Internally Haggard
Now Playing: Alex Robins--"Annabelle"
Watching the news is really hard going for me these days, but BBC World probably has the most indepth and interesting coverage of the disaster currently taking place in New Orleans. I'm off to give right now, and if any of you find yourself in a position, please give to a charity that'll send money where it's needed if you haven't already.

I haven't read "Altercation" in a while, mostly due to post-election depression, but the recent discussion on Katrina and the New Orleans debacle is tremendously worth reading, especially the reader comments. And this is pretty appalling, though hardly surprising.

Good news: I got an email from my friend Monica, who lives in New Orleans and with whom I haven't corresponded in some time, and she was safely evacuated.

Sex, Drugs, Rock'n'Roll, and Death: Memories of New Orleans
Now Playing: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra--"Carioca"
Well, it's already looking pretty bad in the Crescent City. I'm assuming my parents and immediate family are okay; Baton Rouge doesn't seem to have been hit too hard, although I saw some nasty video of Beauregard Town (of all places) on the BBC. A lot of relatives still live in Metairie and other outlying places, though--I can only hope that they managed to escape unharmed. I understandably haven't been able to get through on the phone. There don't seem to be a great many details online, so I'll definitely be watching the news tonight. This week's "Madison Post" will have to wait, as there's really no better time to share a few favorite memories of New Orleans.

Disclaimer: The following set of reminisces might contain evidence of certain misbehaviors which, however innocuous they may seem to the writer, might--oh, fuck it. Thhhhpppttth.

The Aldrich Family Funerals (1994 and 2003)

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother were a wonderful couple, and I had a great time piecing together the story of their tempestuous courtship from discussions and reminisces and general family folklore. Grandpa (Wendell Anthony "Red" Aldrich) was kind of a wild kid, playing minor league baseball all over the South in the late 1920s, allegedly striking out Babe Ruth at a spring training exhibition in Alabama (you may judge the latter's level of inebriation for yourselves), playing in the Panama Canal Zone for the Colon Silver Sprays, and then returning to New Orleans to marry Emelda Theresa Mullen, the precious and very, very cute daughter of a large, middle class Irish family. They were married for sixty-six years, and they were always my favorite relatives to visit. After Grandpa Aldrich's death, I visited "Nana" a lot, especially when I lived in downtown Baton Rouge, since she was then in a retirement home on North St. The funerals and wakes taught me a great deal on what it meant to be alive. I felt especially alive during the gathering before Grandpa's funeral, when I accidentally got my cousin Amanda in trouble for smoking. "I need a cigarette and a smoking partner," she said, and I followed, asking no questions. Five minutes later, her dad materialized outside and ordered, in a nasally threatening voice, "Amanda, put out the cigarette, and come with me." She complied, as I said to myself, "Oh, that's funny." Whatever anyone else says, there's part of Grandpa that totally would have appreciated that.

Kachina Trouble (Summer 1994)

My best friend in high school, Rob (mentioned later), and his girlfriend Jennifer went with me to the city on one of those jaunts one took when life in my hometown of Baton Rouge (memorably if inaccurately referred to by Ignatius Reilly in Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces at "that whirlpool of despair") grew too monotonous. During the course of our visit, we ended up at one of the occult shops designed to separate faithful Anne Rice readers from their money, this one on Dumaine Street. It was fun looking through the various crap on display, and the place had a collection of kachina dolls, the Hopi devotional figures that people must think look so absolutely darling in their homes. The owner, "Donn" (who, in retrospect, reminds me of Larry Cohen horror movie stalwart Fred J. Scollay), noticed me looking at them and engaged me in conversation, which veered terrifyingly into Druidism. "Why do I do that???" I asked myself after we left, somehow taking the whole thing seriously. Of the conversation itself, I remember nothing, except "Donn"'s whipcrack retort to some half-assed observation I must have made, "but who was the TEACHER????" On every subsequent visit to the Quarter, I've made damn sure to keep away from Dumaine. The Wicker Man was set in Scotland, but you can't be too careful.

Lollapalooza (17 Aug. 1994)

Lollapalooza '94 was the first genuine rock show I attended (having led a fairly low-key social life during high school). The Breeders, L7, the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Smashing Pumpkins were all there. I'd met a motley collection of people from work that summer, and we drove down in a not-very effective caravan, my brother Slater riding with me. The show was at UNO, which lay on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, and we endured nightmare traffic up Elysian Fields. We all eventually dispersed and followed our own paths; I ran into some other friends of mine from Baton Rouge and was none too unhappy to listen to a few sets with the lovely Laurel riding atop my shoulders.

What made the day, though, was the ride back. Jordan and Brandon, two fellow caravaneers, somehow found me as I searched for Slater and begged me on their knees to take them back with me. They'd apparently had enough of Tony and Susannah's semi-erotic antics on the way down. "Dude, they were making out like squirrels!" I promised to do so, as soon as I'd found Slater. The latter soon showed up by my car with his friend Dave and Dave's friend Brad, who had "lost" their ride. Brad was allegedly wired on ecstasy (easily believable, but I had no concrete proof). My car was a 1984 Chevrolet Cavalier, and we found the fit correspondingly tight. Crammed into the "burro," we got lost near UNO, scraping the bottom on a number of roadbumps. Brad claimed to have "taken care of" the bill at a local gas station, and I'm still pretty certain that I drove away with ten bucks' worth of free unleaded. Nearing the interstate, we pulled up alongside an evil Domino's driver whose fraudulent directions put us on the wrong exit. As that vile bastard pulled away, cackling his accursed head off, too late for us to try and avenge ourselves on his car, Brad launched himself halfway out my front passenger window and started screaming at the guy. "If I ever see you again, I'm gonna fucking kill you, motherfucker!!" There was worse (or better, depending on one's standards), but we finally made it out of the city and back to Baton Rouge (a city itself, but you know what I mean). Brad bemoaned his lot--a wrestling scholarship to Kansas State, apparently a fate worse than death--and brayed loudly on how he'd have to take a shower and "be clean" before he could do more hard drugs. I accidentally flicked live cigarette embers on Jordan's knee and let Brad off at somebody's house on Chantilly. "Chantilllllyyyyy!!!" The end.

