me and said, "Golden Days helped me to live through the end of the world." I said thanks, and she said, "No, I mean, I had a paperback with me when I was in Burundi when the Hutu and the Tutsi were slaughtering each other, and Golden Days gave me hope." So that was better than ten thousand E.M. Forsters coming to tea ...
Murphy: What is a stronger enemy of writing: fear or rejection? Or are both of these things ultimately some of the primary motivations?
See: The strongest enemy of writing, in my opinion, is neither fear nor rejection but the voice inside us who cries WHO CARES? And I think the most important thing is that when we write we have to be the one who cares. Rejection is awful but not fatal. Or, it's fatal but not awful.
Murphy: MFA or No-MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs?
See: It depends what you want from life, where you live, whether you can afford it, what kind of person you are. From my own personal bias, I'd say the dynamic is all wrong: People should be paying YOU to write, not vice versa. And I hate to think of having to sit in a classroom to "learn" how to write. Other people swear by the process, though.
I do think that if you're not at Columbia, NYU, Iowa or maybe Irvine, you're wasting time and money. (Unless you just don't want to be lonely and don't have a better place to spend your time. There's nothing wrong with that...That's why I got my Ph.D.) Murphy: As a teacher, what are some of the biggest mistakes students make? What are some strategies you've seen (from students and/or your own experience) that have been successful? *Feel free to elaborate on examples you list in your book!*
See: As far as I can see, the biggest mistake students make is to ignore the facts of their own lives. They love to write about places they've never been, people they've never met, things they've never even gone through -- through the eyes of an 83 year old mentally ill Turkish person, for instance. That's not a mistake exactly, but it's misguided. Immensely misguided.
Murphy: Again, as a teacher, if you had to say: has the writing of your students gotten better over time? Worse? The same? What positive trends have you noticed? What awful ones? Is it true to presume that regardless of genre or generation, good writing (and good writers) tend to find their way?
See: I know doomsayers are forever saying that students now are uncouth and unlettered and stupid and dumb and WHATEVER, but I don't buy it. People are just about as smart or dopey now as they ever were. My late great life partner, John Espey, used to love to tell a story that dated from the thirties when he was a very young English professor: One of his colleagues came in to the office in a tizzy, saying about some student that he "didn't know a gerund from a gerundive!" John kept mum, and didn't mention that he didn't either...
Murphy: If you had to say which writer influenced you most, and which book, what would they be? Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
See: I began reading E.M.Forster in my early twenties, and because I came from a very raggedy-ass childhood, I was impressed with his calm, sometimes impassioned insistence that there WAS a standard of good behavior in the world, that there were definitely decent people and jerks, and that one has the choice to at least strive to be a decent person. I didn't know about his social class when I first read his books, or his gender preference. But I saw his hatred of muddle and bullies and even his hatred of housekeeping. I saw his love of books and flowers and friends, and that you could build lives around these things. So he was my hero then, and is, to a great extent, even now.
For the past four or five years I've listened to nothing except the complete works of Elmore Leonard in my car. He's saved my life; literally, when I was suicidal, emotionally, when I was bone-dead, spiritually, when I was brokenhearted. The man is a genius. His worlds are perfect, and perfectly controlled. There's no smarter storyteller writing right now. His dialogue is like diamonds. (I'm just listening to "Swag" right now as two armed robbers bicker like an old married couple. It's a healing experience.)
Murphy: Are there any other books on writing that you'd recommend? Any writers you learned to emulate or imitate?
See: Of course, Anne Lamott's wonderful book is terrific. And I'm very fond of Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way." And Terry Brooks' new "Sometimes the Magic Works" is swell. But I think I've structured my own writing life around how Virginia Wolfe did hers. Write in the morning (1,000 words), do something concrete in the literary life in the afternoon...
Make sure your own life is worth recording in some way...
Murphy: How has the task of reviewing other books influenced or affected the way you write? The way you read? The way you respond to criticism?
See: Of course, as a reviewer, when I'm writing a novel, I hear the bad review of it trilling merrily along in my head as I write. (But that could just as easily be my mother's voice.) As a novelist, I think I'm 100 per cent kinder to people I'm reviewing than many others, since I have a real idea of how much work and yearning goes into the writing of any book, even a bad one. But the REAL thing I've learned as a reviewer is that in the MOST PROFOUND SENSE reviews don't matter. People misread them, forget the name of the book and the author, couldn't care less, remember a good review and think it was a bad review and vice versa. It's another example of the solipsism of the literary life. We're under the delusion that somebody gives a shit. Somebody, profoundly, doesn't.
Murphy: Toward the end of the book you comment that delusion "*has* to be in the mix for us to get anything done at all", and on the same page reiterate that "(writing) is a marriage". In other words, as always, a balance between inspiration and dedication has to be sought. But without that initial ambition, or arrogance, most of us might never venture onto the daunting white page, no?
See: Everyone is delusional, all the time. For one thing, each of us thinks we're the center of the universe, whether we're writers or not. Golfers think the world is golf. Rumsfeld thinks the world is bombs. The pope thinks the world is the Catholic Church, presumably. I can't help but think the world is literary fiction, but WHY NOT? I have a dear friend, an activist cab driver, who thinks the whole current war is actually a conspiracy of the big cab companies to take over the little cab companies.

The Literary Life and How To Live It

2008-02-24T07:41:00.000-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Charles Salzberg

This series is honored to have an opportunity to speak with a true Renaissance man--and virtual embodiment of the literary life--writer and editor Charles Salzberg. A typical day for Charles involves reading the work of his students and evaluating novel and short fiction manuscripts, and all while trying to find time for his own work. Not unlike most dedicated writers, he finds that he is always writing, even when he isn't actually writing. Living and working in New York City obliges one to multi-task, mentally as well as physically, and Charles has found that some of his best ideas come to him when he is far away from the computer.
After graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in English, Charles broke into the world of magazine writing: New York Magazine, Esquire, New York, GQ, and a variety of others. This experience eventually led to books, the most recent ghostwritten book making the NYT bestseller list. Charles has been a Visiting Professor of magazine writing at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence, The New York Writers Workshop, and the Writer's Voice. Despite his considerable experience and expertise in the world of non-fiction, fiction remains his true love, and he has a novel under consideration by M. Evans.
Murphy: Charles, among many other things, you've worked as a teacher and have been involved in more than a few successful writing workshops. How that has influenced your writing, helped it or hindered it?
Salzberg: Overall, it's helped my own writing. Seeing what works and doesn't work with other writers, no matter how good or how experienced, can't help but make you a better writer. You learn to take things apart, and if you do that and then try to put them back together, you learn how things really work. Now this doesn't necessarily mean you can always do that, but thinking about it is good nevertheless. Also, it's inspiring to deal with other writers and see them grow. I never fail to come home from a class energized, though that doesn't necessarily mean I sit down and write. In fact, I'll do just about anything to avoid writing-but I think that just goes with the territory.
Murphy: As a teacher, if you had to say: has the writing of your students gotten better over time? Worse? The same? What are the most common mistakes you see young writers making?
Salzberg: I have people who take classes with me over and over and I'm pleased to say that almost all of them have improved. This isn't necessarily because I'm a great or even good teacher, it's because they work at improving. They listen to what the others in the class say, weigh the suggestions, which means they're thinking about writing, and then try to make those suggestions work in their own work. And sometimes, you can learn more critiquing someone else's work than you can when your work is critiqued-which is what I meant by improving my own writing.
I'm also fortunate in that several of my students have gone on to publish books or magazine articles. For instance, Lauren Weisberger (The Devil Wears Prada) started her book in my classes, though it wasn't a book and it wasn't fiction at first. She just came in and started writing these fascinating essays about working in the magazine world. But there are lots of others who are publishing now, sometimes more than I am, which is very rewarding.
The most common mistake, by far, is telling not showing. Another is people who can't organize a thought, which means they can't organize a sentence or a paragraph or a page. And a third is people who think writing means they have to learn another language. Nope. I think some of the best advice I've ever seen is: Write the way you speak, but on your best day, not your worst.
Murphy: As an editor, you evaluate novel manuscripts for Algonkian, and others. Can you tell us something about the evaluation process? What do you look for? Is your intent to determine what is preventing the ms from being a publishable product?
Salzberg: It's not easy to talk about the evaluation process, because it changes with each manuscript I receive. I can tell you how I go about it, though. The first thing I do is note the competency of the writing. No matter how good a story might be, if the writer can't tell it well, it's not going to travel. Conversely, if the writing is terrific, the story sometimes matters less. Next, I look at the book as a whole--does the story hold together? Is it interesting? Is the voice compelling? Are the characters believable? Do the characters act and interact in a way that makes sense? But overall, it's just a matter of having done much too much reading over the years and getting a "gut" feeling about a book. It's kind of like one of the Supreme Court Justice's comment on pornography--I know it when I see it.
Once I've answered at least some of those questions, I'll make suggestions as to how I think the book can be improved. It's funny, because the word "publishable" doesn't mean much to me because so much that is eminently publishable isn't published, and that often has nothing to do with the quality of the book or the writing. Instead, it has to do with the commerciability of a novel, and that's impossible to predict. So, what I try to do is help writers write the best possible book they can write--and then, like a child, they just send it off into the world and see if it can find a home. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees...would that there were.
Murphy: By the way, which publishing houses and agencies do you work with?
Salzberg: Viking/Penguin, Dell, Simon and Schuster, Henry Holt, St. Martin's, M. Evans, Hyperion; and agencies include Trident Media Group, Peter Rubie Agency, Graybill & English, and the Spieler Agency, among others.
Murphy: What are some of the typical mistakes you see writers making with novel manuscripts? Weak hooks? Flat settings? Character and conflict issues?
Salzberg: Typical mistakes, include flat, unrealistic dialogue, motivations that don't make sense, telling rather than showing, lack of detail, boring writing, uninteresting characters, plots that don't hold together, and clichés. Man, I could go on and on, but I won't.
Murphy: Your book that made the NYT bestseller list. What can you tell us about it?
Salzberg: The last book I wrote was as a ghostwriter, so I can't really divulge the title, though it's been on the non-fiction NY Times bestseller list for the past two weeks. An agent I'd worked with before approached me and asked if I'd be interested in this project and, because it involved sports, politics, business and literature, I jumped at the opportunity. And, as with other books I've ghostwritten or walked on as a collaborator, it turned out to be a terrific experience.
Murphy: You are the first person profiled for "The Literary Life" who has had experience ghostwriting. Please talk about that, including pros and cons that the average writer and/or reader might not necessarily associate with that endeavor?
Salzberg: I got into ghosting accidentally. A friend had written a profile of a famous men's designer and he wanted her to write his book. But she had just taken a magazine editorial job and she suggested me. He met me for fifteen minutes, took a liking to me, although I knew absolutely nothing about men's fashion, which to me consisted of choosing which T-shirt went with my jeans. It turned out to be a wonderful experience in terms of working with this man. But it taught me that ghostwriting can be a nightmare if you're working with the wrong person. It also taught me that I had to submerge my feelings about how the book should be written, because I was hired as the "voice" of another person. My magazine work came in handy, because when you write for magazines you have to take on the voice of that particular magazine and, in many cases, submerge your own style-not always the case, but certainly the majority of magazines don't cotton to individual, idiosyncratic voices.
Okay, the pros: It's usually a nice paycheck and if the book goes wrong, your name isn't on it so you don't get the blame, i.e., the stigma attached to your career. Another pro is that you get to learn about something you wouldn't necessarily learn about, and it might even be something that's interesting.
The cons: working with the wrong kind of person: someone who micro-manages; someone who thinks they should be writing the book, not you. Another con, if the book does extremely well, critically or commercially, your name isn't on it, though everyone I've worked with gave me a nice credit inside the book.
Murphy: You started out at New York Magazine. How did that come about? And where did that take you?
Salzberg: You know, getting into magazine work was absolutely accidental. I was an English major in college and always wanted to write serious, literary novels. Unfortunately, when I got into the real world I realized that I could do that or I could eat and pay rent, but I couldn't do both at the same time. So I had to go out and get a job. And since, as a lit major, I had no discernible skills other than typing and being able to string sentences together, I took a friend's advice and got a job in the mail room at New York magazine, with promises that I'd move up quickly to an editorial position. To me, at that age, late 20s, quickly meant three months. Other than sorting and delivering mail, shining the occasional chandelier and moving furniture around, it was a great experience because I got to shoot the breeze with writers like John Simon, Ken Auletta, Jon Bradshaw, Steve Brill, and catch glimpses of Pete Hamill, Norman Mailer and Gay Talese-this was the heyday of New York, when the legendary Clay Felker was still the editor.
I used to watch the writers roll in around ten, ten-thirty, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, talk on the phone, shoot the breeze with the editors, then go to lunch at noon and come back at three, smelling of alcohol, then leave the building no later than 4:30, and I thought, hell, I can do that. So I pitched an editor a few ideas, she asked me to do one during my lunch hour and I did. They didn't buy it but assigned me another one that they did, and I sold that first one to the Daily News Sunday magazine, so I was off and running as a freelance writer.
Murphy: You've written some very successful non-fiction. Presumably that grew out of the magazine writing? How difficult is it for a novice to break into the magazine writing world?
Salzberg: For me it was easy, too easy, to break in. I was kind of cocky and thought I had it made, what with publishing the first two pieces I wrote-without any journalism background-and to major periodicals, for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,500, which wasn't bad in those days. But for the rest of that year I think I only made another $1,500, so I came down to earth pretty quickly. But once I had those clips, I was in pretty good shape and other major assignments came, slowly at first, but then things picked up.
Murphy: Lastly, and far from least important, you are also a fiction writer, and have described it as your first love. Do you find that writing less "creative" material helps you maintain a focus and drive to attempt polished fiction?
Salzberg: At first, I looked down on journalists and non-fiction writers because I thought, "what's so hard about that?" But I learned that any kind of writing stretches your muscles. And I think I became a better fiction writer because of writing non-fiction, especially writing to word counts. I learned how to be more economical, more precise, more attentive to detail, all things that are very important to fiction writers. And I also learned that there isn't that much difference between writing fiction and non-fiction-there's a big crossover, using fictional techniques for non-fiction writing. I hate the term "creative non-fiction," but I'm afraid there is some truth in that.
Murphy: Other work(s) on the way?
Salzberg: I finished a quirky detective novel, called Swann's Last Song, a while ago and it's been with a publishing house for over a year, during which time I've done a couple of revisions. If it is accepted, I'll have to write a sequel--part of the deal. I also co-wrote a kids' movie, which was just made, so we might do a sequel to that, too. Otherwise, I'm very busy reading for all the writing classes I teach.
Murphy: If you had to say which writer influenced you most, and which book, what would they be? Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
Salzberg: Without a doubt, Saul Bellow-I remember when I was just a kid picking up books like The Victim, or Henderson the Rain King, or Seize the Day, or Herzog-and then, one of the most significant influences on me as a writer was Nabokov's Lolita, which I can read over and over again and still not get everything out of it that's there. And Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, or his short stories. I could go on, but I won't...
Murphy: MFA or No-MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs?
Salzberg: I spent two weeks in an MFA program and quit. It's not that I'm anti MFA, I think that if you want it, fine. You'll need it if you want to teach; or if you want to network. But I think the way you really learn to write is to read, read, read-and then write, write, write. Writers groups or writing classes, if you get a good teacher, will do just as much for you as an MFA. Did Saul Bellow get an MFA? Ernest Hemingway? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Philip Roth? Margaret Drabble? Vladimir Nabokov? It's a relatively new phenomenon. But again, I would never suggest that someone who wants an MFA not get one. I just don't think it'll necessarily make you a better writer.
Murphy: Has your experience tended to demystify the publishing process (for good or bad-or both) or has it made it even more special?
Salzberg: Absolutely, yes, it has demystified it, but certainly not made it more special. Every writer I know talks about getting out of the business, doing something else. But unfortunately, most of us have no other marketable skills. Today, most of publishing is about making money, not necessarily publishing good books. And that's sad. But there is hope-small presses, University Presses and other independent publishers are now filling those roles. Unfortunately, I think publishing has gotten Hollywood-ized, shooting for the blockbuster.
Murphy: Lastly: any advice for aspiring writers?
Salzberg: Read, read, read. Then write, write, write. Then rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. And never give up. Perseverance, that's the key.

