 
All Things Dark and Gruesome / All creatures short and squat / All things rude and nasty / The Lord God made the lot! Okay, the last three lines were cribbed from Monty Python (as you know), but the boldfaced title is the name of an oogily nifty web site to which Netsurfer Digest refers as "the Yahoo of morbid fascination". See ghastly gore and putrifying pestilence! Catastrophic crashes! Carious criminalia! Historical atrocities! Creepy cemeteries! Demographical death! Shocking shopping! Miscellaneous morbidity! (Owwwwoooooooo, wasn't that scary, kids? Scarier than "Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Slave Chicks"!) Happy Hallowe'en. And a nifty Hallowe'en it'll be, 'cos Ray Bradbury is doing a signing at Vroman's today for his new book, From the Dust Returned. Screw all that cheapo Hallowe'en candy. Let's talk about the good stuff, candy for grown-ups. Nougat, specificially Nougat de Montélimar, a dense, luscious combination of egg whites, sugar and honey, studded with toasted almonds and pistachios. Forget the stuff that's at the center of a Milky Way bar. Speaking of nifty, Newsweek reviews iPod. The more I read and think about this delicious little gizmo, the more I want one. Damn, why does it have to be $400? The Newsweek reviewer raves.
With its white-plastic front, small LCD display and distinctive wheel-like control, the iPod resembles a thermostat sculpted by George Segal. It makes previous music players look like yard-sale 1950s sci-fi toys.There's a rave review in the New York Times as well. I've been reading a lot of sites where people are pooping all over the iPod -- "it's hardly a breakthrough" ... "What? Only five gigs? My Nomad has SIX!" ... "Why isn't it a PDA too?" (Uh, because it's an MP3 player and portable hard drive for other files, not a PDA.) I'd say the tiny size, the 20 minutes of skip protection and the FireWire connectivity is pretty breakthrough-like -- ain't nobody else got dat. My friend Brad lamented to me in email that the Diamond Rio he bought "sucked ... More specifically, the skip protection sucked. You could barely walk around with it without it skipping." He traded it in for a Nomad Jukebox, and was still dissatisfied. He said it weighed a ton, the drive was noisy, the skip protection also sucked, and it had a built-in volume protection, ostensibly to protect your hearing, that was so robust that you could barely hear it. Sixty-six hours of music in my pocket is probably enough for me. All this considered, I'm in for an iPod. That price tag hurts, though. Ouch. Mom, can I have one for Christmas? Awrite! The Laemmle Theatres chain has acquired the Fairfax Theatre near 3rd and La Brea. This is very, very good news. Before now it had been the neglected stepchild of the Cineplex Odeon chain, relegated to showing fifth-run movies at $2.50 a seat. Now ...
We will begin projecting quality first run American independent, art house and foreign films on the three Fairfax screens on November 2. We will announce the initial slate of films soon.The Fairfax is about ten minutes away from me, and this is very good news. Scary. Not exactly a fun, Halloweeny-scary link -- filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's post-Strangelove doomsday scenario, written in 1994 for the New York Times who subsequently refused to publish it. (Via FMH)
A "suitcase nuclear bomb" being detonated by a "potential enemy" in Washington, DC in a sneak attack?The article also contains a link to Kubrick's article. Worth reading.
Quote of the day.
"When I was a boy I was told that anybody
could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it."
The Bomb with a Loaded Message. Hank Stuever's excellent article in last Saturday's Washington Post, subtitled "For Gays in America, Even Heroism Isn't a Ticket to Inclusion" begins thusly ... "Let us consider the fag bomb".