"Grownup" Mardi Gras (February or March 1997)

I went to Mardi Gras every year until I was sixteen, and then had to miss four years while going to school in Virginia. As a kid, I obviously couldn't appreciate the holiday to its full potential because I (a) thought girls were "stupid" (not really, but that's what boys were supposed to say, right?) and (b) couldn't drink. We also generally watched the parades on St. Charles, either uptown or downtown, southwest of Canal. Well, during those glory days known as the early 90s, I'd not only fallen in love or lust entirely too much, but I'd also discovered the more reliably tactile charms of alcohol and nicotine. It was Sunday (I think), so that meant the Krewe of Bacchus. I went down with some of my Barnes and Noble coworkers--James, Jill, Neal, Katie, Malinda, Bruce, Greg and his soon-to-be-ex-wife, and Monica and her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend (so far as I know, neither impending breakup began the evening in question, and I certainly had nothing to do with either, although I wouldn't have minded having something to do with one of them). At this point, it's all a bit of a blur. Stopping at Jill's mom's house, parking in Algiers, taking the ferry across the river to Canal, drinking, wandering around, drinking some more, seeing open-faced Mardi Gras tits on Bourbon Street for the first time, hearing Bruce say he wanted to leave Bourbon Street because he didn't want to miss the parade, and staring him back with appalled and fascinated disbelief (and I refuse to accept the explanation--given by others later--that it was because he was Canadian; I find such an imprecation unworthy to level at the country that gave us Sarah McLachlan, Ziya Tong, and Shania Twain), drinking, smoking, drinking bourbon from a paper bag while watching the parade, zoning out to Pulp with Malinda on the way back... heavenly.

St. Patrick's Day Off (17 Mar. 1998)

Erin, at the time, was dating Rob, and was actually the first girlfriend of his to whom I was attracted. Rob had to work and couldn't go, so Erin invited me to accompany her, Jim, and Greg to the city for the day. They all spent most of the time trying to get the goods on Rob (my three companions had arrived at the conclusion that, whenever Rob finished a story with "I shit you not!", "You know he's lying"), and I came up with some entertaining high school stories. We hit the House of Blues for lunch and then some relatively generic Irish pub down towards Canal for Bushmill's and pool. Jim almost literally killed me on the way back by verbally imagining a Thundercats porno. "Cheetara! Drop your pants, you stupid bitch! Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight!"

Trips with James (Winter and Spring 1999)

I had a lot of friends at Barnes and Noble (and still keep in touch with two of them fairly regularly), but never got into so many entertaining scrapes with any of them as I did with James. On our first little jaunt to New Orleans, we somehow wangled an invitation to dinner with Jill and some of her family, the latter in the West Bank (across the Mississippi from New Orleans). James proposed a dastardly plan--he'd flirt with Jill while I kept Ms. Elaine (Jill's mom) busy. I thought he was joking (and he might have been), but that's exactly what ended up happening. Frankly, it wasn't hard to flirt with Ms. Elaine. We drank wine while I told her about Howard Zinn, and if that sounds like the worst kind of humanities-major cliche, she taught American history at a Catholic school, so it was somewhat relevant. Everyone had a great time (and nothing untoward happened, in case you were wondering).

At some point, a few months before or after, we went to visit James' parents, who lived in Marrero (also on the West Bank). I drove James down as his car didn't work and his large Filipino-American family was having some sort of mini-reunion. We cruised through the city, Eric Burdon and the Animals rasping out "When I Was Young" and "Sky Pilot" on my car stereo. James' family was great and tremendously welcoming. His mom, Ms. Cecile, actually tried to give me money as we took off for a jaunt to the Quarter with James' sister and her husband, an out-of-state sheriff's deputy who kept showing people his badge and getting into conversations with cops on street-corners. My most vivid memory is of us sitting in Pat O'Brien's drinking (strangely enough) hurricanes, James and I helplessly drooling over the gorgeous Liverpudlian tourists at the next table chatting with their boyfriends.

For some reason, James' presence unconsciously (I assume) attracted sexy British travelers. This, of course, is the same guy who asked the gift shop girl at some other generic Irish pub in the Quarter if they sold "IRA T-shirts." We were at Molly's on the Market in Decatur Street one night with some of the Barnes and Noble gang, and James and I found each other waiting in line for the bathrooms. The latter are worth describing in detail--they sat behind the restaurant in a lovely inner courtyard, dating from at least the early 1800s, with the Spanish colonial windows and balconies that made the French Quarter such a delight. The "ladies'" line was longer than the "gentlemen's", and we found out why when a miniskirted lovely with cartoonishly long legs and raven tresses stumbled out of the distaff can and explained in a boozy Home Counties screech: "Oh, I just had a little trouble in there! I'm British, don't you know! The British Empire! Say no more!" This was not an Anglophobic character study worthy of a Mel Gibson movie or a rogue Python sketch. She actually said it while stumbling away and, in doing so, was obscenely hot. That might be why I'm so into Sally Webster on "Coronation Street." Yeah, she's from a Manchester suburb, but still...

