Friday, April 08, 2005
There and Back. Again.
Just returned from another Adventure in Distraction. The familiar loop of Syracuse/Ithaca/NYC gave me the chance to see some of my bestest friends, do the old things in the old places as well as burn all their CDs onto my iTunes. Highlights of the new additions:
Gillian Welch: Time (The Revelator),
Beachwood Sparks
Eels' "Daisies of the Galaxy"
David Cross' "Shut up you F$#@&% Baby"
"Sex, Love and Money" off Mos' "The New Danger"
Nothing much to say except that the Campaign Bus may finally be making its long awaited stop in Jersey as soon as this weekend.
Coming soon...some sort of list where I identify ten or so 'top' things that fall under a given category
posted by BST @ 12:07 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Today's NYT Op-Ed page online...
aka Tom DeLay hears the train a-comin...aka More Political nerddom
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html
(You'll have to click on More OpEd Columns to find the Krugman piece)
John Danforth, Paul Krugman and Bill Bradley weigh in with some suggestions that could mean big things for 2006 and beyond if the right people start repeating their message.
None of the pieces realy deal with DeLay head-on though Krugman uses DeLay's quote on Schiavo being heaven-sent as the intro to his larger point. Danforth essentially wrote the same column as Krugman, except from the viewpoint of a moderate Republican trying to retrieve control of his party from the CCC (Christian Conserative Clan - not to be confused with the other tri-consonant, religiously-fervent political organization, based in the South and Midwest, that uses fear, intimidation and physical violence to further its radical agenda.)
Bradley has read his Lakoff and bemoans the lack of infrastructure for developing Democratic leaders, ideas and messaging. Most interesting is Bradley's analysis of modern Republican campaign structure. In most statewide or national Republican campaigns, the ideas and issues percolate from the base of the pyramid up to the campaign staff - the campaign merely focus groups the hell out of them to figure out the best way to say the ideas outloud. George Bush may be driving a mental moped but he's being towed by a fleet of Mack trucs. Meanwhile, the Dems are out test-driving a new Lexus every four years but can't seem to scare up a buck for gas.
The good news is the discussion has officially progressed to "Some Democrats Think They've Found A Clue".
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The Big Easy Readers Poll will remain open until Saturday - vote early, vote often.
posted by BST @ 1:42 PM 0 comments
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Big Easy Readers Poll #1
Alright, lets do a test-run and see how many people are actually paying attention to this thing. The editorial staff here at Big Easy endeavor to bring you the finest in original commentary and rehashed content from around the web. Please accept the following question, found elsewhere on the web, as the First Official Big Easy Readers Poll:
How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?
Too small
The specifics:
- You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.
- You are not allowed to touch a wall.
- When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is "out."
- I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans.
- The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of "counter-tactics" training.
- There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.
* The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.
Too big
When discussing this over dinner with my folks, I found it helpful to frame the question thusly: "How many 5 year-olds would it take to render you unconscious?" Mom, a deceptively quick 5'4" woman with 30+ years of K-7 teaching service under her belt, said "5". We at the Big Easy think Mom is seriously underestimating her ability to "bring it on" when necessary.
Dad, a gentle giant at 6'5", was more bold. "I could clobber a hundred of em'..." he said, mentioning the distance from the floor to the peak of his inseam as a serious comptetitive advantage over other men. "Gimme a cup and I'll take on 200."
Just Right
I would have a similar competitive advantage against those little ball-grabbers but I'll go with 60 as my magic number for now. How many could you take?
posted by BST @ 5:46 PM 6 comments
Great Works of Art
Today I checked out an exhibit of Modigliani's art at the Phillips House in D.C. Italian Jew living in early 20th century France, died of Tuberculosis at 35.
I was most interested in the evolution of his portrayal of women. I especially like the following pieces:
La Femme Fatale
Caryatid - religious theme of women posing in vertical columns. I just think the notion of natural looking women wearing masks and supporting invisible burdens is beautiful.
Modigliani always considered himself a sculptor even though his poverty and failing health relegated him to painting for most of his career.
Today I also reacquainted myself with one of the greatest television shows of the 20th century: The Greatest American Hero.