Gays are intimately, tragically part of this war: David Charlebois, a fixture of Dupont Circle's upper set, was a pilot on one of the doomed airliners Sept. 11. And there was the 6-foot-5 rugby player from San Francisco, Mark Bingham, who is thought to have helped fellow passengers confront terrorists in a plane over Pennsylvania. The list goes on -- the beloved gay chaplain of the New York Fire Department, killed in the World Trade Center collapse; two men and their adopted toddler killed on one of the planes; the many who lost longtime partners and are now navigating an iffy situation of relief aid and death benefits for non-traditional couples.AOL prez: Anthrax good for business! Raymond J. Oglethorpe, the president of America Online, said that the anthrax attacks that have struck via the U. S. Postal Service are "incredibly positive for the Internet", and likely to boost its use. Wow, I never thought of that! That's great! Hey, just imagine how much their business will increase if someone unleashes smallpox! I bet he can hardly wait! Please deplane now, sir ... (oh sorry, no parachute for you, pal.) Last week a friend of mine was on the phone with a United Airlines ticket agent, buying passage to Louisiana. She remarked to the agent, "Y'know, I have 170,000 frequent flier miles on your airline, and my husband has 100,000. Last week your CEO was talking about y'all are about to go under. Please don't." The ticket agent replied, "Don't you worry ... there's far too much heart in this company for us to let it go under." Her voice filling with disdain, she predicted, "Besides, the man who said that is on his way out." I Can't Get No Satisfaction ('cos blimey, me back 'urts). The Rolling Stones are gearing up for a world tour next year in honor of their fortieth anniversary as a rock 'n roll band. I'm still tryin' to wrap me 'ead 'round that one. The end of civilization as we know it. Britney Spears, the sole export of Kentwood, Louisiana other than its spring water, utters the words "hell" and "damn" on her new album. But kids, they're just terms of endearment. (Huh?) Oh, and kids ... don't emulate the way I dress because it's just, like, a costume, all right? (Not to mention that you shouldn't emulate me because I've got all the intelligence and eloquence of a pot of boiled cabbage, too.) The inventor of the web, on Micro$oft's latest browser crapola. Tim Berners-Lee, the man who's widely credited for coming up with what we now know as the World Wide Web, comments on the software monopolist's disabling of all non-Microsoft browsers from accessing its web portal. (Via ./)
I have fought since the beginning of the Web for its openness: that anyone can read Web pages with any software running on any hardware. This is what makes the Web itself. This is the environment into which so many people have invested so much energy and creativity. When I see any Web site claim to be only readable using particular hardware or software, I cringe -- they are pining for the bad old days when each piece of information need a different program to access it.The thing that cracked me up about all this is that M$ claimed to block out browsers that didn't meet WC3 standards for browser compliance, one of which was Opera, which is in fact the most standards-compliant browser out there. Tim decided to try running the MSN homepage through the WC3's validation service.
Running the msn.com homepage through the validator on Friday showed the site did not use valid XHTML and did not meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.*guffaw* Wil Wheaton on acting, geekiness, not-being-Wesley-Crusher and more. God forbid that I should offer two Slashdot links in one day, but the world is a very weird and startling place sometimes. The aforementioned actor, who's got a very interesting website, submits to an interview by the denizens of /. and survives. You see here, as with the writing on his site, that he's funny, self-deprecating, and has a very low tolerance for people who confuse him with his ST:TNG character and blame him for the dopey lines the writers gave him. Favorite Q&A of all:
Patrick Stewart's bald head -- Have you (or any of the TNG cast) ever rubbed it for good luck?Last night's most colossal waste of time. After reading the Wil Wheaton interview, I was ... well, "inspired" isn't exactly the right word, but in any case ended up wasting 15 minutes of my life making something I've never made before -- a Geek Code.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----There it is. My entire life's essence, summed up in a few lines of gobbledygook. I feel like that "Star Trek" episode where Rojan, the the alien invader from the Andromeda Galaxy, pointed his little belt box at the poor redshirts and transmogrified them into little pumice-like dodecahedrons. (God, what a HORRIBLY geeky thing to have said ...)
Quote of the day.
"I want to have my cake, eat it, come back
for seconds, and get the recipe from the cook."
Blues, Country, Gospel, Bluegrass, Cajun, Zydeco, Tejano, Native American music ... tonight on PBS. The new PBS 4-part miniseries "American Roots Music" begins tonight on your local PBS station (check local listings). I'm looking forward to this one -- I enjoyed "River of Song", and this one looks just as good if not better. They've gained huge cred with me by the fact that the series' Cajun and zydeco portions are produced by (and the corresponding section in the series' companion book written by) Ann Savoy. Watch it tonight. Wilco, October 6, St. Louis. The band now have a recording of their show from the above date and place on their web site for your entertainment (Quicktime required). In a strange way, it's nice that they've parted ways with Reprise; I don't think a major label would ever let them do something like this. Not to fear, though -- they will have a label soon, and I think it'll work out wonderfully for the band. I finally got a decent copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, an advance CD from a friend of mine. It's labelled as such, but not with the name of any record company. I'd been listening to it from the website stream and was excited, but now, having a chance to listen to it with CD-quality sound ... man, is this a great album. Dave Van Ronk seriously ill. Received in this weekend's email from my friend Mary Katherine:
Dear friends and colleagues in the folk music world:It's gotten to the point where we think it's practically a miracle when a musician has health insurance (so many don't), but many people don't think about the fact that when a musician is ill, whether the doctor bills are covered or not, he or she is unable to work and has no income -- name one independent musician who has short- or long-term disability insurance as well. Now is a really good time to buy a Dave Van Ronk CD, and if you're a fan send in a donation if you can. Thank Gawd. NBC's so-called "comedy" series "Emeril" has been cancelled. I tried to watch one episode and lasted ten minutes. It was awful, painfully unfunny and very badly written. (Whenever Robert Urich is brought in to "save" a sitcom whose pilot was described as "nearly unwatchable", it's a bad sign.) Chef, you're a culinary genius who's served me some of the best meals I've ever had. Please return to the kitchen, where you belong, and where your talents lie. A new weblog hits the frying pan. I came across a food-related weblog called SauteWednesday which looks pretty new, and looks like it could be pretty interesting to boot. Worth the price of admission alone is the listing of links in the sidebar, including links to nearly 25 different newspaper food sections from around the U.S. and the world. We'll keep an eye on this one. How to Lose a War. Frank Rich, on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, speaks of the home-front failures of the Bush White House since September 11 ... "Welcome back to September 10."