There were other beers, other friends, other events--I met my Roanoke friends Jen and Chris down there a couple of times, and we frequently ended up at the house in Metairie where Nana's sister, Aunt Sue, lived with her husband, Uncle Ray. Their house had my favorite housesmell ever--vaguely like cigars, but not quite. There was also the time I met my friend Jason at his aunt's house on Pontalba Street, smoked cigarettes of various kinds and woke up on the floor covered in his aunt's kittens (of which there were maybe twenty or so) and laughing hysterically. I've rarely had a bad time in New Orleans (thanks for nothing, all-night rave at the State Theatre), and I hope she recovers and that the damage to families and homes isn't too terrible.

I just got back from checking some news. "Unknown number of deaths"... that really doesn't look good.

Crack Me A Smile, Pour Me A Drink
Now Playing: XTC--"Helicopter"
My brother came to visit me in town this weekend, braving the weather and harsh tolls on several of Pennsylvania and Ohio's interstates to hang out, walk around, and listen to music. It was great to see him again and reminisce, and a pleasure to show him around and introduce him to the local music, some of which I've been enjoying for a couple of years now.

Friday night we had dinner and beers at Dominick's, and then walked to Crazy Wisdom to hear Jim Roll. I've described hearing Jim earlier, but this was something entirely different. Accompanied by Sam Vail, "the Jimmer" just blew us away. On the surface, it's more of the folk/alt-country stuff I've been listening to a great deal in the past few months, but there's a bittersweet core in the music that haunts me for a while afterward. Despite the exhortations from some of our more fellow eccentric audience members to play "Muskrat Love" or even Jim Stafford, not to mention the occasional sound of breaking glass*, Jim kept things on an even keel throughout--the mournful "Peg and Awl," "Old Love," "Bonnie and Clyde" (some of which lies locked away in someone's memory, we just couldn't figure out whose), and of course, "Double-Time," which I'd already heard covered by Sari Brown at Espresso Royale. It sounds just as good on his first CD, "Ready To Hang," which I listened to the next morning.

Saturday, after getting doused with a rainstorm on our way to the Fleetwood, Slater and I went to see March of the Penguins (2005) at the State Theater. The last nature documentary I saw was on the octopus, the only animal that probably fascinates me more than the penguin. Penguins have it hard, man. Going for a hundred miles at a time to find food, watching the occasional cherished egg crack open and freeze, dodging seals and auks, huddling for warmth against unimaginably ferocious winds... they're cute as hell, but they're nobody's fools.

That night was Alex Robins' last show at the Madison House, as he would next day suffer the appalling fate of moving to San Francisco, which I'm sure you'll all agree is just awful. Alex had played before with Chris Bathgate and Emily Hilliard, in the night that resembled a country dream. Tonight he had some of the more diverse openers I'd seen at the Madison, including Ross Huff's full jazz set, Everyone A Pope. Alec Jensen opened, with Emily Powers (who was herself moving to Chicago). We got there half an hour late as the movie time had been wrongly posted at the State Theatre (not that I minded--the movie was great, and I got to discuss it a little with the lovely Andrea, who I met that night). Alec Jensen is amazing--everything he did with his guitar, accompanying or being accompanied by Emily Powers on guitar or violin (no mean artist herself), seemed to turn to gold, and I'd never even heard of the guy before. Everyone A Pope was just superb. Slater and I hadn't heard a good jazz band in a long time, and Ross Huff, who had played along with Chris Bathgate at the aforementioned country dream show, is a magnificent trumpeter. Chuck, who I've seen all over town (he used to work at Ashley's and occasionally filled in on drums for Into the Freylakh's Mike Gabelman), did a fantastic drum set, and the guys on bass and keyboard were great, too--I wish I remembered their names. I'm waiting for someone who sucks to show up at the Madison House so I can really let them have it. With both barrels, mind. Emily Powers came next, switching the order from the first set, the kind of wistful, confessional folk songs she'd played at the first Madison House show. All this set the stage for Alex Robins.

I'd met Alex at the show with Wanda and the Amoeba Kids, and he was instantly and tremendously friendly. Tonight, he seemed to have already prepared for his set by drinking heavily from a number of sources, and just loved the crowd to death throughout, frequently offering to take us all to San Francisco with him. He distributed lapel pins displaying himself looking all badass, and played an alternately somber and cheery set of fantastic country-folk numbers with a decided edge. "Crack A Smile" and "Michigan Year" were particular standouts. The spirit was helped along by Dustin on tambourine, some guy who was banging on a chair, and Ian of Seven Chakraz, who did his occasional set-crashing spoken-word number. This didn't harm the set for me so much as it provided an entertaining counterpoint, and Alex didn't seem to mind too much. I took my leave of him with a boozy hug and a free CD, which I listened to this morning--formidable. Slater left after the set as he had to leave for D.C. around seven the next morning.

I left shortly afterward due to a sharp and sudden depression. All the talk and songs about leaving, Alex's departure for San Francisco and the poignancy it slathered all over the Madison backyard, Slater coming and then leaving, our talking about the past through the weekend and what had happened to everybody, the natural disaster that was and is threatening my home state (and much of my family) and probably the effect of drinking at about four-hour intervals since two in the afternoon contributed to "The Mood" (where I want to leave the party because I don't want anyone to see me like that).

