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| July 2004 »
Dinner at Graham and Aja's up at 127th St. The cab drops me on 128th; the cross street is blocked and I mistakenly think I'm on 127th. I get out and look for the house. Some men sitting on a stoop eye me and I say,"hi." One man responds by saying "thank you." There is indeed a brownstone fixer-upper with the same number as Graham's. So, seeing that the front door is open, I go in. I knock on a door on the 1st floor where music is playing. No answer... seemed like the wrong music anyway. Up on the 2nd floor the apt door is open, but the place is empty. A busted-up toilet comes into view.
I decide this can't be right so I go down and check the mailbox: Diallo. The name of the guy who was mistakenly riddled with bullets by the NYPD? Was this THAT house? I think to myself, if it is, it deserves a plaque or something. But it's not. That was in the Bronx and it's a common Guinean name. Thanks to cell phones, I find the right place.
Snowflake is the New Cracker.
Graham's neighbor Tiffany, a pale, Irish-looking woman, says that, though 'cracker' used to be the common epithet for white folks in Harlem, another word has replaced it. Now it's 'snowflake,' as in "hello, snowflake."
At a birthday celebration for Lara, a friend of Paul's, a guy in a sort of cowboy hat, whose CD Paul might be producing, tells me he is a tutor at some of the fancier private schools in NYC. He asks where my daughter goes. He says that at the really fancy ones — Dalton, Brearly, etc. — the kids are "out of control," that they're on all kinds of drugs, most often crack; apparently, doing crack proves how bad-ass they are. He said they're high almost all the time and basically expect the tutors like him to just do their homework for them.
These are most likely our future CEOs and politicians. They are certainly in line to be handed the plum positions. Or will these spoiled brats eventually waste themselves away spending daddy and mommy's cash in nightclubs and discos and never be heard of again, except in the obituary columns?
I suggest to Malu that we "walk next door to check out the fake Indian palace" (the Brighton Pavilion, an architectural fantasy based on the palaces of Rajistan). A voice behind us in the security area pipes up, in a somewhat peeved tone, "It may as well be authentic — it's 200 years old!"
This annoyed voice stays with me. I must have touched a nerve somewhere and so did he. I was not meaning to imply that the Pavilion and the Dome where we are playing are not spectacular and impressive — they certainly are — but they just as certainly were the Las Vegas architecture of their time: faux exotica. But somehow I doubt that today's signs, hotels, and pirate ships of Vegas will be around 200 years from now. This one at least was made of real brick and stone.
The Dome is filled and the audience is wonderful — a little calm at first, but then, so is our set. Then they're up and dancing. A shirtless man jumps on stage, dancing. Security is nowhere to be seen, though it doesn't seem to matter, as he's apparently content grooving over on the strings side of the stage.
Lawrell, at the monitor desk, decides to be security but wasn't ready to grapple with a large sweaty shirtless man. Lawrell grabbed the belt of this guy, who was about twice his size, and the man turns around and starts waltzing with Lawrell — clearly not what was intended. Security showed up and the guy vanished.
Next up was a rolly polly woman who'd been having a good time all night. This time, security was there immediately and so the poor thing only had a few seconds of glory.
I saw her reappear near her seat a few minutes later, looking sort of glum. It seems when she'd been whisked to the rear of the hall, the security tossed her bag and it slipped under the stage — to a sub level. (It was retrieved after the show).
As we walk back to the hotel after the show, the lights of the Pier and on the Pavilion are on, and, being a Saturday, the streets are filled with drunken revelers. A group of hens in devils' horns passes us singing the chorus to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," over and over. Others stand glassy-eyed or lurch and wobble as they stand with their mates...wondering if the night is over or just beginning.
Malu is sort of frightened. She asks me why English people get so drunk. I tell her I have my theories, and they're kind of long-winded, but if she wants to hear them...
We leave at midnight for Galway, which involves a ferry trip at 9AM, then a drive across Ireland to the West Coast. We arrive at about 3PM the next day.
