Bus Stop

I don't own a car.  Which means I use public transportation quite a bit. Trains and buses.  It's not a bad way to get around Chicago.  I recommend it.

I discovered this ad for Canadian Club at a bus stop.  For some reason it really resonates.  It made me laugh out loud - which is a good way to get your space at a bus stop.  

The ad is a window into an era that I vaguely remember - it's supposed to be around 1965 - no, I mean, as a kid, I remember that era vividly, I just rarely conjure up the picture.  Whoever came up with this got the details right!

This does not make me want to start drinking Canadian Club.  That kind of hard liquor just makes me go into a Linda Blair-like convulsions - spinning bed, green projectile - but this did bring me back to another time, another place - there was a generation of people living like this, an upwardly mobile business class that built the suburbs.  Those guys and gals are pretty much gone.  They laid down the gauntlet - one we never needed to pick up.  

This is just nostalgia. It's an advertising gimmick.  There ain't no going back, and drinking that rotgut will only give you a headache.  Still, this is a world I knew.  I was there - wondering what the fuck it was all about - was this really the world?

Chuck D. Tells It

The title of Public Enemy's latest release tells it all with a pithy little question addressed to all of us biding our time in the Terrordome.  Rhetorical or not, it cuts to the chase:  

"How to Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?"

ZaZen Wednesdays

Back in the old days, when I was just a little tot, there was an ad campaign for Prince spaghetti. They put forth the idea that Wednesday was Prince spaghetti day.  Not sure how many families actually adopted that idea, I know we had spaghetti frequently, but I'm not sure if it was always or ever on Wednesdays.

Lately, Wednesday has been Zen meditation day.  So yes, it was back to the black cushion and the blank wall for us.  I'm sort of getting into this pursuit, or really non-pursuit of nothingness, which as they say is the same as something-ness or maybe not.  So there really is no pursuit of anything. And that's what we seek by not seeking.  Or something like that.

Anyway, my take away from the session last night: the real world is our teacher.  Even if  reality is not real and it teaches us nothing.  Got it!

Light, Shadow and Movement - What else?

Calvin Tompkins writes about art.  I read his biography of Marcel Duchamp a number of years ago, and ever since I've appreciated his sensibility.  So I was very intrigued by his write-up of the video artist Paul Chan.

And then of course, even if you live in the hinterlands, you can find something on YouTube that gives a little glimpse of what Chan does.  I especially like the idea that the technological junk we have created somehow rises up to some higher realm, whereas the humans, well we just fall.

Death Cab for Cutie

Peter V.  drummer in the Telepaths writes about Death Cab for Cutie.  He got me interested in these guys, love their name, and I finally checked them out on YouTube.  Their new disc is Top of the Pops, so they probably don't need anymore exposure, but I think this  8 minute opus is quite good.

Trickster Makes the World Go Round

We've been working on new music.  We finally posted a new song at the WWSP site.  It's called "Tricks on the Brain."  That's Sara on bass and backup vocals, Carla wrote the lyrics and sings lead, and I play guitar and percussion.  The working title for our next digital download - Shadow of the Marigold.  We're only about 10 new songs away...

Same Old

"The same old questions.  The same old answers." - Samuel Beckett - Endgame 

Friendly Tribes

Just remember, you are not alone.  Even when you are alone.  There are the 6 tribes in your inner elbow, and 2 in your gut.  According to the Scientists, (man are they a kooky lot!),  the bacterial cells resident on and in our bodies out-number our human cells 10-1.  Without them we'd be a hell of a lot more lonely and dead too.  Without them we just couldn't digest the world.  Does that make you feel dirty - sharing life with tiny bacterial micro-organisms? It's okay -  you are dirty. That's life.

Why does Superman get up in the morning?

I just purchased my next Klosterman "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs," but I'm still digesting his Led Zeppelin inspired "IV."  According to the great Kloster Man the secret to success is not good looks, good luck, or smarts; no the key to success is having an ARCH ENEMY!  