I walked home without a great deal of enthusiasm. I popped in at Espresso Royale, where one of the local bands that play there Saturday nights (Love Without Dreaming, maybe?) regaled people. I sent a few emails and checked on the Katrina situation (we've all known it was coming eventually, but it's still a bit of a shock), and then left. My mood improved considerably along Liberty Street. First, I received a completely unsolicited (and I feel a little bad about that now) smile from a cute girl, and then I ran into Andrew Brown and his friend Martyna outside of Borders. They were having such a good time and in such obvious good spirits that they helped to lift mine. Andrew remarked on how cool it was that I lived next to the Arboretum, and then I realized that I hadn't taken enough advantage of that in recent months. This morning I subsequently took off and wound up in Bandemer Park, traipsing up and down both sides of the Huron, as there's a pedestrian/biker walkway much like the one at Gallup that crosses the river. Kathy and Maggie at the Fleetwood commented on how nice I could be (of course, they'd just had to deal with one of the worst-mannered customers I'd ever seen there), and completed the picture. I'm in such a great mood now I could spit.

Hope for New Orleans, that's all I can say. More on that later, as that's where we went back in the Baton Rouge days when we wanted to have real fun.

*Nothing new to the Jimmer, of course. He'd had an impromptu accompaniment the night he played at the Madison from a Ryder truck that was pulling up in the carpet store parking lot next door. There is one man who knows how to work that shit.

Let Your Fingers Do The Screaming
Now Playing: The Soft Machine--"Lullabye Letter"
Li Bo, greatest and most beloved poet of the Tang Chinese Empire, lolled back in his rowboat one glorious night in 762, his nerves warm and his mind fuzzy, the sweetness of wine still in his mouth. He saw the moon rise beneath his boat--a curious sight, to be sure--so bright and beautiful, it looked the very face of a goddess. It seemed even close enough to touch, to embrace, and Li Bo tried, falling in his drunkenness into the moon's reflection upon the water and drowning in the lake.

That's one of my favorite historical legends. I think of Li Bo (701-62) and how he went--in a dream of ultimate bliss, swallowed up by a vision of nature at the height of his own achievement--and I think, "that's the way to go." Every time I see a full moon, I think of that guy. One was out Monday night, wreathed by some of the cloud cover that dominated the sky amid cooler and cooler temperatures, a moon of astonishing beauty. It was a dandy coda to a great weekend.

The Madison House had a more than usually friendly and mellow feel, probably because half the audience was still feeling the effects of the acoustic/hiphop bacchanalia Saturday night at Black Elk (which sounds like a teenage-party/bloody Western flick--somebody should film it). Shows always luck out with the weather there, and Sunday was no exception. I arrived early, as is my wont, commiserated with Brandon over our mutual recovery, and watched the backyard slowly swell with people over the course of the evening.

The Top 5 came first, and pleasantly strange they were, too. I'm not quite sure how I felt about them, but I think I'll have a better handle once they play New West Fest on Labor Day weekend. Come to think of it, I was so determined to be relaxed and convalescent that I forgot to say "hello." They played with guitar, keyboard, and violin, and there were even a couple of songs in French, which was an interesting experience. The Larry Brown Press Conference came next, and even though I'd earlier praised Ryan Balderas to the skies, I found I'd genuinely forgotten the extent of his ability. My short explanation: "Anyone who can take a movie directed by William Shatner and turn it into a thing of beauty (in 'What Does God Want With A Starship?') is someone who instantly deserves my applause." It was a pleasant thrill to recognize many of the songs (especially the lovely "Or How I Learned To Love Mitosis") and tap the feet along. Others reacted differently--the zombie song with the long title elicited such hilarity from Sari and Andrew Brown that they collapsed the makeshift bench on which they were sitting. He came there to kick ass and chew bubblegum. Guess what happened afterward.

Brandon Kierdorf of Narwhals Collide then took the "stage" as "Safety Kit" with an appealingly stripped-down musical persona, just him and an electric guitar, jamming away to a darkening sky and a rapt audience, somehow managing to create his own percussion with the force of his strumming (that was my impression, anyway). It was straight-up rock, man against the elements, which was pretty good until the end when he gave us a delightfully folksy number about "loving your bottles" (and I should have asked him the title). Finally there was Misty Lyn, with Matt Jones from Saturday night (the latter attracting at an exponential rate a growing and lusty-lunged local cult*) lending able support. They occupied what I've termed the "songs of longing and heartbreak" slot of which there's usually one to four at a Madison House show, they and their two guitars lulling me into a state that Li Bo might have found a little too familiar. All told, an excellent show once again.

In between the music, too, events moved pretty quickly. I've been daring myself, while perched on the back porch with one leg crossed lengthwise over the other, to see how far my leg can fall asleep. It's an interesting sensation to feel like there's no foot there and then to nearly stumble when you finally get feeling back in the nerves. That's probably an unhealthy thing to do, so I'll look into other forms of amusement. I discussed They Live (1988) with Ryan (and got the Casionauts' CD, Bailamos Muriemos Juntos!), met Sari Brown's brother Andrew (as it turns out, quite an accomplished Polaroideer) and the great Jim Roll, whose superb "Double-Time" I finally got to hear performed by its writer on myspace. Someone accidentally stabbed my finger with their fingernail during an unexpectedly forceful hug (the only reason I'm disguising the name is because it looks funny). Last but not least, we got to watch the lovely Annie give an accomplished demonstration of "voguing."

Every weekend should turn out like that.

*"Matt JOOOOOOOONES!!!"

Knife In My Head
Now Playing: Le Tigre--"Les and Ray"
My hangover is dying down, there's a beautiful day outside for me to grab by the tail, and I'm still not sure what "crunk" means.

Last night, Dustin Krcatovich, lord and master of Actual Birds, hosted a benefit for the famine in Darfur at Black Elk Co-op. I'd been looking forward to this show, mainly due to its killer lineup--Matt Jones and Chris Bathgate were playing, as was the divine Kelly Caldwell (all were fantastic--I have Banner of a Hundred Hearts to remind me of the latter, but I always forget how good the first two are until I hear them again). I'd heard them all before, but the hiphop group Seven Chakraz and Dustin's "crunk" act Brain Shake would be new to me.