Did a benefit for 826 mentoring program, a thing the Eggers started out of McSweeneys' storefront in San Francisco. This benefit is for a Brooklyn branch, where slightly older writers tutor and help young writers.
It's in a church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I decide to do an short acoustic set rather than the karaoke gag that I'd originally suggested (singing along with a karaoke machine disc of Talking Heads songs). There are bunch of writers who will read and another musical act.
After the soundcheck, Danielle and I retire to Kristin's apt. (since I'm not on till round 10PM and I'm not sure I want to sit through all the readings, though I've heard Rick Moody read before and he was good), which is in the neighborhood. I feel like I'm being a little rude, but I am also in need of chilling out.
Kristin has a lovely backyard with a huge frog that lives in a tiny pond, and a dog with legs so short it can't go down the stairs.
The sound system plays the Clash and rockabilly.
Back at the church, a sort of alt country band plays after Susan Choi reads about her days with the Taliban(!). The band features writer/musicians – e.g.: David Gates, a film reviewer for Newsweek. They do a great version of "Is Anybody Going to San Antone?" And then they do a version of my (Talking Heads) song "Don't Worry About the Government." I almost don't recognize it as the chords seem the same but the melody has changed. It's transformed into a sweet, naïve country ballad-- "don't worry about me," I'll be alright in my new condo.
 I begin my bit by reading from the online reports of the Rev. Moon crowning himself messiah at a ceremony in the U.S. Senate office building yesterday. A congressman brought the crown on a velvet cushion. Many senators and congressmen in attendance. Here is picture of the new Lord of the Universe. I particularly like the smirk — sort of like Bush's smirk.
This momentous and surreal event went completely unreported until a Salon reporter wrote about it. Now the congressmen are embarrassed and are coming up with all kinds of lame excuses to explain why they were there.
The words of Moon, from the Guardian: "Emperors, kings and presidents...have declared to all heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's savior, messiah, returning Lord and true parent.
I am God's ambassador, sent to Earth with his full authority. I am sent to accomplish his command to save the world's six billion people.
The five great saints and other leaders in the spirit world, including communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons."
He [Moon] claimed endorsement from Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who had all been reborn through his church's teachings — an idiosyncratic version of Christianity that rejects the use of the cross as a symbol and denounces homosexuals as "dirty, dung-eating dogs."
John Ashcroft had attended Moon's prayer meetings and he has lots of ties in the Bush administration.
It is not the first time he has claimed posthumous backing. His followers recently took out a two-page advertisement in the Washington Times (a conservative newspaper Moon owns, along with the UPI wire service) to run a testimonial to him, quoting 36 former presidents "from the vantage point of heaven."
A recent Times article about Korean finishing schools mentions that they apparently teach how to have the proper facial expressions in given situations (I doubt that Moon's smirk is correct, though). They also say they have to unschool the Korean girls who lived in the U.S. and show them how to walk. American walks are too "assertive."
I follow by singing a few country songs (Webb Pierce's "There Stands The Glass") and then auctioning off a pair of souvenir socks from the Gerald Ford library in Grand Rapids. They feature a presidential seal on the side. The bidding starts at 12 dollars and goes up to 35.
It's going well, the vocals soar beautifully in the church space, but I realize as I get near the end that I don't in fact have an "ending." I invite the drummer from the other band up to join m. He was sitting in a nearby pew. "I'll start and you join in when you see how it goes, it's real straightforward.” I begin "Life During Wartime" and he joins by the 1st verse! He follows incredibly well… and the audience is on its feet and we have an ending!
We're back at the Navy Pier/Skyline Amphitheater. It's pouring down rain and I wonder attendance will suffer. It doesn't. If anything the audience is more enthusiastic than when we were here 3 days ago. A couple of sustained standing ovations — one just as we entered the stage - and then a really long one at the end of the show — so long it made no sense to leave the stage for the encore. We just played more songs.
Poi Dog Pondering was the support act. They are hugely popular here, which helped make the evening an event. Tonight they had their whole 12-person contingent and they sounded massive. I can see why they're so popular here - wonder if it translates to disc? I was given a couple.