An Interview with Todd Pierce

2008-02-24T07:40:00.000-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Todd Pierce

Talk about your Jack-of-all-trades: Writer, teacher, advocate for unpublished writers. Too good to be true? Nope. Todd Pierce epitomizes the literary life, and should stand as a role model for any aspiring fiction writer. Versatile enough to publish short stories while simultaneously setting his sights on novels, he brings a passion and erudition to his work, as well as the classroom, where he teaches fiction writing.
To a large and appreciative, and mostly anonymous, fan base across the country, Todd is known and loved as the mastermind behind the website Literaryagents.org. This site is an invaluable resource for writers seeking publication, and agents on the lookout for new talent. That Todd has taken it upon himself to keep this site alive and active well after his own publishing career has progressed is a testament to the type of artist, and individual he is.
Winner of the IAP Award for Fiction, a Kingsbury Fellowship, and the Charles Angoff Award, Todd James Pierce holds degrees from the University of California at Irvine (MFA), Oregon State University (MA), and Florida State University (PhD). He is the author of two novels, THE SKY LIKE TAMRA BLUE (2006) and THE AUSTRALIA STORIES (2003) and the co-author of the forthcoming textbook BEHIND THE SHORT STORY (2005). His work has appeared in books published by Penguin, University of Iowa Press, and NCTE Press and in magazines such as Fiction, The Georgia Review, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review, North American Review, Poets & Writers, Shenandoah, and Story Quarterly. He is an assistant professor at Clemson University, and his personal website is toddjamespierce.com
SM: First and foremost, for folks who might understandably know you primarily from your Lit Agents website, let's celebrate the fact that you are also a published writer! Not only is your novel THE AUSTRALIA STORIES available in bookstores everywhere, it has received critical praise and clearly found a receptive audience. Are you satisfied with the reaction(s)?
TP: Yes, I'm pleased that there have been lots of positive reviews. Moreover, I'm pleased that people read the book, enjoyed it, found it interesting. At a reading in Portland, a man came up to me and said, no one has ever written a book that contained so much of his own experience before. That was a good moment. That was one of the moments that made being on the road worthwhile. Publishing a book is a strange mix of art and commerce. I wish writing was entirely about the art. When I'm in my room, writing a chapter or a story, it is entirely about the art. It is about the love of a good story, the exploration of a complex character. But publishing those stories or those chapters is not only about art. It's about books as well.
I went on the road and did about forty readings when my novel, The Australia Stories, came out-that helped generate reviews in newspapers. I also appeared on regional NPR. Being on the road is invaluable for exposure: people will show up to readings (really, they will), and there is no question that readings will introduce readers to your work. I had some nice experiences. In Vegas, there was a good turn out, maybe forty people. Same in San Diego and Seattle. There were some readings with just a few people-maybe four or five. One stormy Tuesday in North Carolina, only two. At Dutton's, in Los Angeles, there was a small crowd, maybe ten or eleven people. I sold nine books there. But I had a chance to talk to the booksellers at Dutton's-really, wonderful knowledgeable book people-and a week or two later, when I called back, they had sold all forty copies of the book and ordered more. Those sales were a gift. Even while I was on the phone, I was thinking, at least forty people are reading my novel in Los Angeles. This happened because the staff at Dutton's got behind the book and hand sold it.
I had a similar experience at Books and Books in Miami, one of the best bookstores in the southeast. The store's owner, Mitchell Kaplan, arranged a reading for me on a Sunday night and helped promote it. Not only did he arrange it he attended it as well. He had some flattering things to say about my book and promised to read it when he had a chance. Six weeks later, at a reading in California, a couple came up to me who had already read the book. (I was always amazed when anyone came to a reading who'd already read the book. I wondered, how did they find it?) When I asked where they'd purchased the book, they told me that, while vacationing in Florida, they had visited Books and Books where a young man-judging by their description, none other than Mitchell Kaplan-told them, "If you leave this store with only one book, leave with this book." In short I was totally blown away that a bookseller had so actively helped place my books into the hands of readers. I think what I'm trying to say is this: when you publish your book, go out on the road. Meet the readers. Meet the booksellers. You'll be placing yourself into the hands of very generous people who love good books as much as you do.
SM: Has your experience tended to demystify the publishing process (for good or bad-or both) or has it made it even more special?
TP: Having a book come out is a great excuse to get out there and give readings. I think I had pretty realistic expectations for my book. No one should have any illusions: it's an increasingly tight market-particularly for literary fiction. Things have changed a lot since the mid-80's-for art in general, but especially for books and the publishing industry. I've known people who've recently published first books, and I came equipped with the understanding that it's wise to assume that all the pressure is on YOU to promote your book. Naturally, your publisher will do what they can, but if you go into it with an accurate appraisal of how things work and how much competition there is, you can only help yourself by being involved. For instance, my publisher set up a handful of readings for me, but I set up more than thirty myself.
SM: Other work(s) on the way? (Feel free to discuss works in progress, works already completed, ETC.)
TP: I've been working on a novel for about a year and a half, and I hope to have that done in the near future. My agent, Richard Parks, is currently shopping around another short-story collection. At the moment the collection is called Newsworld. We'll see if that title sticks once the book is sold. I like the title very much. But titles are always a tricky thing.
SM: So you've already completed another collection of new short stories?
TP: Yes. I love short stories; I love reading them; I love writing them. In a perfect world, I'd write even more short stories, but the reality is that short story collections don't sell well. Especially short story collections that aren't linked or tightly themed. It's a shame, but it's a trend we've seen get worse in the last decade. I was at Barnes & Noble recently and when I looked at the new fiction section, in four bookcases there were two collections of short stories and the rest were novels. Nowadays, short fiction simply isn't being published; certainly not at the rate it used to be. But having said that, I left Barnes & Noble that day with three books-two short story collections and a novel. The collections were amazing-David Means' new collection and a first collection (but second book) by David Benioff. I think that's what short stories are becoming-they're becoming a form for lovers of the form.
David Means has been able to make a reputation for himself exclusively as a short story writer, but that's rare now. In terms of publishing, most short story contracts are piggybacked onto novel contracts. That's the primary way that they are accepted by New York houses. With university or independent presses, it's different.
SM: Many people, as previously mentioned, would know you from Literaryagents.org, which you describe as a "low-tech, straight-forward guide to literary agents". How did this incredible resource come to be?
TP: I created it for a class I was teaching at Florida State several years ago, and it sort of exploded. It began getting tens of thousands of hits a month. I look at this project as a useful thing I can put back into the community, and it only takes about one day of concerted effort per month. Every day I get two or three e-mails thanking me, so that makes it worth the time invested. I think for people outside the publishing world, this is useful information, and I'm looking to provide simple, straightforward advice.
SM: Any plans on turning the site into something-dare I say "bigger"? A book perhaps?
TP: I don't know! I've thought about writing a book on agents/agenting, but there are so many good ones already out there, you know? Who knows. I know the word-of-mouth reception (from agents and writers alike) is positive; agents feel more comfortable getting queries, because in order to find this site in the first place, it's a safe assumption that the writer has at least some knowledge of the industry, or is at the very least fairly serious about finding representation.
SM: Presumably you've received kudos-from both agents who can essentially advertise their services, as well as writers who are looking for agents-for the work you've done. Would you care to shed any insight you've gained: the proverbial good, bad and ugly, concerning agents, who are, fairly or not, often thought of as aloof and inaccessible?
TP: The site has been running for about seven years, and I've certainly learned a great deal. For starters, I can appreciate how difficult it would be to become an agent. There is a tremendous amount of pressure on these people, and they constantly have to make difficult decisions. I have known agents who take on books they don't necessarily love but know will sell, as opposed to books they might love but will have serious challenges selling to an editor/publisher. There is only so much time, and it is a business. I've seen a lot of excellent agents drop out because it's such a hard business. I do love getting e-mails from people who have met or found agents and then had books sold via my site. That's a great feeling.
SM: You are now teaching. Has this experience enriched your own writing? I've talked to many writers, who also teach, and there seems to be an inevitable push-and-pull in terms of time and energy, and teaching (probably like any other profession) can be seen as something that contributes and distracts from the craft of writing. Thoughts?
TP: I love teaching. I love those moments when students-perhaps for the first time-understand how to write a story. Teaching fiction writing also is always a useful way to remember or reinforce the basics-the craft of writing. I'm always reminded to think about ways to utilize these tools in my own work. After you've written for a while, you sort of internalize the lessons you've learned, so it's nice to be around people who are writing. Of course, teaching does take a lot of time and energy. I try to keep myself on a strict schedule to ensure that I'm writing as much as I need to be.
SM: Again, as a teacher, if you had to say: has the writing of your students gotten better over time? Worse? The same? What positive trends have you noticed? What awful ones? Is it true to presume that regardless of genre or generation, good writing (and good writers) tend to find their way?
TP: Movies have definitely done a great deal to ruin fiction in college workshops. Maybe "ruin" is not the right word. New writers should take in everything-genre books, literary books, movies, drama, music, documentaries. When I was an MFA student I kept season tickets to the LA Opera because I wanted to have a better understanding of how opera presented stories. But when a new writer's inspiration is too focused on something other than literature or writing-say, films for example-they can spend a lot of energy attempting to translate the style of film-particularly its style of dialogue and visual presentation-into prose fiction. It usually doesn't work well. Film relies exclusively on scene. In fiction, the narrative dances between summary narration and scene. Film strongly relies on objective representations of characters, placing the audience as witnesses to a story. Fiction relies on internal representations, attaching the audience to a subjective point of view of one character. It's a subtle but significant paradigm shift. When I first began teaching workshops, Pulp Fiction distracted a lot of writers. More recently the Kevin Smith movies have done the same thing. A lot of the elements that make for a great movie, whether it's dialogue or style, don't necessarily translate into the short story, especially for the novice.
SM: MFA or No-MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs?
TP: It depends on what you want out of an MFA program.
I think many people move blindly into MFA programs hoping that the MFA will lead to publication. All MFA programs help students develop their writing. That's the important thing. Most all MFA programs have at least a few students who have gone on to publish a book.
But in terms of publishing, I'd say there are currently about a dozen, maybe fifteen MFA programs that will genuinely help young writers move toward book-length publication-with agents and editors coming in to meet with the class, establishing connections for down the road. Depending on your own personal goals, such opportunities to work with publishing professionals may or may not be important for you. But you should know what an MFA program can realistically offer before attending.
Beyond those dozen or fifteen schools, there are a number of programs out there where you get two or three years where you can write and teach, and this is obviously very useful for many people. I think many people many people find this experience invaluable-having a couple years to write and enjoying the company of other people who value writing.
What I'm trying to get at is this: there are over one-hundred MFA programs in the country, all of them different. And the differences are significant. If you want to attend an MFA program, start looking at what each school offers. Each year the AWP (Associate Writing Programs) puts out a guide to graduate programs in creative writing (www.awpwriter.org). And when you've narrowed down your selections to four or five programs, find out everything about each school-its graduates, its teachers, the courses you'll be taking. Highly-ranked MFA programs are extremely competitive, so make sure to submit a very strong audition packet of fiction with your application. And let each school know your reasons, specifically, for applying to their school.