A Los Angeles special ed teacher gets a supersuit from a spaceship out in the desert, loses the instruction manual and partners with a wisecrackin FBI guy to bust bad guys - this type of quality programming would never make it in today's post-post-modern world. And the themesong is a classic jam: Believe it or not, I'm walkin on air, I never thought I could feel so freeeeeee. Flyin away on a wing and a prayer, who could it be? Believe it or not, it's just me... Season One out on DVD now.
posted by BST @ 12:57 AM 0 comments
This Just In: The Era of Ironic Detachment is Over
aka New York Just Moved to Chicago
"Cultural theorists may think we're in the age of "post-post-modernism," but our theologians are still simply contending with the impacts of Descartes, Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud. The most profound impact of modernity is that we can no longer base the authority of our religious testaments on history; our myths and our Gods are refuted by scientific reality. We lose our absolutes, and the sense of certainty they afforded us.
So in march the post-modernists, from James Joyce to MTV, who learn to play in the house of mirrors, creating compositions and world views out of relativities. Entirely less satisfying (feels more like a Slurpee than hot oatmeal that actually fills you). We cultural theorists tried to make sense out of this world of self-references as if it mattered.
What we ended up with was a culture of inside jokes, cynicism, and detachment. Detachment was considered "cool" and then "cool" itself was replaced by objectification. So all our kids walk around like models in a Calvin Klein catalogue; and actually getting photographed is the supreme honor. It means that you are single absolute -- the benchmark against which others will define themselves.
This whole Vanity Fair culture, beginning with Didion or Wolfe, and ending with Sedaris or Eggers, has run its course. We've grown sick of living in a vacuum and struggling to remain detached. It's no fun to read magazines through squinty, knowing smirks. We realize that detachment is a booby prize. We want to engage, meaningfully, in the stuff of life.
In comes science. And with it, comes good, old-fashioned, innocent awe. Science is not the force that corrupts our nature - it is the open-minded wonder that returns us to it. It is being welcomed back into the culture of narcissism because we've finally grown tired enough of ourselves to care about something real. We ache to let go of our postured pretentiousness and surrender to that sensation a kid gets at the Epcot Center or planetarium.
The jaw drops, the eyes widen, the mind opens."
Hear hear. I'll take two scoops of the stuff of life. And a jelly donut. To go.
posted by BST @ 12:47 AM 4 comments
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Minnesota Cold
I haven't mentioned anything about my first post-Chicago trip to Minnesota.
Let me just say this: I thought I had serious cold-weather credentials. Nine upstate New York winters is certainly nothing to sneeze at (well, whatever, you know what I mean). Upstate Cold combines with lake-effect snow to make winter a serious threat 8 months out of the year. Chicago Cold comes at you to your bones and reminds you that being very very cold is only slightly preferrable to being very very dead. The difference between Upstate, Chicago and Minnesota Cold is that Minnesota Cold makes you an instant believer that the weather could kill you at any moment. Every few minutes the wind rises up a bit, as a thoughtful reminder to keep your head in the game, because if caught exposed and unprepared for the elements for a period of time, you're a meat popsicle.
From the minute you step outdoors in MN, your brain immediately devolves into some long lost atavistic mode of operation that calculates your internal body temperature and the time remaining until your next step indoors. Adrenaline surges. Your eyes dart back and forth scanning street corners for signs of life so as to calm the voice in your brain commanding you to "RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN" to wherever you're going. Homeless people wrestle for control of the Tauntauns locals ride to cross the frozen wasteland of Hoth/Twin Cities.
St. Paul, MinnesotaAnyway, Nate's law school was throwing a big fancy party the weekend I happened to be there. Knowing this, I packed some fancy clothes and my classnotes from the Handsome Boy Modeling School, was fresh-dressed (like a million bucks) and ready to get my lawprom-freak on. (To fully understand the following story it is also important to note that I was in the middle of a torrid love affair with Vodka Gimlets, having been introduced to them by one of Nate's friends just the night before.)