For some reason, my usual method of recounting the events of that evening in a linear prose fashion seems like it won't fit.

Activities:

(1) Hanging out and chatting with Annie, Brandon, and Dustin.

(2) Meeting and chatting with Matt Jones, Chris Bathgate, Ana, Alana, Andy, Sarah, Isaac, Jensen, Wes, and a couple of other people whose names escape me.

(3) Dancing my ass off, first to Seven Chakraz (and lifting a 40 when bidden), and then to a whole host of albums spun, I believe, by Dustin towards the end of the evening.

(4) Running into and dancing with Karen from the Fleetwood, who lives at the Co-op, and finally meeting Becca, the lovely Village Corner manager.

(5) Breaking down and smoking one of Matt's cigarettes.

(6) Laughing. A lot. Like I was high or something (which I wasn't).

(7) Discussing movies at some point--Bad Lieutenant (1992), Fingers (1977), and Fando and Lis (1967--?) all came up. I've never seen the last one, but it was apparently Alejandro Jodorowsky's first feature, and I've been told by more than one person that I need to see El Topo (1971).

(8) Getting lost in the green mansions north of Burns Park amid a delicious summer evening--I've suffered worse fates.

(9) Working a tambourine while on the couch (the first time I've ever done so with any intention of maintaining a beat) and yelling "dance, whores, dance!!" to Karen, Wes, and that guy I spoke with whose name I don't remember (if you're reading this, which I doubt, you have my apologies).

(10) Quaking in wonder at Black Elk's well-equipped kitchen.

(11) Affirming, with Brandon, Dustin, and others, the greatness of old Dylan (after I woke up this morning, I listened to WCSX on the radio and heard "Desolation Road").

(12) Telling Kelly Caldwell anew how much I love her music.

(13) Waking up this morning with a hangover, but with the windows open, an early breeze coursing down Geddes Ave., and Springsteen's "Meeting By The River" on my stereo. I didn't mind the pain one bit.

(14) Being unexpectedly impressed by Seven Chakraz--Ian's a born showman and Nikki's voice is amazing (and she looked strangely familiar--happens a lot in this town).

(15) Breathing a lot. And I mean that.

I hope everyone else's weekend is turning out as pleasantly as mine.

Biblical Confrontations and Suicidal Puppets
Now Playing: The Waitresses--"No Guilt"
The city of Ypsilanti, Michigan, was named after Demetrios Ypsilantis (1793-1832), Greek freedom fighter of the early nineteenth century. Ypsilantis was one of many Greek intellectuals and mercenaries (fighting primarily for Russia during the Napoleonic Wars) who conspired to free Greece from Ottoman rule, beginning in Odessa (now in Ukraine) in 1814. Ypsilantis' older brother Alexander (1793-1828) led a disastrous failed invasion of Ottoman-ruled Moldavia and Wallachia (present-day Moldova and southern Romania) in 1821 and died after seven years of imprisonment by the Austrians (who captured him as he fled into Transylvania, then part of Hungary) in 1828. Demetrios was more successful, fighting in various capacities during the Greek War of Independence and ending the war as commander of Greek forces in Eastern Roumelia (Thessaly in present-day Greece), going on to become the first overall commander of the Greek army. That's my contribution to Ypsilanti Heritage Weekend, anyway.*

It was pleasant enough yesterday, waddling through Riverside Park and watching the arts and crafts people do their thing. The Ypsilanti Heritage Festival reminded me of a much less obtrusive, less obnoxious Art Fair. I didn't really do all that much--went to Aubree's, had a calzone, and finally got to hear the Ragbirds at the Michigan Ave. and Washington St. stage. I must say I was impressed, even if they played a few too many bland covers. One highlight was "Romanian Transom", a blazing gypsy tune knocked out by violinist and singer Erin Zindle. The evening was gorgeous, and everyone seemed to have a good time. I also visited the revived "Riverside Arts Center", where I saw many lovely watercolors and lithographs dealing with Ypsilanti, and somehow found myself regaling the docent with a version of this entry's first paragraph. Good times, good times.

I also finally got to hear Glori5, about whom I've been curious for about two years or so, at the Blind Pig later that night. Tight, focused, accomplished, and awesome--you'd think that the spectacle of so many bands working this 60s R&B-MC5-Stooges-early punk continuum in the same town might grow tiresome, but it doesn't, I'm happy to say. My stamina needs work, though. I made it through Wolfbait, who were amusing enough (I don't know how to do umlauts on this thing, since the "o" in "Wolfbait" carries one), but I was sadly unable to stay for Christpuncher (it's horrible, I know, but I have to giggle every time I see that name), who headlined. I counted myself lucky to have seen their sidesplitting trailer (which promised "Biblical Confrontations" and "MORE Substance Abuse"--respectively, some guy in sunglasses, a leisure suit and a mustache yelling things outside the Blind Pig, and one of the band members drinking from a can of Natural Light) and to have enjoyed a little of "The Gepetto Files," an entertaining if rudimentary puppet show that went on atop the dais in the back, next to the window--there didn't seem to be much plot, only a puppet pointing a gun at the audience and then at its own head. I was tremendously disappointed not to have nightmares.

One weird note--while visiting the facilties downstairs, I noticed a Ragbirds sticker stuck on the wall above the facility I was using at the time, with a scrawled "Oh my Gawd! Just kill yourselves!!" above, with an arrow pointing to the sticker. Whatever happened to manners, I ask?

