tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78041483979271274202024-03-13T19:49:50.850-04:00das Ding an sich"<i>It might seem silly for me to think childish thoughts like these, but I'm so tired of acting tough and I'm gonna do what I please...</i>"KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.comBlogger298125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-58816741825350340112021-02-03T14:11:00.003-05:002021-02-04T13:07:00.251-05:00White Weekend #11: Now my mind is filled with rubber tires and forest fires<p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Drove up to Shepherdstown today just to buy a bag of tea from the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Lostdogcoffee" target="_blank">Lost Dog</a>, on what would have been my sister's 50th birthday, 10 years and a day after the <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-sister-thanks-you-and-i-thank-you.html" target="_blank">breakup of the White Stripes</a>, and a few days before the 11th anniversary of my first <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2010/02/white-weekend.html" target="_blank">White Weekend</a>. There was snow on the ground along the West Virginia roads and a blue sky between the clouds above just like there was 11 years ago </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">when I fell down the Jack White rabbit hole</span></span></span>, which feels like it was half a lifetime ago even though it's only been a fifth of my life. Of course, I had to pull up the song that started it all, the final line of which still raises goosebumps on my arms.<br /><br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EinxxBvzK5M" width="560"></iframe>
<br /><br />Lotta reflection going on lately. I'm more than half a century old and feel like I've been in a mid-life crisis for a good 15 years or so. And now we're in the middle of a deadly global pandemic, at risk of hatred becoming mainstream, my sister died of Alzheimer's a few months ago, I've become distant from friends, and it's hard to not wonder just what's so dear about life. <br /></span></span></span></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gIuRWGqScD0" width="560"></iframe>
<p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But through most of that "crisis" time, there's been Jack and everything he's brought into my life. I've learned so much through him, either directly or from other musicians and artists that orbit around him (like Brendan Benson, above). I wanted to write a whole series of posts about all of those things last year in honor of my 10th White Weekend anniversary, but when I got started it became too overwhelming. I couldn't find enough words to go into it all-- The breadth and depth of blues music; the African-American history and culture that birthed the blues and evolved all the way to hip-hop; country music and it's indebtedness to multiple cultures; an acceptance of women's voices, for both the sound of them and what they have to say; the meditative elegance of baseball; the symbolic vibrations of colors; Bob Dylan's sense of humor; my own need for attention and capacity for petty jealousy; and that an awareness of the world outside your own little bubble is </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">necessary</span></span></span>, though it can be both rewarding and </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">frustrating</span></span></span>. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I've been lead to Son House, Charlie Patton, </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Elvis Presley, </span></span></span>Pokey LaFarge, C.W. Stoneking, Margo Price, Hasil Adkins, Eddie Hazel & Funkadelic, Ma Rainey, James Booker, Mattiel, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, Skip James, Beck, Dex Romweber, Captain Beefheart, Beyonce, Radkey, Alexis Zoumbas, Mick Collins, William Tyler, the Soul Surfers, the J.B.s, Shovels & Rope, Patsy Cline, Moondog, Little Willie John, Joshua Hedley, the Greenhornes, Courtney Barnett, Alison Mosshart, Danny Kroha, Chicano Batman, the 5.6.7.8.s, and so much more. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For a long time all of this brought me great joy and excitement, but those've been commodities in short supply over the past year. Blame it on Covid, that never-ending mid-life crisis, work, Icky Trump & the GOP, lack of travel and musical events, a dearth of exposure to Jack, whatever. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I need a chance to set myself on fire. But I'd probably just end up doing the same thing. </span></span></span> </span></span></span></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uCra5jjJAic" width="560"></iframe><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></span></p>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-11410091321535363312020-08-16T18:36:00.020-04:002020-08-18T06:14:07.942-04:00Wheelie good sounds for dwiving<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tUPeUdOQlvE" width="560"></iframe>
<p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Reading and listening to one of Third Man Records' latest offerings-- <a href="https://thirdmanrecords.com/news/alison-mosshart-announces-solo-spoken-word-album-sound-wheel-companion-piece-to-art-book-car-ma-for-august-7th-release-on-third-man" target="_blank">Car Ma & Sound Wheels</a>, a book of prosetry & photart from Alison Mosshart (Kills, Dead Weather) and a "sound sculpture" record album of written parts of the book. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <span style="font-family: verdana;">"<span style="color: #bf9000;">...a book about</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Cars<br />Art<br />Romance<br />Music<br />Attraction</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"> <span> </span><span> </span>Carnage<br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Asphalt<br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Rage<br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Madness<br /><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Allies</span>"</span> <br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Parts are exactly what I was hoping for, parts are not at all what I expected. Parts resonate deeply and are strongly identifiable, parts are a way of living I can only dream of. It took a while for me to become a Mosshart fan, I was introduced to her through the Dead Weather when I fell down the Jack White rabbit-hole and I was initially dismissive. She was just a chick doing the hard rock posture of Steven Tyler or Axl Rose and she kept getting in the way when I was trying to watch Jack on the drums. Jack called her "Baby Ruthless". She was obviously good at what she did, but what she did didn't appeal to me. Fun fact: A friend who was enamored of her once told me, before I left the house to drive to Baltimore for a Dead Weather show, "Blow a kiss to Baby Ruthless for me". At one point during the show when I made eye contact with her, I blew that kiss. She looked at me, turned and walked over towards the other side of the stage, turned back and looked at me again. I stared back and she blinked first, then didn't come back to that side of the stage for the rest of the show, which pissed off the guy behind me who wanted to give her his trucker cap. In hindsight, her reaction, or at least my perception of it, surprises me.<br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I don't know exactly when my impression of her changed. I'm still not into the Kills, though I may be someday. Maybe it was when I found out she was a stick-shift driver who writes while she drives (can't tell you how many of my blog posts have started that way). <br /></span></span></span></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EPPob3qJKKw" width="560"></iframe><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I'm not necessarily a gear head, I love the lines and purr of a good muscle car but don't learn models and years and horsepowers. But I love to drive, it's the closest thing to a drug for me. My favorite vacations have been road-trips in rented Mustangs and Camaros. And it's how I've been making it through Covid, by getting out of the house and into my own little quarantine in the car, driving the same backroads over and over and exploring new ones in other counties, just flying on the straightaways and swooping through the curves in my so-not-muscle Honda Fit that might be uncool but feels like a bullet to me. A properly driven Camaro could certainly blow it into the ditch, but the way that little car handles curves might surprise you. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But anyway, Alison. I think much of my early antipathy might've been due to jealousy. She's a single woman taking care of herself and doing what she wants and being what she wants and being celebrated for it and I resent that. How come I can't live a life like that? I'm too much <a href="https://thirdmanbooks.com/books/pain-the-board-game/" target="_blank">admin as fuck</a> and too scared of not being able to pay the bills. But at some point the light switch flipped and I really began to dig her. I love the way she talks, low and well modulated but enthusiastic about whatever subject is under discussion, I love her candor and lack of pretension, I love that she just says "I am an artist" and is one. I still envy her, but now I also enjoy her.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As for the words she put together for Car Ma & Sound Wheels, it's right where my head's at these days, wanting to get out, get on the road, go away from being admin and be something else for a while. I ripped the record to mp3 and it's going on a flash drive full of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/funkadelic-album-predicted-future/614542/" target="_blank">Funkadelic</a>, <a href="https://music.avclub.com/a-beginner-s-guide-to-the-weird-world-of-captain-beefhe-1798273976" target="_blank">Captain Beefheart</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/therealmattiel/" target="_blank">Mattiel</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0,3605,401760,00.html" target="_blank">Albert Ayler</a>, <a href="https://priceonomics.com/the-legend-of-moondog-new-yorks-homeless-composer/" target="_blank">Moondog</a>, and Jack White's <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/boarding-house-reach/" target="_blank">Boarding House Reach</a> for listening in the car. It fits perfectly. <br /><br />"<span style="color: #bf9000;"><i>And nothing was permanent because permanence wasn't important. Nor was it fast enough.</i></span>"<br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></span><br /></p><p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yw4lqwh5c1g" width="560"></iframe> <br /></p><p> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Ak1EJhMUBk" width="560"></iframe>
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XLvCseYvfaw" width="560"></iframe></p><p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zo-7e1iyejs" width="560"></iframe> </p><p> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m9YXEEdZAtw" width="560"></iframe> <br /></p><p></p><p></p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QClzlZTXj4Y" width="560"></iframe></p>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-32667855088695563302020-04-09T19:46:00.001-04:002020-04-09T22:45:42.856-04:00Random babblings: Coronavirus springtime<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">"<i>Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring</i>."</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">(Ivan Karamazov to his brother Alyosha in <b>The Brothers Karamazov</b>, Fyodor Doestoevsky)</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJihQt1bRq0-Rwz0KJLmhj2zm48tFlI6UtAsMegS61UJP-HY2vrPRAdOGUGTnaxZgT-a7vmhb6lOp9xTn-p2BdSHJLeYxme5b67Y6NxjM1-YrKe2x5FPJz4SSDeDb36Lsy8k64cQr9Bt8/s1600/DSC05553-s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJihQt1bRq0-Rwz0KJLmhj2zm48tFlI6UtAsMegS61UJP-HY2vrPRAdOGUGTnaxZgT-a7vmhb6lOp9xTn-p2BdSHJLeYxme5b67Y6NxjM1-YrKe2x5FPJz4SSDeDb36Lsy8k64cQr9Bt8/s640/DSC05553-s.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #cc9933;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Devil's Backbone Park, Washington County, MD</span></span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Spring came early this year, before the coronavirus hit the U.S. in full force. Temperatures were mild all winter and the mid-Atlantic didn't get more than a dusting or two of snow. And then at the end of February, the daffodils that we wouldn't normally see until close to the middle of March began budding, and the spring peepers began peeping in the creek across the street. It was wonderful, those two harbingers got me just as excited as usual. But there was an undercurrent to it, a feeling that it wasn't right. They were too early, which, combined with the mild winter, seemed to signify all too obviously that <a href="https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg" target="_blank">Greta Thunberg</a> ain't kiddin' around, folks, and we need to begin listening to the scientists and our governments need to start getting regulatory. And yet, instead we have <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2018/01/icky-trump-is-not-intimate-secretary.html" target="_blank">Icky Trump</a> rolling back every regulation he can to reverse the small amount of environmental good that's been done over the last half-century. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But now it's April and there are <b><i>still </i></b>daffodils in bloom, and tulips and redbud trees are beginning to burst forth, and sticky little leaves are opening up on the trees. And the coronavirus is ramping up its death toll and has forced business closures that are crippling the U.S. economy. And while some folks are holed up at home in self-quarantine, others are getting out to take what socially-distant pleasure they can from the early-arriving, long-lasting spring. I'm of the latter group (don't yell at me). Aside from work during the week and brunch and movies on the weekends, my life has been one of social distance on a regular basis for many years. But now I'm furloughed from work and waiting to find out when unemployment payments will kick in and, while I can't do brunch or movies, I can still <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2020/03/five-on-five-escaping-from-coronachaos.html" target="_blank">get out and drive</a>. It's either that or stay home binge-watching <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pmw4m" target="_blank">Father Brown</a> and obsessing over where the hell to buy some toilet paper. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A Facebook conversation this morning had me missing my favorite Waffle House, the one off of I-70 near Hagerstown, MD, where a couple of the ladies on the staff have memorized my usual order of steak and eggs, sunny-side up, hashbrowns smothered, diced, and capped, and sweet tea. Waffle House, for those paying attention, has become a barometer for the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the "<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/waffle-house-index-closures-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-fema-1494259" target="_blank">Waffle House Index</a>" that FEMA uses to gauge disaster severity. The company has become a model of not only 24/7/365 service, but emergency response. Between getting their restaurants up and running on generator power after hurricanes and tornadoes, and rolling out their Waffle House food trucks to provide food for affected communities, they've fed a lot of hungry people who might not have had much in the way of options after a disaster. But the coronavirus pandemic is one disaster even Waffle House wasn't prepared for. They've closed over 400 of their 2,000-something locations, which puts that FEMA index in the red.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Usually the Hagerstown location is bustling when I walk in. I'm usually able to snag a single empty seat at the high bar, while larger groups of people have to wait for a table. Watching the staff behind the counter is like watching a raucous ballet, as the servers and expediters dance behind the cooks at the grill and waffle presses, pushing trays of dishes through the washer behind the high bar, slinging plates of hashbrowns to the tables with graceful efficiency while calling out hellos to every person who walks in the door. Today the place was empty with a capital EMP-TY. I called in my order from the parking lot and sat waiting until Miss Linda came out to give me my packed and bagged waffle and hashbrowns and take my credit card. She invited me to come inside to sign the receipt, and it was a sad, lonely sight-- Plastic covering over all the high bar stools, and only Miss Linda taking orders and one cook dishing them up. I asked her to tell all the other staff I would normally see there that I said "Hi" and she said she would, and that I'd see them all again soon, because this wasn't going to last forever and "We'll be back, better than ever!" </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bct8stbZafI" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Her optimism reminded me of an <a href="https://arts.duke.edu/news/william-tyler-a-good-reminder-in-patience-and-acceptance/" target="_blank">interview with musician William Tyler</a> that I'd read this morning in which he was asked if he had any words of hope to share during these troubled times. He did, in the form of a quote from former POW, Admiral James Stockdale-- “<span style="color: #bf9000;">Never lose faith in the end of the story.</span>’” </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I agree with him that that's a powerful mantra to hold onto. If only I didn't drive past so many Trump signs on the lawns of folks out in the more rural areas of Maryland... </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RqSxhK2Bsys" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #cc9933; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-90551969715470963852020-03-21T19:52:00.003-04:002020-03-22T01:41:03.605-04:00Five on the five: Escaping from coronachaos and other stresses<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;">Once upon a time there was a little girl who didn't know what she wanted to do in life. So she indulged in driving country roads, riding her bike, walking in the woods, drinking tea, and reading books. Then one day she realized she was growing older and that maybe it was time to figure out her future. So she thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, until it gave her a headache. She just couldn't figure it out. So she went back to indulging in driving country roads, riding her bike, drinking tea, and...<br /><br />It'll end someday.<br /><br />When I moved out of my parents' house in Virginia into my first apartment, I ended up in new territory-- Maryland. Being on my own for the first time in an area I wasn't the least familiar with, I started going out driving a lot, to explore and get to know my way around. There was a lot less of the suburbs back then, much more farmland and forest. Often in the evenings after work, I'd get in the car and pick some country road I'd driven past on another day, turning onto it at nightfall and cruising in the dark until I was ready to head back home and go to sleep. Driving around on the weekends led to the discovery of a vast number of parks and recreational areas in my county and the one next to it, which led to exploration on foot and became an avid love of hiking. I never went as far as getting into long-distance trekking or climbing mountains or even camping, but I spent hours in the woods of mid- and western Maryland, learning to watch for deer and foxes and other wildlife, bushwacking off-trail, picking up animal bones and turtle shells and feathers along the way. <br /><br />And I never did figure out what to actually do with my life. High school was a miserable experience and my family was far from rich, so I skipped college and started working full time right out of high school. Started as a sales clerk in a department store and made my way over the years into the back office side as a clerical, assistant manager, manager, to inventory processing (you see, I don't mind being responsible for <i>things</i>, but I can't stand being responsible for <i>people</i>), to where I am now, as an operations manager. I've done ok for someone whose only college experience is a handful of part-time classes in their late-20s. The industry I'm in is contrary in many ways to the principles I've developed over the years, but it's family-owned and they treat the staff like part of that family and pay us fairly well. And since I don't know what the hell else to do anyway, I've stuck around there for over 20 years. <br /><br />But fear is also one of things that's kept me there. Back in my early 20s, just a few years after I moved out on my own, the store I worked for at the time went bankrupt. I was clueless and stuck around to the bitter end, even when paychecks got skimpy. I ended up paying my rent in installments, and taking out cash advances on my credit card to do so. Then came the day when my landlady called to say the property management company wouldn't allow her to take my rent in installments anymore, and that call was followed up by one from a collection agency on behalf of my credit card company. I had no money to give either of them. This was the job I'd gotten straight out of high school, seven years before. I had no experience job hunting, no idea whether to go to another department store or try something else. So I did what I always did. I got in the car and drove. Headed out to the mountains towards the <a href="https://www.nsgrotto.org/" target="_blank">Grotto of Lourdes</a> near Emmitsburg MD, flying at 90mph with the stereo blasting Queensryche, crying scared tears as I went. As I turned off the main road onto the side road leading to the grotto, I finally noticed the flashing lights behind me. The cop walked toward my car with his hand on his gun, but I wasn't trying to get away from him, I was just freaked out and depressed and trying to escape from it all. When I told him where I was headed, he calmed down a bit, but still gave me a ticket that ended up costing over $100, more money I didn't have. <br /><br />I've never forgotten that day. Every time I've considered exploring another line of work that might be more fulfilling but would pay way less than I make now, I've felt whispers of that choking fear again. I ended up moving back in with my parents back then while I looked for another job and got my finances straightened out, but fear of ending up in that situation again turned me into one of those people who will spend years in an unfulfilling job that's stable rather than exploring other options. I save my exploring for the road, and the woods. <br /><br />So here we are, roughly 30 years later, and the stable job I've had for the last 20 years is being impacted by the goddamned corona virus. My boss notified the staff yesterday that while our store is closed and we're all at home social-distancing or out hunting for toilet paper, we will be paid out of short term disability. When those hours run out, we'll be paid from regular sick time, then vacation time. What his notice didn't mention was the word "layoff", but it was lurking between the lines. We had to do some of those back during the 2008 recession and the current situation is horribly more unsettled and uncertain. My position is considered essential to the store, but my stomach still dropped at the thought of reduced pay, possibly getting to the point of <i>no</i> pay, and knowing that my own staff (against my wishes, I've ended up responsible for people after all) will be the first to be cut if layoffs come. And while I try to plan for my own situation, I think also of the many people out there whose finances are already being impacted, who have already been laid off, too many of them familiar to me from shops and restaurants and movie theaters that I frequent. To deal with the fear and the twisted gut and racing mind, on behalf of myself and everyone else out there, I'm doing what I've always done-- Driving those back roads. Wandering the woods is less of an option than it used to be, between the encroachment of the suburbs filling the trails with people who have no thought of walking quietly and watching for wildlife, and my own advancement into middle age and the joint issues that come with it. And, thanks to the steadily growing suburbs, it takes longer to get to the back roads than it used to. But I know all the ones tucked between developments, and am willing to drive farther out, beyond the spreading edges of the suburbs.