Given that this is the administration that was touted as being run with C.E.O. clockwork, perhaps it should be added to the growing list of Things That Have Changed Forever since Sept. 11. But let's not be so hasty. Not everything changes that fast least of all Washington. The White House's home-front failures are not sudden, unpredictable products of wartime confusion but direct products of an ethos that has been in place since Jan. 20.
Tonight on "Down Home". Singer Connie Dover's gorgeous Irish-tinged version of "Shenandoah"; Steeleye Span's version of "Blackleg Miner"; anything else I can think of to evoke the marvelous Richard Thompson "One Hundred Years of Popular Music" show from the Getty last week; new music from Dr. John, Chris Thile, Paddy Keenan, some early '60s acoustic blues, and Cajun music from Cleoma and Ophy Breaux, Dennis McGee and Raymond Fontenot. New Orleans' finest? The more things change, the more they remain the same ... an NOPD officer arrested a longtime French Quarter resident and property owner last Thursday for stopping his car in the street for less than ten seconds to retrieve his dog, who was running loose. The officer charged him with "impeding traffic, public intimidation and resisting an officer." (Apparently "public intimidation" means asking the officer for her badge number.) The officer claimed that the man impeded her while on the way to a crime scene, but she had no lights or siren on. And if it was a crime to stop a car in the street, every cabbie in the Quarter would get life in prison for the number of times people have to wait in traffic while cabs pick up and let out people on Quarter streets. Sheesh. Reminds me of a famous story in our family in which a relative of mine was falsely arrested by a nutball NOPD officer during a bogus traffic stop. The judge threw it out of court instantly, but she never should have been arrested or harassed in the first place. The commander of the Vieux Carré precinct's response was predictable. I guess police reform still has a little ways to go ...
Why I Love New Orleans. Contributed by my friend Mary Katherine:
K-Doe Fans Keep Memory AliveYeah you rite... The whole enchilada. Great stuff in the Los Angeles Times Food Section today, starting with an article about enchiladas, which includes one family's enchilada recipe handed down through 8 generations, supposedly unchanged for 150 years. A hollow voice says "plugh". Thanks to a mention by Matt, I'm now hopelessly addicted to text adventure games again, just like when I was a 17-year-old college kid. Telnet to eldorado.elsewhere.org, login as "zork", and choose from a wide array of text adventures, from the original Crother/Woods "Adventure" (I still have all my hand-drawn maps of Colossal Cave from 1979), plus lots of old Infocom games from Zork to Suspended to A Mind Forever Voyaging and many, many more. I loved them all, and played for hours and days on end. As spiffy as computer graphics are these days, I think they still ain't nothin' compared to what your imagination can conjure.
At End Of Road(Whee!) To Hell. Disregarding my friend Barry's advice, primarily due to my own procrastination, I still haven't read Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell, but instead saw the movie first. It's at the top of my list for my next trip to Vroman's, and once I've read it I think it might be interesting to go through this site, called "A guide and study of the comic From Hell and the lore surrounding the Jack the Ripper case". Are you black? Then forget that cab. Anthony "Tuba Fats" Lacen, a beloved local New Orleans musician, tried unsuccessfully one Jazzfest night to get a cab home at 2:00am after a gig at Donna's on North Rampart. Cab after cab refused to take him. He has no car, there are no buses until 5, and his bad knees and enormous tuba precluded a three-mile walk to his Uptown home. "The cabbies wouldn't take me ... They wouldn't take any blacks," he said. Gambit Weekly reports that locals say they aren't being treated right. Cab drivers say they fear for their lives. Twice a week, both sides meet in City Hall to find out just who's taking whom for a ride. Getting uglier. Now that the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan has started "accidentally" killing civilians, including children, one wonders how such events will prevent future terrorism rather than fueling it. Simon Jenkins, in an excellent article in the Times of London, compares and contrasts the Current Situation to that of Britain's 30-year battle with the IRA. Even Britain learned that a military solution is the wrong answer to fighting terrorism, and as one person astutely pointed out on the MeFi thread where I got this link, the single best recruiting tools the IRA had were given to them by the British in Bloody Sunday and internment (the British government's anti-IRA policy of arrest, interrogation, torture and imprisonment without trial).