Friday was all right.

*Interestingly enough, it looks as if Scio Township might also have a Greek War of Independence nominal pedigree. "Scio" was the name used during the 1820s for the Aegean island of Chios ("Scio" being the Italian name), the site of brutal Ottoman reprisals against the native Greek population. The massacres of Chios (commemorated that same year by Delacroix in... The Massacres of Chios) led to worldwide sympathy for the Greek rebels and may have been a turning point in the war.

Whitey's Gonna Set Dogs' Hair On Fire
Now Playing: The Kinks--"One of the Survivors"
Sunday afternoon, I accidentally nodded off after my little art-out and awoke to a Terry Gross interview with Iggy Pop, in which, among other things, he slagged off Traffic. It was a good interview, and they played "Raw Power" and "Gimme Danger," but slagging off Traffic?* Eh. Screw him--I still like 'em both, and frankly, I don't care if he was born in Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti.

I got to the Madison House on time (as I generally do) and was the only non-musician there for about half an hour, which was awfully amusing. The weather was more than a little odd, overcast and even a little cool (maybe in the upper 60s or low 70s--and let me state, if I haven't before, that I never thought I'd be using Louisiana temperature talk for Michigan). I chatted a little with Brandon, and found myself in a conversation out of nowhere with Wanda, a tremendously pleasant pair from Ferndale (north of Detroit) composed of Samantha Linn and Ben Mumma, the first on guitar and the second on percussion and harmonica. I mentioned in passing that I can whistle tolerably well, and before I knew it, I'd been signed to accompany them for a stretch of one of Wanda's songs (which I did later, to much amusement, after lubricating the pipes for the occasion with cans of Labatt). They came third, and create a fascinating yet somewhat unsettling impression--Samantha's voice is deceptively light, with concealed iron (I described Vashti Bunyan's sort of the same way on the British Horror Films forum, so I guess I'm plagiarizing myself, but it still applies). The guitar complements the voice well--it's like a tune out of a dream that gets louder and closer and perhaps a little more frightening. Ben's harmonica and occasional drumming lent able support throughout.

Interestingly, they were probably the most "typical" performers if one looks at the lineup in terms of acts that usually play the Madison House. Amoeba Kids opened up with a muted set of off-kilter folk songs that set the tone for the evening--songs with titles like "Robot Volcano", and an ode to their apartment that reminded me strangely of Lili Taylor singing "Joe Lies" in Say Anything (1989). Annie sat next to me through part of that set and it was hard for either of us to keep a straight face through some of the amusing lyrics. They were followed by Chicago's Within This Forest, who... I decided to describe them as a light, happy-go-lucky Godspeed, You Black Emperor! and I'm still not sure that makes any sense. They use guitars, percussion (including a xylophone), and electronic and audio samples of dialogue to create a bizarre yet exhilarating experience--I think they only played two songs, but it seemed like more. They, coupled with Wanda, ably set the stage for Patrick Elkins.

I'd heard of this fellow around town, seen the flyers, etc. I think whoever described his music as "punk-folk" was right on the money. Accompanied by a group of musicians (including Aleise Barnett, who'd played the Madison earlier), he gave us a series of absurd, whimsical songs like "Whitey's Gonna Pay" and "Set Dogs' Hair On Fire" (I'm making guesses as to the titles) that, halfway through the set, got me dancing. I'd decided to try out the chairs this time, and as I was all the way at the back, I think I felt less awkward and/or conspicuous. It was my first dance at the Madison, and it felt great (first time dancing to actual music since the Dirtbombs--I don't count Karen's reception because of the wretched DJ). Patrick Elkins rules. Towards the end, I met Alexander Robins, the guitarist and singer who'd played with Chris Bathgate and Emily Hilliard, and got to thank him for the music from that previous evening. In the course of our conversation, I found that he knew my Emily (from the restaurant, who I dated once, etc.--some of you may remember how I embarrassed myself earlier), which once more goes to show how friggin' small Ann Arbor can be sometimes. Such a wonderful evening, and now my weeks are beginning to pall in comparison (which isn't hard).

*Probably too much time spent on the British Horror Films forum has led to me writing things like "slagging off," if not actually saying them.

Summer Cherry Madness
Now Playing: Blur--"Turn It Up"
Saturday afternoon and evening unfolded much the way I'd imagined at the end of my previous post. I went along to WRAP, through a typically ebullient Farmer's Market, to find Sam and Dan there manning the downstairs. For the next four hours, I continued to get the non-fiction section together in my capacity as WRAP librarian. WRAP maintains a small library on the second floor of the building, comprised almost exclusively of private donations and overflow from Common Language bookstore, an LGBT-themed shop also in Kerrytown's Braun Court. Over the past few months (as I'm usually only there on Saturday afternoons) I've alphabetized and labeled the fiction section, and am well on my way through non-fiction (general, history, coming out, transgender, queer studies, etc.). It's not all that tedious, as I'm becoming familiar with an area of literature with which I might not otherwise be acquainted. The idea is to have the place finished by OutFest, which comes in late September.

That night, I hit Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room on Main Street, a New Age haven in which it's impossible for me to move for about five seconds without trying not to giggle. Their magazine section has Bitch and Mother Jones, and they've got interesting books on vegetarian/vegan cooking, but other than that it's pretty ridiculous, at least according to my own frightfully prejudiced worldview.