Nathaniel Merriwether and Chest Rockwell,
Handsome Boy Modeling School ProfessorsAfter the pre-party comes the party and after the party comes the after-party. With perhaps a few too many gimlets under my belt, I followed Nate into a car full of strangers and out of the same car in front of a house that was supposed to be the location of the after-party. Except there was no after-party. Not at that house nor any other house on the block. The Gimlet in me demanded to know what kind of block doesn't have at least one after-party. And declared so outloud. Then the wind blew and every muscle in my body, including my tongue and sphincter, flexed at once.
"YOU HAVE NO COAT OR HAT OR MITTENS" said my brain. "F'muh" I said outloud to no one. "IT IS MANY DEGREES BELOW ZERO AND YOU ARE STUCK ON A HILL IN MINNEAPOLIS WITH NO AFTERPARTY NEAR YOU" "Meh?" i said looking at my arms to verify that yes, indeed, I had no coat. My brain began calculating body temperature and the windchill and said "YOU HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES TO LIVE".
I've heard that in relative terms, freezing to death isn't such a bad way to go. Nate appeared to be in the middle of the street having a similar conversation with his own brain. I pulled out my phone and began calling people to say goodbye. Nate began flagging down traffic. About ten minutes of increasingly soberingly serious windbursts, phonecalls and near hit-and-runs later, Nate manages to make a car stop, convinces the people inside that they know him and further, to agree to take us wherever they are going. Which happened to be the after-party.
Nate and I on the trail of the after-partyThe next morning was painful but I was thankful to be alive. To say Nate and I were cold would be like saying that Richard Pryor used to like getting high. Adequate but unrevealing as to the life-threatening depth of truth. Nate spent the day in sunglasses under a blanket. I spent a few hours responding to the worried messages I awoke to find on my voicemail. An extra apology to Ryan Van Winkle's mother who was awoken at 2 am and spoken to by a man who did not realize he was not speaking to his friend Ryan until it was too late.
Now I'm back in VA, with looming job offers but no official start date to speak of so another road trip may be coming soon. I'll try and write about the next one as it unfolds. As always, suggestions and travel comrades are welcome.
posted by BST @ 11:37 AM 2 comments
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Road Bloggin...
(Blog correction: This post should be dated March 23rd, not 18th. March 18th was the first day of the trip, not the last.)
Just got back tonight from six days of fast travel through the Carolinas. Roanoke Rapids, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Asheville, Raleigh and a night in Frances "Swamp Fox" Marion National Forest. Details as follows (pictures coming soon):
DAY ONE - Pulled over at 6th and I NW to pick up Dan and Ryan in DC and hustled around town to buy the necessary gear for a trip to a still unidentified location south of VA. Memphis? Savannah? Spring training? Outer Banks of NC? Vermont? We pulled out for 95 South with no intentions, only a rented car, some camping gear and a road atlas.
Highlight of the day: Kings Dominion and the racist carnival clown. Kings Dominion is the amusement park of my childhood: rollercoasters, concerts, camping, giant Yogi Bears and Captain Cavemans walking around. Defintely agreed to stop on the way back north. Fireworks alerted us to a carnival somewhere off the highway near Petersburg, VA. $2 cover at the door got you a front row seat to the racist clown in the dunking booth.
"Hey you two, take your best shot and don't forget my eggroll! Check out my Kung-Fu...Wohhhhhhhhhhhh! You put too much starch in my underwear!" Terrible. The asian kids bought $5 worth of balls and dunked the chump four times.
Rode the Starship 2000 which takes your face and slides it off your skull while at the same time emptying your pockets of all keys, change, wallets and other valuables. Even worse, Jer called me as the ride was starting up to let me know Cuse choked in the first round of the Tournament. Double whammy of nausea ensued.
Insight of the Day: Waffle House is the Starbucks of the South. University of Vermont can eat me.
DAY TWO - Decide to finally Spring Break it like the college kids do, Myrtle Beach style. Hotel room two blocks off beach and directly across street from rollercoaster. I think the sound of people screaming on rollercoasters is one of the great American noises - tic tic tic YAAAAAAH, every five minutes.
Highlight of the Day: Six hours at the Freaky-Tiki night club.