Of course, he is absolutely right.  Think of any Superhero and the Arch Enemy looms like a shadow, the doppelganger - a dark presence who is always spurring the hero on to greater heights of Super-ness.  How many celebrities and Superstars are driven on by their unthinking tormentors from their high school days?

I think Chuck's right.  My own personal Arch Enemies (Sniveling Weasel and Big Chief Totem Pole), have spurred me on to great new successes. So I suppose a "thank you" is in order. But of course, the Arch Enemy is the last person in the world you would ever thank!  And as Dark Man likes to say - "So much to do, and so little time!"

The All Zen Channel

The last two Wednesdays we went to a Buddhist temple and did the Zen thing.  A black cushion and a blank wall.  I'm not new to meditating, but I found the Zen way difficult at first.  My half lotus was more like a full pretzel, and usually I meditate eyes closed, but the Zen way requires eyes open, turned to the wall.  Reminded me of Catholic grade school, that's what happened when you were "too excitable."

Last night, it was all so much better.  I knew the drill, found that the "Burmese style" (kneeling with cushion support) more to my liking.  The two hours sort of flew by.  Finding the stillness, the emptiness, what a strange pursuit - it's contrary to everything else we know and do.  

Then it was back home to watch the second half of the Lakers/Spurs game.  If you just saw the result in the paper this morning, nothing special, Lakers won a close game.  But if you watched the drama unfold, it was mind-blowing - the Lakers were down 20 points in the third quarter, and then Kobe Bryant emerged.  

I'm thinking in the rush of the game, in those moments of pure concentrated action, Kobe is totally there in the moment, it is a pure Zen of the highest degree.  That's why it's fascinating to watch him play.  There's the blank wall, the black cushion, and then there's Kobe Bryant floating to the basket like some Zen butterfly.  Perfect.

Appetite for Destruction?!

Blogger is acting sort of weird this morning.  Sometimes technology is not our friend.  That's kind of the story of the modern world.  The machines we have made are making hash of the natural world.  There must be a balance - but not sure if we've found it yet.  In the meantime, our sleek inventions hum along, gobbling up everything in their path.  Appetite for Destruction!

R.E.M. - Living Well's the Best Revenge

  Love those glasses Michael! First it was Arcade Fire in an elevator, now REM in a car, what next, the E Street Band in a phone booth (do they even have phone booths anymore?).

"It's Getting Heavy." - Wayne Coyne, Flaming Lips

Went to the Green Festival Saturday over on Navy Pier in Chicago.  Listened to some smart people talk about the dire straits we find ourselves in at the moment.  The planet is in crisis. Too many human beings running around the planet acting as if they own the place.  Wasn't it Sitting Bull who told us that a man can't own the land, the sky, the air, the plants and animals?

No one listened to that wise old Indian at the time.  Maybe some folks are starting to listen now. Anyway, there are glimmers of  hope.  We are clever monkeys.  Maybe self-preservation will motivate us to live more responsibly?  I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Major changes need to happen in a short amount of time.

The Lovely Carla is hoping for some great transformative consciousness that will propel us to a new era.  I like the vision, but I'm unsure of how you get from here to there.  Maybe we can somehow channel the greed, the selfishness, the ego - to trick ourselves into doing the right thing in spite of ourselves?

Anyway, it was a necessary trip.  No one man or woman is gonna solve this one.  It's gonna take a lot of really smart people to kind of carry this through, and then everyone else is gonna have to jump onboard to try to make this work.

Otherwise, I guess our legacy will be that we overran the place, trashed it, killed everything on it, and split.  Not very inspiring. 

Picture Worth a 1000 Words

Ornette Coleman.  Free Jazz.  The Quarter Tone Pitch.  Harmolodic.  Sound Grammar.  Something Else!!! Change of the Century.  The Shape of Jazz to Come.  

Maybe a Cartoon World is Better?!

Takashi Murakami has a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum.  He lives in a cartoon world.  His work has been derided by some as representative of "infantile capitalism."  He has been influenced by Warhol's consumerism.  See also - Japanese Manga & Anime.