But before attending an MFA program you need to have a realistic understanding of what that MFA program is able to offer you-in terms of funding, class offerings, workshops, the prospects for your life as a writer or a teacher of writing after you receive the degree.
At times, I loved my MFA workshops. At times, I hated them. At times, I despised them. The advice I received in them flattered me, frustrated me, infuriated me, stifled me. But I know this: the experience made me a better writer. It took me years after receiving the MFA to publish a book. But I wouldn't have published that book without the training I received in the MFA program.
SM: Who would you recommend as some of the better writers currently producing fiction?
TP: As I mentioned, I read a lot of short stories. I love Updike, and have returned to his stories often. Lorrie Moore, Richard Ford, Robert Olen Butler, Alice Munro, Charles Baxter, Richard Bausch. I would say, as a short story writer, there is a sort of insular geekiness, where you tend to know who is producing the best work in that community, and I enjoy it and want to support it.
As for new relatively new writers, I love the work of George Saunders, Stacey Richter, Aimee Bender, and Adam Johnson.
SM: If you had to say which writer influenced you most, and which book, what would they be? Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
TP: Updike is very important; I read him all the time. I think Richard Ford and Robert Olen Butler both have very traditional, enveloping voices. They both bring a dramatic sense of urgency to their stories and create a strong interiority for each of their characters, and I respond to that. When I was younger, Bret Easton-Ellis and Jay McInerny were big influences. We're talking back in high school. I read Bright Lights, Big City several times. Once I started avidly reading, I read everything I could. These days I'm more picky, but I tend to take recommendations from other writers, or reviewers that I trust.
SM: If you could succinctly summarize the trajectory (thus far!) of your writing life, how different is it from what you imagined, as an earnest but unpublished author? How is it better? Worse? What things would you have changed?
TP: I didn't realize when I was younger how long it would take to write book-length manuscripts, how hard the process really was. I wish I had understood the place of the short story earlier on, what I was getting myself into! I wouldn't change anything, I'd have done the same thing, but maybe it would have been impossible to even predict the ways in which short stories have sort of been marginalized.
As far as how things have changed, I'd say that back in the 80's the industry was not as formalized or competitive; now getting books published is not unlike actors trying to get minor roles in movies. Early on I heard a writer who was teaching an MFA class explain that there are typically six students in a class per year, and that two of them will eventually publish, two of them will teach or be in a related field, and two of them will finish the program and want nothing more to do with it. That's held up fairly consistently in my observations over the years. But the business of writing at the university level has changed considerably. In the mid-80's the MFA programs exploded across the country. In 1995 I attended the AWP Conference in Newport News, Va., and there were about six or seven hundred people there.
These days there are four or five thousand people coming to these conferences.
SM: Lastly: any advice for aspiring writers?
TP: There is no better way to examine the human condition than carefully written fiction. As our nation changes-and our national identity is changing-I think fiction will be an important tool by which we examine those personal changes, both in our actions and in our intentions.
I'd say that there are actually too many good short stories out there right now (not too few); there are just so few places to publish them. There are, I think, about 125 MFA programs in the USA right now, and a beginning writer has to ask: what am I going to do to take the skills I'm learning and individualize them, how am I going to incorporate my talent into a vision that I can express in my fiction? For younger writers, I think it's an exciting time to be creating fiction. No one has written the great book(s) about being a young twenty-something in 2004 or 2005. As the world changes, there are new experiences to write about, which ties into finding your voice and your vision, and creating original work that people will want to read.
For writers just starting out-I'd encourage anyone to start sending stories out. Try magazines; try the small presses; try literary journals; for novelists try to find an agent. Work on your stories all the time; keep them in the mail. Find a couple of writers who have a writing/publishing life that you would like to emulate-someone who is five or six years down the road: talk to them and listen to their advice, they'll understand what you are going through and they may have some useful insight.
When I was an MFA student, I had the opportunity to attend the Squaw Valley Writers Conference three years in a row. The last year I attended, I told one of the new writers, a friend I'd made earlier that year, that my main observation about writing and publishing after attending the conference for three years was this: "The main reason writers don't get published is because they give up-give up writing, give up sending their work out. Just give up." This past summer that same writer called me. I hadn't talked to him in a couple years. He told me he had a first book coming out, and when he was frustrated with the writing, he would often remember that-about giving up. "So guess what," he told me on the phone, "I didn't give up."
That, I believe, is the only way to approach the difficult process of writing fiction. By continually refusing to give up.

An Interview with Stephen Goodwin

2008-02-24T07:39:00.000-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Stephen Goodwin

Stephen Goodwin is one of the very rare and precious forces that anyone who appreciates exceptional writing would do well to celebrate. Whether you know him, have read him, or even heard of him, it is very possible that you've felt his influence. A respected writer of fiction and nonfiction, and a popular and well-regarded writing teacher, Goodwin has also made his mark-albeit in his unassuming and quietly confident fashion-as an eloquent advocate for the arts. It would, in short, be difficult to reside in the DC Metropolitan area and not have encountered his work, or felt his presence in the efforts of one of his successful students. Goodwin the writer is, not surprisingly but still refreshingly, very much like Goodwin the teacher: intelligent but unpretentious, enthusiastic but soft-spoken, connected but humble, equal parts southern gentleman and beltway insider. His latest novel Breaking Her Fall has received first-rate reviews in the press, and props from Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford, who celebrates Goodwin's achievement as "a true and good story of human frailty and imperfection survived."
Stephen Goodwin is a professor of creative writing at George Mason University and the author of two previous novels and a nonfiction book. His short fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Sewanee Review, Georgia Review, and Gentleman's Quarterly; his reviews and nonfiction have been published in the Washington Post and Country Journal. Goodwin has also directed the literature program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and he served two terms as president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
SM: First off, congratulations on your new novel! I heard some positive blurbs on NPR and all the reviews I've read have been uniformly outstanding.
SG: Thanks. There have been some good reviews, and I've learned that the best place to have a book mentioned is NPR -- because the audience for NPR is much the same as the audience of readers.
SM: Publisher's Weekly proclaims that this is your first novel in over two decades. Did you know you were going to write another novel (or, this novel) and work on it for a long time, or what reason(s) would you offer for the long time between books?
SG: Honestly, I thought I'd never write another novel. The difference on this one was that I decided starting out that I wasn't going to do it unless it was ready to come. I think I ruined fiction writing for myself by trying to force it, and I wasn't going to do that again.
SM: Did you find the process of composing a novel more arduous this time? Less? Did you feel more comfortable and/or confident as an established writer and teacher, or did that augment the self-induced pressure any committed artist feels?
SG: I felt more comfortable this time through, but not because I felt "established." The books that had been of interest to me for a while before writing this were books like "Feast of Love," by Charlie Baxter, and "We Were the Mulvaneys," by Joyce Oates. These books are full of feeling, unlike so many contemporary novels that wouldn't be caught dead in the vicinity of a real emotion. To me the passion in Baxter and Oates was liberating, and in "Breaking Her Fall" I decided I wouldn't shy away from emotion, or try to make it seem less messy than it really is. At that point the book was easy to write -- though I still had the problem of trying to put these messy feelings into a story.
SM: Writing and Teaching: I would imagine with your experience you'd be able to give a clinic on how to maintain balance between the demands of impressionable students and the demands of one's own restless muse. Care to elaborate on that?
SG: The answer is, it's impossible to keep a balance. A lot of teachers I know just don't try to write during the semester because it's so damn frustrating.
SM: Any plans to write a book on writing?
SG: Nope.
SM: If you could succinctly summarize the trajectory (thus far!) of your writing life, how different is it from what you imagined, as an earnest but unpublished author? How is it better? Worse? What things would you have changed?
SG: It's turned out completely differently from what I imagined -- which was that I would somehow walk in the footsteps of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, or at least George Plimpton. That I'd live in glamorous places, write dozens of books, catch big fish! I have caught a few fish, but I've also lived through a time when the novel has been languishing on its deathbed. Don't misunderstand me -- there are wonderful novels written now, but there aren't many readers for them. Fiction writing has become a marginal activity in our culture, while movies and TV have all the money and glamor and power. I was slower than many of my friends -- some of whom took off for Hollywood -- to realize that writing books was a tough way to make a buck, almost an impossible way. Thank god the universities have supported writers! I happen to believe that writers still do the essential work of telling the truth, which is not something of great concern to the moviemakers.
SM: MFA or No-MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs?
SG: It's always seemed strange to me that anyone would be ADAMANT about this. Many of our best writers have come from writing programs, and I don't think you can argue that workshops harm people. I've seen many people make huge leaps in workshops. The danger of MFA programs is more subtle and insidious -- it's the culture, it's the fact that there are now enough writing programs so that a writer can put together a career without ever having to reach the "common reader," or the public. I've heard writers claim that they don't ever consider their audience, but I think that's bull. And I think there's a huge difference between imagining that you write for a group of people of exquisitely refined sensibilities as opposed to a group of busy, active, smart folks who probably only have time to read a handful of novels in a year. I know that I wanted Breaking Her Fall to get to the "common reader," and I happen to know several common readers-my mother and my sister, for starters-they're always in a book.
SM: Again, as a teacher, if you had to say: has the writing of your students gotten better over time? Worse? The same? What positive trends have you noticed? What awful ones? Is it true to presume that regardless of genre or generation, good writing (and good writers) tend to find their way?
SG: I know that I see better students now than I did 20 years ago, but are they better writers? Time will tell. It's an unusual thing for a writer in an MFA program to be fully evolved. I have a friend, Robyn Wright, who won national awards as an MFA student, and now that she's been out of the program for five years she's writing things that are completely different -- and better, I'd say. But it takes a while for most fiction writers to hit their stride. As for trends, the huge favorite among students is still the first person, present tense narrative, though it's being pressed by an apparently urgent need that people now feel to write their memoirs. Really, I keep talking to young writers for whom that is the major project.
SM: If you had to say which writer influenced you most, and which book, what would they be? Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
SG: In "Breaking Her Fall", there is a lot of music -- lots or references to Eva Cassidy and Eric Clapton. I was playing their music at the time, and I think that something about the way they engage with their art made its way into my work. I hope so. Singers and musicians let it spill out; they can't shy away from emotion, and that's the quality that I was listening for. I had their music playing the whole year that it took me to write that book.
SM: Who would you recommend as some of the better writers currently producing fiction?
SG: I've already mentioned Charlie Baxter and Joyce Oates -- amazing writers, both of them. I'd also like Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Richard Bausch, and Jane Hamilton as writers whose next book I will snap up.
SM: Any comments on the autobiographical elements in any of your novels?
SG: Only this: I decided a long time ago that I wouldn't read any book about someone whose life wasn't more interesting than my own. I wouldn't write one, either.
SM: Lastly: any advice for aspiring writers?
SG: One, remember that when you decide o write, you are starting down a long and winding path. Writing is a way of life and if you want to get to be any good, you have to keep following the path. Two, make sure you have some good companions on the journey.