I am told that not a single policymaker in Washington dares question the bombing. Tactics, humanity, proportionality or regional consequences are off agenda. "Do not reason with us on this one," say the massed ranks of American columnists, "it is too close to home." What, I wonder, would have been America's response to a mad Russian attacking American soil during the Cold War. What form would unreason have taken then?Quote of the day. "Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!" -- Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
How low will we go? Times of London: "FBI Considers Torture" The Times of London reports that "American investigators are considering resorting to harsher interrogation techniques, including torture, after facing a wall of silence from jailed suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, according to a report yesterday." And if they resort to torture, this makes us better, nobler and more righteous than terrorists, despots, and totalitarian or fascist regimes ... exactly how? Oh my Gawd. I want one! Over fifty hours of music, smaller than my Walkman and instantly integrates with iTunes on my Mac ... aieeee! (I wish it was less than $400, though. Overpriced by about $100.) Everything you always wanted to know about "Mulholland Drive"...* but were afraid to ask. Los Angeles New Times film critic Andy Klein joins the folks at Salon to try to help us figure out what's going on in David Lynch's terrific new movie. It starts with a detailed plot summary with spoilers, so don't read this if you haven't seen the film. Then it helps answer a number of questions many people have about the plot, beginning with ... "What the fuck is going on in this movie?" From the Pathetically Sad and Disturbing People With Nothing Better To Do Department. A so-called "documentary filmmaker" (in reality, a nutball) is promoting her new movie in churches and on religious television networks, asserting that "one of the gravest threats to Christendom is about to be unleashed by a godless American media corporation". That is, the long-awaited movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is being released on November 16. Did you know that the books are all a clever conspiracy to make all good Christian children abandon their religion and turn into shape-changing witches? That the backstory of Harry's mother sacrificing her own life to save her son from being murdered by the evil Voldemort is designed to turn the male-centered idea of Christ dying for our sins right on its ear into a female-centered, goddess-worshipping worldview that J. K. Rowling is secretly promoting? That Harry's lightning bolt-shaped scar from that encounter is really the symbol of the SS? (Cue cuckoo clock noises...) Caryl Matrisciana, the self-described documentarian, has a history of promoting rumor as fact and being taken to task for it. She made a film called The Clinton Chronicles, blaming the former president for a "dizzying array of conspiracies and deaths", and a sequel called Obstruction of Justice, in which she blamed two Arkansas state troopers for killing two young men on then-Governor Clinton's orders to cover up involvement in a drug ring. A jury awarded the two troopers $600,000 of her money, in a decision unfortunately overturned because the troopers were "public figures" and not eligible to sue. Matrisciana gloats over the decision. N-U-T-T-B-A-L-L, nutball! (The movie comes out in just over three weeks, and I CAN'T WAIT!) Seeya, Marc. I've been lax in keeping up with news from home over the last week or so, but via Jonno I've learned that my fellow New Orleanians said a resounding "Nuh uh, bra" to Mayor Marc Morial's attempt to amend the city charter to overturn term limits and declined allow him to run for a third term. Like Jonno (by the way, happy boit-day, hawt!) I also found Morial's attempt to be off-putting, but hearing of the horrendous commercials he'd been running turned my stomach (and probably those of many New Orleanians as well) -- extolling the virtues of "stability in these uncertain times" with flags waving in the background? Faire le barph. Shiny! New! Finally ... a new issue of Blair magazine has hit the virtual stands. It's Ye Olde Fantasy Issue, beautifully designed and funny as ever. "He never met a person that he didn't Love." Rev. Howard Finster, well-known American folk artist, died yesterday of heart failure, aged 84. <voice="Comic Store Guy">Worst concert ... ever.</voice> Apparently the Michael Jackson-organized all-day "United We Stand" benefit concert at RFK Stadium on Sunday was an unmitigated disaster, with interminable delays, bad sound, insufficient food and a headlining performance by Jackson that was reportedly "as showy, egocentric and craven as you could imagine". Jackson seems to be on the verge of personal and professional implosion, beginning with most of the pop stars announced to sing in his "We Are The World"-like new benefit song "What More Can I Give?" pulling out of the project. His new single was knocked off the top of the UK charts by the likes of Kylie Minogue (how embarrassing), and concerts at Madison Square Garden where many audience members "booed, slow-handclapped and eventually walked out." Oh dear. I suggest quiet retirement, where he can live off his millions out-of-sight for the rest of his life. What now? Freeman Dyson makes some comparisons between The Current Situation and the situation in Europe 87 years ago:
The day after the disaster, I had lunch with an Austrian friend. He talked about the events of July 1914 after the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. Many people in the Austrian government, including the Emperor, felt that this act of terrorism should be handled diplomatically. But the newspapers were screaming for war against Serbia, using the same rhetoric that we hear today. The Serbian government is sheltering the terrorists and must be punished. The world must know that the Austro Hungarian Empire is a great power and capable of defending its interests. Since we can't make war on the terrorists, we must make war on Serbia for helping the terrorists. This barrage of patriotic frenzy in the newspapers continued for four weeks, and finally pushed the government to take the disastrous steps that led to the outbreak of World War One at the end of July. In many ways, our present state of mind is uncomfortably similar to July 1914 in Vienna.His first and last paragraphs make wonderful sense, but in the middle he goes a little off the deep end; think the "Thank you, Adolf!" scene from John Boorman's "Hope and Glory", except he's a sullen teenager instead of a cute grade-schooler.