<br /><br />You'd think I'd be tired of these roads by now, I know them so damned well. But I'm not. The feel of engagement with the car as it coasts down a long hill and banks into a curve while my favorite music blares out of the speakers is still the cheapest, most stimulating, and easily obtainable high I know. The spinning of my brain slows down to match the flow of the car and the knots in my stomach begin to ease loose. I don't usually come home with answers, but it lessens the fear for a while. As long as I can afford a tank of gas, I'll need those roads. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: small;">And because I drive a stick shift, this has become a bit of a theme song for me...</span></span></span><br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bNVstUPtJ_w" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-56701285167755515842020-02-09T14:06:00.001-05:002020-02-09T18:24:05.603-05:00A White Weekend 10 Year Anniversary: Everything I've Ever Learned, Part 1<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">It's been 10 years since <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2010/02/white-weekend.html" target="_blank">my first White Weekend</a>, but there's been no snow in the DC area this year. And this anniversary celebration is actually not about Jack and his music so much as it is a recognition of Everything I've Ever Learned from the entity called Jack White. Because that's a lot, and it's going to take a couple of posts to cover it all. Hopefully you'll follow along.</span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ruYd9n008RM" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">For the couple of decades pre-Jack, I was fairly musically monogamous. I would latch onto one, maybe two bands or musicians and listen to them pretty much exclusively. I'd dabble here and there in other stuff, but my primary focus would be that one or two that resonated with me on an emotional level. And my tastes ran in sequence from the cartoon rock of Kiss in my high school years, to the raunchy rock of Guns'n'Roses, to the operatic rock of Queensryche, to the esoteric rock of T00l, the grungy rock of Soundgarden and Audioslave, and then whatever Incubus is considered. T00l led me into things like the ideas of Carl Jung, but none of the other bands I listened to over the years really opened me up to anything else. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">That changed immediately in 2010 because getting into Jack meant also getting into the blues. It was impossible to not be curious about all of the music and other elements that he talked about-- It Might Get Loud had just come out the year before and he went on and on about the blues in that film and in pretty much every old White Stripes interview I was digging up. Right away, I was buying music by Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, and Son House right alongside all of the White Stripes, Raconteurs, and Dead Weather albums. I went as deep down that rabbit hole as I did down the Jack hole. I've never read any of the books written about the White Stripes, but I've read a dozen or more about blues music and countless essays and articles. And it blows my mind that I made it all the way to my mid-40s, having grown up hearing Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones and the rest of those blues revival bands, without ever hearing any of the original artists who inspired the revivalists. If I hadn't been exposed to it all by Jack, it's possible I might've lived my entire life without ever consciously listening to Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters or Skip James or Fred McDowell or Geechie Wiley. And there's still so much that I haven't gotten to, so many people like Tampa Red, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and both Sonny Boy Williamsons whose music I've yet to dig into, and who knows how many I've not even heard of yet.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RCwUwx2vONk" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Actually, thinking back, I remember at some point when I was younger, George Thorogood's Bad to the Bone was a big hit and I heard it all the time, and someone said that was "blues music". And then other guys like Stevie Ray Vaughen came along and, again, were described as "the blues". But back then I just listened to music, I didn't bother to explore it, and those guys didn't grab me that strongly anyway. So I accepted what I heard and my early, very vague conception of "the blues" became something created by white people. Now that the circle of people I share and discuss music with has broadened, it feels like everyone I know knows where blues music came from, but what about outside of that circle? Are we still just a bunch of Seymours in a world of Blues Hammer fans?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZaM6lTmhnak" width="560"></iframe></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">When Third Man Records released their two Paramount Records sets and Documents Records reissue series in 2013/2014, my world really exploded. It wasn't just that they'd opened a doorway to old music and genres that I'd never considered before. That in itself was tremendous, but I soon realized that along with the music, I was developing a totally different awareness of United States history and culture. It's difficult to read extensively about blues music without also learning about the post-Civil War reconstruction era and the beginnings of the Civil Rights era, about the history of African-American people. The history of not only blues but also jazz, soul, R&B, rap, and hip-hop music is obviously enmeshed in the African-American experience. But is it that obvious? How many people, even those educated in the history of the music, really stop to think about it at that level? White versions of all of those genres can be deeply enjoyable, but to listen to the white versions and not acknowledge that their basis lies in the black experience is to naively believe that the tip of the iceberg is the whole thing. Even listening to Charley Patton and Robert Johnson can be just peeking below the surface if you don't take the time to learn about the experiences of those musicians. When Black Lives Matter became prominent in the news in 2015, I found myself able to understand <i>why</i> specifically because I'd read Alan Lomax's description of having been hauled to the police station for being caught recording music with Son House, and because I knew that Blind Willie McTell's Southern Can Is Mine wasn't necessarily written about beating a woman. I can say with no pretension or irony that this music woke me up to a whole new form of empathy.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CSiFRKFb67A" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Touching on another currently prominent social issue and at the risk of being accused of misogyny, I have to admit that, up until 2010, I didn't have much appreciation for female singers and vocalists. There's something about soprano voices that is frequently like nails on a chalkboard for me. Even Jack's high-pitched tenor kept me from diving into the White Stripes for a year or so. Up until that time, there was only a small handful of female singers I could stand to hear, which included Tina Turner, Annie Lennox, Janis Joplin, and sometimes Alanis Morissette. So my musical world was shaped by an almost completely male-centric perspective. But Jack is recognized for his associations with female musicians so his fans can't help but be exposed to female voices. The first on the list for me was, of course, Alison Mosshart of the Dead Weather. Can't say I've become a full-on fan, but she does have a good rough'n'ready rock'n'roll voice. Next was Loretta Lynn, through the album Jack produced, Van Lear Rose, and I found myself wanting to hear more of Loretta's straightforward, conversational style. Then Cary Ann Hearst's scratchy tone grabbed me, when I saw Shovels and Rope open for Jack in 2012. Then came the old blues queens included on the Paramount Records sets-- Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, and Ida Cox-- and the women who played harder blues as well as any man-- Louise Johnson, Geechie Wiley, and Elvie Thomas. </span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OGKUmxOfgbs" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Slowly I realized that there were more female voices that my ears could tolerate than I'd thought, and that I actually enjoyed. Yet I was still shocked at myself in 2016, when Third Man Records signed Margo Price, who sings country songs in a powerful-yet-soft soprano that's exactly the sort that used to make me cringe. There's something about Margo's delivery of her smart and raw lyrics, though, that connected with me and made me end up not just enjoying her sound, but loving to sing along with her. And then Jack collaborated on a song on Beyonce's album Lemonade and I gave the whole record a listen and, holy hell, it blew me away. If you'd told me in 2010 that I would one day buy a record by someone like Beyonce, I probably would've laughed in your face. As with Alison Mosshart, I can't say I've become a Beyonce fan, but Lemonade resonates with me deeply. Others I've come to love are Rachel Nagy of the Detroit Cobras, and Mattiel, who's got a clarion voice and writes songs that sound like a cross between Nancy Sinatra and avant-garde garage band The Monks. Most recently, Third Man released a 3-record compilation of Patsy Cline's Decca Records singles, and I can't stop singing along with her in the car. Why was I never exposed to her music before??? Though if I had been, would my ears have been prepared to appreciate it the way I can now? That's the thing. I think it took having my mind opened by all the myriad things Jack has exposed me to in order to make this shift. There are still a lot of female voices out there that grate on my ears, but I've learned to at least listen before dismissing most of them outright and that's significant, because it's been necessary for me (and anyone else who might not realize this yet) to recognize that these women have important stories to tell.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Oksn6TxU5Wc" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hi_KUqSugQw" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_epXwsJeXq0" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Along with Loretta Lynn's country stylings, Jack introduced me to Hank Williams when he joined Bob Dylan's project of writing music to unfinished Hank lyrics, released as The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams in 2011. Throughout my childhood, Johnny Cash was the definition of country music, but Loretta and Hank and, again, the two massive Paramount Records sets and then Jack's American Epic project have put me on the path of Cash's predecessors. As with blues music, it's opened up a whole 'nother world for me. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For the sake of brevity, though, that world and more are gonna be explored in Part 2 of this anniversary celebration.</span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-91507280308659248462020-02-02T16:35:00.000-05:002020-02-02T16:35:12.259-05:00The Nine Year Anniversary of the White Stripes breakup is a palindrome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKy7ZqzbvYmyGS4dM0Q-yZxUhWq9vRMzDkOO10KwvKjPVVr6JO8PiTrteewNeq_pnAaxtnP4di4kte5W2HsB9SCNL32gwe6E3AJuEIvKOds3hm0_PV11isaosV7DIOPPRoM0P728_C-w/s1600/905335_636691289699557_411629632_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="509" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKy7ZqzbvYmyGS4dM0Q-yZxUhWq9vRMzDkOO10KwvKjPVVr6JO8PiTrteewNeq_pnAaxtnP4di4kte5W2HsB9SCNL32gwe6E3AJuEIvKOds3hm0_PV11isaosV7DIOPPRoM0P728_C-w/s1600/905335_636691289699557_411629632_o.jpg" /> </a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nine years later, it's 02/02/2020 and the day is a <a href="https://www.cbs17.com/news/check-this-out/sunday-is-02-02-2020-the-first-palindrome-day-in-909-years/?fbclid=IwAR1T-ezK0KVDyyyo3DvDAEheZ2KWp-M_h6lbPY9q2E4kAvad78VNAS9681c" target="_blank">palindrome</a>. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzbZ3EGm5NF216723kBPRG-5CexqChwPJr_1QyrC2azN14U8i0nM-c8XT7VdmULzM8ZASwVV5ZJH288599DVYOSDj9eodU7TJ9go8Xw0ancnmRyyq-seZel0JEN21CAOA2ybG0ZDQrJNc/s1600/palindrome.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzbZ3EGm5NF216723kBPRG-5CexqChwPJr_1QyrC2azN14U8i0nM-c8XT7VdmULzM8ZASwVV5ZJH288599DVYOSDj9eodU7TJ9go8Xw0ancnmRyyq-seZel0JEN21CAOA2ybG0ZDQrJNc/s400/palindrome.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The White Stripes were a bit of a paradox, so it's fitting that this would happen on one of their anniversaries. Here's one of the best songs that Jack White will ever write, recorded by the Stripes back in 2000. Listen carefully to catch the cleverly off-beat rhyme scheme in this tale of young love, bowling, and jealousy. I'd credit one of Jack's favorite songwriters, Bob Dylan, for the story song influence, but my pal <a href="http://peromyscus.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Peromyscus</a> once said this song was like "Chuck Berry for the current generation", which is probably more accurate.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span> </div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tghlDMcdraQ" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I took my girl to go bowling </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Downtown at the Red <b>Door </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After an argument I started </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Cause I thought she didn't like me <b>anymore </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I can't help it sometimes I feel <b>pitiful </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And of course she's so young and <b>beautiful </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I bought us two glasses of <b>Coke </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That's her favorite </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I wanted to make up for <b>earlier </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I dropped her glass and it <b>broke </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I just gave my glass to <b>her </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She laughed and so did I in our <b>lane </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then she went to the vending machine </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To buy a candy <b>cane </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But right next to that was a boy I knew </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With a spring in his <b>hand </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Playing a country pinball machine </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Called "Stand By Your <b>Man</b>" </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I saw him talk to her </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I stayed in my lane </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And played my game <b>steady </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And was thinking of a day </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When I'd be too old to throw a ball this <b>heavy </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I guess I'm young now </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So it's easier to knock 'em all <b>down </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then I looked and saw her say to him </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"You're really hittin' that ball <b>around</b>" </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And so he's lookin' at her the way I did </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When I first met her </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I could see in his face </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">White <b>flowers </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And cups of coffee </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And love <b>letters </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was sorry to interrupt their game </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I went and did it anyway </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I dropped my red bowling ball </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Through the glass of his <b>machine </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And said "Are you quick enough to hit </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This ball, Mr. <b>Clean</b>?" </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was scared to lose her </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I couldn't help bein' <b>mean </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And that ended both of our <b>games </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I said I was sorry </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But my girl left with him just the <b>same </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I thought how much I hate </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When love makes me act this <b>way </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was bent over a broken pinball machine </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a bowling alley and I threw it all <b>away </b></span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;">Well isn’t it all just a big game? </span></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"> </span></span></span></span> </div>
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-87271550192139446162019-07-04T17:23:00.001-04:002019-07-04T17:26:05.353-04:00It's a recipe for blue, like it's 1862<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QRodBItcBuA" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wrote a letter down to you,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like I'm Sullivan Ballou...</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's a recipe for blue,</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like it's 1862</span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />I've spent a lot of time on U.S. Civil War battlefields-- Gettysburg, Antietam, Monocacy, Manassas, Harper's Ferry, and many lesser-known sites are within an hour of my home in Maryland. Richmond, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness, down in Virginia, are about a two or so hour drive. Living in the D.C. area, you're surrounded by memorials to that war and, if you pay attention to the signs, it can get into your blood if you've grown up there. It wasn't until I was an adult and out on my own and had the means to really explore that I began being fully conscious of it. So I dove in-- Devouring books and magazine articles, and driving, bicycling, and hiking the battlefield parks. I've read the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/CVW/civil-war-trilogy" target="_blank">Shaara trilogy</a>, and listened to <a href="https://gardenandgun.com/articles/shelby-footes-war-story/" target="_blank">Shelby Foote</a> wax rhapsodic in the epic <a href="http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/civil-war/" target="_blank">Ken Burns documentary</a>. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For a while, I idealized Stonewall Jackson, with his destroyed arm buried all by itself and the sweetness of his final deathbed words, </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">“<i><span style="color: #bf9000;">Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees</span></i>.” And Lee, who </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">put state before country and</span></span></span></span> sat so regally on his white horse, Traveller. Long-suffering Longstreet, who took all the blame for the Confederate loss at Gettysburg which should have been directed at Lee. And Grant, so inept as a businessman but frighteningly effective as a general, who supposedly drank himself into a stupor over the horrific result of his decisions at Cold Harbor. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">But then I began reading different sorts of books, focusing not on the battles and the presumably larger-than-life men who orchestrated them, but on the effects of the war. In the bookstore at Antietam Battlefield Park, I found <a href="https://www.kathleenernst.com/book_too_afraid.php" target="_blank">Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign</a> and I learned of what the citizens of that town experienced both during and in the aftermath of the battle, of what they had to go through to put their homes and their lives back together. Then I came across <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/books/review/Ward-t.html" target="_blank">This Republic of Suffering</a>, which describes how our very religious nation had to come to grips with death on a scale it'd not experienced before, death without the salvation of confession or last rites, and loss that decimated families. The song lyric at the top of this post references a letter from <a href="https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/civil-war/war/historical-documents/sullivan-ballou-letter/" target="_blank">Major Sullivan Ballou</a> to his wife Sarah, written a week before he was killed at the First Battle of Bull Run. It's a very romantic letter, but only serves to highlight that this was not a romantic war, it was horrible and painful--</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">My very dear Sarah: The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days — perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more …
<br />
I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing — perfectly willing — to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt …
<br />
Sarah my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me unresistibly on with all these chains to the battle field.