Anyway, I found this to be a telling detail about him:  "His mother impressed upon him that he owed his existence to the chance that the sky above her native city, Kokura was overcast on  August 9, 1945, thus diverting the B-29 to its secondary target, Nagasaki."

Pirate Mics

I play in two bands. Who doesn't? And last night I sat in with a third. My brother's wacky outfit, The Banana Street Band. They hole up over at the Flat Iron Arts Building in Wicker Park. Third floor. What a show. I plugged in my Telecaster and jammed with these guys. Talk about intensity. My brother is channeling the ghosts of Leadbelly and Allen Ginsburg, their guitar player is channeling some Polish gypsy poet from a century or two ago, and their drummer is channeling some hipster beat master from god knows where. I got to kind of ride the storm, playing lead lines around their torrent of sound. 

My brother's latest obsession is building microphones.  He's assembled these vintage parts from the 40's and 50's and made totally unique mics - he calls them Pirate Mics, (you might find one on Ebay!), they even have a skull and crossbones logo.  We all used these little crappy amps, (you could fit the lot of them in a small closet) and somehow it all sounded exactly right.  I mean this was rough, totally unpolished, pure and spontaneous, all feeling and intensity.  What a trip.  The sounds swirled around that big drafty old building conjuring ghosts and laying down some kind of sonic map.

Magician

Robert Rauschenberg cashed in his chips at 82. He and Jasper Johns defined for me what an artist was and could be. Rauschenberg did it all - sculpture, painting, photography, printmaking, performance. As someone commented - "he made something from nothing." That's magic. A great magician decamps.

8 Years Flashed Before Our Eyes!

Were they divine, were they crappy, were they otherwise? The "Bush Era" is croaking to a close. Took us all down a notch or two. At least.

Here's one pop cultural historian's take:

"In November 2000, the United States held a presidential election and nobody knew who won, so we just kind of made up an outcome and tried to act like that was normal. Less than a year later, airplanes flew into office buildings and everybody cried for two weeks. And then Enron went bankrupt and then the U.S. became a rogue state, and then The Simple Life premiered, and then gasoline became unaffordable, and then our Olympic team lost to Puerto Rico, and then we reelected the same unqualified president we never really elected in the first place. Later there would be some especially devastating hurricanes and the release of a horrible movie titled Crash." - Chuck Klosterman - April, 2006 from his collection of essays titled IV.

UPDATE: I found this via Glen Greenwald quoting G.K. Chesterton's Heretics, and, well, I don't know for some reason it seems apropos:

"It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become a small power itself."

Catch the Wind

Nothing stands still. For instance, this country (if you can talk about countries as if they are one thing) isn't what it used to be. Sometimes it's hard to tell. All you see is what it was, can't quite tell what it is, and certainly don't know what it's gonna be. So there's hope and wonder and a sort of dread all mixed up in that.

So knowing what I know, and having seen what I've seen, I sometimes doubt whether things could work out as well as I sometimes conjure up. Then again, I can sometimes get carried away, and I know for sure that because some things are so bad, that change is in the air, and things could actually be so good. Destiny like a pinball game.

I have to try not to let what I know, get in the way of what is, and what could or will be.

And then what happens happens and then we all decide what happened and what it means - and already we are behind the times just trying to catch the wind.

The Chicago Blues

I grew up in Chicago Land at a time when Chicago Blues was still alive. I mean, it's alive today too. Buddy Guy is still keeping the flame going, but when I was in my late teens and early twenties most of the Chicago originators were still alive. I had a great friend, I'll call him Poppa John who was a lilly-white, red-haired, long drink of water, who was an absolute blues fanatic. He was also an amazing blues harmonica player in his own right. We used to go to clubs all over the city chasing after the blues legends. Sometimes Poppa John even got up and jammed with them too.