An Interview with Christopher Coake

2008-02-24T07:38:00.001-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Christopher Coake

It seems safe to predict that Chris Coake is a writer to watch out for. With his first book, a collection of short stories entitled We're in Trouble coming out in spring 05, and several projects in the works, there should be ample opportunity for readers to become familiar with him. It is also easy to wish Chris all the success he seems certain to achieve due to his obvious amiability and enthusiasm. While it might be understandable for a hard-working writer on the verge of a breakthrough to have an air of confidence, if not arrogance, Chris seems genuine, and genuinely humble about the work he's done and the recognition he's beginning to receive. Sometimes good guys do finish first, and the smart money is on Mr. Coake making waves well into the future. Chris is currently studying and teaching at Ohio State University, and will begin teaching English at the University of Nevada, Reno, next January. His work has appeared recently in The Gettysburg Review and will be featured in the forthcoming Best American Mystery Stories 2004 collection.
SM: Please talk about your upcoming projects for publication.
CC: Last summer I sold my first book, a collection of short stories titled We're in Trouble. It's coming out from Harcourt in April, 2005, and so far it's also been bought by four foreign markets-the UK (Penguin UK is the publisher), Germany (Random House Germany), France (Albin Michel), and Italy (Guanda). We have nibbles in other countries as well. The book's made up of seven stories, three of which are nearly novella-length. I wrote most of them in the last four years, which means that, with two exceptions, they've gone through the workshopping process at Ohio State, where I'm just finishing up my MFA.
One of the stories- "All Through the House," which was originally published last summer in The Gettysburg Review-is going to appear in the Best American Mystery Stories 2004 collection, due out in October '04.
I'm actually in the curious position of still trying to place some stories from the book in journals. It all came together so quickly that I haven't had a chance to find homes for some of them-which isn't helped by their length, either. Barring some last-minute acceptances, only four of the seven will have been published by the time of the book's release.
SM: Has your experience tended to demystify the publishing process, or has it made it even more special?
CC: Hm. Yes, and yes, I think. I know a heck of a lot more about publishing-about the process of putting a book together, seeing it sold, etc.-than I did a year and a half ago, and the possession of that knowledge can't help but demystify things. I've met my editor at Harcourt, Ann Patty, who is a twenty-five year publishing vet-back in the day, she told me, she discovered V.C. Andrews, and she just had a bestseller last year with Yann Martel's The Life of Pi-and though I pretty much owe her my career, she's not at all terrifying or aloof. I've been a journal editor (I edited Miami University of Ohio's journal Oxford Magazine for a year, and I've helped out on OSU's The Journal), so I know all about that process. (Submitting to journals was demystified the first time I found a couple of story submissions that had slipped into the wrong pile in my office at Miami, bearing six-month-old postmarks.) But book publishers-they're another story. Up until recently they were gods up on mountaintops.
I'm the product of two graduate writing programs: I got my MA at MU-Ohio, and now I'm at Ohio State, and one of the benefits of being in programs like these is that a young (or, rather, beginning) writer gets to consult with people who have published books, who've climbed the mountaintop. My advisor and mentor at OSU, Michelle Herman, even teaches a class in literary publishing, the whole purpose of which is demystification. (She taught the course last year, and managed to talk Ann Patty into coming to visit Columbus; Ann did her best to lay bare the process).
But all the same, that this has happened to me in the first place makes me feel-I don't know, I'm not a religious person, so I won't say "blessed" . . . but the word has some aspects that I like to it, in that I do feel as though this book, my career, has been helped and guided by people with a lot more of a clue than me. Michelle and I share an agent, because Michelle thought my work was ready and told me to send it along. That I finished a book at all is due to Nick Hornby, who was a guest instructor here, and mentioned me to his publisher on his way out of the country, and that sent me scrambling to compile a complete work. (Though his US publisher turned me down, the indefatigable Mr. Hornby is responsible for my UK and Italian contracts; Penguin and Guanda are his publishers, too. He's also giving We're in Trouble its first review, in his September column for The Believer.) My agent, Marian Young, is terrific, both a taskmaster and a great person to bounce ideas off of; she's the one who got the book sold so fast-we had an offer five weeks after I gave her the manuscript.
I don't want to be disingenuous-I wrote the stories to begin with, and none of this would have happened if they were awful. But all the same, a year and a half ago I was an MFA student stuck in his room-like a lot of other folks here who are good enough to have books-wondering if anyone would ever care, and without this community of people with more power and savvy around me, I might very well still be that lonely guy in his room. So in answer to your question, that help feels "special," and always will.
SM: Any other works on the way?
CC: Yeah, a couple of things. Random House Germany bought a novel-to-come from me, and I'm working on one right now, an expansion of one of the stories from the book. (Which got its start as a contraction of a failed novella.) I've got a couple of years to deliver anything, yet. That novel, though, looks more and more to be a long project (it's about a Slovenian Himalayan mountaineer, which is exactly not what I am, personally) requiring years of research. So I want to do something more local-something that doesn't require me to read a book to finish writing a page. I write a lot of novellas, and I have ideas for more; if only they sold better I could say I'm only a few months away from a second collection. I'm also starting to delve into non-fiction, which so far has been more rewarding than I would have guessed. I've finished a long essay my agent wants to send out; in fact I'm taking a break from revising it to do this interview.
I've also been working on editing an anthology-a compilation of contemporary literary fiction that deals, directly or indirectly, with cancer. But that's been back-burnered for a while, until my collection has had its time. To be honest, I still need more time to read for the anthology, anyway. We might try to market it with my novel manuscript, a couple of years down the road.
SM: Has teaching enriched your writing?
CC: Yes, a big yes. This would be a good time to mention that I am soon to be a teacher by profession; in January I'm starting work as an assistant professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno. I'll teach predominantly creative writing, which I find thrilling.
I've taught a lot of composition over the years, and though I like it, and seem to be good at it, comp demands a lot of time. Unreal amounts of time, particularly if you're teaching first-year college students. A good comp teacher has to urge students to revise, and revise, and revise; and that teacher has to read and reread and reread, and all the while these essays are going to be projects the students did under duress. No matter how positive students are about learning, very few dream of doing four revisions of a paper about, say, an analysis of a television commercial. So the papers, with a few notable exceptions, tend to drag. Now, that's not to say that teaching comp doesn't have rewards-but let's just say the rewards are subtle and spaced far apart, sometimes.
But a creative writing workshop is different. Students may write at all levels of achievement, but most of the time a story on the table in workshop represents work they're proud of, excited about. Passionate about, worried about. And that makes the vibe different. A good workshop hums; everyone's always thinking out loud. And the neat and sideways thing about fiction workshops is that-done well-they do teach other skills. I've seen students learn more about critical thinking in a workshop setting than they do in comp, again and again, simply by dint of the subject at hand, and their investment in it. A good workshop feels to me like a very pure distillation of the college experience-what I always thought the college experience ought to be, when I was a student. (Which explains why I'm going to have two advanced degrees in creative writing myself.) And having a part in that, being in the room with people who are actually learning, and excited to be learning, leaves me hopping with good energy and optimism that I can take back t0 my own writing.
Plus there's the element of having to walk the walk-if I'm vehemently arguing something for my students' benefit, then I'm forced, constantly, to sharpen those opinions. To hone my aesthetic, such as it is. Teaching workshop keeps me on my toes. (Which is only going to get more fraught in April; so far my students haven't had access to my writing, and I'm curious and a little terrified of the moment that will sooner or later come, when a student in my writing workshop waves my own book at me and points out nine examples of how I don't follow my own advice.)
SM: In your estimation, has the writing of students gotten better over time? Worse? The same? Trends? Is it true to presume that regardless of genre or generation, good writers tend to find their way?
CC: I haven't been teaching that long, all told, so it's hard for me to judge student writing on an historic scale. I think it's probably demonstrable that educated Americans, as a whole, write more poorly than they did back in the day-that we're suffering from too much video intrusion and Internet overuse and all of that. But I do think whether writing is bad or good has more to do with underlying ideas than with technical virtuosity, and that, by that measure, the number of truly creative people-people whose ideas and stories are worth reading-is probably the same from generation to generation. (I base this observation on absolutely no research whatsoever, incidentally.) Schools that interviewed me for teaching jobs asked what my criteria would be for admitting students to writing programs, and I answered truthfully that I'd want students with obvious passion, and/or a topic-a sense of immediacy and need in their work. Technical stuff (how to, for instance, make graceful transitions between the past and past perfect tenses) can be taught easily. The hard work is in shaping passions, guiding students deeper into those passions in search of complexity.
I just read Tobias Wolff's wonderful novel Old School, which is about bad writers in a private boys' school in the sixties. It's an amazing book, and it answers your question with subtleties I can't approach.
I can only talk about a couple of obvious trends-and keep in mind that I've only taught undergrads to this point. The big one, the one I'm guaranteed to see in every class, is the Hemingway style: Terse minimalism about heavy drinking and bafflement about women and general malaise. I see that a lot more than the more austere Carver-esque minimalism I had expected to see. The other--or maybe it's an offshoot-is that a lot of students are imitating Chuck Palahniuk these days, which means Hemingwayesque terse sentences mixed with a kind of aggressive surrealism. Other trends: students want trick endings; I hear The Sixth Sense referenced a lot. (It's safe to say that even English majors are more comfortable discussing movies than books.) More than a few want to write shared-world stories--drawing on mythology from Dungeons and Dragons or Everquest. Vampires are always popular. I see a lot of dialogue that can trace its origins back to Quentin Tarantino.
SM: MFA/No MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs?