Sometimes I get a hotel suite, as we are buying chunks of rooms and the hotel throws one in at the price of a regular room for the "leader," which is sometimes me and sometimes Daniel. Well, today I hit the jackpot; it's a huge 2-story suite with a conference table, stereo, and, best of all, views of Grant Park and the entire waterfront.
So, I suggest that since it's the last night of the leg, we party in my room. We hoard the wine and beers from the bus and backstage and order some Chicago pizzas. Mauro brings a wallet of CDs and puts on Cartola, which sounds lovely.
Wish I took a picture of this room. This suite is a rock and roll cliché - posters and gold records on the walls. Here's Robbie Williams(!) and big red paintings of U2 — there's even an autographed guitar hanging in the bedroom.
The party is winding down, the place is a mess; hardly anyone is left. By the stereo, Mauro is trying to teach an Arabic Danish girl how to samba.
As I watch the party I feel like it must look like we're “living the life," but a movie or TV mini series version of it. The rock dream.
Yesterday on our day off we went to Tracy's parents house in the countryside 30 minutes south of here and ate hot dogs and spaghetti, drank beer, lounged on the lawn, whacked golf balls badly, and watched Cooper, her dog, chase tennis balls for about 4 hours straight. It was an idyllic day. The place is secluded and beautiful and, as I gathered up some of the golf balls that we'd scattered, her dad and her brother zoomed off on their Harleys.
We have the night off. Went to see Ute Lemper do Brecht & Weil's The Seven Deadly Sins with the local orchestra, another great European piece like their own Threepenny Opera or Kafka's Amerika about a wholly imagined United States. In this one each song takes place in a different city - Baltimore, Hollywood, San Francisco, New Orleans - as two sisters, both named Anna, take work, earn money and make their careers in order to build the family home in Louisiana. The get demeaned, exploited (naturally), abused, and sometimes succeed. And in the epilogue they return to their Louisiana home.
Ute lives with Todd, a drummer Mauro and I recorded and toured with, but he'd returned to NY the previous day.
After her show I sat at the local bar with the orchestra's percussionist, who told me stories about Buddy Ciancci, the legendary mayor of Providence. Mayor Ciancci’s adventures are legendary, but he keeps getting re-elected. Either the city loves him or the largely Italian community manages to ensure that their boy stays put.
His wife was cheating on him and Buddy broke into the guy's house and caught them - and then reportedly ran a lit cigarette lighter up and down the guy's cock.
Went by the amazing Calatrava designed addition to the Art Museum here. The spines of this architectural sea creature fold down at night and open again in the morning. The temporary show on exhibit is called "American Fancy." Apparently, there was a furniture and decor movement right after the American Revolutionary War (or "the war with George III," as the English museum director preferred to call it), motivated by the new nation's need to divorce itself from its colonial past and have some style of its own.
There were wild, swirly-painted cabinets and dressers, and patterned wallpapers that were just plain loud and insane. Apparently, kaleidoscopes were a big new thing, and they duly influenced the quilt patterns. Very trippy - almost hippy. It's all, yes, a bit like tie-dye. Was there something else going on in the woods we aren't being told about?
Another part of the museum has a vitrine of amazing beer steins — a natural for Milwaukee. One of the companies that made them is still in business; they make toilets now.
I checked to see if there was a polka club happening tonight. We want to hear some REAL Milwaukee music after our show, but they run on Fridays and Saturdays. A club called Al's Concertina was recommended. The Lakeshore, another polka venue, does a deal in weddings ($300 for both minister and wedding chapel!!) and a polka band afterwards, naturally.
News:
The FBI used to infiltrate Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) on a regular basis, so the SDS intentionally set up a division that taught sabotage, explosive making, etc. — all the stuff that the FBI was hoping to find out about. But the division was never serious. It was a successful scam to attract the agents, so much so that at one point an FBI agent at a meeting of this division looked around at the others in the room and realized that they were all agents too.