Some of the great blues cats we saw include: Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Hound Dog Taylor, Howling Wolf, Otis Rush, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Carey Bell, Furry Lewis, Bukka White, James Cotton, Junior Wells. Also this guy - J.B. Hutto. I caught him at a Wise Fools show. I'll never forget him - he played an old Airline guitar, a crappy Montgomery Wards model (later made famous by Jack White of the White Stripes), he was wearing one those funny hats you see Shriners wear. He was quiet, friendly, but had a sort of other-worldly thing hanging about him.

Anyway, I thought about him this morning and well of course there's a YouTube! Unfortunately, he isn't wearing the hat.

Singing about the Abandoned Ones

Awhile back, I read an article about the broken friendship between Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffant. I then wrote a blog post about it.

And then, well, surprise, surprise I couldn't let the thing go, or maybe it wouldn't let me go, so yes, I wrote a song about it, which I called "Godard." You can find it over here. Check it out. It's kind of catchy, and also kind of silly, and well, maybe that's why I'm happy with it.

By the way, the cigarette is just a prop. I do not encourage anyone to take up that nasty habit! Stunts your growth, don't you know?! But the hat is another matter altogether. I highly recommend you go out today and buy a hat just like that one!

Hail, Hail Freedonia!

Matt Yglesias kind of sums up the latest twist of the worm in our never-ending, soul destroying, Iraq debacle: "Now our guns are aimed at the Sadrists because they want us to leave. And naturally, we can't leave until we've achieved "victory" defined as killing everyone who wants us to leave."

Got it?

And then there's this from Atrios: "Watching Bush speak you realize he's a really dumb person who thinks everyone in the room is even dumber than he is."

Question: Is it possible these two things are somehow related?

A Thin Line!

Chuck Klosterman writes about music and Pop Culture. He's a funny and perceptive dude. I just read his profile of the speed-metal band Metallica in the wake of their very funny documentary, "Some Kind of Monster," which was made and released a couple of years ago now. The movie is a real hoot. Enjoyable all around. A nice companion piece to "Spinal Tap." My favorite line from Klosterman: "But sometimes the difference between self-actualization and self amusement is less than you think."

New Years Day

"The job of art is to chase away ugliness." - Bono of U2

U2 is so big, so successful, so good, I sometimes just forget about them. I mean, their music is burned deep into my my cells, my chromosomes, my DNA by now. I used to play some of their records - yes, the original vinyl kind - over and over at top volume for years and years.

I'll never forget, I once owned a Pontiac Fiero, probably one of the worst cars ever made, it had a mid-engine design, which meant that if you hit a patch of ice at high speed, it would tend to spin clockwise, it would literally start spinning like a top. It happened to me twice, high speed, on different highways.

Anyway one time the Lovely Carla and I are cruising, we hit a patch of ice on an overpass and nearly careen over onto another highway. Instead we hit the guardrail, hard. And come to a smoking stop on the side of the highway. We were both wearing seat belts which probably saved us. But Carla was literally knocked out (when she came to, she remembered nothing of the accident). Her head had bounced off the passenger side window. I hit the steering wheel, my chest got the worst of it, I was stunned, but with all my faculties in tact.

Anyway, it was one of those times where everything was in slow motion. I could see we were out of control, spinning, hitting, bouncing. We came to a dead stop and the only sound is a buzzing in my head, my synapses crackling, and U2's album "War" is blasting out of the cassette player, the music just washing over us. It was like a movie. Carla is out, I'm stunned, and the music is filling up the universe.

They way I remembered it, the album just played over and over, for hours? Couldn't be right. Until the police came. A cop finally turned the music off. And then our lives started up again.

Global Warming, Evolution and Condoms!

Don't fret Democrats. It's all going to be fine. We've got the Super Delegates coming to the rescue. And there is no Kryptonite in sight. And as Kevin Drum reminds us, we have global warming, evolution, and condoms on our side!

No kidding - the story of our lives!

There's a new book about Roxy Music called "Re-Make/Re-Model."

Here's Andy MacKay talking about the early days of the band:

"We all thought we were doing something different to the end result."