<br />
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them for so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood, around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me — perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Forgive my many faults and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often times been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness …
<br />
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights … always, always, and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath, as the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by. Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again …</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">Reading things like this opened my eyes to the stark reality behind the gorgeous technicolor "suffering" depicted in films like Gone With the Wind. And then I read the Declarations of Secession of some of the Confederate states-- <a href="http://www.civil-war.net/pages/georgia_declaration.asp" target="_blank">Georgia's</a>, in particular, is quite a peach--</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">That's just the first paragraph. The word "slavery" is used 27 times throughout the full Declaration. Twenty. Seven. I began to understand the politics behind the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation" target="_blank">Emancipation Proclamation</a>, and just how deluded discussions of this having been a war for "state's rights" really are. And when Confederate statues and memorials began being vandalized and removed in recent years, I decided that, to quote Lincoln's <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm" target="_blank">Gettysburg Address</a>, it was "altogether fitting and proper that we should do this</span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">" at this time. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/csMbjG0-6Ak" width="560"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">Full transcript of Mayor Landrieu's speech can be read <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/opinion/mitch-landrieus-speech-transcript.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span></span></span></i></div>
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">I've seen defenses of the removal of these monuments that draw comparison to post-WW II Germany, making the point that you don't see memorials and statues to Hitler and the Third Reich because the German people understand that there's nothing romantic about those men or the cause they fought for and they certainly should not be idealized, revered, or memorialized. Was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-historic-marker-highlights-nathan-bedford-forrests-ties-slave-trade-180968419/" target="_blank">Nathan Bedford Forrest</a> as inhumane as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goebbels-biography/" target="_blank">Joseph Goebbels</a>? A lot of people don't seem to think so, and it's that sort of belief that contributes to the divides in this country. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd">"<i><span style="color: #bf9000;">There is a difference between remembrance of history, and the reverence of it</span></i>". How many more generations will it take for us to stop romanticizing this war and instead begin learning from it?</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="ILfuVd c3biWd"><span class="e24Kjd"><br /></span></span></span></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-57881470830425038322019-06-22T16:51:00.000-04:002019-06-22T17:16:50.366-04:00A little Help Us Stranger can cure what ails ya<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTILuBJsvs3oiUakLdEHlFnik8Tr5K2mu-IIMCN3ABMdJZDoGlnldxETSBvbwYac47MmvhZhWF6JgXhnql1sk8K3yGr7M2esr7kg4e3RsUtYVugo-7cUEpCLbv20uKC1cma0dIsuJI0A/s1600/64513425_10157373893951613_3714570760220573696_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTILuBJsvs3oiUakLdEHlFnik8Tr5K2mu-IIMCN3ABMdJZDoGlnldxETSBvbwYac47MmvhZhWF6JgXhnql1sk8K3yGr7M2esr7kg4e3RsUtYVugo-7cUEpCLbv20uKC1cma0dIsuJI0A/s640/64513425_10157373893951613_3714570760220573696_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #f1c232; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Photo courtesy of Shane Devon</span></span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bechet could not dream of having a public worthier of his genius than the dark-faced woman in the white apron who appears from time to time at a little door behind the platform. She's probably the cook, a stout woman in her 40s with a tired face but big, avid eyes. With her hands resting flat on her stomach, she leans toward the music with a religious ardor. Gradually, her worn face is transfigured, her body moves to a dance rhythm; she dances while standing still, and peace and joy have descended on her. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She has cares, and she's had troubles, but she forgets... </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #bf9000; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Without a past or future she is completely happy: the music justifies her difficult life, and the world is justified for her.</span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Those are the words of Simone de Beauvoir describing a performance by Jazz clarinetist Sidney Bechet, as quoted by Joel Dinerstein in his book, <a href="http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/the-origins-of-cool-in-postwar-america" target="_blank">The Origins of Cool in Postwar America</a>. I identify intensely with that woman and her response to Bechet's playing, and I hope that people reading this are able to understand it, too. Because that's what music can do, and has so often done for me.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I don't know about you, but life in <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2018/01/icky-trump-is-not-intimate-secretary.html" target="_blank">Icky Trump-era America</a> is wringing me out, leaving me exhausted and depressed and cynically demoralized. Throw some <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2019/02/nine-years-of-white-weekends.html" target="_blank">family issues</a> on top of that and I just find it so hard to summon up joy and excitement over anything anymore. Last fall's announcement of a new record from the Raconteurs should've, a few years ago <i>would've</i>, had me bouncing off the walls and posting countdowns on Facebook. But it didn't and the fact that it didn't made me even more sad. I know, first world problems...<br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But thank God or god or whatever's above, Help Us Stranger came out on Friday and it's exactly the medicine I needed. I downloaded it from Amazon at 6:00am so I could listen in the car on the way to work and my commute was filled with tears, laughter, and much beating on the steering wheel in time with the drums. First time I've ever wished for <i>more </i>traffic to slow down the drive. <br /><br />I'm going to insert here the same disclaimer from an early post I wrote about Jack White's last album, <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-first-serving-of-boarding-house.html" target="_blank">Boarding House Reach</a>: "I am not a critic and this is not a review. I am a fan. As such, I can sometimes be critical, but I am not a critic. Because my attachment to the music I love springs from emotional, visceral responses, I don't write "reviews". I can make objective judgements, but for the most part my descriptions of new music are purely an expression of my impressions, feelings, and thoughts." So let's press on with the impressions, shall we?<br /><br />Right off the bat, I have to say that the Raconteurs did the same thing with this album that Jack did with Boarding House Reach-- They chose the least interesting songs on the record to release as singles. Not one of those songs is bad, let me clarify that, they're all hook-laden ear-worms that I listened to on repeat for days. Sunday Driver has nifty guitar squawls and boisterous vocals from Jack White. Now That You're Gone is Brendan Benson's slow-burning, easy-to-sing-along-with exploration of romantic desertion. Help Me Stranger opens with solo vocals from Jack Lawrence that've been equalizer-tweaked to sound like an old cowboy song, before launching into a bouncy duet between Jack and Brendan. And their cover of Donovan's Hey Gyp is just plain fun, with Brendan's harmonica and Patrick Keeler's propulsive drums. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And yet... Sunday Driver kept reverberating in my brain like a mash-up of Hold Up and Five On The Five from Consolers of the Lonely. Help Me Stranger and Hey Gyp reminded me of the back and forth I love from Level, off of Broken Boy Soldiers. And Now That You're Gone could've slid right into Consolers as if it'd been written 11 years ago. As I listened to these songs over and over, I began to wonder, even worry a bit, if the band was going to give us anything new, or just essentially re-hashes of what they'd done before. That would've been enough for a lot of fans, I think, especially the ones that were aghast and turned off by Jack's experimentation with Boarding House Reach. I could easily imagine him going back to basics, as it were, in an attempt to appease and win back some of those fans. Though I hoped to hell he wouldn't. It didn't seem in his wheelhouse to do something so... expected. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And that's one of the main things I love about him-- He does what's unexpected. The stuff that's likely to appeal to the masses are generally not the songs that will end up on my list of favorites. I want stuff that surprises me, that makes me scratch my head and wonder what the heck? at the same time that I'm grinning in amazement. So I was thrilled when, just like BHR, the songs on Help Us Stranger that I had not yet heard were the ones that blew the top of my head off as I listened to the full album for the first time. <br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The only song on the record that gives me any sort of pause is the one that leads it off, Bored and Razed. Brendan Benson himself nailed my issue with it in an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/programs/mornings/the-saboteurs-jack-white-brendan-benson-raconteurs-interview/11232938" target="_blank">interview with Zan Rowe</a> of Double J when he said he was conflicted about his part because he felt his entrance into the song was weak. </span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jack's lyrics are so biting and manic and full of word-play ("<i><span style="color: #bf9000;">Rolling a juke joint box in the corner</span></i>") that they emphasize that weakness, they completely overpower Brendan's fluffy lines about missing a girl. </span></span>The Racs have made disparate lyrics work before, as in Consoler of the Lonely, but to my ears this song should be more Salute Your Solution than Consoler. That aside, the rollicking musical pace sets a great tone for what's to come.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lyrically, pseudo-title track Help Me Stranger is like a comforting, reassuring arm around the shoulder compared to some of the other tunes on the album. This record is full bitterness, agitation, loneliness, and bewilderment. So that first line in Help Me, "<i><span style="color: #bf9000;">If you call me I'll come running/And you can call me anytime</span></i>", is the one to come back to when lines in other songs hit too close to home. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Brendan and Jack each have a pair of subdued, pensive tracks on the album, starting with Brendan's Only Child. "<i><span style="color: #bf9000;">Only child, the prodigal son/Has come back home again to get his laundry done.</span></i>" It's a lovely and yearning, softly acoustic song... until a buzzing synthesizer slides into the bridge to give it a jarring electronic tone that you might think would be completely out of place but instead elevates the song into something... unexpected. There we go! And then it's back to loveliness with a short finishing interlude of drums and piano.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then comes Don't Bother Me. I immediately sat up in the car and began grinning like a loon. Now this was more like it! It's angry and biting and rampaging and seems to speak directly to exactly that thing that's been a weight on all our lives for the last two years. <br /><br /><span style="color: #bf9000;"><i><span style="color: #bf9000;">The way you look in the mirror</span></i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><i><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You're your biggest admirer</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><i><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All your clicking and swiping</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><i><span style="color: #bf9000;">All your groping and griping</span></i></span><br /><br />In another time, it'd just be directed to annoying narcissistic assholes in general, but right now, it's a raging fuck you to snarl along and head-bang with in </span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">cathartic </span></span> glee. The only problem with this song is that, even when turned up to full volume, it's not loud enough.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The opening Oooohs and piano of Shine The Light On Me sound more Queen than Raconteurs and coming on the tail of Don't Bother Me it made my head spin a little bit. And then Jack comes in with his most plaintive voice, singing of trying to understand the frustrating mysteries of love and life. "<i><span style="color: #bf9000;">But we don't need to know why the flowers grow/Let's just be happy they can</span></i>". This was the moment when my eyes filled with tears while still grinning ear to ear. By this point it was clear that this album was not going to be a repeat of anything, that it was going to be full of new and different. And I got so excited. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a time when it feels like there's a concerted effort being made to diminish the stigma of depression, </span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Brendan's Somedays (I Don't Feel Like Trying) could easily become a rallying cry for those who suffer. It's so tear-jerkingly relateable, and yet ends with such determined strength. As a Raconteurs song, it's got a familiar feel, and yet has brand new guitar tones and, like Shine The Light, goes in a lyrical direction the band has not explored before. There's no metaphor or pop cleverness here, instead it's direct and candid and moving. <br /><br />And then come Hey Gyp, Sunday Driver, and Now That You're Gone, all of which I'd come to know so well over the last handful of months. </span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of the original two singles, I initially preferred the music of Jack's </span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sunday Driver and the lyrics of Brendan's </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now
That You're Gone. That took me aback a bit, as Jack's lyrics were what
got me into him in the first place, and the lyrics on Brendan's solo
records have never grabbed me much at all. And this was a surprise
through the whole album-- Jack's contributions to Help
Us Stranger excite the hell out of me, the unusual sounds and instruments that seem to be
carry-overs from the experimentation of Boarding House Reach, the
variety of his vocal deliveries from soft to soaring to spitting, the wit
and word-play I've always loved. But Brendan steps out of from behind
the glare of Jack's shadow and holds his own in a way that he did not on
the first two Raconteurs albums. That alone makes me listen to this
album carefully, to hear him in a way that I haven't before.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Live A Lie is two minutes, twenty seconds of the sort of bouncy pop-punk I rocked out to in high school, and would be a perfect cover song for one of my favorite new bands, <a href="https://youtu.be/Pj_kQAJyXKU" target="_blank">Radkey</a>. It's going to be a blast to hear live. And What's Yours Is Mine almost sounds as if it's the Raconteurs covering the Dead Weather-- I can easily hear Alison Mosshart in my head, sparring with Jack on Brendan's parts. This song could have come straight off the Dead Weather's Sea of Cowards, and the fact that the Racs did it instead is completely quirky and yet even more effective. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This band knows how to end an album dramatically, first with Blue Veins on Broken Boy Soldiers and then Carolina Drama on Consolers of the Lonely. They do it again with Thoughts and Prayers, which takes its wandering time, as if the painful ideas Jack sings so softly about are exploring an old house full of rooms of different kinds of music, trying to find bits and pieces to accompany them on their journey. There's duetting acoustic guitars, mandolin, fiddle, synthesizer and, most affecting, a <a href="https://www.guitarworld.com/gear/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-the-b-bender-a-guitarists-ultimate-secret-weapon" target="_blank">B-bender guitar</a>, Jack's latest musical toy. It's a gorgeous mish-mash of a song that grabs my heart and mind in a velvet-gloved iron grip. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I used to look up at the sky<br />Up at the beautiful blue sky<br />But now the earth has turned to grey<br />There's got to be a better way<br />To contact God and hear her say<br />There are reasons why it is this way</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And the theme of that song speaks to an overriding element of this album-- It reflects the maturity of a band 11 years older than when they last recorded together. The music is more confident, but the lyrics are lonelier and more contemplative, even searching. The members of the band are close to middle age and as a middle aged fan, it makes these songs speak to me in a way the last two albums didn't. Not better, just different. They're more reflective of where I'm at in my own life. </span></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;">In a few interviews leading up to the release, Jack confessed to feeling a Lennon-McCartney vibe in his and Brendan's song-writing together. As is so often the case with him, this was a hint leading to a bit of hilarious humor and brilliant trickery-- </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;">Hidden behind its lenticular version of the regular album cover, the <a href="https://thirdmanrecords.com/news/the-raconteurs-return-with-new-album-help-us-stranger/" target="_blank">Vault subscription copy</a></span></span></span> of Help Us Stranger contains an easter egg of a Beatles "Butcher Cover" parody (pictured at the top of the post). Of course, Brendan is Lennon and Jack is McCartney. When news of this popped up on social media within hours of people receiving the record on Friday, I began giggling at my desk at work and could not stop. I was just so goddamned happy, and grateful to be happy. I should've known that I can always count on Jack (and Brendan, LJ, and Patrick) to give me what I needed.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-20561701708577868982019-06-09T18:54:00.000-04:002019-06-09T19:11:55.245-04:00(Re)Discovering the Rocketman<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Holy crap, why did no one clue me in about Elton John? I was five when he began having hit songs, so of course I know his music. I grew up with it. But like so much of the music I grew up with, it was just a background soundtrack. There were songs I enjoyed hearing on the radio and sang along with, but none that made an impact in my musically uneducated brain, none that made me buy any of Elton's records, none that made me really <i>listen</i>. The music that made an impression on me when I was old enough to follow my own direction was anything that could not be lumped in with my parents' music, music that would make them shake their heads. Isn't that what so many kids choose, when they reach the age of choosing? I realize now that I just didn't know <i>how </i>to hear music back then. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So I went to see Rocketman today more out of curiosity about how the film was constructed and a need for some spectacle, not because I was actually interested in learning anything about Elton's music. Boy, were my ears opened. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S3vO8E2e6G0" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Right off the bat, Taran Egerton was a brilliant casting choice. He's a bit prettier than Elton was in those years, which makes him quite engaging. What's really impressive, though, is that he sang all of the songs in the film himself. The Elton voice I remembered had the strident tone of Pinball Wizard, not the softness of Egerton's performance of Your Song. I'd heard Your Song hundreds of times growing up and just did not remember that voice. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Beyond that, the film is both an epic fantasy and a <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/05/rocketman-fact-fiction-elton-john-movie-accuracy.html" target="_blank">fairly factual telling of Elton's life</a>, with colorful and surprisingly enjoyable choreographed musical numbers instead of straight stage performances. And, of course, those costumes. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r2KgpoF9QCI" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was all so very good that I walked out of the theater and drove straight to the nearest record store to pick up a 3-cd set of Elton's greatest hits, then drove a long route of backroads home so that I could get all the way through the 15 songs of the first of the three discs, totally gobsmacked. I have memories of most of the songs from way back when, but feel absolutely no nostalgia listening to them. They're familiar, and yet the way I'm hearing them now makes them completely brand new. And it's clear from hearing that compelling softness in Elton's early voice just how well Egerton nailed his performances in the film. Between the things in Elton's life that I could relate to in the film and the experience of hearing these songs in such a way, I ended up crying my eyes out in the car over Elton's original version of Rocketman. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;">You can spend your whole life peeking through doors but not stepping through, and then suddenly something comes along that just throws one of those doors open and shoves you through. </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;">As Marc Maron says about any music that he suddenly "discovers" after it's been around for years, you're never late to the party. </span></span></span>You just have to get there sometime. <br /><br />Go, see Rocketman. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CRCRKwXTSuY" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-9659100349482686242019-02-13T09:29:00.000-05:002019-02-13T12:45:47.426-05:00Nine years of White weekends: A new chapter?<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: normal;">I'm late this year in acknowledging the ninth anniversary of <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2010/02/white-weekend.html" target="_blank">my first White weekend</a>. I was in Florida visiting family, so it slipped my mind. I'd like to say it was because the visit was so much fun, but it wasn't. My 48 year old sister, who has Down Syndrome, is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. She lives at home with my 76 year old parents, whose lives now revolve around caring for her. Just before Christmas last year, my sister had a seizure in the middle of the night and apparently aspirated while she was lying unconscious, which led to pneumonia. While in the hospital, she wasn't allowed out of bed for fear that she'd fall. She falls a lot, it began happening a few years ago and was one of the first signs of dementia. The hospital staff didn't want to fill out all the paperwork that would be required if she fell, so they kept her in bed for almost two weeks. When my parents brought her home to continue recovering from the pneumonia, she got out of bed a couple of times, and fell a couple of times. Despite having a physical therapist come for a month of sessions to work on her strength, she's been in bed ever since. </span><br /><br />Understand what this means-- She can't get up and walk to the kitchen for meals, or to the bathroom. She can't even stand up to get into a wheelchair. She has to be fed in bed, and as for the bathroom... I spent my recent visit helping my parents, who have their own health issues, change my sister's diapers. My sister is not only sedentary, she's massively overweight. And yet, when it's time to roll her around to clean her up and change her disposable underwear (and often the sheets as well), she suddenly has the strength of three people and it's like she's auditioning for a role on G.L.O.W., Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So this is how my parents live these days, an endless, exhausting round of feeding, cleaning up, washing up, working with a temporary nurse and occupational therapist to try to figure out how to get permanent help paid for by Medicaid because they don't want to put my sister into a care facility and they can't afford to pay for help. Oh, and while I was visiting, my brother called and told us he'd been laid off (again) and he couldn't come visit because his car was broken down. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I came home from Florida to my quiet, shabby, comfortable apartment in Maryland and have had trouble sleeping because I feel guilty that I have the luxury of getting into bed at night knowing that I can sleep without interruptions and then get up the next morning to drive to work at a job that pays me a decent living. And that on the weekends, I can go out and do fun and interesting things without worrying too much about what it costs, or having to take care of anyone but myself and a pair of cats. I shouldn't have much to complain about, should I? And yet how can I go happily about my life knowing what my family is dealing with? We're not a close family and expressions of affection are strained, but just because I don't feel close to them doesn't mean I can't recognize that they didn't ask for their lives to end up this way. So the sense of obligation is strong. I feel guilt that I'm not doing more for them, but then the obligation smothers me and what more <i>can </i>I do, anyway? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All of that aside, it feels lately like a chapter in my life is ending and I've no idea how the next one might develop. Going down the Jack White rabbit hole nine years ago was the beginning of this chapter that seems to be closing-- Nothing's changed as far as my addiction to Jack's music goes, but the peripheral stuff is definitely shifting. I made a lot of friends through his music, and now, lately, it feels like I'm losing many of them. A couple of them died, others became friends with other people, some are taking breaks from social media, and some maybe weren't really friends to begin with. Considering how much of the fun of new records and tours from Jack revolved around making plans with and seeing all of these people, feeling that I don't have these friends to talk and plan with anymore has diminished my excitement about the recent announcement of a <a href="https://thirdmanrecords.com/news/the-raconteurs-return-with-first-new-music-in-over-a-decade/" target="_blank">new Raconteurs album</a> and a potential tour. </span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kHpWUTCAR4I" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'm self-aware enough to realize that my own behavior is part of the problem-- Any hint of rejection makes me withdraw. It's been the pattern throughout my life, from elementary school on. I make friends, something happens to bring those friendships to an end (changing schools, changing jobs, moving, disagreements, whatever), I end up alone until some other impetus brings some new people into my life to try to connect with. I've never mastered the art of reaching out. My hermit crab shell fits too tightly. I keep feeling like I need to make more effort to maintain the connections with some of these friends that I feel slipping away, but some of the times when I've tried to do that... it hasn't worked. So instead of reaching out, I step back, back to the familiarity of being on my own.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I really thought all of this 17 yr old "woe is me" emo angst would've been done with by the time I reached middle age. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TCowvlsFG4A" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-5878124625237815222019-01-01T13:35:00.000-05:002019-01-01T17:37:32.862-05:00We Are Going to Be Friends...?<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The owner of a cafe I frequent for brunch recently asked me why I always eat there alone. I wasn't sure how to answer. He's a nice enough guy and I enjoy his restaurant, so I didn't want to be rude and just say "None of your business". But his curiosity got me thinking yet again about something that was on my mind a lot throughout 2018.</span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gbySfGzno4U" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'm not sure I know anymore what the word "friend" means, or whether I actually have any friends. Facebook has distorted the word with their whole "friend" list thing, whereby people collect "friends" like they collect stamps or records or butterflies and end up with whole lists of people that they can't possibly all even talk to. If you don't talk, if all you ever do are occasionally "like" each other's posts, how can you be friends? And even if you do talk through commenting and chatting, are you actually more than just acquaintances with most of those people? Communication over the internet in general, really, makes the determination of friendship quite ambiguous. I've had people that I really didn't know at all pour their guts out to me in surprising detail in private chats and then tell me "You're a good friend" when, really, what they meant was just that I'm a good listener. Is letting a relative stranger use you as a virtual shoulder to lean on actually friendship, or is it just a form of free, non-professional therapy? There's definitely something about the sharing we do over the internet that can deceive us into thinking we've made a real connection and formed a bond of friendship after only a handful of "deep" conversations, but how many of those conversations do you need to have before you know each other well enough to really become friends? <br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even meeting people and spending time with them can be misleading. I've sometimes used the words "pal" and "buddy" to describe people that I would see repeatedly at events I traveled to because, even though we enjoyed so many mutual interests and seemed to really like spending time together, even though we shared an emotional response to the things we experienced, did that actually make us friends, or just acquaintances who'd had a helluva memorable time together? I thought for a while that many of these people might be friends, but in a lot of cases I wasn't sure. Even if I thought of them as more than just an acquaintance, how did they think of me? After the way this past year went, I really have no idea. <br /><br />At what point do we transition from acquaintance to pal to friend? What does it take to have an actual, real friend, or to <i>be</i> an actual, real friend? Is it up to other people to say and do the things that establish that deeper connection, or is it up to me to reach out and say 'Hey, you, you're my friend!" and hope that person reciprocates? </span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HUBRf8jActs" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No. Idea. And it doesn't help when so many of the people that I'd like to be friends with are </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">far away </span></span>on the other end of an internet connection, way too far to go to brunch with. So I dine alone. </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And all this would probably be TMI for the guy who owns the cafe. </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-77577658155183421802018-05-19T21:15:00.000-04:002018-05-20T07:13:49.911-04:00Oh, those Orioles...<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've been having a casual fling with baseball the last couple years. I had a fling with it a while back, after my ex- took me to a game at Camden Yard back in the 90s when Cal Ripken Jr. was still with the Orioles and the team was really strong. Granted, a few of the players from back then turned out to be questionable sorts, like Rafael Palmiero and Roberto Alomar. But they were good at the time and the team played well, and I started getting into the game and following other teams, as well. And then the Os traded off some of those strong players and Ripken retired, and I started watching bicycle racing instead (though that didn't last more than a few years, either, once the doping scandals began to explode that sport).<br /><br />But I've started getting into baseball again over the last couple years. I don't have much of a head for stats, and can't often sit still long enough to watch a broadcast game. But I love the hell out of going to live games-- Picking a not-too-expensive seat that's shady but still has a good view, wolfing down a hot dog or Camden Yard crab cake, making a mess with peanut shells under my seat, and learning to tell a ball from a strike. I go by myself, because other people always want to talk and you end up missing stuff that way. It can be very exciting, and even when it's not it's still a lot of fun. And I certainly always get a huge kick out of this--</span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6ZMgMLQ302g" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But... the Os are <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bs-sp-orioles-recap-20180520-story.html" target="_blank">pretty horrible this year</a>. They've got some decent players, like Manny Machado (who they're apparently thinking of trading for some incomprehensible-to-me reason), Adam Jones, and Jonathan Schoop. Others, though, like Chris Davis, are just not having a good season. The team is currently tied with Kansas City for the position of second worst team in both leagues, trailed only by the Chicago White Sox. And yet I can't bring myself to switch allegiances, not now that I've begun to get to know the various players. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So this morning, a very rainy morning that was definitely too wet for baseball, I was enjoying a spectacularly delicious breakfast at one of my new favorite Baltimore restaurants, <a href="https://www.idabstable.com/" target="_blank">Ida B's Table</a> (the greens and the grits are the best I've ever eaten in. my. life.) and reading a collection of short stories and essays by <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8092/8092-h/8092-h.htm" target="_blank">G.K Chesterton</a>. In a story titled The Perfect Game, I came across a paragraph that humorously sums up what it's like watching the Orioles this year. The characters in the story are playing croquet, but I shall substitute appropriate baseball terms--</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!” I cried, patting him affectionately on the head with a [bat], “how far you really are from the pure love of the sport—you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the Game itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake voice of victory; you do not love [baseball]. You do not love [baseball] until you love being beaten at [baseball]. It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face of [Baseball] herself (if I may so express myself) we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates ..., vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic boundaries of the mere [bandbox]. Our balls seek honour in the ends of the earth; they turn up in the [stands behind home plate] and [behind the foul line]; they are [not] to be found [beyond the scoreboard or] the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship [baseball]. I love the game itself. I love the [diamond] of grass marked out with chalk or [dirt], as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the [bat], and the [smack of the gloves] is music. ... You lose all this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of this vision by the paltry consolation of being able to [swing] and to hit the [ball].” </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To paraphrase the old joke about pizza and sex, baseball is like pizza-- When it's good, it is sooooooooo good. And when it's bad... it's still pretty good. Go, Os.<br /><br /><br /> </span></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-68975453613507642162018-03-24T21:46:00.001-04:002018-03-28T06:50:32.267-04:00A late White weekend: Addicted to the Mind Shaft<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Hello. My name is Tam and I am an addict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's been just over eight years since I <a href="http://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2010/02/white-weekend.html" target="_blank">first wrote about Jack White</a> here in my little corner of the interwebs and he and his
music have kind of taken over since then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I should probably be embarrassed by this, but I'm not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The high of being a fan-girl is too
rewarding, being occasionally mocked for it only makes me laugh that those
mocking have no idea what they're missing out on.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: normal;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It was eight years and a month and a half ago
when I had the epiphany that opened up the rabbit-hole and allowed me to fall
in, on a clear blue winter day driving the backroads of West Virginia, listening
to the Raconteurs album Broken Boy Soldiers for the first time. And this
weekend I had a similar experience-- On Friday, March 23rd, Jack released his
third solo album, <a href="https://thirdmanstore.com/boarding-house-reach" target="_blank">Boarding House Reach</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On Saturday, I went driving with the album on those same West Virginia
roads under the same sort of clear blue winter sky. (Technically this was the
first weekend of Spring, but the remnants of last week's snow were still on the
ground.)</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> And this album has hit me with the same
sort of feeling I had that day eight years ago, that there's something to this
music that I need and that I'm not going to get anywhere else. And so I
celebrate my addiction.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: normal;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />As for this
new record, I'm not one for rating systems so I have no idea how to give it a neat
quantification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's not a perfect
record, but it is an astonishing and, for me, delightful one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's also highly perverse, beginning with
that strange title--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boarding House
Reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it was first announced, a
British <a href="http://peromyscus.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">friend of mine</a> quickly identified the phrase as an English colloquialism
referring to the way guests in boarding houses used to reach across the
communal table to make a grab for food if they wanted to get a good meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It implies rudeness, but also the way we have
to adapt and sometimes be tolerant in our dealings with others, while still making sure our own needs are met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the youngest of ten children, this is of
course pertinent to understanding Jack's mind-set. As a metaphor, it also implies
a broadness of reach, a pulling in and consuming of a variety of comestibles,
whether they be food or music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again,
this sums him up quintessentially.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />The album
was first introduced with a collection of soundbites in a video called<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://youtu.be/QClzlZTXj4Y" target="_blank">Servings and Portions</a>, then with a handful
of songs released as digital "singles", and then a day of listening
parties at selected record stores around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After attending one of those listening parties two weeks before the release date, I found
myself juggling a contradictory set of reactions. I was excited and delighted
and disappointed and apprehensive all at once. But as a fan of Keats' concept
of <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/11/01/john-keats-on-negative-capability/" target="_blank">negative capability</a>, this didn't disturb me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rather, it was stimulating and upped my anticipation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Jack sings in Everything You've Ever
Learned, 'the one who is prepared is never surprised'.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it comes to him, I am always prepared to
BE surprised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you?</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />As always,
this is not a review. I can be as critical as any critic, but I'm just a
junkie-fan describing my own experience of the music. Your mileage may and probably
will vary. So, on to the songs...</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />I <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-first-serving-of-boarding-house.html" target="_blank">wrote a few weeks ago</a> about how Connected By Love, the first single and first song on
the album, disappointed me. Hearing it in the context of the album hasn’t
changed that. In fact, when I heard the full album at the listening party I
went to, I was convinced that Jack had for some perverse (that word again)
reason chosen to release the weakest songs on the album to preview it, because
everything that I had not previously heard was so much more interesting to me than
this song. It doesn’t disappoint me because it’s a bad song, though, but rather
because it’s an extremely beautiful song that doesn’t live up to its potential.