CC: I still see the occasional book review in the New York Times that insists on beating the old, dead horse, about how MFA programs produce the same Carveresque minimalism, or the same high-gloss, low-wattage boring blah blah blah. (The typical review in this vein almost always goes on to express surprise: Despite writer X's MFA background, imagine this reviewer's surprise upon finding X's stories to be thrilling and inventive and new . . .) On the part of mainstream reviewers, this always stinks of laziness: setting up the straw man and knocking it down, rather than thinking up a real intro. It's not as though there's still any legitimate debate about whether writing programs ought to exist-the genie's out of the bottle; the programs aren't going away. There are well over a hundred writing programs in the country, producing thousands of writers, and by sheer dint of numbers some of those writers are going to be spectacular, and some of them are going to be high-gloss, low-wattage. And I might point out that a lot of bad, boring books were published in the days when a hundred grad programs weren't there to take the blame for them.
And anyway: writing programs don't make people rich. My monthly check at Miami of Ohio, back in '93, was about $650.00. I had a lot of time, yes, along with a lot of bills and not a lot of food, and a number of MFA students-particularly the young ones without reserves of cash-struggle in the same way today, and will ten years from now, too.)
I've been through two programs, and visited a lot of others, and I can say that, based on my experience, the idea of programs espousing a particular style-of producing "cookie-cutter fiction"-is past its prime. Miami let me experiment wildly. OSU let me experiment wildly. The growing number of programs in this country means that a lot of MFA-holders have been hired up to teach the new generation; my guess is that many programs are taught by people who themselves are rebelling against the styles of generations past.
So I guess it's fair to say that I am a strong proponent of the MFA system. I see it do a lot more right than wrong. But you must keep in mind my bias; I wouldn't be where I am without the help my own programs have provided me.
SM: What writers do you particularly enjoy and/or have most profoundly influenced you?
CC: I've already mentioned Tim O'Brien-his The Things They Carried was one of those books that changed everything, when I read it in 1993. It opened doors for me, showed me that fiction had more possibilities than I'd ever imagined.
I've mentioned Powers and Wallace, too. Galatea 2.2 and Infinite Jest are both remarkable books. Tobias Wolff, too: he's someone to whom most writers I know pay close attention. Alice Munro has been a huge influence on me. I'd read about five of her stories without "getting it," and then all of the sudden, six years or so ago, the light clicked on, and I read her Selected Stories in a few sittings. Munro breaks every rule there is, and she does it politely and subtly. She's amazing. Cormac McCarthy's recent stuff is great, but if he never writes another book I think he'll go to the pantheon for Blood Meridian.
A short list of names of other people I've read avidly, which should only be viewed as incomplete: George Saunders, Andrea Barrett, Toni Morrison, Denis Johnson, Steven Millhauser, Don DeLillo, Nick Hornby.
My profs at OSU are people who I think need more attention, and they all have new books out, or forthcoming: Lee K. Abbott, Michelle Herman, Erin McGraw, Lee Martin. This isn't just a plug-these people write really vital and beautiful literature. When I was a freshman at Ball State University my comp professor, Dennis Hoilman, taught us Joyce's "The Dead." That was the story that switched me over from writing genre to trying to write lit, and I still love it.
I should have mentioned Joyce Carol Oates up above. She was the first "lit" author I read on my own recognizance, and I still think she's great.
SM: Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
CC: I'm a huge film buff, and, like anyone of my generation (people who grew up with an intimate relationship to the screen) I have a deep, romantic, sometimes troubled and codependent relationship with the movies. But great movies have influenced me as much as books have. Pulp Fiction, for instance, I saw at Miami University, right when I was first having my creative imagination really pushed open. I still write a lot of a-chronological stuff because of it. I'm not even going to attempt a comprehensive list of influential movies. But I will mention Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, from 1997, which is hands-down my favorite film, ever. I don't feel the need to make movies, but when I came out of the theater I found myself wishing I'd made that one. To this day I feel possessive of that film, like somehow I had a hand in it. That I have been in something of a spiritual relationship with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films goes without saying. They're flawed, yes, but for all that they feel perfect.
SM: If you could succinctly summarize the trajectory (thus far!) of your writing life, how different is it from what you imagined, as an earnest but unpublished author? How is it better? Worse? What things would you have changed?
CC: 'll have to give a complicated answer in a lot shorter form than it deserves. I'll start by saying that when I was younger I thought writing would make me rich. I idolized not just Stephen King's writing, but his fame; I figured that my eventual career would go like his did, and that by the time I was forty I'd be living in a house that had secret passages, and that I'd work like King does, in an office above an indoor pool.
But that didn't happen, obviously. I just finished my first year living as a guy whose writing has paid for things he enjoys, but I'm not rich, and I understand I'm not likely to be. It's safe to say that my book's most valuable service has been to give me access to a job I like, with a good salary. Assuming I don't screw up on the way to tenure, I see myself as very happy with that job, with Reno, with teaching, for a long time to come. And let me say that, after five years in grad school and six years working in a used bookstore, the idea of my time at the computer being lucrative is still mind-blowing. The grad programs I've been to have been uniform in their blunt assessment of the market for literary fiction and for jobs teaching literary fiction. Just two years ago I was resigned to leaving OSU for a job doing something not at all related to writing. Dorothy Allison (add her to my list of influences above) visited our program, and told us a story about a writer she admires who drives a bread truck by day and writes at night, because he likes the smell of bread; he gets, she said, a lot of thinking done on his routes. All of us MFAers in the room were looking at each other and nodding and thinking that wasn't such a bad gig. So for me to have gone from thinking that, to being here in my present life, still makes my head spin. I have moments where I have to convince myself that it all really happened.
And of course nothing has really happened yet; the book is still on its way; I'm still a month from being able to walk into a Borders and see my name in a table of contents. So maybe a year from now this whole answer will be invalid. I don't know.
One thing I've avoided mentioning so far is that my life prior to a year ago was very difficult. I am a widower; I lost my wife, Joellen Thomas, to cancer in 1999. We met as grad students at Miami U. So when I say that I often have to sit back and ask myself what the hell happened, that's a big part of the reason why.
It's a sad story, and I don't want to tell it all here, but I can say this: I had nearly stopped writing during my relationship with Joellen. That wasn't her fault; what happened was that I was in a job I liked, and living with a woman I loved, and at that time I was content to get fat and lazy. It was a lot easier to sit on the couch and watch television at night than it was to spend two hours writing. I had a few finished stories I liked, and every few months I'd rouse myself and send them out, but I rarely produced anything new. In retrospect I had only one story that was any good, and it's scary to look back and see it as the link between that time and this one.
As it happened I'd sent that one story out right before Joellen's cancer recurred for the final time. And one of the places I'd sent it was to The Journal at Ohio State, a few blocks from our apartment. I promptly forgot about it. Then-just two days after we found out Joellen was terminal-I came home to a message from Michelle Herman that my story had been accepted. I don't believe in fate, though a lot of people around me who do point to that string of events as evidence. I look at it this way: in the middle of awful, awful times, in the middle of the worst luck there is, one good thing happened. My wife got to hear it, and the news gave her some happiness. And I had something to think about, and after Joellen was gone, I had something to build on. As it happened I met with Michelle Herman a few months after Joellen died, and she arranged for me to take her workshop as a continuing ed student, and then I decided to dive back into school, and Michelle talked me out of Utah and into Ohio State, which is where everything changed for me.
So I think it's fair to say that at almost every turn my career has gone differently than I'd imagined it going. In 1999 I couldn't have imagined that just five years later I'd have a book on the way, and a job in the mountains, and a woman I love (I am in a long-term relationship with a woman named Stephanie Lauer) going with me.
It's hard for me to look back, too. We're in Trouble isn't overtly about cancer, but Joellen's death is all over that book. Every story is about loss, and a couple are about these kind of hapless men who have outlived the women they love. A lot of people I know look at my story as inspiring, and sometimes I think so too, but just as often it's a source of tremendous guilt. My success came out of tragedy, but it's also built on tragedy. I used what happened to me. It's fair to say that in 1999 I wouldn't have imagined that, either. For the most part I'm a happy guy . . . I just don't want to forget what brought me here. The debts I owe.
SM: Any advice for aspiring writers?
CC: h, boy. Here goes (and keep in mind that I am recycling almost all of this from advice that's been passed on to me): The world is full of people who will tell you how difficult writing and publishing is. Believe them; never look away from the truth of this business. But also find and listen to people who will believe in your potential, people who think that you've got it in you to break through the poor odds. Whether that means going the MFA route, or surrounding yourself with supportive and well-read friends, is up to you to decide. It goes without saying that you have to believe in yourself; I just think it's impossible to keep believing in yourself without others who believe in you, too.
Next I'd say this: Good criticism is a luxury. You'll almost certainly find people (parents, significant others) who will love what you do, no matter what it is. But make sure that among your circle of readers are two or three people who can tell you when you've failed, and who can tell you why. And if you are in, or considering going to, a writing program, go with the understanding that you will be criticized, and with the willingness to let that happen. You'll be better for it.
The inverse is true, too: if you're the sort of writer who is overly self-critical, then find someone trusted who can tell you to quit screwing around and put it in the mail. I'm not the sort of writer who will tell anyone to write every day. I don't write every day; I write when I feel I'm going to do good work, and I know myself well enough that this isn't really a cop-out I use to play video games or go book-shopping, instead of writing. But I do think aspiring writers should learn their best possible work habits and adhere to them. If you need to write every day, then for the love of Pete write every day. I will say that even though I don't write every day, I work on writing every day: I turn potential stories over in my head; I do research; I read books and think about whether I liked them or loved them or hated them. I keep a journal---sporadically--in which I try to dissect what I think about books and my own work, and why.
But just in case, I'll end with something Roger Ebert (who is a very fine writer) once wrote, which I keep pinned to the wall above my computer: "The muse comes during composition, not before."