Insight(s) of the Day: 1) If you ever get the chance to go Spring Break clubbing with a Jerry Garcia look-alike circa 1972, do it! 2) The band Alabama actually hails from Myrtle Beach, SC
DAY THREE - Our party of three is not at all, surprisingly little and very very very hungover, respectively. Dan and I make it through breakfast with minimal bathroom visits. Ryan finds the bathroom comforting and returns several times with tales of haunted toilets which Dan and I are able to confirm independantly.
Insight of the Day: The morning after, your befuddled and still drunk (again, respectively) buddies, while reading a banner trailing an airplane along the shore advertising an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, may confuse two side-by-side "1"s as meaning the Roman Numeral Two and not the more commonly accepted 11. This will cause you to search for "Manny's restaurant on Second Avenue" when in reality, the restaurant you seek is called "Mammy's" and is located on Eleventh Avenue.
Highlight of the Day: Climbing an abandoned fire watch tower to a lookout post high above the trees in the Swamp Fox's National Forest
DAY FOUR - Mmmmm, Charleston. City of many charms. "Southern gothic" mansion-filled neighborhoods right on the ocean looking out on Ft. Sumter (first shots of the Civil War fired there), excellent urban planning and a very healthy student body at the College of Charleston. After spending a sunny day lounging on the public lawn, passing through the "other side of the tracks" on the way out of the city is a sobering sight.
Highlight of the Day: The Charleston Vibe - sunshine, water, and women among the birthplace of the "War of Northern Aggression".
Insight of the Day: South Carolinans love wicker baskets.
DAY FIVE - Day Four actually ended with a drive to Asheville, NC - aka the Ithaca of the South. Having spent much time in the Ithaca of the North, this visit was perhaps unnecessary but Asheville is in the Smokeys and we were eager to camp again. The sunshine didn't follow us however so we were forced indoors to a motel 6 on the edge of town across the street from the Root Bar. If you're in Asheville, go to the Root Bar, play some Root Ball, drink some rare imported beers and keep Charlie the Bartender company. Next day was spent exploring the city of Asheville.
Highlight of the Day: Spending the night in Raleigh with Eric, Jocelyn and Casey Wild.
Insight of the Day: People just getting off tour bumming cigarettes, roving packs of dreadies hocking headies, well-flyered streetpoles and alternative bookstores aside, there's a reason they don't call Ithaca the Asheville of the North. The town is suffering from tour rat overload. Take Ithaca and the snow over Asheville and the rat-infested, Vanderbilt-owned Biltmore Estate and don't look back.
DAY SIX - Rain rain go away. Drowned out a trip to Chapel Hill, Kings Dominion only open during the week (rollercoasters in the rain = pain anyway). Hightail it up 95 back to DC and mark it 8 dude.
Highlight of the Day: Having $80 knocked off our rental car bill thanks to the Professor's Biltmore-inspired crusade for customer satisfaction.
Insight of the Day: Waffle House customers consume 2% of the total eggs produced for consumption within the United States.
Woo! Spring Break!
posted by BST @ 12:38 AM 1 comments
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Pop Quiz hot shot...
What do you do?
Two months pay in hand. No job, no rent and no rush to regain either one. You've got a car and a couple of old friends* ready to "just go, man". What do you do:
a) Naughty option - Spring Break Daytona
b) Wholesome Fun option - Graceland and Smoky Mountains
c) Sweet Grandson option - Solo trip to see grandparents in Florida
d) Something I've Waited Ten Years To Do option - Go watch D.C. Nationals in Spring Training
e) Something else?
I'm wiiiiide open...
* these are the friends
posted by BST @ 12:47 AM 5 comments
Sunday, March 06, 2005
I Shall Be Released, indeed
Man, Tweedy wasn't kiddin last night when he said "any day now".
Time to pack up the shit and move on again cause this horse just took a fatal shit in the barn.
Candidate X is out of the race before I even got a chance to chronicle his saga. Offering only a desire to "spend more time with [his] family" to an inquiring public, puzzled spectators observed Candidate X appear to toss his hat into the ring with his right hand only to deftly snatch it out of the air with his left hand mere instants later. Candidate X finished his acrobatic manuever with a dashing pirouette and a cross lap arm slap that seemed to sum up his message for staff supporters.