They Could Have Been Hits: One Thousand Years of Also-Rans. Wes and I decided that we were among the luckiest people on the planet last Friday night, listening to Richard Thompson perform the show of the above title at the Getty Museum. For free, no less. Here's what he had to say in this year's program:
We had great fun last year -- possibly at the expense of the audience -- with our show "One Thousand Years of Popular Music", so I thought something similar might be appropriate this time. Someone paid me the backhanded compliment of declaring that the show did not lack for ambition; I have taken this stinging rebuke somewhat to heart, in spite of the snappy title, we will limit ourselves to a mere nine hundred years of Western musical history.Last year he did it completely solo, but this year had a couple of friends helping him out -- singer and songwriter Judith Owen on vocals, and on percussion ... John Densmore (!), who led Richard out from backstage beating on a small hand drum. Here's the set list, which I mostly remembered (geez, how could I forget this show?), with some confirmation of titles from Richard's sound man:
o "Worlds Blis Ne Last" - a 12th Century song in pre-Chaucerian Old English, with Richard on guitar and John on hand percussion; they walked on stage to the beat of the drum and went right into the song, whose lyrics were barely recognizable as English, if that.It was phenomenally, staggeringly good. I really, really hope that this ends being released as one of Richard's "Beat the Bootleggers" albums. This was too good only to have been heard by the few hundred people in attendance. Bizarre email of the day.
From: walter c______ <bolts*****@yahoo.com>I think I can state with complete confidence that 100% of whites in Louisiana have blood in their background. (Jeezus Gawd.) 10 Reasons to stop bombing Afghanistan. Something to think about, from AlterNet:
Despite almost universal agreement that America "needs to do something" in response to terrorism, our heavy bombing of Afghanistan increasingly looks like a bad idea. While virtually all of us feel that strong steps should be taken to apprehend anyone behind the massive murders on September 11, when you add up all the facts, the pulverizing of a battered country just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Instead, by bombing Afghanistan, we are ...
A good week for music. Monday, Wednesday and now Friday. It's been a while since I've seen three shows in one week. Wednesday night The Waterboys played at The El Rey Theatre, and were as amazing as I expected. Steve Wickham, the fiddle and mandolin player who joined during the "Fisherman's Blues" era is back in the band again, and I was happy to see him there. Although they didn't sound as heavily Irish-influenced as the days when he was with them before, they sounded great, and played songs that ranged throughout the history of the band. The big surprise was the opening act. Tom McRae. I was a little late to the Waterboys show and got there once the opening act had started. It was one young guy with an acoustic guitar, and another young guy with a cello. I must confess that I didn't rush there, because more often than not the opening band sucks (unfair, but mostly true). As his sings began to catch my ear, I wandered closer and closer to the stage until I was right up at the guard rail. This guy was really good, amazingly good. A sweet tenor but sharp, cutting through the theatre all the way to the back. Gorgeous but sad songs (gorgeous singer, for that matter), and that cello ... man, what a perfect touch. (I love the cello.) You couldn't really call it folk, but it wasn't really rock either. Just excellent songs, beautifully sung. Finally he thanked the audience, saying it was great that they stood there and really listened. Then he said, "Sod the P.A.," and invited everyone to come up to the front of the stage and listen to him play unamplified. He did a terrific song called "Language of Fools". You could have heard a pin drop in that theatre. It was one of those magical musical moments you don't get all that often. His name is Tom McRae. His new album is self-titled, has been out in the U.K. and the rest of Europe since last year on db records and was released in the U.S. in August on Arista. Go get it. Tonight. At The Getty Museum, singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson performs his second concert entitled "One Thousand Years of Popular Music".