An Interview with Jenna Blum

2008-02-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

The Literary Life and How To Live It

by Sean Murphy

An Interview with Jenna Blum

Jenna Blum in person is very much like Jenna Blum on the page: intelligent, articulate, passionate, intriguing. The type of person you could talk to for hours and still long for more. With the publication of her first novel, the ambitious and breathtaking THOSE WHO SAVE US, she hopes to cast her spell on a larger audience. Early indications are positive: the story of family secrets and survival in Nazi Germany and New Heidelberg, Minnesota contains "characters…drawn with rare complexity…a gripping mystery in a page-turner that raises universal questions of shame, guilt, and personal responsibility" (Hazel Rochman, Booklist).
Ms. Blum's evolution as a writer underscores the actuality that there is no such thing as an overnight success story for a serious novelist. While her readers will have cause to celebrate the fact that a unique and talented voice will not remain unnoticed for long, her quest for publication reinforces the notion that tenacity and unwavering resolution are integral components of any writer's arsenal. Already at work on her next book, it seems easy to predict that she will become-and remain-a force to be reckoned with for years to come.
Jenna Blum's first novel, THOSE WHO SAVE US, published by Harcourt, is available in bookstores everywhere. Excerpts have appeared or are forthcoming in The Briar Cliff Review, Prairie Schooner, and Meridian and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Ms. Blum has been writing professionally since 1986, when she won First Prize in Seventeen's National Fiction Contest. Since then her short fiction has earned awards from and appeared in various national publications, including The Bellingham Review, The Kenyon Review, Explorations, Reader's Break, and Pine Grove Press. Ms. Blum holds an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University, where she teaches Creative and Communications Writing; she also runs Advanced Fiction Workshops for Grub Street Writers.
SM: First off, congratulations are in order! How does it feel to see your first novel in print? To be able to go to a bookstore and see it/buy it?
JB: First off, thank you! And I won't lie: the first time I saw THOSE WHO SAVE US on the New Hardcovers Table (at Borders in Boston's Downtown Crossing, between The True Story of the Capture of Saddam Hussein and Suzanne Somers: The Sexy Years), it felt really damned good. Also incredibly surreal. I'd had an advance copy in my apartment for a couple of weeks, propped up on the mantel where I could marvel at it and think, in the way of all proud new mothers, Did I really DO that? So I was accustomed to seeing the book in its hardcover form. However, I was used to seeing it only in my living room, so my initial impulse upon finding it in public was to buy all the copies and spirit them back to my apartment, where I felt they belonged.
My second impulse, the one I actually acted upon, was to call my mother on my cell phone and be so loudly jubilant that a very nice guy standing next to me picked the book up. He glanced at my author photo and then at me with an expression of disbelief (in the photo I look uncharacteristically clean and glamorous, whereas in the flesh I was wearing sweats), and when I was finally off the phone, he said, "Did you really write this?" Yes, I said, doing a little aw-shucks shuffle, that's me. And God bless this guy, he and his partner brought a copy right then and there and had me sign it. They also hugged me and said "This is your special day," and for the rest of the afternoon I wanted to grab people on the street and shout, "HEY, THIS IS MY SPECIAL DAY!" I will never forget those two guys as long as I live.
Now I consider it my job to go into every bookstore I see and subtly rearrange the shelves to make sure THOSE WHO SAVE US is fronted. I have to confess to an impulse to sweep all the other books aside and shine a spotlight on my baby. Seeing the book in print has brought out a new side of me, since up until this point I have been reduced to giggling idiocy simply by strangers politely enquiring, "So, what's your book about?" No longer; now, apparently, I am shameless in my efforts to promote my child. I would make a terrifying stage mother.
SM: How long did it take you to write this novel?
JB: I embarked on a very early (and now unrecognizable) draft of THOSE WHO SAVE US in 1993, shortly after returning from my first trip to Germany with my mother. I had been inspired by the question we so constantly asked each other during that visit: "If you had been a civilian German woman during World War II, what would you have done?" We agreed we would both like to think that we would have done something to help our Jewish neighbors but recognized that, as one Holocaust survivor I once interviewed said to me, "You never know what you're going to do until you do it, until your back is up against the wall."
People are rarely heroes or villains but fall somewhere in between. And I never forgot that because my father was Jewish, I would have had the chance to do precisely nothing; like him, I would have been rounded up and deported to one of the camps.
In any case, I was fascinated by Germany's schizophrenic heritage--that Uber-civilized culture engineering history's most devastating mass genocide--and my own, and I began a rough draft of the novel. I didn't have enough historical or emotional knowledge to make it resonant then, however, and for many intervening years it functioned solely as a doorstop in my apartment while I worked on other projects. In 1999 I returned to the era of the Reich in short story form; that story, also entitled "Those Who Save Us," was quickly published by The Briar Cliff Review. This gave me the encouragement I needed to expand it back into a book, and I wrote a first draft of the novel as it now exists in six months. The revisions required another two and a half years. So, all told, I'd say the writing of THOSE WHO SAVE US took me three years to complete.
SM: What would you want potential readers to know about your book? What are some of the things you'd hope a reader might take away from it?
JB: THOSE WHO SAVE US has been billed as a mother-daughter story and also as a war novel, and both of those descriptions are accurate. So I hope any reader who has a mother--particularly a difficult mother--will be able to relate to the story! And I hope I have accomplished the goal any historical novelist aspires to reach: that the novel will enrich the reader's understanding of what life on the home front was like, especially for women, during World War II. What makes THOSE WHO SAVE US different from many other books about the time period, I think, is that it offers the perspective of the Aryan German woman; such women had a ringside seat to the conflagration (as women often do, from their quiet domestic position behind the scenes), but their viewpoint has been largely ignored in fiction. So I hope I have incorporated enough vivid detail to be able to make the era of the Third Reich come alive for readers from a perspective that hasn't been previously explored.
I also feel very strongly that at the novel's heart there is a "Judge not lest ye be judged" philosophy. Again, it's very tempting to think that if one were in a similar situation to that of my German protagonist, Anna, one would always try to help one's Jewish counterparts (as she initially tries to do)--and that one would never enter a relationship with a Nazi officer (as she later does) in order to survive. But as Anna's daughter Trudy says relatively early in the novel, "History isn't just a study in black and white. Human behavior is comprised of ulterior motives, of gray shades." To me, history consists of the stories of the people who lived it, the small cogs in the big machine. And through exploring the crucibles of circumstance in which my characters find themselves, I hope I've demonstrated that people are rarely angels nor devils--rather, they are a complicated stew of psychological and cultural factors--and that they should not be judged as such.
SM: Since it's inevitable to be asked about the autobiographical elements of any novel, what particular experience(s) did you have that served as inspiration for-or construction of-Those Who Save Us?
JB: One of the great things about writing fiction is that it acts as a shield of sorts: the writer can express things of great emotional importance to him or her through the card tricks of character and plot, leaving the reader guessing as to what components belong to the author. Put another way, fiction is something like the puzzles that fascinated me as a child: in among the amoeba-like pieces, there were some recognizable shapes--tulips, moons, stars. There are bits of me encoded throughout THOSE WHO SAVE US--snippets of dialogue, setting descriptions--that only family and friends would catch.
Otherwise, when asked what of me is in the book, I like to say enigmatically, "It's fiction." I remember snapping this after a reading I did of a scene in which one of the characters is raped with a Luger; a man in the audience sidled up to me and whispered hopefully, "Was that autobiographical?" Sorry, buddy, thank you for playing, but NO.
As I am, however, half-Jewish and also German--Jewish on my dad's side and German on my mother's--I have been steeped in the knowledge of the Holocaust for as long as I can remember. Two of my father's great-aunts, for instance, were murdered by the Nazis at Babi Yar. And from my mother I have inherited a fascination with Germany that persists to this day. So the inspiration for the novel is genetically embedded in my personal fabric. I've interviewed dozens of Holocaust survivors for the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and I've returned to Germany with my mother three times since that initial trip. All of these experiences have been highly inspirational in informing the emotional landscape of my characters.
SM: Has your experience tended to demystify the publishing process (for good or bad-or both) or has it made it even more special?
JB: Ever since I was a little kid, I had this certainty that one day I would be an author with a novel coming out. In the interim between childhood and when this actually happened, I fantasized so often about the things writers dream of--meeting the agent, going to New York to have that three-martini lunch with the editor--that when these events occurred, it felt in one way like a strange deja-vu.
In another, more profound sense, the experience of having a novel published has made me feel like Alice In Wonderland. I'm still falling down the rabbit hole, marveling at the things I pass en route: my fierce and lovely superagent, my astonishingly acute editor, contracts, the arrival of the galleys, the incoming reviews. All are curiouser and curiouser. I do perhaps know a bit more about what to expect: the fact that it's perfectly normal, for instance, to feel as though one's publishing house is a gigantic and powerful machine laboring on one's behalf, without the writer necessarily knowing much about what's going on. And that it's not nice to pester one's publicist with daily panic calls. But in recent months many authors have said to me, in that "You're so cute when you're naive" tone, "Oh, this is your first book? You'll find out. Nobody really cares. Nobody does anything for you. You have to do all your promotion yourself." Not only is this not true, but I think it's spitting in the eyes of the Publishing Gods. To think that people were interested enough in what my characters have to say that they actually published the book--this to me is an ongoing miracle.
SM: Speak a little about your process of "becoming" a writer. Did you always know you wanted to write? Was there a turning point (Or several?)?
JB: I did always know I wanted to write. The soundtrack to my earliest memories is that of my father typing--he also was a writer, a newsman--and so my own compulsion to write, too, has probably been genetically encoded. I've been writing ever since I could hold a pencil; I think my earliest story dates back to when I was four years old. Writing is the only thing I've ever been any good at--writing and teaching writing. I love both more than I can say. And I have proven completely useless at any other sort of profession, more financially lucrative ones that involve working in offices, for instance.
It's always helpful to receive affirmation of one's compulsions, however, and not just from one's adoring parents (though I have been blessed with their lifelong support). I was lucky enough to publish short stories in Seventeen Magazine at an early age--I won the national contest when I was sixteen--and this reinforced my suspicion that writing was what I was meant to do. I've also been fortunate in placing short stories in literary magazines as an adult. And one of the proudest moments of my life was receiving my Authors' Guild card in the mail. I wept at Kinko's while laminating it, and I wish my dad were still alive so I could show it to him. He would say, "Well, Cookie. Mazel tov."
SM: You have taught at the college level for several years-what has that experience been like?
JB: I adore teaching--I'm not one of those writers who sees it only as a necessary evil to pay the mortgage. I teach Communication and Creative Writing at Boston University, from which I earned my MA in Creative Writing; again, I've been lucky in that once I had my diploma in hand, the University was kind enough to simply move me to the other side of the desk. In the beginning I felt like a complete impostor, and I had a few astonished private giggles over the fact that my students would assiduously write down whatever I chalked onto the board. But there was also a sort of mantle of calm that fell over me the first day I walked into my classroom--I can't describe it better than that--an almost predestined feeling that I could do this: take attendance and then talk about writing. It has been a blessing. I have especially enjoyed scarring my students in terms of the proper uses of grammar. I've heard I'm known around the department as the Grammar Hag, a title I relish. You can't write well unless you are familiar with the fundamental building blocks of language, how to put them together and how to move them around.
SM: How has teaching helped/hindered your own writing?
JB: Teaching has helped me enormously in a couple of ways. For one thing, it gets me out of the house so I don't lose ALL sense of normal social graces. For another, the structure of teaching plays devil's advocate with my time. When I have a day free to write--well, it's amazing how many errands I suddenly have to do or how often the floor needs to be Swiffered. But when I am teaching, I have to fight to find time for my own work, and I'm that much more on-track.
I also run Advanced Fiction and Novel classes for Grub Street Writers, an independent Boston-based writing school for adults, and commenting on my students' stories and novels, pinpointing what's working and what could be improved, has strengthened my critical muscles and made me that much more alert to problems in my own work. Not to mention, writing is in essence a solitary profession; there are often days when the only other people I see are the counterfolks at my local Starbucks. My Grub Street students are the exception: they provide a community of funny, smart, talented people who are as interested in and dedicated to writing as I am, and that has been an enormous boon.
SM: MFA or No-MFA? Any comments or opinions for the folks who are adamant (pro OR con) about the value of MFA programs?
JB: I'm going to weasel out of a proper answer by saying that the to-MFA-or-not-to-MFA question should be entirely left up to the individual. It all depends on your reasons for wanting the degree. There are obvious pros: the degree can open teaching doors, for instance. Without my MA, I would still be working in the food service industry and writing at night; I would have stronger biceps but I wouldn't be able to teach. And MA/ MFA programs can also help provide the got-your-back kind of community of writers I mentioned above. Some of my dearest friends are the people with whom I sweated through the MA workshops.
I made it through the Boston University Graduate Creative Writing program, which I don't think I'm exaggerating in saying is a boot camp for writers. While the experience was humbling, it definitely helped me to be a more conscious writer, whereas prior to attending, I was writing primarily by instinct and out of a great sense of self-aggrandizement.
But there are times when an MA/ MFA program can, I feel be counter-productive. One of my former students is halfway through a novel that I think has great publishable potential, and my feeling is that if she were to go for her degree now, it would break her stride. I suppose, in the final analysis, it's best to ask why you want to go. MA/ MFA programs can be great for gestation, teaching credentials, and being in the company of other writers. If none of that sounds like what you need, stay home and write.
SM: Which writer(s) has/have influenced you most, and which book(s)? Any other notable influences, artistic or otherwise?
JB: My dad influenced me by example and by supporting my endeavors. My mother influences me by being my most unsparing editor; if I send her a scene and she gets through it without yawning, "Ho hum"--and that's a literal, direct quote--I know I'm on the right track.
As for writers, every writer I read influences me in some way. I'm an avid reader of my contemporaries, and I tend to read their works in marathon spurts--right now, for instance, I'm reading the novels of Ann Patchett, and I'm gleaning a lot from her use of structure and elegant sentences. It's very rare that I read a book without turning up the bottom of at least one page, signifying that something on it--even a detail as small as a description of light slanting against a wall in a certain way--has struck me enough that I'll remember it. And that's why writers write, I think--at least, that's my goal: to cast out these filaments of yourself, the way you see the world, into the void--and hoping that they'll catch on at least one reader whose daily life is enriched by something you wrote.
A less lofty answer: I love Larry McMurtry for his sense of humor and eccentric, yet believable characters (and aren't we all, in ways more or less visible, eccentric!). Ditto John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces; its protagonist, Ignatius Reilly, is the best example I know of a lovably horrible character. I admire Russell Banks and Ethan Canin for their male portraiture and solid storytelling; Joanna Trollope for her insight into human behavior and her wry British wit in describing it; Donna Tartt's Gothic novel The Secret History for its wonderful creepiness and beautiful prose. And I love Susan Isaac's Shining Through for the chutzpah of its unsinkable heroine. I've often thought that if writer-heaven consisted of the opportunity to live a favorite character's story, I would choose that of Isaac's Linda Voss so I could spend eternity as a secretary-turned-girl-spy, fighting Nazis.
SM: How much pressure do you feel to be successful due to the increasingly competitive and marginalized publishing scene?
JB: Oy, you really want to get me started on the consequences of Chicklit and The New York Times Book Review cutting back its fiction list by 30 %? I didn't think so!
I think there's little a writer can do about the vagaries of the publishing industry (other than ranting with one's writer friends over Scotch)--talk about being a small cog in a big machine! Like every other writer I know, I'm hoping that the pendulum will swing away from Chicklit, back in the direction of more literary fiction. In fact, I trust this will happen. There's only so much junk food people can eat. Meanwhile, you have to write what you have to write, and I've always believed that if you care about and love what you write, with a little luck and a lot of perseverance, it will find its way in the world.
As for the pressure to be successful, that is omnipresent, Chicklit or no Chicklit, Dire Times For Novelists or not. I have always felt this pressure. It's internal. Increasingly, I feel I owe success to my characters--said success consisting of getting them out there in book form and selling as many copies as possible, so people get to know them.
SM: Are you hitting the road? Will we able to see you read? (Do you have a website?)
JB: Yes! I am doing readings in and around Boston throughout the spring and summer, and I'm also reading in the Midwest, Florida, and the Baltimore/Washington area. For more information, check my website: www.jennablum.com. Please visit it! And please come see me read from THOSE WHO SAVE US. My characters and I will welcome you with open arms.