Tim Monger of the Great Lakes Myth Society was playing that evening, and after hearing how good Greg McIntosh was heading the Victrolas a few weeks ago, the Saturday night show was a must. Sara and Brandon were there, as was Sara's mom, Greg and Amy, and a few other Madison stalwarts whose names I didn't remember. The performance space of the "tea room" is actually pretty cool--it's got an old nineteenth-century vibe to it, with tarot card tablets on the wall and an incongruous fifties or sixties office facade on the other side of Main Street through the window. The walls and paneling look a light greenish-beige, but ought to be dark red, violet and green, staffed by hookers with like-colored hair wearing blood-crimson velvet wraps, offering to fetch patrons whiskies and light their cigarettes and saying things like "do you like what you see?" and "to serve the god is a privilege, Kevin." Memories of that place should be like a sweaty, vaguely-remembered, not entirely unpleasant nightmare. Oh, well.

Tim Monger is a terrific performer, encapsulating many of the features that make his band so good. A lot of songs were mutable--they seemed to change form during play, which I guess is where the prog-rock influence comes in handy. His pleasantly whimsical and upbeat attitude extended to an electric birdhouse as a stage prop, and made even songs about baseball enjoyable (and "Marquette County, 1959" sounds better live than it does on the album, in my opinion). By the time he launched into an encomium on Neil Diamond and played "Sweet Caroline" (during which I couldn't help but tap out some of the drumbeats on the table, as I consider the song somehow incomplete without them), we were all entranced. There was also a family-friendly vibe reminiscent of Sari Brown's show at Espresso Royale that lightened the mood, toddlers clapping their hands to the beat and nearly dancing on tables.

I went home (glad to have brought my umbrella, as the heavens had partially burst) and polished off the rest of my PBR sixpack while watching the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" Prince of Space episode (again). I am being in no way ironic when I say that it was the perfect conclusion to a wonderful evening.

Wandering around Sunday afternoon, a little disoriented by no Cinema Guild showing, I decided to check out the Jacob Lawrence exhibit in the University Art Museum--Lawrence (1917-2000) was apparently one of the best-known African-American painters of the twentieth century. The exhibit mainly featured screenprints in striking, somewhat fauvist colors reflecting various facets of African-American life (and life in general--there was one series on Hiroshima). I liked them--like a softer, gentler, possibly more evocative form of German Expressionism. While I was there, I decided, against my better judgment, to take in the Pop Art exhibit, even though I'm not really into Pop Art. I still essentially maintain that the only good thing Andy Warhol ever did was to make the Velvet Underground possible--that, and maybe Andy Warhol's Dracula (1974). I was eventually glad that I did, since some of the more "conservative" stuff--lithographs, prints, etc., by Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg--really appealed to me. Annie recently posted this interesting site where you can "paint your own picture." It awakened the old "art lust" a little and actually makes me want to start cartooning again.

I'll talk about the wonderful Madison House show tomorrow--this entry's already way too long.

Bored On The Bayou
Now Playing: Frederick Delius--"Summer Night On The River"
An uneventful week leads to an uneventful Friday evening, during which I drink a few bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon and watch the first half of the rather engrossing 1985 British TV miniseries Edge of Darkness, featuring, of all people, Joe Don Baker (more on that when I get finished watching it, but I manfully resisted the urge to scream "Mitchell!" every time he appeared). This week has lasted forever.

I watched a couple of videos recently that I picked up from the Campus Video clearance sale, both of them, coincidentally, directed by Wes Craven. After watching them, I realized that I now can't stand Wes Craven.

Last House On The Left (1972) I've been postponing for some time. I'm not a fan of exploitative cinema for its own sake--my main reason for getting so pissed off at Vampyres (1974)--but I certainly don't mind violence and nudity so long as they have something to do with a plot that makes sense. Last House On The Left has long had a reputation as an incredibly nasty movie, one which Craven always claimed was some sort of comment on America's fascination with violence and the Vietnam War. The plot is loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1958)--a gang of criminals kidnap a pair of teenage girls, rape them, and murder them in a long, drawn-out sequence that's equal parts appalling and artless. Craven intercuts these scenes with shots (presumably meant to be satirical) of the typical American family of one of the girls fixing the cake for her seventeenth birthday--which happens to be the day she dies. The hunt for the killers falls on two incompetent cops (one of them played by future Karate Kid villain and "Cagney and Lacey" stalwart Martin Kove) who eventually find the criminals taking refuge in the murdered girl's parents' house (they've pretended to be a family whose car has broken down). The drugged-out ravings of one of the criminals reveal their guests' identity, and the parents kill the criminals just in time for the cops to arrive.

This movie sucks. There's one moment (when one of the girls realizes that, despite her resistance, she's about to die) that still haunts me, but other than that, this movie's a real wash. To be fair to Craven, I don't think he set out to make an exploitative mess--I think he honestly thought he was making a brilliant satirical horror film about violence in America. Like, say, David Lean with Lawrence of Arabia (1962)--probably the only time you'll ever see me or anyone else linking those two--the filmmaker's ambitions run against the viewer's conceptions in a way the former never conceived. Today, it's possible for me to see Lean trying to say something about Western imperialism in Lawrence while at the same time stereotyping Arabs as "wild men of the desert", incapable of participating in modern society. In a similar way, I can see how Craven thought cross-cutting between the parents fixing the cake and their daughter being horribly done to death would be a clever juxtaposition, likewise with the slapstick scenes involving the cops trying to find the killers--one of which actually did make me chuckle, and I'm still pissed about it. It doesn't work, though. It's clumsy and poorly done (the cheery sub-Dr. Hook music makes things so much worse), and the satirical intent is self-defeatingly obvious. I can't understand why Last House On The Left is thought a classic.