The music is gorgeous and the vocal performance is earnest and moving, but he
tripped himself up with the word-play. I completely understand what he was
going for, it’s a trick he’s done before—The repeated V sounds of <a href="https://youtu.be/0lF3MCXh0BY" target="_blank">Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)</a> and the “Who is the who?” of <a href="https://youtu.be/B3RjakduvoQ" target="_blank">Want and Able</a>. But in this song, the
repeated –ecteds of connected, rejected, protected, infected, etc, are too
unlovely a sound to come across as clever, they instead add a clumsiness to
lyrics already verging on corny and diminish the power of the song. </span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Why Walk a
Dog impressed me at the listening party, but that may have been due to its
novelty at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack’s singing and
the music are fantastic, especially that scuzzy guitar solo. But
hearing it again left me perplexed—What the hell is it about? Is it the literal
condemnation of puppy mills that it sounds like? Or are the dogs the sort of
obscure metaphor he’s loved to employ in the past? Maybe it’s the mention of
birds, but it reminds me of <a href="https://youtu.be/iSWdNcgFa2A" target="_blank">I Think I Found the Culprit</a> from Lazaretto, they're both
perfectly enjoyable songs that would’ve made better b-sides than album tracks.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />My
immediate impression of Corporation when it was released as a digital single
was that it was lyrically lightweight but would be a blast to dance to at
shows. When I flew to Nashville for one of the three pre-release shows at Third
Man Records last weekend, I found that was absolutely correct. It’s not a
head-banging pogoing tune, it’s a hip-swiveler like <a href="https://youtu.be/t8dA5Rd8l9M" target="_blank">Trash Tongue Talker</a> from
Blunderbuss, and I love it for that reason.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VFnXRntc9XA" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Initial
reactions from friends and early reviews pretty much unanimously singled out
Abulia and Akrasia as a track to skip over, but I am the anomalous weirdo who
will not only <i>not</i> skip over that song, but put it on repeat for multiple
listenings in a row. This song reflects Jack’s reputed standing as a Scrabble
pro, with its tongue-twisting, twist-of-an-ending exhortation, read by
gravelly-voiced Aussie bluesman <a href="http://www.cwstoneking.com/" target="_blank">C.W. Stoneking</a> against a lovely gypsy-flavored
tune on violin, piano, horns, and tambourine. Surprisingly, Jack doesn't perform on the song at all, neither vocals nor instrument. It's just his words performed by other musicians and this is one more reason why it makes me smile every single
time I hear it.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Hypermisophoniac
is another one that both delights and perplexes. Both musically and lyrically,
it’s a depiction of the condition of <a href="http://www.misophonia.com/symptoms-triggers/" target="_blank">misophonia</a>, intentionally meant to
aggravate at the same time that it fascinates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> look forward to
hearing it live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what the hell does
robbing a bank have to do with the rest of it?</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Ice Station
Zebra is, simply put, Jack’s manifesto. Where the White Stripes song <a href="https://youtu.be/UJe9msZaGB8" target="_blank">Little Room</a> summed up an aspect of his work ethic, this one sums up so many of the beliefs and
philosophies he’s expressed in interviews over the years—Choosing the box he
puts himself in rather than letting others box him in; being part of the
tradition, the family, of songwriters he respects and “letting God in the room”
when he writes; his bemusement with people who expect him to remain one thing
so that he can live up to their expectations. To take the edge off some of
these potentially pedantic statements, he sets his highly clever, rapped lyrics
to an almost impossibly catchy, beat-changing break-down that reflects where his head is at musically these days. It’s bound to become
a live show staple, and deservedly so.</span></span></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c24Wp4N34oA" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Over and
Over and Over is the first pre-release song that I saw other people really get
excited about. With minor modifications, it could have come from any of Jack’s
other bands, but though he tried with all of them, he couldn’t get the riff
he’d been carrying in his head since 2005 to cohere until now. It’s a killer of
a riff and the spat lyrics are an easy live show chant. But to me, as enjoyable
as it is, it’s exactly what he rails against in Ice Station Zebra—A song that
lives up to what the majority of fans seem to expect from him. So I like it very much,
especially the existential Descartes reference in “I think therefore I die,
anxiety and I rollin’ down a mountain”, but it’s not likely to end up on any of
my “Top whatever” lists of Jack’s songs. But his pronunciation of “perfidy” to
rhyme with belly and Isotta Fraschini makes me giggle every time.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: normal;">
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ShCRN3tFy80" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />When
Servings and Portions was posted, I ripped the audio and put it on a cd so that
I could put the cd into my alarm clock/cd player and wake up every morning to
the purred “Helllooooo” at the beginning. I was eager to hear how that fit into a song and I
was not disappointed in any way when I heard it pop up in Everything You’ve
Ever Learned. One of my favorites on the album, it’s another philosophical
manifesto, one that I can wholeheartedly get behind, with that digitally
enhanced purring speech at the beginning that erupts into a propulsive,
thrashing, snarling, shrieking thought-provoker. I want to hear it live so, so
badly. But I also learned today that I need to be careful of listening to it while driving.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Respect
Commander is the other song that disturbed and disappointed me when it was
released as the b-side to Connected By Love. It begins compellingly, with more
of that hip-swiveling funk, descending into a sultry interlude leading to…
lyrics that unfortunately fill my mind with images from the music video for
the Warrant song, <a href="https://youtu.be/OjyZKfdwlng" target="_blank">Cherry Pie</a>. The line "Every time she gets the satisfaction/I want her to control me all night long" just sounds so hair metal. And again he's piling up the –ecteds. I compared this song to
my favorite song by Son House, <a href="https://youtu.be/lQ-kRDX-fvc" target="_blank">Pearline</a>, which is the story of a love affair
told by guitar with only two sung lines. I will always wish Jack had let the music do
the talking in this song and not sung the words he wrote, because the music is fucking
fabulous and says all that needs to be said.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Ezmerelda
Steals the Show is another that many fans and reviewers are planning to skip
over on this album, but it enchants me. Jack’s a whimsical poet, a master of
imagery, and lectures with a wink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
song expresses all of that. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a story he made up
to tell his kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I want to scream
that final line everywhere I go in public.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Get In the
Mind Shaft. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only is this my favorite
song on this record, it may very well become one of my favorite Jack White
songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s highly unique, and not only
because there are multiple versions of it— depending on which album pressing you
ended up with, you can hear it begin with one of apparently more than half a dozen different stories that Jack recorded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re
all little pieces of #JackWhiteWisdom, ranging from him learning to pick out
chords on a piano in an abandoned house, to the sound of frequencies in nature,
to the mental battle of baseball pitching, to likening himself to a fisherman
selling his catch at a dollar a head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regardless of which you hear, the background music of dramatically
swelling strings gives weight to the words, making them profound. The story
fades into an electronic break-down of synthesizer and digitalized voices
singing “It’s strange, let’s try it. Can you hear me now? Am I invisible to
you?” The voices are all Jack’s, apparently sung through a vocoder, but the effect makes them sound like alien children, like an eerie
memory of how he made Meg White’s voice sound more child-like on <a href="https://youtu.be/l7Gs9Io6R_U" target="_blank">St.Andrew/This Battle Is In the Air</a> by speeding up the tape. It brings a
touchingly innocent gravity to the second half of the song, turning it into a plea for connection. At the moment when
the repeated refrain of “Can it be? Can it be? Can it be? Can it be?” erupts
into soaring “Aaaaaaahhh”s, my face splits into an ear-to-ear smile even as a
lump forms in my chest and my eyes fill with tears. For me, it’s a powerful song
that hits me just as hard as my most favorite of his songs, <a href="https://youtu.be/mcog70xgyAw" target="_blank">300MPH Torrential Outpour Blues</a>. That song struck me immediately as an expression of the sardonic
angst I’ve lived with almost every day of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This one reminds me to not let that angst close
me off, to always remain open to curiosity, beauty, and wonder, which is one of
the most profound rewards of this addiction of mine, one that I’ll carry with
me the rest of my life, no matter what kind of music Jack decides to make in
the future.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />What’s Done
Is Done keeps being described as the only country song on the album but, to my
ears, the only thing country about it is the twang in Jack’s vocal delivery.
The music, on the other hand, is hard to categorize. It’s got the sort of
intensely deep kick-drum as in <a href="https://youtu.be/CUyQSKe75L4" target="_blank">Love Drought</a> from Beyonce’s Lemonade, simple acoustic
piano and brush drums, accented with Hammond organ and synth, then ending with
a touch of softly strummed acoustic guitar. None of that is overtly country, at
least not to me. But it is definitely beautiful. It’s also a fun performance
from Jack, with that little whistle/hiccup at the beginning of “what’s”, and <a href="https://estherrosemusic.bandcamp.com/releases" target="_blank">Esther Rose</a>’s soft folk-infused voice is a beautiful accompaniment to his. I’ve heard
her sing before, back when she performed with Luke Winslow-King, and I didn’t
love her voice so much then, but I think I prefer her with Jack over either
Ruby Amanfou or Lillie Mae Rische. And that whispered exchange at the end is
the niftiest of touches.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />Jack has
always known how to end an album and Humoresque proves his skill yet again.
After the cacophony of the rest of the album, it follows the relative quiet of
WDID for the softest and gentlest of send-offs. The only cover song on the
album, with lyrics by Howard Johnson (an early 1900s songwriter, not the guy who opened the hotel chain) over a classical interlude by Antonin </span></span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Dvořák,
Jack keeps it simple with an almost heart-breakingly husky vocal over piano and
drums. Its reminiscence of early White Stripes covers like <a href="https://youtu.be/gX-8CiHiViM" target="_blank">Look Me Over Closely</a>
and <a href="https://youtu.be/epRdSh5iUAY" target="_blank">Mr. Cellophane</a> proves that, no matter how far his boarding house reach into
different genres and styles, underneath it all, Jack really is that “same boy”
we’ve always known.</span></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /><br />There’ve
been a lot of hyperbolic reviews of this album, both reviling and acclaiming
it. I’m not going to define it either way. To me, it’s just a perverse thing of
beauty that confirms me more than ever as a fan of this musician who
has opened so. Many. Fucking. Doors for me. I’ve climbed inside the mind shaft and I don’t plan to climb out any time soon. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></span></span>
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-52130893772775028312018-01-27T20:57:00.000-05:002018-01-27T21:09:58.132-05:00Third portion: Corporation, or a White boy goes from blues to funk<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The new album, Boarding House Reach, isn't even out yet and Jack White's fans are already dividing into factions over the first three songs. Corporation was released at midnight this past Thursday and by the time I listened to it over breakfast, opinions ranged from loving it, to calling it garbage, to genuine concern over what in the hell direction his music is headed in and has he forsaken everything he used to stand for? Personally, it's the first of the three songs I can say I almost unequivocally enjoy. The lyrics are a ways away from profound, but they've definitely got me wondering and that's a good thing. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As for the music... It's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs2LhQ1IGqo" target="_blank">funky fresh</a> and makes me grin from ear to ear.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VFnXRntc9XA" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yeah, it's damned different from anything he's done before. We're waaaay far from both the Delta and the garage here, folks. But is it really a surprise? If you look at his progression over the course of his career and the music and musicians he's talked about over the last five years, this actually starts to feel like a fairly natural direction for him to turn. His last two albums seemed to reflect his immersion in Nashville, with an abundance of fiddle and pedal steel creating a distinct country flavor. But he was also playing with a hip-hop drummer (Daru Jones) and a keyboard player who had strong experimental, progressive, and psychedelic leanings (Ikey Owens, may he rest in peace). The two of them had to have had an influence on him, even if it didn't come out noticeably on Blunderbuss or Lazaretto. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then there was <a href="https://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2017/02/jackie-lee-son-of-stagger-lee.html" target="_blank">Three Dollar Hat</a> on the last Dead Weather album, Dodge and Burn, in 2015. <br /> </span></span><br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/enFFHS_zxf8" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In 2016 came Don't Hurt Yourself, on Beyonce's album Lemonade...<br /><br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/10pOVWHrWck" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">...and the songs he co-wrote/contributed to on A Tribe Called Quest's final album, We Got It From Here-- Solid Wall of Sound and Ego (neither of which seem to be on YouTube, all I could find was a preview snippet of Ego). </span></span> <span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/292300144&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Not to mention his take on Curtis Mayfield's <a href="https://youtu.be/hCDAfa-NI-M" target="_blank">Pusherman</a> in one of the hidden tracks on Lazaretto--</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s6j4WmneW1M" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So to hear him go full-on funk in Corporation might be a surprise to many, but it should not be completely unexpected. That's not to say everyone has to love it, of course. Though I think I might. Because it makes me really, really want to hear him cover this now--</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MDZsNksbw2Q" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Play that funky music, White boy. Play that funky music till you die.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-7030210017667714392018-01-11T00:32:00.000-05:002018-01-11T00:32:32.013-05:00The first serving of Boarding House Reach: Connected By Love, backed with Respect Commander<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Disclaimer: I am not a critic and this is not a review. I am a fan. As such, I can sometimes be critical, but I am not a critic. Because my attachment to the music I love springs from emotional, visceral responses, I don't write "reviews". I can make objective judgements, but for the most part my descriptions of new music are purely an expression of my impressions, feelings, and thoughts. And when it comes to writing about Jack White's solo music, my responses seem to have become more complicated with every album. Because today Jack released a new song from his upcoming album, Boarding House Reach, and I should be bouncing off the walls, giddy with excitement. Note the use of the word "<i>should</i>"...</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />These songs, Connected By Love and its b-side, Respect Commander, are different from pretty much anything Jack's done before. Quite different. In one sense, the difference doesn't bother me, in fact it's terrific, it's what I was hoping for on the new album, a new direction full of surprises. In another sense, the difference is... bothersome. Troubling, even. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WyWqEFeKX2E" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />At first listen, Connected By Love seems like the flip-side of the White Stripes song, Apple Blossom. Instead of putting the woman's problems in a little pile and sorting them out for her, he now wants her to take his and put them on a shelf. Instead of not wanting to be interrupted and corrupted by love, as in Love Interruption on Blunderbuss, he's now intent on being connected by it. To express this, his voice is plaintive and passionate and effectively affecting. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The music is where all the good surprises are. It's so layered and dynamic and interesting. Just over half-way through, when you expect Jack to rip into a searing guitar solo, he blows expectation away with a solo on... Hammond organ. <i>Then</i> comes the guitar, circling and rising to the heavens, and joining with the organ. Topping it all off are the gospel-style backup vocals provided by one half of the Nashville quartet, the McCrary Sisters. Ever since hearing Ruby Amanfu's rich vocals during the Blunderbuss tour, I've been wanting to hear Jack with multiple similarly rich female voices behind him and the effect is exactly as I imagined it, creating a beautiful compliment to the way his voice has aged and deepened just a bit. It leaves me completely delighted.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But here's where things get complicated. It was Jack's lyrics that initially grabbed me and pulled me into his music eight or nine years ago, and it's his words that've kept me enthralled from one album to the next, all the way through his catalog. They resonate with me in a way that no other songwriter I've heard has. His wit, his sense of human nature and the absurd, his subtlety and obscurity, his vocabulary, his amazing ability to draw with words, to vividly describe with the simplest of details all sorts of everyday scenarios and emotions that we've all experienced or can easily imagine. And yet, lyrically, this song is too simple. Where is the metaphor that he usually wields with such craft? After a handful of listens, two words popped into my head that I NEVER thought I would ever use to describe Jack White's song-writing. It pains me to write them now, but I have to be honest-- The lyrics to this song strike me as trite and </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="st" data-hveid="62" data-ved="0ahUKEwiH9beKhc_YAhVM6lMKHdmvBQQQ4EUIPjAB">clichéd</span>. <br /><br />And yet, how is it possible for him to write something that makes me swoon even as I'm cringing over it? How can it be that I'm disappointed at the same time that I'm so thrilled? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It makes me think of all the times he's talked in interviews about how </span>"satisfaction is death". And here he's writing about someone who is satisfied in love, who's had troubles in the past, but who is now content. And his usual sparkling wit and word-play are just not there. When Jack interviewed BP Fallon for an early Green Series record, Fallon talked about the blues and shared pain. He mentioned how so many fans were upset with Bob Dylan for writing Lay, Lady Lay because "this was a man of contentment, and they preferred him stuck outside of Memphis with the thingie blues again... People actually very often like to have their idols crying". Maybe that's the case here. Or maybe it's just not in Jack's makeup to express satisfaction and contentment, at least not without some sort of dark twist to it. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The video for the song, though, is a beautiful expression. The images in it bring the depth that the lyrics lack. With or without the end-of-the-world moon borrowed from the film Melancholia hanging over it all, the vignettes of a young woman nursing her grandmother, a mother and her twin sons, and a young man turning to his abuelita when his friends lead him astray convey some of the multitudes of ways that we can be, should be, connected to each other by love. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Showing the statue of Mary as Jack sings the opening "Woman..." takes it to an even higher level, hinting at possibly more spiritual connections that are nowhere to be found in Jack's words. A preview of the video intro voice-overs and the image of the single sleeve, with Jack's hand breaking through the tiles of a wall, which were teased the day before the single release, had me wondering if this song would have a socio-political theme, a timely "love trumps hate", anti-Trump sort of message that would follow in the footsteps of Icky Thump. Something that would inspire listeners to connect with love on a large scale. But no, it turned out to be a surprisingly pedestrian love song set to inspired and dramatic music.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yQxm-dFp0Og" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The b-side, Respect Commander, succeeds and suffers in the exact same respects as Connected By Love. The music is fantastic, starting out with that crunchy guitar Jack's so well known for and that his fans love so much, before a re-start that switches to a faster, funkier sound accompanied by synth that's unexpected and totally exciting. After two minutes of sonic chills and left turns, though, he begins singing and again... the words are total rock'n'roll, good lovin' </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span class="st" data-hveid="62" data-ved="0ahUKEwiH9beKhc_YAhVM6lMKHdmvBQQQ4EUIPjAB">cliché</span></span></span>. The saving grace of this song</span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, despite the sultry urgency of Jack's voice,</span></span> is that the verse is short and that he then lets loose on the guitar for a stuttering, heart-tripping solo that runs all the way to the end. In a way, this one reminds me of Pearline, my favorite song by Son House, in which House sings only two lines, "Pearline, what's the matter with you?" and then later, "I love you, </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pearline</span></span>". His guitar tells all the rest of the story of their relationship. I can't help but wish Jack had kept his words as succinct in Respect Commander. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But again, disappointment in the lyrics is mixed with thrilled excitement over the music and vocal delivery. I have no idea what to expect for the rest of Boarding House Reach and at this point I think it would be best to not even contemplate. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Way to shake things up, Jack.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-7907883983164320052018-01-07T14:30:00.000-05:002018-01-07T14:59:55.905-05:00Icky Trump is not an Intimate Secretary<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWa8WIQygb1wqBrLr4MU0x6MW40V4NmYTraoS7yRTyrSID6N_yBURUyHZJ900GOR6pQnA9bAHUsXbnli6vgjY96GC2uJ35NePSN90t-l-eJAJ_BtlRCnT_ID754UMaYE7kpZOKWnenOl4/s1600/ickytrump_sticker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="552" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWa8WIQygb1wqBrLr4MU0x6MW40V4NmYTraoS7yRTyrSID6N_yBURUyHZJ900GOR6pQnA9bAHUsXbnli6vgjY96GC2uJ35NePSN90t-l-eJAJ_BtlRCnT_ID754UMaYE7kpZOKWnenOl4/s400/ickytrump_sticker.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image via <a href="https://thirdmanstore.com/icky-trump-sticker-1" target="_blank">Third Man Records</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I've been trying to write this post for months. I started it in the aftermath of the white supremacist march in Charlottesville and Trump's comments about that event, and have re-started it a handful of times since then. There's almost too much to say, there's too much opportunity for digression and maybe the main point hasn't been firm enough in my mind. This introduction is a digression in itself. But after having a bit of an existential crisis this weekend that probably made some of my friends think I was going off the deep end, I'm giving it another go. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This post is not about Donald Trump. If you want to read about him, you've got your choice of hundreds of articles in a multitude of media sources, not to mention his own shit-show of a Twitter feed. I'm not going to waste my words on him. No, this post is a <i>reaction</i> to Donald Trump and the effect he's had on many of our psyches. Or at least on my own psyche. Because I don't know about you, but I've been so much angrier than usual for the last year and a half. A fair amount has been written about "<a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/trump-fatigue-syndrome-diagnosis/" target="_blank">Trump</a> <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2017/10/trump-fatigue/" target="_blank">Fatigue</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2017/3/7/14844120/how-to-fight-trump-fatigue-syndrome" target="_blank">Syndrome</a>" (each of those three words links to a different article) and I believe the stress of it is real.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0S3dC7oWK1QfWYYTJzdj2aoxfUiULiX8njeRW5d_BtaKUUF-YXDALHWwk4m29F9Ggcncq3H2xy1101WuSAWyMaMr5cYZPfRouCe3idp3oES-OhqonTp8xA9_zsQ-KvwpBb8O9ISxwnA/s1600/trump-news-toon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="810" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE0S3dC7oWK1QfWYYTJzdj2aoxfUiULiX8njeRW5d_BtaKUUF-YXDALHWwk4m29F9Ggcncq3H2xy1101WuSAWyMaMr5cYZPfRouCe3idp3oES-OhqonTp8xA9_zsQ-KvwpBb8O9ISxwnA/s400/trump-news-toon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from the Augusta Chronicle, via the <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/21/despite-exhaustion-caused-by-trump-news-coverage-is-critical/" target="_blank">Denver Post</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Added to the regular stresses of things like work, commuting, paying bills, dealing with our own health issues and those of family members, and, in my case, a hereditary irascibility, TFS ain't no joke. It's something to take seriously. Because it can turn you into someone you don't want to be, someone who is angry all of the time, and/or depressed all of the time, and/or who withdraws into avoidance. It can lead to combativeness. It can lead to cynicism. </span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But the anger and frustration in response to what's happening these days is justified. And anger can be productive. Professional athletes talk about using anger to push themselves, to give them an edge over their competitors. But is that wise in day-to-day interactions, or in the realm of politics? When you have a bunch of people voicing their anger together, in a crowd or on social media, it begins to breed the sort of negativity that can so easily turn to exactly what we're seeing too much of in the world these days-- combativeness. We have so much to battle against these days-- Racism, classism, and other bigotries, a patriarchy that feels it's under threat, and all the effects of living in a kakistocracy that embraces </span><span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">willful ignorance</span>. But do we want to battle effectively, or do we want to live in a combat zone? It's important to choose how anger is channeled, because there's a distinct difference between rage and outrage.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Rage is ugly, it's destructive, it breeds hatred and, when impotent, turns into cynicism. But outrage says "No, this is wrong. This must change". Rage accomplishes nothing. It amplifies and destroys and leaves a metaphorical scorched earth in its wake. Outrage, on the other hand, can be the impetus for productive action, for activism and the sort of destruction that leads to positive change.<br /><br />In the week following Charlottesville, one of the most helpful things I came across were these words from Van Jones in an <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/08/16/543394845/in-midst-of-racial-hatred-van-jones-still-pushes-love" target="_blank">interview at NPR</a>--</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"</span></span><span style="color: #bf9000; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People say, 'Oh Van, when you go out there and talk to those Trump people, does it change any of their minds?' That's not my job. I'm not trying to convince Trump people to be better people. <span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>I'm trying to prevent the Trump era from making me a worse person</i></b></span>. I do not want to become somebody who is so hard-hearted that I can only see the worst in my opponent. Dr. King said you should never let a man drive you so low as to hate him.</span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That's it, right there. We can give vent to rage and hatred for the people we view as our opponents in this situation that more and more is coming to feel like a war. Or we can be outraged and battle for change without losing sight of our own moral compass</span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. For anyone feeling the way I've been feeling, I highly recommend learning more about <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/van-jones-only-a-love-army-will-conquer-trump-w454026" target="_blank">Van Jones</a> and the <a href="https://www.lovearmy.org/" target="_blank">Love Army</a>. </span></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Another thing that helped me was a bit unexpected and I've been meaning to get back to it after the initial discovery. </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Way back in May 2017, I joined the hosts of the <a href="https://thethirdmen.wordpress.com/2017/05/24/episode-34-broken-boy-soldiers-album-analysis-review-pt1/" target="_blank">Third Men podcast</a> to talk about the use of Masonic references in the Raconteurs song, Intimate Secretary, which was released back in 2006. I'd seen mention of those references at one of the Jack White message boards, but for the podcast discussion I did some actual research and what I found was both compelling and startlingly timely. Here are the lyrics, along with some of my notes about the words and possible meanings-- </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got a rabbit, it likes to hop </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got a girl and she likes to shop </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The other foot looks like it won't drop <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[things won’t be so bad after all]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I had an uncle and he got shot <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[oops, maybe they will]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is this greeting the type that's meant for me? <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[Masonic ceremonial hand-shake &/or greeting]</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Are you part of this kakistocracy? <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[government by the least qualified]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This ringing in my ears won't stop <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[stress and fatigue from shit show going on in the world today]</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got a red Japanese tea-pot </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got a pen but I lost the top </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got so many things you haven't got <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[but do they really amount to anything?]</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A fellow's craft is just not for sharing </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He's not an intimate secretary! <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[he's not qualified to be one, doesn’t understand principles of reason, love, faith, duty, etc]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got a rabbit it likes to hop </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've got a girl and she likes to shop </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The other foot looks like it won't drop </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I had an uncle but he got shot </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Venerable obscurist malarkey <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[general stereotypical perception of Masonry as hallowed mysterious bullshit?]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A doulocracy ecclesiarchy <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[government of slaves defining heresy?]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A fellow's craft is just not for sharing </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He's not an intimate secretary! </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The exarchy's inspector inquisitor </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I dare mock an illustrious master </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Are you part of this kakistocracy? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is this greeting the type that's meant for me? <span style="color: #6aa84f;">[do I have the qualities of an Intimate Secretary?]</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What I knew: Jack's apparently got a deep connection to the <a href="http://www.themasonic.com/" target="_blank">Masonic Temple</a> in Detroit-- He attended <a href="http://www.nailhed.com/2014/06/second-to-none.html" target="_blank">Cass Technical High School</a> right down the street, his mother worked there as an usher, and the Gold Dollar and Magic Stick venues are only a few blocks away. He's performed in both theaters in the Temple, and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/national-trust-for-historic-preservation/jack-white-lends-a-hand-t_b_3647537.html" target="_blank">paid off their back taxes</a> a few years ago. Wouldn't surprise me at all if his father or other family members were/are Masons. And so Intimate Secretary is laced with references to titles of various degrees of study in Masonry-- Fellowcraft ("a fellow's craft"), Intimate Secretary (obviously), Inspector Inquisitor, and Illustrious Master.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfc7juayVM-ykjWzwPK2HEmRvFWxQX20SPpu4xiKnfWnJsJ4zNjuXCF-Hn66w5GPeXA8iYxXc5Yj9T_rb2vp5l6U3jI8esS4c-uwmG6c2wBcGROsNcFVzxaTXE2lSVdHE6tsiB9kLE6ww/s1600/MasonicStructure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="630" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfc7juayVM-ykjWzwPK2HEmRvFWxQX20SPpu4xiKnfWnJsJ4zNjuXCF-Hn66w5GPeXA8iYxXc5Yj9T_rb2vp5l6U3jI8esS4c-uwmG6c2wBcGROsNcFVzxaTXE2lSVdHE6tsiB9kLE6ww/s640/MasonicStructure.jpg" width="441" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://freemasonrywatch.org/" target="_blank">Freemasonrywatch.org</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />What I learned: The pages and pages I read the on the internet were like reliving my 20s and early 30s, when I was deep into philosophy and classic literature, devouring writings by and about Thoreau and the Transcendentalists, Goethe, Kant, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the Stoics. The beliefs of the Freemasons are built on the same sort of weird mix of transcendentalism, esoterica, and reason. But underneath the mystery and esoterica, under the stuff that's bred so many jokes and conspiracy theories, lie a framework of symbols and allegories with the specific purpose of developing a spiritual and moral compass.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Whether you take the mysteries surrounding the organization seriously or consider it a bunch of Illuminati hoo-ha, their message is one this world needs right now. </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The degree of Intimate Secretary, in particular, is strikingly relevant. A few pertinent excerpts from the description of it at the <a href="http://freemasoninformation.com/masonic-education/books/morals-and-dogma/morals-and-dogma-intimate-secretary/" target="_blank">Freemason Information</a> website--</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;">You are especially taught in this Degree to be zealous and faithful; to
be disinterested <i><span style="color: #999900;">[as in, minding your own business]</span></i> and benevolent; and to act the peace-maker, in case of
dissensions, disputes, and quarrels among the brethren...</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;">The
generous man cannot but regret to see dissensions and disputes among
his brethren. Only the base and ungenerous delight in discord. It is the
poorest occupation of humanity to labor to make men think worse of each
other, as the press, and too commonly the pulpit, changing places with
the hustings and the tribune, do. The duty of the Mason is to endeavor
to make man think better of his neighbor; to quiet, instead of
aggravating difficulties; to bring together those who are severed or
estranged; to keep friends from becoming foes, and to persuade foes to
become friends. To do this, he must needs control his own passions, and
be not rash and hasty, nor swift to take offence, nor easy to be
angered. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;">For
anger is a professed enemy to counsel. It is a direct storm, in which
no man can be heard to speak or call from without; for if you counsel
gently, you are disregarded; if you urge it and be vehement, you provoke
it more. It is neither manly nor ingenuous. It makes marriage to be a
necessary and unavoidable trouble; friendships and societies and
familiarities, to be intolerable. It multiplies the evils of
drunkenness, and makes the levities of wine to run into madness. It
makes innocent jesting to be the beginning of tragedies. It terns
friendship into hatred; it makes a man lose himself, and his reason and
his argument, in disputation. It turns the desires of knowledge into an
itch of wrangling. It adds insolency to power. It turns justice into
cruelty, and judgment into oppression. It changes discipline into
tediousness and hatred of liberal institution. It makes a prosperous man
to be envied, and the unfortunate to be unpitied. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;"> See,
therefore, that first controlling your own temper, and governing your
own passions, you fit yourself to keep peace and harmony among other
men, and especially the brethren. Above all remember that Masonry is the
realm of peace, and that “among Masons there must be no dissension, but
only that noble emulation, which can best work and best agree.”