With no other pony in this stable, should I return to familiar environs or just keep on trucking just for the fuck of it and hope to find a school board candidate somewhere in the Midwest that believes the only path to victory includes a well-funded, aggressive door-to-door voter contact effort?
Stay tuned.
posted by BST @ 3:09 PM 2 comments
My best and only friend, Jeff Tweedy
This motherfucker right here...
beat the ever-loving shit out of your lead singer's honor student.
I think its fair of me to say that Jeff Tweedy is my best friend in the city of Chicago. I've seen Wilco play live four times since June and that means I've been in the same room with Jeff Tweedy more times in the last year than I have been with anyone else in the city of Chicago. That makes Jeff Tweedy my best friend in this wholewide city.
And it was really good to hang out with my best friend this past weekend. I can now say that I've been in the same room with Tweedy six times since June. Caught Jeff solo acoustic at the Vic Theatre in downtown Chicago Friday night and again tonight. The Vic is an excellent place to see a show. About half the size of the Landmark in Syracuse but the waitstaff slings bourbon on trays like chinese restaurant waiters carrying pitchers of ice water.
Friday night was a benefit for Kawasaki Disease and Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. Kawasaki Disease is a rare condition affecting primarily male infants that causes blood vessels to swell and if left untreated almost always leads to severe heart conditions later in life. If treated early, everything's alright. Jeff's kid is a Kawasaki Disease survivor.
Anyway, Friday night was excellent. Good cause, good vibes, Jeff diggin into the Uncle Tupelo and early Wilco catalog plus some classic stuff off Yankee Hotel and Ghost is Born. The night concluded with any fan's daydreaming fantasy: After playing "all of the songs on my list up here", Jeff brought the house lights up and asked for requests, calling on people with their hands up and asking, "What do you want to hear?" Total goo love-fest. Everybody left happy. But that show was bush-league compared to what went down at the Vic tonight.
Like many great tortured artists, Jeff is moody. Friday night he was nervous and sheepishly self-deprecating in an endearing sort of way. Forgot some words and flubbed some notes (Cavern anyone?) But the Tweedy that walked on stage Saturday was a motherlovin gunslinger...a disposable dixie cup drinker trying to break your heart, thank you all for nothing at all and remind you that you still love rock n roll. The entire catalog was up for grabs and the hometown crowd sang along as Jeff smiled and dared you to question his control of the room.
After 17 songs and excellent back and forth with the audience, Tweedy came back for a six-song encore, followed by a short second encore and then a ten-song third encore with the rest of Wilco. There was a moment of simultaneous understanding among the crowd as a roadie walked out on stage carrying a bass drum shortly after the second encore. Then came more roadies carrying keyboards, mics and bass guitars and there was much rejoicing. Ten songs and a true-to-Danko version of I Shall Be Released to close the show later, the Vic looked like Santa Monica after a Steely Dan concert: Definitely set on fiyah.
Chicago burning after Jeff Tweedy's acoustic performance at the Vic
Assuming I can read the email address I scribbled in my pocket I should have a copy of both shows soon and I'm happy to make copies for anyone that asks. Also, here's the setlist for anyone interested:
Jeff Tweedy
Vic Theatre
3/5/05
Someone Else's Song
Remember the Mountain Bed
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Airline to Heaven
(Was I) In Your Dreams
Wait Up
Black Eye
Radio King
Chinese Apple
Bob Dylans 49th Beard
Someday Some Morning Sometime
Blasting Fonda
Someday Soon
Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway(again)
Summer Teeth
ELT
I Can't Keep From Talking
Encore 1
Gun
We've Been Had
Candyfloss
Henry & The H-Bombs
Acuff Rose
I'm The Man Who Loves You
Encore 2
Misunderstood
Encore 3 - Wilco
Not For The Season (Jeff and Glenn only)
The Family Gardener (Jeff, Glenn, Mike and Pat only)
How To Fight Loneliness
John Wesley Harding
Political Science
Hummingbird
Late Greats
Passenger Side
California Stars
I Shall Be Released
posted by BST @ 4:05 AM 0 comments