Swamp Thing (1981) is much better. It isn't really that good, but it's tremendously entertaining. Real quick--it's based on a DC Comics character, a brilliant scientist who's turned via an explosion into a Black Lagoon-style swamp creature who proceeds to fight his evil mad-scientist archnemesis. I think that was the deal, anyway. The cast is terrific, doing their best with some of Craven's awful dialogue (if memory serves, Wes bludgeons/kneads "Is the Pope Catholic?" into "Do you think that the Pope is Catholic?"). I'd forgotten about Adrienne Barbeau's coolness until I saw her machine-gunning bad guys. Watching her tied to a chair in archvillain "Arcane's" lair, I had the suspicion that she was just seconds away from gnawing through her bonds and strangling the latter with them. Ray Wise ("Bob" from "Twin Peaks") is the guy who turns into the Swamp Thing, and he's okay. Arcane is hilariously brought to life by super-smoothie (and real-life World War II French Resistance member) Louis Jourdan, who gleefully fires off cheesy Nietzsche quotes throughout the movie, the same way Ricardo Montalban does with Melville during Star Trek II. Those actually become rather grating when used by his henchmen--one beefy goon's "every man for himself and god against all" nearly made me try to jump into the screen (never mind how) and smack him (the fact that the same quote was Werner Herzog's best movie didn't help either). I think that was Craven's way of making Swamp Thing highbrow and literary.

There is one outstanding scene, though, which will live forever in the memory of coolness. The Swamp Thing manages to overpower a pair of his pursuers on one of those speedboats with a machine gun mounted in the prow, and commandeers it to take after Arcane's chief henchman. The sight of this huge green mutant piloting one of those things (and what happens afterward) elicited the always welcome "oh my God, this is so awesome!" comment from my lips. I'm sure the beer helped.

After watching those, I started thinking about how Craven had made Scream (1997) (which--in itself--I thought a clever movie in many ways), and how it kickstarted all those jokey, quasi-ironic horror flicks with various WB and UPN personnel filling the cookie-cutter roles and how horror movies all rather suck these days (at least in this country) and I realize that the man owes those of us who care about these things a colossal apology.

I also have to stop watching this--it's turning into an emotional crutch.

Today--more library overhaul over at WRAP, and then Tim Monger's playing at Crazy Wisdom Bookstore on Main Street. Good times, I think.

Leonard Rossiter, Scene-Thief
Now Playing: Actual Birds--"Crooked Smile"
I went to see 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) at the Michigan Theater last night. The people over there are running a whole series of classic films in order to compensate for our not having an actual revival house, which is all for which we can really ask. I'm only going to see the ones that have to be seen on the big screen, which is why I'm probably not going to The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) next week. I mean, it was nearly twenty years before CinemaScope!

The last time I saw 2001, it was while making homemade pesto at the Spring Street house before work one Saturday afternoon last year, on Turner Classic Movies. I'd seen it several times before that, and I can now say that seeing the movie in 70 mm on the big screen is the only way to properly see it. Sitting in the theater, listening to the organist run through Strausses (Johann and Richard) and then listening to the Gyorgy Ligeti orchestral-ambient drone signaling the movie's start, seeing the weird "futuristic" MGM credit at the beginning, and then the earth, the moon, and "Also Sprach Zarathrustra"--I consider myself a fairly jaded amateur cineaste, and one who finds Stanley Kubrick, for one, greatly overrated, but I couldn't resist the power of the movie.

The story and characters actually grow in importance when seen on the big screen--watching 2001 on TV, it can seem very remote, an academic "classic" the viewer is supposed to study and analyze. Watching it in the theater, the characters and situations were much more important to me--the growing paranoia on the parts of both HAL 9000 and David Bowman are palpable, and the climactic scenes just before the famous, mind-numbing visual sequence in the "stargate" are almost unbearably gripping. I rag on Kubrick a lot, but I think this is before he went off the deep end. The visuals and the story are superbly matched, and whatever megalomaniac foolishness he got up to later on, I think movies like Dr. Strangelove (1964) and this one should pretty much safeguard his reputation for decades to come.*

There were plenty of laughs, too. HAL's politeness and equanimity in the midst of madness--"You seem upset, Dave"; "I like working with people"--made me chuckle out loud, as did many of the audience. Anyone who's seen the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" renditions of "Riding With Death" and "Devil-Doll" will inwardly cheer when William Sylvester shows up as Heywood Floyd--"Leave Robert Denby alone!" His look of intense concentration as he studies the directions for the zero gravity toilet nearly killed me. I think I was the only one, though, who clapped when British comedy legend Leonard Rossiter showed up as Dr. Smislov, the Russian scientist who gets all nosy with Floyd over the alleged plague at the Clavius moonbase. Leonard Rossiter rules--he was in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), too, as the hapless Captain Quinn. Come to think of it, he was probably the best actor in the entire movie (apart from Douglas Rain, the voice of HAL). Does that mean he stole it? I wonder.

This week's been pretty uneventful--I finally got to listen to Actual Birds' The Sky Is Full Of Ghosts, half an hour of low-fi fun featuring the exquisite "Crooked Smile," which I can't quite get out of my mind. I also finally listened to the Dean Martin collection I got for $1 last Thanksgiving in DC--I was going to sell it, but now I can't. Damn you, Dino!

"Matt, have you ever seen a flying saucer?"
"Is that your way of offering me a drink?"

Arrivederci, Roma.

*While watching Full Metal Jacket (1987) with some Don Carlos chums a couple of years ago--and I can't believe it was that long either--we watched a scene where a helicopter landed at a firebase and I cracked, "You know, since this was Kubrick, they probably had to do two or three hundred takes of this scene." My friend replied, "Yeah! That's what makes him such a great director!" Whatever, dude.