"Some of tonight's selections would be considered folk, some court music, some close to classical, and as we reach the twentieth century and the lines become confused, just Music, under the big umbrella of Popular. Troubadours, minstrels, traveling dance bands, all disseminated popular music from early times. Sir Philip Sidney learned ballads from a blind fiddler, Oliver Goldsmith from a milkmaid; Samuel Pepys delighted in a widespread song like 'Barbara Allen' as much as any sailor or farmer. The most unlikely songs turn up five hundred years late in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and many dance tunes would cross all class and geographic boundaries of Europe. Thomas Hardy's descriptions of village life, when musical experience was limited to the church, the dance, the plowman's song, and perhaps the family piano, show the intensity of pleasure derived form musical opportunity before the gramophone age."I had to miss the last one (and I'm still kicking myself in the head over that). I ain't missin' this one. It's been "sold out" (well, it's free, but you have to have a reservation) for ages, but folks at the Getty's auditorium told us that there's an average 20% no-show rate at their shows, so it may be possible to get in. Call the Getty at (310) 440-7300 to see if there's been a cancellation, or just show up and wait in the standby line. Worth the risk, and if you don't get in go wander around the museum for a while. You can't lose! Dr. Laura makes a new enemy. As if grievously millions of gay men and lesbians wasn't enough, "Dr." Laura Schlessinger now takes on the entire state of New Jersey. Methinks she can expect a visit from Paulie and Silvio soon. Evil Evildoers Of Evil. From Mark Morford's "Morning Fix" column in this morning's SF Gate from the San Francisco Chronicle:
How to feel calmly patriotic and yet not the slightest bit reassured by Bush & Co.Something to think about.
I'm Trying to Break Your Heart. There's a really cool-looking in-progress 16mm black-and-white documentary film about Wilco, which follows the band through the making of their newest album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and "shows the conflict that arises when a band creates an artistic, challenging and deep record while signed to a record company in the midst of a giant corporate takeover." The site also says that the film is currently about halfway complete, and the filmmakers are seeking financing and distribution through independent means. "Neither Wilco nor their record company is financially involved in the film, making it a true documentary, rather than a glorified music video or electronic press kit." Sounds great. Could it be a "Let It Be" for the 21st Century? (Except in this case the band doesn't break up, and instead of their swan song are making what's perhaps their biggest artistic breakthrough album.) Thanks to Peter Abraham of Fusion Films for the heads-up on this!
Sammy LeBlanc, R.I.P. One of the venerable old waiters at Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans has died. I never had the pleasure of being served by Sammy, but I have the utmos respect for people in his profession, particularly those with a truly professional attitude. I come across a lot of waiters in Los Angeles who don't care about it, who hate it, and who are just doing it until they sell that screenplay/get that part/get their reel seen. Well, you know what? I don't want a waiter who's "just doing it because he/she has to" unless they take their jobs seriously. It's a serious, honorable job. There's absolutely nothing wrong with serving someone, in using your professional skills to make sure your guests have a good time. A great restaurant experience (and even great food) can have its effect ruined by a bad waiter, therefore that makes having a good waiter one of the keys to a great restaurant experience. If you're a waiter, do a good job and be proud -- I appreciate what you do. Tom Fitzmorris eulogized Sammy in yesterday's New Orleans Menu Daily:
I know I never had him wait on me, except once on a Tuesday night. Sammy LeBlanc, who passed away a few days ago, combined the qualities for which Antoine's' old waiters were celebrated. First, he had a total knowledge of the way his restaurant worked. He knew what was on in the kitchen and what was off, and hed never let a friend go the wrong way.So much for academic freedom. (Or, "No hard rock, please ... we're Catholic academicians.") From the Bergen County Record: "Seton Hall University has ordered its award-winning radio station, WSOU-FM, to abandon its signature music style -- hard rock and heavy metal for the past 15 years -- and seek a format that better reflects 'the diversity and the values of the university.'"
The surprise announcement has infuriated WSOU staff members, who said their policy in recent years has been to keep the most offensive lyrics and bands -- those that might be considered anti-religious or obscene -- off the Catholic university station.Apparently no allegedly objectionable lyrics were actually quoted by university officials. (Via Obscure Store) Bunk's Blues. The "Masters of Louisiana Music" column in this month's OffBeat profiles jazz cornetist Bunk Johnson (1879 or '89 - 1949). It's good to read more about his life, as I'm a big fan of his music (still got a couple of CDs to hunt down, though).