Wherever there is strife and hatred among the brethren, there is no
Masonry; for Masonry is Peace, and Brotherly Love, and Concord. </span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/06/politics/donald-trump-white-stripes-icky-thump/index.html" target="_blank">Icky Trump</a> is definitely not an Intimate Secretary. (If you agree, maybe go buy a <a href="https://thirdmanstore.com/anti-trump-unisex-t-shirt" target="_blank">t-shirt</a> to show your feelings?) </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Finally, a Facebook friend posted this quote a while back that really resonated with me--</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/64/b4/42/64b442953cd6ee70fdb4ad17bdf5f0ee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/64/b4/42/64b442953cd6ee70fdb4ad17bdf5f0ee.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Found via Pinterest, I'd credit the image creator if I could.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I think I'm going to print that and tape it to my bathroom mirror. And I'm also going to bookmark a few pages of Masonic texts and refer to them frequently, when I need to bolster my own character and get back on track. </span>Like Van Jones, I don't want feelings of rage over what's happening to bring me down to the level of Trump and his ilk. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I want to be an outraged Intimate Secretary.</span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pOcPbtMvCZA" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-79850830589146574402018-01-02T20:20:00.002-05:002018-01-07T10:24:25.166-05:00I GOT A FEELIN MY MIND'S IN THE PIE<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I got the news this afternoon that my friend Steven died unexpectedly yesterday morning. Stevie-O, as he allowed me to call him, was what's generally considered a "character", so I feel like I need to write about him. I'm sure other friends of his knew a lot of other sides of him, but these are the experiences and characteristics that I know and feel the need to put out there as a memorial-- <br /><br />Steven was piratical and bombastical and a great big teddy bear of a guy (and I don't mean the gay version of "teddy bear", though that might apply, too). I first knew him through his fairly out-there, snake-chasing posts on the Third Man Records Vault and one of the Jack White message boards, where he used the screen-name Avard, which I later learned was his father's name (Or maybe his grandfather's, I can't exactly remember now). His avatar looked like a young African-American guy in a red wig...</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYUwqfqKMjYXov6ajcVJvbulJ-HZu3SeMeTLezy9vDyDHv1bZhYXkQuE7Gjg_DTRb8HAwSsvI5N8sj3IQNvUOpdkJCt7BC5HE9uNSlaLYOax4-uXp7w-fXlbAoQNlvuTfcYMAtem8sEPs/s1600/283653_584503541582295_1119026017_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="338" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYUwqfqKMjYXov6ajcVJvbulJ-HZu3SeMeTLezy9vDyDHv1bZhYXkQuE7Gjg_DTRb8HAwSsvI5N8sj3IQNvUOpdkJCt7BC5HE9uNSlaLYOax4-uXp7w-fXlbAoQNlvuTfcYMAtem8sEPs/s200/283653_584503541582295_1119026017_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />...so imagine my surprise when I met Steve in person, in line </span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">in Chattanooga in 2012</span></span> for Jack White's first public solo show for Blunderbuss, and found myself confronted by this large and loud and boisterous, bald and goateed guy who looked like he could be either a biker or a sailor. <i>Not </i>what I was expecting. When I got home from that show and received in the mail a poster from Jack's first <i>private </i>solo show, prior to the one in Chattanooga, a poster featuring a huge black vulture, which Steve bought the day after the Chattanooga show on his way home through Nashville and sent to me just because he'd decided we were going to be pals, I was so touched and it was the beginning of an exchange of gifts, both large and small, back and forth, that culminated less than two months ago when I sent him a copy of Kid Congo Powers' Live at Third Man Records single that I'd asked Kid to sign for Steve when I was in Detroit for Devil's Night in October. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After Chattanooga was Jack's show at Webster Hall in New York, after which Steven told me that if he weren't gay I was exactly the sort of woman he'd want to marry, after he watched me coming around the corner up the street from the venue, sprinting as fast as my legs could go, hauling ass to make it by door-time because I had tickets for both of us and two more friends and I hadn't been able to get the day off from work and had to take the train up from DC mid-day and then catch two subway trains and then <i>run </i>four blocks from the subway and he was waiting for me so that he could grab me and drag me inside to the front of the line. This was the show broadcast live for AmEx Unstaged, directed by Gary Oldman. We'd gotten a teaser for this show in the form of a video of Jack and Gary that included a few moments of the two of them rolling around on the floor wrestling. Day of the show, Steve and our two other friends had camped out in line all day to ensure we'd be on the rail when I got there with the tickets and, according to Steve, when Gary Oldman walked by that morning, Steve asked him what it was like to wrestle with Jack, to which Gary apparently replied "I bet you'd like to wrestle him". Same show at which Steve swears he caught a drop of Jack's sweat in his mouth. You can see him, bald-headed and goateed, throughout the show, right smack in front of Jack (as well as the wrestling match that begins the video)--</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z8QKk-Cn_5E" width="560"></iframe></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Steve loved the raisin pie at Yoder's Amish Restaurant down in Sarasota, Florida, and one day when he was waxing rhapsodic about it to me, he altered a line in one of his favorite Jack White songs, Take Me With You When You Go, to "I got a feelin' my mind's in the pie", which became a repeated refrain when he wanted pie or Jack or just fucking felt like saying it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then there was the time I got up at midnight and drove all the way from Maryland to his house in Connecticut to pick him up so that we could drive to Boston for one of Jack's shows, at which we both fell in love with Cary Ann Hearst, of the opening act Shovels and Rope, when she belted out a song so intensely that she ended up with two long streaks of runny mascara all the way down her cheek. Oh, and some girl threw a bra at Jack on stage, to which he replied "Thanks, Ma!" and Steve and I joked about that <i>again</i> just a few months ago. I was so exhausted on the drive back to his place that night that he talked non-stop to try to keep me awake, telling me stories about things like the time Patti Smith did a reading (or something) at the Wadsworth Museum (where Steve was chief preparator right up until his death, dammit did I really just type that?) and he'd ended up out on the loading dock eating sandwiches with her. <br /><br />And then we got up the next day and drove to New York for both of Jack's soon-to-be-infamous shows at Radio City Music Hall. Breakfast that morning before heading to New York was fabulous, as Stevie-O took me to the local Polish market where we stocked up on chicken meatballs with dill sauce, sauerkraut, sausages, rye bread, and other treats, and went back for a feast sitting at his 50s-era formica kitchen table with the Raconteurs Live in Glasgow blasting from the stereo in his living room. I was miserable at the show in New York that night, though, not because it was the show that Jack cut short after only an hour, but because our seats were halfway back and there were so many tall people in front of me, and so many people running back and forth along the row and up and down the aisle next to us that I couldn't see the goddamned stage. Steven's seat was right behind mine and he could tell how distraught I was because I wasn't dancing or clapping or singing along the way he knew I normally did, and at one point during the show he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around my shoulders in a big hug. I almost started crying right then and there in the aisle at Radio City Music Hall, but I didn't. I am crying now, remembering it. It was sometimes hard to know what to make of Steve, with his bombast and ALL CAPS written communications and the constant stream of Radio City Music Hall Rockettes show e-mail announcements he would forward to me and how he'd rant about the things he couldn't buy or do because of the limitations of his health and his finances, but that hug at that particular show really kind of told me all I needed to know about him. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdlL593vSRz2rWYbAKpvYZID_gxcxFyR3_U6aEeOQO6Z6s4RaPgLrlK5pIBLkSnfhor2XeNDsBjCY7KpBOqZ44xJK1g21yzpiXCLLiHhEyyryD38rVyI3tWLDlBsbt-3tCS93CcplflNY/s1600/Steve%252CMonya%252CMe-RadioCity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1024" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdlL593vSRz2rWYbAKpvYZID_gxcxFyR3_U6aEeOQO6Z6s4RaPgLrlK5pIBLkSnfhor2XeNDsBjCY7KpBOqZ44xJK1g21yzpiXCLLiHhEyyryD38rVyI3tWLDlBsbt-3tCS93CcplflNY/s640/Steve%252CMonya%252CMe-RadioCity.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #bf9000;">Me, Steve, and our friend Monya just before that infamous Radio City show. <br />I have another photo of just Steve and me from that night, but I can't find it and am going to be fucking pissed off if it's not on my computer somewhere.</span></span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And, yeah, it seems like pretty much all of my memories of Steve revolve around Jack White and, well, they do. He loved Jack the way I do. He was into all sorts of kinds of music and was constantly telling stories of shows he'd been to and musicians he'd met </span></span><span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(I once asked him to list all of the bands he'd never seen live because that would be easier than listing the ones he had seen)</span></span>, but it was our shared addiction to Jack's music (during the Blunderbuss tour, it was Steve who coined the term "getting JACKED UP" for going to one of Jack's shows) that brought us together. Unfortunately, the last time I saw him in person and got one of his big hugs was just over three years ago, because, as mentioned above, his multiple health issues and financial difficulties made him unable to just up and follow Jack around like so many of us do. But Steve is... <i>was </i>one of the few friends I've made within the Jack White community that I talk to.. <i>talked</i> to continually on a regular basis, one of the few with whom I found other interests we could share, one of the few that made a point to keep in touch with <i>me</i>, even if it was just to tell me what was going on with him. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My heart breaks for his husband, John, and their cats Rosie and Taffy (and the dearly departed Conchetta), and for his family. I think of his massively abundant tomato harvest last year that he posted fifty million photos of on Facebook. I think of all the mouth-watering meals he told me all the time that he was preparing, and all the art we talked about (he was my go-to when I came across a piece of art I needed help understanding). And it kills me that he died before Jack's new album could come out this year, that he couldn't get JACKED UP, couldn't see his JACK ON FIRE, even just one more time. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QoUwvNjty4I" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He was at <i>that</i> ^ goddamned show in 2005 when Jack screamed "And I will FUCK YOU until you die!!!" and he never, ever got tired of telling me about it. <br /><br />I don't believe in Heaven, but that's not going to stop me from imagining Steven up there in the clouds with Conchetta, engaging in human bowling with the angels and telling them all those stories of all of those incredible shows he went to in his lifetime, bellowing "I GOT A FEELING MY MIND'S IN THE PIE!!!" </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: normal;"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Kr4klXAEqo" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-size: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />I'M GOING TO MISS YOU, STEVIE-O !!!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-34714074103636980302017-12-13T15:25:00.000-05:002017-12-13T15:25:30.823-05:00Confessions of a Jack White junkie, volume 2: A taste of servings and portions<iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QClzlZTXj4Y" width="560"></iframe>
<br /><br /><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's hard, it's soft, it's crunchy, it's smooth, it's stuttering, it's melodic. He raps, he croons, he shouts, he squeals. It's got new words (abulia, akrasia, abjurement... Jack must've been doing some casual reading through the A section of the dictionary when writing this one), and some familiar themes (weight of the world on his shoulder, suffering for/because of women, starting fires). There's a new cast of characters among both musicians and instruments. In just four minutes, he's given us a lot to digest and a lot to think about. <br /><br />And the fan-girl/addict has eagerly taken her place in the front car of the roller-coaster, waiting for things to get rolling. </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-64201566808374555712017-07-09T20:39:00.001-04:002017-07-09T21:13:32.780-04:00The drums of Gone beat the Battle Cry guitar, and other Blue Series surprises<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">A week or so ago, Third Man Records released a <a href="http://thirdmanstore.com/featured/gone-7-black-vinyl" target="_blank">new Blue Series single</a> from a Scandinavian duo named My Bubba (the group name is their names-- My Larsdotter and Guðbjörg "Bubba" Tómasdóttir). I assume most people who read this blog know <a href="http://thirdmanstore.com/miscellaneous/third-man-books-1/blue-series-book?___SID=U" target="_blank">what the Blue Series is</a>, but for those who don't the in-a-nutshell description is that it's a series of singles produced by Jack White, by bands and musicians that strike his fancy and who are able record a couple of songs in a single day in his studio. They're of diverse genres and are nearly always bands and musicians I've never heard of before. There was a time when a single like this one would've barely registered on my radar, I would've acknowledged the news and sat back to wait for the next thing to come down the pike. But, as I've talked about before, I'm more adventurous musically than I used to be, and the announcement said the b-side of this Blue Series was a cover of Bob Dylan's You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, which is one of my favorites from Blood On The Tracks. So, yadda yadda yadda, I ordered it and when it arrived I ripped both sides for the car, putting them in a folder on my flash drive that included another song released earlier this year by Third Man that you may've heard of, called Battle Cry.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5qFGsHxSxo0" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Backing up a bit-- I felt like I should have been excited when Battle Cry came out in April. </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">It was a brand-spanking new song from Jack, not a collaboration with anyone else, the first new music since Lazaretto was released in 2014! Granted, it was for a short film <a href="https://thirdmanrecords.com/news/third-man-records-releases-battle-cry/" target="_blank">advertisement for the Warstic baseball bat company</a> (of which he's co-owner) and walk-up music for Detroit Tigers player, Ian Kinsler. But still... new music! </span></span>So many people I know were excited. But I wasn't. It's a good song, I do like it. It's the first song on my flash drive playlist, which means it plays when I turn the car on in the </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">morning </span></span> and hit the road for the commute to work. It's certainly appropriate for that. But it's a standard "Jack White" song. It fits the context for which it was written and has a great driving rhythm and a terrific guitar solo. But there are no surprises in it, nothing that hits you from left-field, to borrow a term from baseball.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">On the other hand, this subtle and subdued new song from My Bubba, called Gone... It's surprised the hell out of me. After listening to it once at <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2017/06/29/534810166/my-bubbas-spare-rumbling-jack-white-assisted-new-single-gone" target="_blank">NPR's All Songs Considered</a>, I thought it was pretty and pretty lethargic, but bought the single anyway, purely out of curiosity to hear the b-side. I figured it'd get filed away after a listen or two. But then today, when it came up in the car, it grabbed me so much I hit repeat and ended up listening to it for the majority of the 150 or so miles I drove. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="430" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0BycS70FQV4" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">It's the drums, the ones that made NPR's Bob Boilen describe the song as "rumbling". Played by Jack himself under one of his Blue Series pseudonyms, they're the sound that's missing from Battle Cry-- Not a single cymbal crash to be heard anywhere, just tribal rolls and thumps punctuating and giving shape to the hypnotic chant of My Bubba's vocals. Those drums are like the riffles and rapids that break up the inexorable, steady flow of a river, that keep it from carrying you away. They ground the song and transform it from a trance to a meditation. And they're unlike anything I've heard Jack play before. That makes them a surprise and a treat, not just for his playing of them, but also for his choice as a producer to include them. He could've made a similar choice for Battle Cry and directed drummer Daru Jones to play something like this on that song, but he didn't. He saved that sound for this song, one that many fans may, unfortunately for them, never hear. He seems to like doing perverse things like that.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">The other thing that turns me on is that these little Blue Series production tricks of his make me want to listen to more music by artists like My Bubba, so that I can compare to hear how he's made their music different. And that has led me so many times to getting into a new musician or group that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. It's what's made me, as I mentioned above, more musically adventurous, because I've found that the feeling of discovery and exploration is what stimulates me more than anything else.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">As for their cover of You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome, I barely recognized it on first listen. My Bubba slow it down to the point that it only just holds on to Dylan's original melody. Both on the album and live, Dylan keeps the song uptempo, almost jaunty, so that it's more playful than lonesome.</span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vVXwVc4BGjo" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">But there's an ache in My Bubba's harmonies that turns it into a truly regretful lament.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IsNnDw05EAc" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">It's kind of what I expected from that first listen to Gone on NPR, but at the same time... it's not. There's a depth there that I completely did not expect. And even though these songs aren't Jack's own music, they're an example of the sort of thing I will always want more of from him-- To be surprised. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-36268758965419337762017-05-18T09:46:00.000-04:002017-05-18T09:46:31.394-04:00In dreams until my death, I will wander on. Rest in peace, Chris Cornell<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The words you say, never live up to the ones inside your head. The lives we make, never seem to get us anywhere but dead.</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dbckIuT_YDc" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Within a half hour of reading of Chris Cornell's death, the lyrics started flooding my head. All those lines that touched me through the years, from my late 20s when Badmotorfinger was released and I discovered Soundgarden, all the way through my 30s </span></span><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> and Euphoria Morning </span></span>and the end of the one lasting relationship I've had, into my 40s and Audioslave, and then Chris's music changed with his second solo album and I couldn't relate anymore and I discovered Jack White. But even though the new music he was making had changed, the old music was still there. There was no way any of those old Soundgarden albums or Euphoria Morning or the first Audioslave album could be put aside entirely. They had meant too much and still did. Still do. Chris's imagery and metaphors could be obscure, but then he'd cut through the obscurity with a line as sharply meaningful as a razor. Or a diamond. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Dreaming only of the ones who never dream of you... never dream of you.</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/85H9MBibITY" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Prince's death last year was a horrible shock, but this is worse. I loved Prince's music, but I felt Chris's music. I've written about a few of his songs in the past-- <a href="http://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2009/11/chris-cornells-like-suicide.html" target="_blank">Like Suicide</a> and <a href="http://kalidurga.blogspot.com/2007/01/chris-cornells-i-am-highway.html" target="_blank">I Am The Highway</a>, especially, moved me to words. </span></span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sitting here like uninvited company, wallowing in my own obscenities...</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tyOC6LtvDZY" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana";"><span style="color: #cc9933;"> </span></span></i></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've experienced depression and self-hate and Soundgarden was the first band I discovered that reflected what I felt. It was always so obvious that Chris had also been there and understood and was able to express those feelings in a poetic way that buoyed me up rather than bringing me down. Fell On Black Days was like an anthem for me for years.</span></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ySzrJ4GRF7s" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are so, so many others. I could make this post an hour-long read/listen if I, and you, had the time. But I'll leave it brief. We've all got our own favorites, our own personal lines and words that touched us and left a mark, helped to define us or to uplift us. So I felt it was important to take the time to remember just a few of my own, the ones that most immediately came to mind. More will continue to come over the next few days and I'll wish I had included them here. But I have to go to work. As the title of Chris's second solo album states, we all have to carry on. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On reading of his death this morning, Like a Stone was one of the first that rushed into my head and it's the one that I'm going to end with. I once read an Audioslave interview in which the other guys in the band talked about how this song came together. They described how Chris just sat in a chair with his eyes closed while they played the music for him and they thought he had checked out, that he wasn't paying any attention. Then he opened his mouth and began to sing the words that'd come to him while he was sitting there with closed eyes. I hope he's in that house now.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7QU1nvuxaMA" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On a cobweb afternoon </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a room full of emptiness </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By a freeway I confess </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was lost in the pages </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of a book full of death </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Reading how we'll die alone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And if we're good, we'll lay to rest </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Anywhere we want to go </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In your house I long to be </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Room by room patiently </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll wait for you there </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like a stone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll wait for you there </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alone </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On my deathbed I will pray </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To the gods and the angels </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like a pagan to anyone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Who will take me to heaven </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To a place I recall </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was there so long ago </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The sky was bruised </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The wine was bled </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And there you led me on </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In your house I long to be </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Room by room patiently </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll wait for you there </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like a stone