California Dreaming

My favorite sport to watch is basketball. The NBA version. I played the game as a kid, and briefly in high school too. I was kicked off my sophomore team because I wouldn't get a haircut. So it goes.

I usually skip the regular season. 82 games is way too many. I'll keep up on what's going on via the newspaper, but I go out of my way not to watch games on TV. Until playoff time.

My LA friends may be surprised to learn that my favorite team is the LA Lakers. Phil Jackson is my favorite coach of all time. I mean, any time, any sport. I don't think anyone else comes close. Maybe Vince Lombardi? I love Jackson's cannabis-clouded, Zen Master demeanor. Obviously, Jackson left his mark in Chicago. All those championships with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin.

Jackson has done another great job this year. He's got Kobe Bryant, the closest thing you can get to Jordan. Kobe is certainly the best player in the NBA today. But what is amazing about Jackson is how he is able to get 15 players all contribute to the cause. The triangle offense is a thing of beauty. Watch the team when Kobe sits down - that's when Jackson's approach shines.

I watched the game between the Lakers and Jazz yesterday. Should be a great series. It was a home game for the Lakers and the joint was rocking. Jack Nicholson got a lot of screen time. He's always court side, grinning like an over-stuffed Cheshire cat. I'd love to sit and chat with that dude.

How come no one ever mentions the other guy sitting right next to Jack? He looks like someone's crazy uncle. That's Lou Adler. Lou is a giant in the music industry - managed Jan and Dean, the Mamas and the Papas, Spirit, Carole King. Plus the dude directed Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke," - the stoner movie of stoner movies! Lou is a king. Can you imagine kicking back with those two guys, just chilling? Go Lakers!

Lost Hands and Lost Bands

Big Brown did me in. My Derby tickets turned to confetti. He made it look easy coming from the far outside post. My pick Pyro was lost somewhere in the crowd. The filly Eight Belles broke down.

My trek to the betting parlor in the bowels of the Windy City felt like an anthropological expedition. Early on the red line, there were the Cubs fans, gearing up for a day of beer and baseball. Then at off track betting, it was all wise guys and lone wolves, looking to score.

The big change, No Smoking! There were constant waves of bettors making for the exit to cop a smoke. So at least we were all breathing easy.

I was lost in my own little world of odds and combos. Trying to come up with just the right formula. No luck.

On the way back I read Simon Reynolds "Rip it Up and Start Again" - all about Public Image Limited, Gang of Four, New Order, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Rocket from the Tombs, Television, Pere Ubu, Devo - a land of lost hands and lost bands. The promised land.

Strong Finish, Fog

Ah, the life of a broken down horse player. Driving rain and thunderstorms in Kentucky yesterday. Could be a sloppy track for the Derby today, or then again, maybe not. Just another factor to take into account. Is it just arrogance to think that by looking at past performances, by weighing what we think are the relevant, critical factors, we can somehow "dope out" the winning pick?

So, what if there are waves of mud today? From my in-depth studies, only one pony has won on a sloppy track - Visionaire. It happened at Aqueduct in March. 1/16 miles. The grade 3 Gotham. He started out 9th and then somehow finished first by a nose. No more details in the Daily Racing Form because I guess visibility was down to zero. Here is the description of the winner's trip: Strong finish, fog.

Now that sounds like a a way of life too - and of course, it would take a Visionaire to find their way to the finish line in the fog!

The Amazing Karnak!

Tomorrow, the first Saturday in May, means the Kentucky Derby. This is the 134th run for the roses. It's kind of an insane race. I've never actually been there except via the TV or racetrack remote. Usually there's a bunch of real good horses, I mean way too many, tomorrow if there are no scratches, there will be 20 contenders. I don't know if running thoroughbreds is a decadent thing. I don't know if the horses actually like to run or not.

I do know that all the horses running will be on lasix and bute and that's probably not a good thing. It used to be that drugs were not part of the equation, but over the years we've continued to drug up ourselves and everything around us, including perfectly healthy horses. They've been breeding these horses for many, many years, trying to combine speed and stamina, and lots of folks wonder if we've made a much more fragile breed. The track record for the Derby is still held by Secretariat in 1973. Every quarter clocked for Secretariat was actually faster than the last, which is really unique, usually horses go slower the longer they run, Secretariat ACCELERATED!