Soul Jazz Records Presents Studio One Roots Vol. 3 (Popmatters.com Review)

2008-01-02T14:53:00.001-08:00

Soul Jazz Records Presents Studio One Roots Vol. 3
(Soul Jazz)
US release date: 17 September 2007
UK release date: 27 August 2007

by Sean Murphy

Soul Jazz Strikes Again

Question: When are the good people at Soul Jazz Records going to run out of obscure yet incredible material for their ongoing collection of instant-classic compilations? Answer: Hopefully (and likely) not anytime soon.
Soul Jazz strikes again, with volume three of its Studio One Roots series. This latest is another generous installment, compiling eighteen tracks that very likely have never seen the light of day on other compilations—an issue that consistently mars many of the less inspired anthologies that have been recycled over the years. Indeed, Studio One Roots Vol. 3 culls material from a roster of lesser known to virtually unheard of musicians—making this set at once more interesting and unquestionably more valuable. It must continue to astonish any avid follower of this series just how inexhaustible the supply of righteous reggae truly is, and how often new gems are uncovered from the clandestine vaults at Studio One (or wherever these tapes have, until now, remained—buried in dust or otherwise discarded). Every new collection from Soul Jazz compels one to marvel at this variety and quality, while also—inevitably—lamenting the reality that such music has been hidden away for so long. Mostly, those of us who care should be deeply grateful that these performances are steadily being liberated from oblivion.
This being “roots” reggae, the recurring lyrical theme is a celebration of Rastafari culture. Where later—and lesser—reggae artists would dutifully namecheck the Conquering Lion of Judah, it often sounds perfunctory. These singles, mostly recorded in the early ‘70s, abound with a testimony of lives dedicated to the precepts of Rasta. And lest anyone, understandably, confuse authentic roots reggae with the more radio-friendly “One Love” vibrations, this music bristles with indignation, and casts concerned eyes and ears on all manner of inequality and injustice. A sample grab of song titles leaves little room for misinterpretation: “Oppression”, “Armagideon”, “Babylon Fever”, “Better Must Come”, “Brimstone and Fire” (the latter appropriated to brilliant effect on “Revolution”, the last song on Bob Marley’s masterwork Natty Dread ).
For the most part, this is a low-fi, old school production, evoking the lack of pretense, funds, and fashion inherent in the best roots reggae. In other words, it’s just about perfect. And, as is always the case with this series, there are at least two previously unheard songs that, for this listener, quickly attained “how have I lived my entire life without this?” status. First and foremost, The Nightingales’ “What a Situation” is somewhat beyond significant: an organ and horn workout with vocal harmonizing that invites comparison to the best work of the Mighty Diamonds. Secondly, Dub Specialist’s “Musical Science” is another scorcher, with discreet guitar, brass, and bongos sounding more than a little like one of Sun Ra’s miniature big bands at the Black Ark (inspiring fantasies of what could have occurred had Ra ever actually hooked up with the Upsetta at some point in the mid- ‘70s: it is tantalizing, and even a bit overwhelming—in a good way—to contemplate the possibilities).
It is also nice to acknowledge that just because the mainstream wasn’t hearing this music, the artists who broke through—breaking barriers for reggae music in the process—were listening. You can connect the (black) dots between Bad Brains, particularly on their first album (“Leaving Babylon”, “I Luv I Jah”) and the earlier generation of roots radicals. And, for that matter, it’s instructive to note who the mighty Joseph Hill, on Culture’s triumphant Two Sevens Clash, was sending a shout out to in “Calling Rastafari”: Im and Count Ossie’s “So Long Rastafari Calling”, which predated it by a couple of years.
Once again, the unfamiliarity of these songs is complemented by the downright novelty of the artists. Aside from the Gladiators, Prince Jazzbo, and Freddie McKay, whom at least some reggae fans have heard of, there is a refreshing representation of no-hit wonders. Ever heard of Clifton Gibbs, Errol Dunkley, Lloyd Forest, or Winston Flames? Neither had I. Not to worry—everyone here warmly warrants inclusion. Indeed, as is often the case with these collections, it is impossible not to ask the question: where is the rest of this stuff? Answer: hopefully coming out on future Soul Jazz Records releases.
Multiple songs Streaming
RATING:
— 2 January 2008

Down with the King

2007-11-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/50031/king-tubby-king-tubby-meets-the-agrovators-at-dub-station/

King Tubby
King Tubby Meets The Agrovators at Dub Station
(Trojan)
US release date: 21 May 2007
UK release date: Available as import

by Sean Murphy

Down with the King

When you have an artist whose various compilations seem to outnumber the amount of proper albums they released, you are dealing either with a genuine master or a helpless, often posthumous goldmine for rapacious record executives. Usually it is a bit of both. Yet, in this era of remastered or revamped overload, consumers are increasingly getting more sonic bling for their buck. Certainly this is attributable to the welcome threat of easy downloading and CD-burning, which has forced companies that once held all the cards to reassess their business model. Thankfully, re-releases these days are consistently packed with bonus material, often rare, occasionally wonderful. This is a refreshing development for even the more recent albums deemed worthy of reconsideration, but for older, certified classics, it is truly a cause for celebration. Finally, for those discs that were poorly transferred in the first go-round from analog to digital, or records that were not initially recorded in optimal conditions, it is a sweet form of redemption.
Which brings us to the overdue and most indispensable upgrade of King Tubby Meets the Agrovators at Dub Station, representing all of the good and none of the bad: killer material at a reasonable price (but what else would one expect from the beneficent gurus at Trojan records?). A reissue that is worthwhile for owners of the original, and serves as a more than enticing introduction for those on the outside looking in on the messy office of old school dub. This new and enhanced edition features twelve bonus tracks, literally doubling the length of its previous incarnation.
At this point, the only remaining question should be, “Okay, but who is King Tubby? And who, for that matter, are the Agrovators?”. Fair enough. To put it as simply and succinctly as possible, without King Tubby there is no dub. Born Osbourne Ruddock, Tubby made a name for himself on the Jamaican scene in the mid-to-late ‘60s as a master of the remix, or “version”—the instrumental B-side of a hit single. Eventually, Tubby began taking liberties with the songs themselves, cutting, pasting, and reshuffling instrumentation, adding volume, echo, and all manner of off-kilter effects. The court jester genius of reggae, Lee “Scratch” Perry, is rightly credited with taking Tubby’s innovations and flying with them, pushing the boundaries of what was previously conceivable, not only in reggae, but in music. Tubby, however, was the progenitor, and his genius lay in the tactical dismantling of a song, essentially creating a separate composition that always retained the élan of the original.
Tubby is known mostly for his masterpiece, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, a collaboration with the one-of-a-kind melodica maestro Augustus Pablo. But the lesser known King Tubby Meets the Agrovators at Dub Station is ripe for reappraisal and some overdue accolades. To be certain, the album could—and should—be titled King Tubby Meets Tommy McCook and the Aggrovators at Dub Station, brevity be damned. The Agrovators were ace producer Bunny Lee’s assembly of top tier session players, including bassist Robbie Shakespeare (later part of the tandem Sly and Robbie) and guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith. McCook, on the other hand, was already a saxophone legend from his tenure with seminal Jamaican institution the Skatalites. This meeting, then, features two of the most important names in reggae at the cusp of their careers.
Anyone familiar with the immediately identifiable Skatalites sound, or McCook’s work with other artists, understands that it is all but impossible to hear him play his horn and fail to feel happy. This is, without any doubt, happy music—which is not to imply that there is anything lightweight, saccharine, or compromised here. Quite the contrary, McCook’s playing provides tasty embellishment to the fat riddims, and is always an ornament to the smoky dub sounds. His sax is very much a lead instrument in this affair. From the first seconds, all the customary elements are in effect: the wall-crushing drums, the deliriously heavy bass beats, and then that horn, like a snake weaving through water. All that follows seldom strays far from the formula of solid grooves punctuated and prodded by McCook’s always compelling accompaniment.
The title track, “The Dub Station”, is so perfect it could stand as an anthem for all that this music is capable of: fanfare and flying cymbals all simmering in Tubby’s broth. Usually the titles refer to the original song being dubbed. For instance, “The Dub Duke” is from “Duke of Earl” and “Jah Say Dub” comes from Marley’s “So Jah Say”. Highlights abound, but special mention should be made of “The Meducia”, which commemorates “No Woman No Cry” by way of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance”. The dub runs deep on “Kojak”, which ingeniously uses Duke Ellington’s immortal “Take the A Train” as a brilliant point of departure. And so, 70-plus minutes of these goods, reworked and mashed up by the dub master, going beyond the innovative and into territory that is often something close to ecstatic. Nothing ever sounds terribly dissimilar to the watershed sessions the Upsetta oversaw throughout the ‘70s, but these songs are, literally, more horn-driven and slightly more human, tending more to the sweet side of Perry’s bitter. This, again, is happy music. This is historic music. This is essential music.
RATING:
— 26 October 2007

Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington (Popmatters.com review)