I'll wait for you there </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alone </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And on I read </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Until the day was gone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I sat in regret </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of all the things I've done </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For all that I've blessed </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And all that I've wronged </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In dreams until my death </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I will wander on </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In your house I long to be </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Room by room patiently </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll wait for you there </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like a stone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'll wait for you there </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alone </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Alone </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-72560770328366046602017-05-18T08:00:00.000-04:002017-05-18T08:19:20.729-04:00Chris Cornell's "I Am the Highway"<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><b>Edit 5/18/2017</b>, upon the sudden and shocking new of Chris Cornell's death: I'm re-posting this old blog from 2007. Here is the Civilian/Audioslave demo of this song--<br /><br /><i><br /></i></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/84W7b5P4cqE" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><br /><br /><i></i></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Ok, I have to admit that the first few times I listened to this song (from Audioslave's eponymous debut album), I found it very cheesy. I mean, the dude is singing about not being a flying carpet. Then in May of 2005, I took two weeks off from work and drove the length of Route 50, a mostly 2-lane highway that cuts through the middle of the US from Maryland's eastern shore all the way to San Francisco. Because of the highway and traveling references, I decided that this would be my theme song for the trip. After a few days of listening and thinking about the song as I drove, the words began to mean something to me. I have no idea if my interpretation matches Chris Cornell's intended meaning, but I'd like to think that it might.<br /><br /><span style="color: #cc9933;">Pearls and swine, bereft of me.<br />Long and weary my road has been.<br />I was lost in the cities,<br />Alone in the hills.<br />No sorrow or pity for leaving I feel.<br /><br />I am not your rolling wheels<br />I am the highway<br />I am not your carpet ride<br />I am the sky<br /><br />Friends and liars, don't wait for me,<br />I'll get on all by myself.<br />I put millions of miles<br />Under my heels,<br />And still too close to you I feel.<br /><br />I am not your rolling wheels<br />I am the highway<br />I am not your carpet ride<br />I am the sky<br />I am not your blowing wind<br />I am the lightning<br />I am not your autumn moon<br />I am the night</span><br /><br />Things are about to get deep here, and I may ramble a bit, so bear with me. You know how sometimes it's possible to "lose yourself" in a relationship (or at least it is for some people)? To me, this song is about fighting to <i>not</i> lose yourself in that way. Relationships can be damned hard, and one of the things that screws them up the most is the issue of perception. I'm not talking just about romantic relationships here, either. Whether it's with a mother, a friend, a lover, a brother, a colleague at work... in <i>any</i> relationship, we are to the other person what they <i>perceive </i>us to be. They see something in us that fulfills some want or need that they probably don't even realize they have (and vice versa, of course). That's why the first six months of a romantic relationship are so magical: We're busy forming those perceptions, feeling that need satisfied, and haven't gotten to the point at which we begin to feel that maybe that person isn't what we thought they were after all. On the flipside, some people go out of their way to <i>make</i> themselves fit the other person's perceptions, to be what that person wants, just to hold the relationship together. I think that in most cases, all of this happens at an unconscious level, but it really seems to explain that "We just grew apart" thing, as well as the "I lost myself in the relationship" thing.<br /><br />As a kinda-sorta student of Buddhism, I realized that what it comes down to is seeing things as they really are. In Buddhism, great emphasis is placed on seeing the <i>reality</i> of things, on learning to realize when we're projecting our own "story", our own attachments and aversions, onto an event or person we're dealing with. If you do that in a relationship, then you're just setting yourself up to get miffed when that person doesn't behave as you've come to expect them to, or when they have unrealistic expectations for you. I've dealt with plenty of this myself, from both sides of the coin. From my father and mother, to my sister-in-law, to the last guy I dated, to people at work who just rub me the damned wrong way... After coming to this realization, I now try to stop myself and ask "Am I looking at the <i>reality</i> of this person, or are my own expectations and assumptions getting in the way and creating this issue?" Even harder when you're dealing with someone you care for is to ask "Is this person seeing me as I am, or are they wanting me to be something for them that I'm really not?" Before I begin to sound totally sanctimonious here, let me assure you that I don't always succeed in asking or answering these questions. In any case, even if you can see the reality of the situation, it does no good if the other person can't.<br /><br />To me, it seems as if the character in Cornell's song is someone at that point in a relationship, someone who's maybe experienced it before and is determined not to again. It's the ultimate anthem to self-realization and independence. This person would rather be on his own than to lose himself to another person in such a way. He'd prefer to be "<span style="color: #cc9933;">lost in the cities, alone in the hills</span>" than to be under someone else's thumb just for the sake of being in a relationship.<br /><br />To take it a step further, he even tells the person on the other side of the relationship what's going on. When he sings "<span style="color: #cc9933;">I am not your carpet ride, I am the sky</span>", he's saying "Not only am I not just what you see me as being, I'm more than you can even <i>comprehend</i> of me as. I am greater than your conception of me and I will not be boxed in by your expectations." "<span style="color: #cc9933;">No sorrow or pity for leaving I feel.</span>" A bit harsh, perhaps, but sometimes that's what it takes to get through to that other person.<br /><br />Again, I have no idea if this is really what the song is about, it's just what it means to me. For all I know, Cornell was stretching his metaphoric muscles in another direction and I'm totally off-base. Either way, it's become a personal anthem of sorts. "<span style="color: #cc9933;"><i>I am the highway..."</i></span>, indeed.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>If you can, try to get ahold of the demo version of the song that was leaked to the internet back when Audioslave was still just a rumour. Cornell's vocals on the chorus are much more dramatic. And, yeah, I realize that it's really </i>Audioslave's <i>song, but the words are Chris' so as far as I'm concerned it's his song (No offense to Tom, Tim and Brad. Sorry, guys.).</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #999900; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: normal;"><i><br /></i></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-79898458761699624642017-05-07T17:31:00.000-04:002017-05-07T17:50:31.047-04:00A lifetime of blues<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xUWSSMRrz1s?list=PLJBG-0FZQKhrnYi7OJOsPOVuusEPych7n" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of all the old blues guys who were rediscovered in the 1960s, none changed as obviously and profoundly over the intervening years as Son House. In that Paramount Records recording up there, from way back in 1930, it's obvious he's a young man in the prime of his life. His voice is rich with vitality, his singing is strong and effortless. In 1965, when Alan Wilson was asked to help him remember how to play his own songs for the Father of the Delta Blues record, his voice was still resonant, but it wasn't youthful vitality that gave it its hypnotic power-- It was the sound of weariness coming out of that aged throat, as if the weight of the world was pressing on his shoulders as he sat in front of the mic. </span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tZQ6aCYyasI" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Try playing these two songs together at the same time. You won't hear this dramatic a difference in the singing of Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, or any of House's contemporaries who were still performing in the 60s. As extraordinary as all of those other musicians were, this is what makes him the superlative representative of blues music. You don't even have to know anything about him to know that he lived what he sang. It's in his voice, or rather, what his voice became.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-80803851183107016272017-03-25T17:32:00.001-04:002017-03-27T10:19:53.970-04:00The cycle of life encapsulated in a day<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On this very warm late-March day, I stood in the woods and listened to the snap, crackle'n'pop of growing things under the dry leaves leftover from last fall. It's eerie, that sound. A continuous crackling that you'd think must be something moving under those dry leaves, but there's no motion to be seen. It's new life, and one of the most definite, and the most subtle, signs of Spring I know.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On the way home, I drove past a committee of about two dozen Black Vultures congregated on and around a mound of gravel in a field next to a creek, up the road from the old train station at Point of Rocks. I've written about vultures <a href="http://kalidurga.blogspot.com.br/search/label/vultures" target="_blank">before</a>, they're one of my favorite creatures-- creepy, ugly, with some seriously <a href="https://www.thespruce.com/fun-facts-about-vultures-385520" target="_blank">disgusting habits</a>. But they help to keep the world a cleaner place, removing the detritus of death. And that bunch I saw today, some sitting there glossy and black and hunched while others were stretching their wings so wide the individual feathers at the ends were splayed like fingers, were like something out of an ancient Egyptian frieze. Beautiful and majestic and symbolic of <a href="http://classroom.synonym.com/significance-vultures-egyptian-headdresses-5610.html" target="_blank">more than just death</a>.</span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/tetisheri.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Belzoni1-edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://i0.wp.com/tetisheri.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Belzoni1-edit.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The vulture goddess Nekhbet. Image borrowed from <a href="http://tetisheri.co.uk/belzonis-watercolours-of-seti-is-tomb-at-the-bristol-museum/" target="_blank">here</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-67667033952795552002017-03-16T06:56:00.000-04:002017-03-16T06:57:17.377-04:00Whatever<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I stand in my kitchen taking my vitamins on a dark March morning, angsting about someone I offended weeks ago and being alone and how very hard it is to turn monologue into dialogue, when a siren wails past outside the window and I think "Ah, there's someone who has a <i>real</i> problem". </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7804148397927127420.post-84773162929223071342017-03-05T19:34:00.000-05:002017-03-05T19:52:39.938-05:00Another kind of gender confusion<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's an exciting and frightening time to be a woman these days. It feels like we're heading into both the dark ages and a brand new feminist movement simultaneously. Only a few weeks after the astonishing turnout of the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-somehow-controversial-womens-march-on-washington" target="_blank">Women's March on Washington</a> that was matched around the world, we're also dealing with things like the <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/trending/bizarre/mensez-us-chiropractor-invents-a-glue-lipstick-to-seal-labia-women-furious-twitter-reaction-4542046/" target="_blank">chiropractor in Kansas who's invented a vaginal glue</a> to seal the labia during menstruation to prevent women from being "distracted". If he were creative enough, he could maybe also market it as a rape prevention device. Though it might be most effective as an easy means of denying sex to men as stupid as he is. "Not tonight, <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">dear</span>, my labia are stuck tight."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even worse, the <a href="http://newsok.com/panel-oks-plan-to-let-dads-block-abortions/article/5538100" target="_blank">Oklahoma state legislature is considering a bill</a> that would <a href="http://secondnexus.com/politics-and-economics/oklahoma-abortion-bill-calls-women-hosts/?utm_content=inf_10_1164_2&tse_id=INF_3962d240005411e7a22fa5876bd4fd44" target="_blank">require women to obtain written permission</a> from the man who impregnated them in order to have an abortion. The bill's author, state Rep. Justin Humphrey, said he just wants to add the father into the abortion process.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“My bill would stop an abortion if a father does not agree to the abortion,” Humphrey told the committee, which eventually voted 5-2 in favor of the legislation.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">... “The thing that I wanted to spark in a debate is that fathers have a role. Exactly where that role is, I'm not sure,” [Humphrey] said. “We are starting the right debate by saying, do fathers have a place? Where should that be?”</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He then took it even further by dehumanizing women entirely--</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span>
<i><span style="color: #bf9000;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“I believe one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all these types of decisions.” He continued, “I understand that [women] feel like that is their body. I feel like it is a separate—what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant.”</span></span></i><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is patriarchy in the extreme and I don't know any woman who would accept it. I'm sure there are some out there, out in the Bible Belt, but those women do the rest of us no favors. Because women these days are standing up and asserting themselves in a way beyond even the feminist movement of the 1970s. They have similar expectations of equal rights and an end to objectification, but they now have the platform of the internet and social media to spread the word and build momentum. From the on-point news coverage of the <a href="https://qz.com/866305/the-true-story-of-how-teen-vogue-got-mad-got-woke-and-began-terrifying-men-like-donald-trump/" target="_blank">feminist blogosphere</a>, highlighted by <a href="http://www.teenvogue.com/" target="_blank">Teen Vogue</a>, to the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/stanford-rape-case-read-the-impact-statement-of-brock-turners-victim-a7222371.html" target="_blank">letter written by the woman</a> raped by Brock Turner, they're making their voices heard loud and clear, and some men are actually beginning to listen.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And, as always, artistic voices are also taking on these topics, which is necessary because art can make us think about things in a deeper way than hard fact can. One in particular is relevant to the topic at hand-- Third Man Books recently posted a video, directed by designer and musician Poni Silver, of this piece from poet Kendra DeColo's new book, <a href="https://thirdmanbooks.com/books/my-dinner-with-ron-jeremy-by-kendra-decolo/" target="_blank">My Dinner With Ron Jeremy</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NBv1XLCPmT0" width="560"></iframe></span></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I look at that video and I see the gloriousness of the current generation of young women who are learning that they can exist separate from men's perceptions of them. And yet my internal emotional response to it is very conflicted. Apparently a lot of other people had strongly unconflicted responses, to the point that Third Man closed down the comments section on their YouTube page because of the virulent misogyny of some of the replies. When people feel that sort of hatred, the sort that's been directed towards women for centuries and that's boiled over at every moment in history that we've tried to stand up for ourselves, from the Suffragettes to the Feminist Movement to the Women's March, to women who deal with abuse and inferior treatment on a daily basis, you have to wonder what's behind it. Usually intense hatred is fueled by fear, isn't it? But when what you're attacking is <i>not actually a threat</i>, not really, where does the fear come from? On his WTF podcast, <a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-789-raoul-peck" target="_blank">Marc Maron recently talked to Raoul Peck</a>, director of I Am Not Your Negro, about James Baldwin's theory that so many of the things people are afraid of in the world, the things they project so much hatred towards, are constructed in their own minds. This is a premise of Buddhism, as well, that most of our suffering comes from stories that we tell ourselves, based on amplified insecurities and things we ignorantly choose to believe. I can't speak for what sort of insecurities might be behind other people's negative responses to the video for Kendra DeColo's poem, but I know exactly what's behind my own.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've written before about traits I don't like about myself, about the envy and anger I give in to all too easily. In this case, insecurity is the fault rearing its ugly head along with those other two. It peeks out when I'm out by myself and see couples all around me. It's so very rare to see other people by themselves like I am. It makes me wonder, why am I always alone? Yeah, I'm an introvert, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be in a relationship if I could be. On the rare occasions when I am with friends, any time I see other women around me getting attention from men, I wonder again-- What's wrong with me that I don't attract that? Is it this or that flaw in my face or body? Is it that I'm opinionated? Am I not feminine enough? Is my independence intimidating to men? Is it some unconscious "stay away" vibe that I send out unawares? What's wrong with me?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Watching the video for Kendra's poem gives me that same feeling. Seeing that series of beautiful young women expressing discomfiture at unwanted male attention makes me sad, because it makes me think of how little I've experienced any of the situations described. I didn't get hit on when I was 15. I don't get hit on now. Unless I've been totally oblivious to it, I think I could count on one hand the number of times I've been hit on in my entire life. I didn't date in high school because no one asked me out. I lost my virginity at 19 to a guy I met at a party, but he left two weeks later to backpack across Europe and then go off to college. And that was it until near the end of my 20s, when I moved in with one of the few men who ever has hit on me. Unfortunately, the 6 years we were together was 5 years and 11 months longer than we should have been. It came to an end when he slept with another woman because he wanted kids and I didn't, and then I found out he'd been sleeping with other women all along. After several more years alone, I had an 18 month fling with a much younger guy I met through a chat room, until he asked if we could go back to a platonic relationship because I made him feel oversexed. Of the two men I've had relationships with, I was not enough for one and was too much for the other. And no one's shown an interest in me since then. What's wrong with me?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I look at other women and see the attention they get, I see them all around me with boyfriends and husbands, and that question comes up over and over-- What's wrong with me? A long time ago, the feeling that they had something I don't made me begin to view other women as competition, as an impediment to me having any chance with a worthwhile man. They're cockblockers, both figuratively and literally. It's so hard not to feel envious of the young women in that video who seem to have had so much experience of things I've barely had a taste of. Watching it, listening to Kendra's words, that small, ugly, shadowy part of myself snidely thinks "Aw, you poor thing, you got hit on, how horrible". And then I'm angry at the world and ashamed of myself at the same time. And it's damned hard not to let self-pity project outward into hatred. It's James Baldwin's construction theory at work.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yet I'm not so caught up in my neurotic insecurities that I'm blind to the importance of Kendra's statement. I realize that it's about more than just attention from men, it's about the attitudes behind the attention and how women have to strengthen themselves to deal with those attitudes. Whether a woman is hit on too much or not enough, she needs to know that she is not shaped by how men perceive her, that she has value as an individual, and that her body and emotions and needs are her own, not to be dictated by those close to her or society at large. In those rare instances when I have been treated to an unwanted proposition, I've wondered just how those men saw me, and how surprised, and potentially turned off, they might be if they did get to know me. As Kendra's poem suggests, would they be shocked at how my blood might ravage their veins? What men have to understand is that they need to see us as we are before they can know whether they want to tap that thing.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And I wonder about my frustration over lack of attention from men that I would like to be with-- The frustration is born of a natural desire for companionship and intimacy, but when it reaches the point that I'm angry at other women and questioning what's wrong with myself, isn't it perpetuating the falsehood that our value is dependent on men's assessment of us? My insecurities seem to have been shaped by the very cultural attitudes the current women's movement is trying to break down. And this is why I realize the value of Kendra's poem at the same time that it can leave me wallowing in self-pity. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was a child during the Women's Movement of the 70s. I saw Ms. magazine on the newsstands, I heard Gloria Steinem's name, but I was too young to read any of her writing. So it wasn't until last year, when I read her book <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/books/review/gloria-steinems-my-life-on-the-road.html?_r=0" target="_blank">My Life On The Road</a> that she was able to have an impact on me. It took this long for that icon of the previous movement to wake me up to the realization that there cannot be civil rights for <b><i>all</i></b> without rights for women. It will probably always be difficult for me to relate to other women without feeling twinges of that ugly competitiveness and jealousy, but I'm learning that I need to at least stand up with them. At some point, we all need to do this-- We have to face our individual neuroses and look beyond them to see the bigger picture, to see how our fears and insecurities play out in the world around us. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Is it too much to hope that all the recent idiocy is the last gasps of a graspingly desperate patriarchy? </span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C40hbHcWMAAVRUp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C40hbHcWMAAVRUp.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Utah GOP chair's letter to editor published TODAY (not in the year 1624)". <br /><a href="https://twitter.com/MaryEmilyOHara/status/832358266617335808" target="_blank">From the Twitter of TawdryLorde</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="color: #999900;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maybe one way to change it would be to give a copy of My Dinner With Ron Jeremy and a subscription to Teen Vogue to every woman under 40. And maybe every man , too.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />KaliDurgahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13218716336939570814noreply@blogger.com2