Anyway, the Derby is also the race that made Hunter S. Thompson's career. His famous dispatch in 1970 from the Derby, propelled him into Pop consciousness, it was his first collaboration with Ralph Steadman, and well, as they say, "the rest is history".

So I just downloaded a free copy of the past performances of the field from the Daily Racing Form (it is amazing what you can get from the net!) and at first glance it all looks like Greek or Egyptian hieroglyphics. There's lots of homework to do. I actually picked the winner in the last two Derbies (Street Sense and Barbaro), but really, that's kind of like tossing heads two times in a row. It just happened!

The horse that really jumps out is Big Brown, he's never lost, he's really fast, great speed figures, kind of likes to run on the front. But he is coming from the far outside, which is a real disadvantage. He will probably be the favorite, but with so many horses you'll still get pretty good odds. Still, I'm thinking I'm gonna take a pass on Big Brown.

Okay, damn the analysis - first thought, best thought --- I'll take Court Vision!

UPDATE: Okay, after my in-depth analysis, I'm changing my pick. There is a new factor to take into account - synthetic dirt! Yes, Virginia, synthetic dirt! It seems some tracks around the country now have a new type of dirt, supposedly designed to be easier on the horses. Not sure if it's all another American boondoggle or what. Since Churchill Downs in Kentucky still has the old regular kind of dirt - I'm going with horses who have won on that type of surface. So forget Court Vision, my picks in this order - 1. Pyro 2. Tale of Ekati 3. Eight Belles. I might throw Big Brown in on some gimmicks too. I like to dance the dance. Of course, I'm not recommending any of these picks to anyone. Gambling is a vice. I just want to be on the record - you know, posterity!

Shine On Dr. Hoffman!

Dr. Albert Hoffman died Tuesday at his "hilltop home" in Basel Switzerland. He was 102 years old. Now that's a ripe old age. Good job Albert. It is fitting that he lived on a hilltop. The good doctor was the man who synthesized the compound lysergic acid diethylamide (from ergot) in 1938. His first trip happened a a couple years later when he inadvertently absorbed some of it through his fingertips. He then intentionally tripped on a bicycle ride home. Must have been quite a bike ride.

I wrote a play a couple of years ago now that featured Albert Hoffman as a sort of mystic force in Pop Culture. Certainly much of the Sixties (and all that came afterwards) as we know it probably would not have been the same without LSD. Would Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" ever been written? Would the Beatles "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" ever been recorded? Would Jimi Hendrix have worn so many scarves and blasted the radio waves with "Purple Haze?"

It turns out the CIA used LSD as a truth serum and used real people as experimental guinea pigs. Plus the promise of some kind of trippy utopia gave way to burn out and drugged out cul de sacs. There were many drug casualties along the way - think Brian Jones, Syd Barret, Peter Green, Jimi Hendrix - Timothy Leary was the P.T. Barnum of "turn on, tune in and drop out." Was there a continuum from that to Peter Townsend's "teenage wasteland?"

Was one man's transcendence another's dead end?

Anyway this is what kind of grabbed me reading the obit in the NY Times yesterday:

"He (Hoffman) then took LSD hundreds of times, but regarded it as a powerful and potentially dangerous psychotropic drug that demanded respect. More important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was the drug’s value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and understanding what he saw as humanity’s oneness with nature. That perception, of union, which came to Dr. Hofmann as almost a religious epiphany while still a child, directed much of his personal and professional life.

It was during one of his ambles that he had his epiphany.

“It happened on a May morning — I have forgotten the year — but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden,” he wrote in “LSD: My Problem Child.” “As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light."

So the great insight (the oneness of the universe) that later John Lennon and George Harrision so famously promoted after they took LSD, came to Albert Hoffman when he was child, long before his first trip. Beautiful. Shine on Dr. Hoffman!