The word "legend" is thrown around today in American music vernacular almost as freely as the term "Creole" is in New Orleans. People use the word legend to describe a lot of non-legends, despite being often great and important people. Legend means something from the past, historical and likely shrouded in the unknown. If any New Orleans jazz musician fits that description it is surely the enigmatic cornet player named Bunk Johnson. He has been called a pioneer, liar and a drunk while receiving heavenly praise by his fans and devilish criticism by his foes.Ixnay on the rusadercay, Ubyaday... An interesting article from ABC News on how the September 11 attacks are redefining the use of language in America. (Via AWAD)
Hit by a train! But in a good way. The Old 97s were fantastic last night, of course. Lots of Murry songs, which is a good thing (including covers of Merle Haggard and Bill Monroe, to name but two), Ken was smokin', Philip kept the backbeat beautifully, and Rhett ... well, Rhett. A great songwriter, and a great performer -- passionate and full of fun and sweaty and slinky and incredibly sexy. We had a blast. Speaking of Rhett... On a more somber note, here's a piece he sent in to Rolling Stone's October 25th issue, which I found as the most recent entry in the News section of The '97s website. I know we're probably all sick of anecdotes like this, but when it comes from one of my favorite musicians, it hits just a little bit closer to home.
My girlfriend and I live in an apartment three blocks from the World Trade Center. The day before it happened, I sat in the plaza at the base of the Towers, working on this really beautiful song called "Love Bird." And it was such a beautiful day--the blue sky and the Towers, and all the people walking to and from work. I finished it at three in the morning in our apartment. Then we went to bed.The Best of L.A. continues. This is, I think, my favorite piece of Louie's from the LA Weekly's "Best of L.A. 2001" issue (unlike the previous two, this one and many others are actually in there; look for this one under "The Human Element"; scroll down a bit). Those of you who are fans of the gentleman in question will no doubt agree.
Mr. Howser's NeighborhoodQuesto espresso è terribile! Prepararsi per morire! I know they're very particular in Italy about the quality of their coffee. Maybe she served him instant; still, I do think this reaction was ... um, overkill. Amusing email of the day. From Lemuel, to whom I can't write back because he didn't include a return address:
I was going to tell some friends the reciept for gar balls, but I never wrote it down. I knew it would be on your site, it wasn't.Um ... well, quite obviously you didn't know, did you?! (All ya gotta do is go to Google and enter "gar balls", podna; you'll have all the recipes you need.) Which reminds me ... I get a lot of people asking me for certain recipes, many of which aren't even in Louisiana cuisine (this tells me they didn't use the internal search engine which is linked from every page). When I write them back to tell them that I don't have it, and to use a search engine, a lot of them get mad ("Thanks ... FOR NOTHING!" said one woman the other day.) Jeez. What do you do with people like that? Abusive emails of the day. I have a policy statement on the site that says if you send me abusive email, I'll probably post it. Here we go ... "Rob" No-Last-name writes from Firebir712@aol.com:
You seem to be well versed and very accomplished in matters of food.Okay ... starts nice, then I wonder what he's talking about (subway cut?), then I wonder "what whining?", then ... he's a wingnut. It took me a minute, but I then remembered a little piece of food criticism I had dashed off years ago, and only had one little link to it from Gawd knows where on the site. I criticized Subway sandwiches for tasting bad, and started off with the fact that they don't even know how to cut their bread, with that little plug taken out of the top. Well, they finally started cutting it like a regular sandwich, but you know what? They still taste terrible. My only question is ... "turlkey"? Then later this morning, this delightful little epistle arrived from Miss Rachel Olson, funkystops@yahoo.com, with the subject line "EEEEEE":
You are loathed by many. Go waste yourself, Pere Ubu."Waste myself"? Eat green shit, madam! Hmm. Where to ? Well, presumably she fancies herself an "absintheur", using a mishmash of French and Greek to refer to herself as a "beautiful absinthe drinker". She may be the latter, but she's certainly not the former. Beautiful people don't encourage others to kill themselves for trivial reasons. It's ironic that she attempts to insult by invoking Alfred Jarry, who drank himself to death on absinthe at the age of 34 (dying of tubercular meningitis he had contracted after recovering from a long alcoholic jag). Presumably she objects to the page where, sick of unsolicited dopey emails from people who think absinthe is a drug and not merely an interesting spirit and from idiots who think they can get high from drinking toxic wormwood oil, I posted the emails and commented on the senders. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Oh well. All I have to say to her is ... "MERDRE!" Speaking of Jarry and other French artists ... I always loved how the French used to react to works of art that scandalized them. From Le sacre du printemps to Un chien andalou to Ubu Roi (from the first word uttered on stage during the play, no less) -- they'd start a riot and trash the theatre. Gotta love that. And again with the French. Morford's commentary from "The Morning Fix" was more interesting than the article to which it refers, actually:
Again with the Mata HariMy favorite line: "France told the Dutch group to get a life and quit bothering it because it was busy eating a bowl of soup and smoking." Hee heeee.