2007-10-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington
(Riverside)
US release date: 27 March 2007
UK release date: 16 April 2007
by Sean Murphy
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Thelonious. The name, like the man, is unique, exceptional. We are, thankfully, at a point where the first name will suffice, and it is generally understood that Thelonious Sphere Monk is one of the singular, and important, artists in all jazz, as well as one of the authentic geniuses America can proudly claim as a native son. It wasn’t always thus. Although commonly acknowledged as one of the founding fathers—along with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach and Miles Davis—of bebop, Monk was the quintessential “musician’s musician”, mostly respected, if not entirely understood, by colleagues. Even so, the prevailing judgment—promulgated by many less than perspicacious critics of the time—was that he was too eccentric and his compositions too difficult. Moreover, an inability to easily describe his music diminished the prospect of any type of commercial breakthrough. When, in 1954, he signed on with the upstart label, Riverside Records, his contract with the well-established Prestige label was bought out for $108.27.
This reissue, then, of Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington is significant on a variety of levels. For starters, it is an outstanding album, and tends to exist as an overlooked gem in the Monk discography, sandwiched as it is between his earlier “genius of modern music” stage and the mid ‘50s through mid ‘60s, when he made his most enduring work. It is also important for what it signified, in 1955, to have Monk cover Ellington—already a legend with a capital L—(though he certainly had some major statements of his own yet to make). On the surface, Ellington and Monk could not be more dissimilar; in terms of personality, style, and what might unimaginatively, if accurately, be called “universal appeal”. Of course, understanding that the things Monk did, on his own terms, now attract comparisons with Ellington—at least in terms of influence and signature tunes routinely performed as standards—speaks volumes. Lastly, this release is a most welcome tribute to its producer, Orrin Keepnews, and the new series of reissues fittingly called the “Keepnews Collection”. If these remasters help even a few folks learn who Keepnews is and what he has meant to the music, all the better. For those not in the know, now hear this: Orrin Keepnews is one of the most important producers of the last century, and his innumerable achievements should be appreciatively venerated.
In the expanded liner notes, Keepnews recalls the circumstances under which Monk—largely considered damaged goods, or at best a risky wildcard for any record label—came to Riverside, a relationship that produced subsequent masterpieces such as Brilliant Corners, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, Monk’s Music, and 5 By Monk By 5 (arguably Keepnews’ finest hour). His strategy was to have Monk dedicate an entire album to Ellington, not so much to sanitize Monk’s vision, but to ingeniously allow it to fully flower in the context of already classic recordings. Keepnews was one of the first to grasp not only how important Monk was, but how crucial he could (and should) be in the advancement of jazz music: he understood, displaying a judicious acumen that served him well thereafter, that with the appropriate primer, a wider audience would inexorably learn to love Thelonious.
In a move that managed to be both safe and inspired, veteran sidemen Oscar Pettiford and Kenny Clarke were recruited to handle bass and drum duties, respectively. Both of these men, like Monk, were veterans of the nascent bebop scene, their names associated with many seminal early bop recordings. Appropriately, all three have sufficient familiarity with the songs chosen, and with one another, to impart an effortless solidarity of purpose upon these proceedings. The end result contains exactly what one might expect: an abundance of riches packaged as an enticing sampler of Ellingtonia interpreted by a genuine iconoclast.
It only takes the first, familiar notes of the opening selection to make one thing abundantly clear: Monk playing Ellington makes perfect sense. The very calculated placement of “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” at the forefront of this set is both a statement and an affirmation: this will be a celebratory affair, and it’s going to swing. Clarke employs laid back brushwork to satisfying effect, while Pettiford establishes a stone solid, swinging (yes, that word again) foundation, freeing Monk to dance circles around the theme. A faithful, if slightly safe rendition of “Sophisticated Lady” follows, which puts to rest any lingering doubts (unfathomable as it is to consider that there ever were any) that Monk, the “irreverent” outsider, had fully absorbed the tradition well before he began incorporating his own innovations. “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)” almost implores the presence of a saxophone or trumpet to accentuate the plaintive mood; but then Pettiford accelerates the pace with his irrepressible groove, and once more Monk reconstructs the Duke with his own peerless logic.
“Black and Tan Fantasy” is—or becomes—a composition Monk had to cover, and while it retains Ellington’s elegant imprint, we hear more of that Cheshire Cat who had already spent a decade confounding the imperceptive critics: in under four minutes, it’s possible to experience what is at once so enthralling yet indescribable about Monk’s technique. The tune never ventures anywhere near chaos or affectation; indeed it is simple to nod along without missing a beat. And yet, if one listens again, a bit more closely, the piano is (ever so subtly, ever so slyly) making sounds quite unlike anything before or since: Monk plays it straight, yet stops, circles back, fills in every appropriate space with old school stride that recalls Luckey Roberts, then, on a dime, shifts into syncopated flourishes that incorporate bebop—and beyond. Dissonant, angular, twisting, coruscating: those who attempt to describe Monk’s playing tend to use the same words time and again, partly because it’s inevitable, mostly because they are accurate. Monk, after a while, begins to remind you of a wily raconteur, retelling a funny story that you’ve never heard before.
More of the same follows, with “Mood Indigo” and the exuberant “I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart”. Perhaps the most effective, and emotional selection is “Solitude”, which features Monk, appropriately, alone at the piano. Here his unparalleled use of space and silence is exhibited to stunning effect; like any true genius, it sounds almost easy the way he does it, and exactly no one has come close to replicating his style in the fifty-something years since this recording. As the man himself once observed, he used the same notes—just differently. Finally, a righteous romp of “Caravan” closes the set on an exultant note: Clarke lends his most perceptible support, and Pettiford remains unflappably cool in the pocket. Mission accomplished; Monk not only delivers an unadulterated homage to Ellington, he somehow manages to make the master sound even more ahead of his time than he already was.
Implausible, yet easy to believe that only a year later, Monk dropped Brilliant Corners, the title track alone so intricate and demanding that it frustrated the very capable cast of characters assembled to tackle it (notably Sonny Rollins, who was no stranger to the woodshed). A year after that an up and coming saxophonist named John Coltrane joined his group. Nothing was ever the same—for him, or for us—after that.

Thelonious Monk - Off Minor
RATING:
— 5 October 2007

Kids in the Hall--from Popmatters.com

2007-10-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

The Kids in the Hall existed in a sort of parallel universe to the much more popular, much less brilliant Saturday Night Live. Though comparisons between the two are inevitable, perhaps because of the Lorne Michaels connection, Kids in the Hall should be appraised—and appreciated—as part of the crooked line connecting Monty Python, which preceded it, and Mr. Show, which followed. While attracting an intense cult fan base, the Kids faced at least three major obstacles that made crossover success pretty much an impossibility. They were Canadian and had a pronounced—and, for fans, most welcome—quirkiness. They were disarmingly intelligent, yet always willing and eager to embrace the oddness of life. Their one-two punch of ingenuity and eccentricity could be like Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons—you either got them, immediately, or you did not. Lastly, they dressed in drag. Often, and convincingly. Too convincingly, perhaps, for the average American sensibility circa 1990-something.
Although only one member of the ensemble is gay, queer culture was featured prominently—or, at least unabashedly—waaaaay before it was as widely accepted, or commonplace as it would thankfully be less than two decades later. Perhaps the primary reason it was easier for some to describe, or dismiss the show as a bunch of dudes in dresses is because it was, and remains, pretty difficult to pinpoint what they were up to. Precious few impersonations, less than a little political pot-shotting, The Kids in the Hall managed to consistently skewer piety and send up our ever-uptight social mores through the creation of insanely indelible characters: they understood that to effectively ridicule the world they had to make themselves ridiculous. In one skit, fur trappers cruise office buildings, killing yuppies in order to sell their “pelts” to a high-end haberdashery. In another a harried corporate big shot, in the midst of a stress-driven cardiac arrest, rips his heart out of his chest, pouring coffee on it and yelling “Get back to work!” And how inadequate would our world be without the Head Crusher, the Chicken Lady, Buddy Cole or Cabbage Head?
The definitive sketch? Every fan will claim one, but it’s difficult to deny the exceptional “Retelling of a Complicated Italian Movie”, which features everything that made The Kids in the Hall so inimitable: as two guys in a bar discuss a foreign film, the happy hour crowd slowly assumes the roles being described. All of a sudden the storyteller is holding a pistol and melodramatic shots ring out. “Wow, what a complicated plot!” his friend says, still holding his buffalo wing as he collapses, clutching his bleeding stomach. You have to see it to disbelieve it, but it manages to be clever, surreal and, as always, hysterical. Naturally, one character is dressed in drag.
—Sean Murphy

Eyvind Kang "Athlantis" (Popmatters.com Review)

2007-09-17T11:49:00.001-07:00

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/47581/eyvind-kang-athlantis/

Eyvind Kang
Athlantis
(Ipecac Recordings)
US release date: 10 July 2007
UK release date: 16 July 2007
by Sean Murphy
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Athlantis is the musical equivalent of what lurks just out of reach on the top shelf of some dusty stacks in an ancient library.

Eyvind Kang inhabits other worlds so that the rest of us don’t have to.
Chances are, if you are even moderately acquainted with contemporary avant garde recordings cutting across jazz and rock genres you’ve heard him play, perhaps without realizing it. To list a handful of musicians whose company he has kept won’t do his considerable discography justice, but should suffice to demonstrate his diversity. It also confirms that the upper echelon of serious artists tend to attract and locate one another across generations. Kang has played with Bill Frisell (notably on the excellent Quartet, from 1994); he appeared on Mr. Bungle’s California and is featured prominently on mid-‘90’s Bungle side project (now full time act of escalating significance) Secret Chiefs 3 (their first two albums are interesting; their next two, 2001’s Book M and 2004’s Book of Horizons , are essential). Then, of course, there are his own proper albums, the titles of which hint at their exotic, challenging, and intriguing nature: Theater of Mineral NADEs, The Story of Iceland, Live Low to the Earth, in the Iron Age, and Virginal Co Ordinates.
There are many ways to explain Eyvind Kang, but for the uninitiated, it may be helpful to describe him an artist who is inspired by and incorporates other times and far-off places, always interpreting history and humanity with the curiosity of an explorer and the delight of a devoted scholar. He manages to make strange and exquisite music, at once embracing improvisation yet always guided by central themes and feelings. You can, in short, most assuredly feel Kang’s music.
So, what to make of the (as usual, enchantingly entitled) Athlantis? Well, for starters, it does not manage to be all things at once (a la the history-of-the-universe in sound as sonic experiment that is Theater of Mineral NADEs, or the out-of-somewhere tour de force of his masterpiece Virginal Co Ordinates. It is a more focused work, an earthy tone poem more along the lines of The Story of Iceland; it is the musical equivalent of what lurks just out of reach on the top shelf of some dusty stacks in an ancient library. In a good way. Those who cherish the oddness in Kang (or, to invoke another of his wonderfully appropriate album titles, the “sweetness of sickness”), won’t be disappointed here.
It would be insulting to suggest that this recording represents a less stuffy or esoteric type of contemporary classical music. And yet, it is, among other things, rather like a Cliff’s Notes overview of the sorts of choral and orchestral performances that used to be performed for popes or kings. In a good way. Think Gregorian chant meets sacred church hymns meets Olivier Messiaen and Arvo Part, only edgier. It might, in its distinctly odd but undeniably accessible fashion, be a gateway to some of the places Kang has already explored. Athlantis is an extended choral piece the artist himself describes as “something like an oratorio”, that incorporates the text from Cantus Circaeus by Giordano Bruno, a Renaissance Era philosopher who was burned at the stake during the Inquisition. Medieval voices and pastoral sounds float around and frame Bruno’s words (untranslated, naturally), featuring the indefatigable Mike Patton, used to delightful effect here, as he was on Virginal Co Ordinates, reminding us, and hopefully himself, how incomparably plangent his voice can be when he uses it for singing, as opposed to animal noises (although a smattering of those can be detected early on, undoubtedly due to contractual obligations). The other featured soloist is Jessica Kenney, whose delicate and inviting delivery is the ideal sweet to counter Patton’s restrained sour. Acoustic guitars, trumpets, sitars, a choir, and cerebral use of silence all combine to make music as it’s not made anymore, if indeed it ever was.
It is difficult to describe, or understand how he does it, but Kang, as always, draws from a deep well of styles and emotions. He is once again able to assemble several ostensibly incongruous elements, create an appropriate foundation, and instigate stellar performances from his collective team. Once more he succeeds in creating something unique and familiar. It is neither intimidating nor off-putting at first listen, but it nevertheless demands several spins to work its magic, and soon enough the listener becomes acquainted with these irresistible sounds and voices.
In an ideal world Kang would be, if not a household name, an artist properly appreciated by a curious and discerning majority that did not depend upon network television to tell them whom they should idolize. No matter. By continuing to depict forgotten as well as imagined worlds, Eyvind Kang manages to tell us new things about the one in which we dwell.

RATING: 7
— 17 September 2007