$51,171!! That's the ten-day total for the KCSN Fall 2001 Pledge Drive, which ended last night. It's the second-biggest total ever for KCSN, and the best we've ever done in the fall. This is an amazing total, particularly considering how the drive was hampered by the Current Situation. Everybody at the station did a fantastic job, but the greatest thanks go to you, the KCSN listener and subscriber (if you are one, that is!). Thanks very, very much! Wilco's Dark Victory. Here's a terrific article from the Chicago Tribune on Jeff Tweedy and Wilco, and their newest as-yet-unreleased album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, already one of the best of the year even though you can't buy it yet. (You can hear the whole thing in streaming Quicktime audio from their website.)
Jeff Tweedy is minutes from going on stage to perform a solo concert, armed only with his acoustic guitar, a harmonica and some of the best songs anyone has written in the last decade. He has a supportive wife, two children who adore him and a modest home on the Northwest Side with two cars in the driveway, and his band Wilco is as respected as any in the land.Drive to Mulholland ... soon. David Lynch's new film "Mulholland Drive" is absolutely amazing, hypnotic, hallucinatory, surreal, mysterious, funny, creepy and much more. Both Wes and I thought that we could immediately have sat through it again, just to try to catch everything that's going on. See it (twice, if you can). There's an excellent critical review by Brent Simon in Entertainment Today, a free L.A. entertainment weekly. Careful, though -- there are a couple of spoilers, so read this afterward; in the meantime there's also a good feature article which doesn't give anything away. (Not to condescend to ET, but with a review of that quality Simon should really be writing for the L.A. Times, instead of some of the hacks that do.)
Quote of the day.
"To me, music is love, and I need it in my
life just as much as they need it in theirs."
Happy birthday, Mom! (Well, that's pretty self-explanatory.) Happy birthday, Lou! (Ditto. (Hi, Charlotte!))
Gawd bless Batboy, the Space Alien, and the talking bears in Yellowstone. The Washington Post sings the praises of America's finest and funniest weekly after The Onion, none other than the Weekly World News, "America's best purveyor of social satire ... disguised as a sleazy tabloid." (via FMH) My friend George's favorite WWN headine ever: COUPLE CHASED FROM YELLOWSTONE PARK BY TALKING BEAR! - Bears uprooted trees, threw them at the couple and bellowed, "Get out of my park!" My favorite was: SIAMESE TWINS TO FACE FIRING SQUAD! - One of them killed, his innocent brother protests! Gotta love it. The Best of L.A. continues. Here's the other one of Louie's pieces that didn't make it into this year's LA Weekly "Best of L.A." issue:
There was a time in the history of our city when the community had to gather its strength and pull together to serve those in need. Primarily working class endeavors, religious and not, orphanages emerged for the purpose of caring for children with no other recourse. Orphans, "half-orphans," the neglected, abandoned and abused all found solace in these institutions which, it should be needless to say, were not evil, dark and dank places, nor were they rife with abuse. (Among surviving former residents and staff of one such place, the memory of warmth and love is pervasive).
Hooray! Thanks! I was thrilled with the pledge drive results last night. It's been a rough week, lots of bad timing all around (apparently lots of people quit listening to the radio when we started bombing Afghanistan), but a whole bunch of great people came through last night and helped us raise about $1,000 for KCSN (which means $200 for the Red Cross, too). Nancy, Mary, John, Cliff, Don, Sean, Florence, Jennifer and everyone else who pledged ... y'all delivered. Thank you! Savoys at the Getty. The Savoy Family Cajun Band, from Eunice, Louisiana, will be performing tonight at the theatre at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. This will be a fairly rare opportunity to see this particular lineup, as they don't make it out here all that often. The group consists of legendary Cajun accordionist and accordion-builder Marc Savoy, his wife Ann (author of the definitive tome Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People) on guitar and vocals, and their songs Joël on fiddle and bass, and Wilson on keyboards. They're all brilliant musicians, and express more strongly than just about anyone I've ever seen the sheer joy of playing the traditional music of one's home culture. (By the way, their name is pronounced, "SAH-vwah", not "sa-VOY".) The event is free, and ... um, well, has actually been quite sold out for a while now. However, from what I've heard, they're getting a few cancellations every day, so call to check and see if any seats and parking spots are still available -- (310) 440-7300. The life of Reilly. This is a couple of weeks overdue, but I strongly urge everyone within reasonable travelling distance of New York to head to the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York to see Tony Award-winning actor and acclaimed stage director Charles Nelson Reilly's one-man show, "Save It For The Stage: The Life of Reilly", which opened there on October 7. Wes and I saw it last year at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, and to say it was fabulous would be quite the understatement. Alternately touching and fascinating, and always hilariously funny, Reilly's show is a complete delight, and could be just the thing for New Yorkers who might just need a few laughs nowadays. Go see it. Best of L.A. The LA Weekly have just released the 2001 edition of their annual "Be |
(Just what do you think you're doing, Chuck?)