In an interview, Trent Lott says the torture and abuses at Abu Ghraib were justified in order to extract information. (And he wonders why foreigners hate the U.S. Then again he probably thinks they don't hate us, they're just envious.) He also says we should kill everyone in the world who hates the U.S. (If they attack us, he says. But did Iraq attack us? I don't think so.)
This man was the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, a leader of the most powerful nation of earth.
It's pretty easy to see that romantic love is unfortunately bundled with the baggage of jealousy, suspicion, exclusiveness, and undeviating fidelity. You can’t have one without the other. The proportions may vary, but the less pleasant sides of the coin are part and parcel of the thing itself. You can’t have one without the others. So, I wonder if other human qualities have similar flip sides? I wonder if creativity, by it's nature a form of imagining that which does not yet exist, is necessarily bundled with deception (including self-deception) and subterfuge? Maybe a healthy proportion of self-worth is also needed in order to have the hubris to create. Couldn't that same valuable self-worth easily and equally become and engender maniacal control, freakish behavior, and bullying?
This is possibly what imperils the prospects of artificial intelligence. In order for a machine to make the leap into impetuous and truly creative thinking, it must also be capable of deception. Just like in all the science fiction scenarios in which the machines take over and do all sort sorts of nasty things, a truly smart machine will be capable of being a truly evil machine. Machines don't have the socially imposed moralities or even Darwinian genetic imperatives to reign in these tendencies. Uh oh.
EVL:
I visit some scientist/artists at the University to view virtual and developing display technologies they've been working on. One is a multi-panel flat screen display that can show massive image files and zoom in for details. You can see all of Chicago from the air and zoom into one block. Another is a 3D display with a robot arm that allows one to "feel" objects in a kind of box. This is already being used in some medical applications. One of the folks jokes that the porn world would love it.
Many of these displays require wearing goggles and/or a head device, but one of the projects under development eliminated the need for either of these. The display has infrared (I think) beams that lock on to the viewers face - an extension of biometric technology - and the screens can simulate 3D and offer an immersive experience by tracking the viewers head movements.
By far the most immersive experience was in the Cave, which is like stepping into a video game. I wear goggles and hold a game controller. There are projected images 8 feet high in front and to my left and right. There is even an image on the floor. So when I look to the right I see what's over there and if I "move" forward using the joystick, all the projections move as well. If I fly, as I did on the back of a giant bumblebee, I can look down and see what is below me. It's disorienting and unnerving and loads of fun. I even got a little nauseous at times if I wiggled the joystick and the landscape swiveled around me suddenly. It's the sort of thing that happens in IMAX movies, but in this case you are controlling it.
I spend most of the time exploring a woman's graduate thesis piece, a combination narrative video game and autobiography.
I ask why game companies haven't produced R&D funding. It seems a natural. The reason seems to be that the gaming companies want proprietary rights. Any company wants to be the only one with the right to exploit some new development, and these scientist/artists are holding firm to the scientific credo that information must be available to all.
I agree, but how to break this impasse? Government funding would do it, of course. It would be a way for the government to impartially support advances that would benefit both medicine and the gaming business, for starters. And given the scientist adherence to a kind of Creative Commons ethos, their developments could be picked up and expanded upon by anyone in those fields, but no one could actually own the development itself.
Paul Frazier travels with a Lava lamp.
Bush appointed a guy named Reich to be head of Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere - the top state department post for Latin America - even though Congress twice voted him down. (Bush assigned him "temporarily," bypassing the law.) When he was sworn in, he said of his critics, "They say I can’t make rational decisions because of my ideology, well, they're not saying that anymore, because I had them all arrested this morning."
The show is at an outdoor bandshell located outside of town in a park with a fake farm; it looks like a toy blown up to life-size.
There's a botanical garden with carnivorous plants on display. I thought it would be a white wine-and-brie picnic crowd (as Todd put it) but there are some youths. Soon enough, the whole place is up and dancing.
David Wild and his wife Lulu say, "Hi." We worked together on lots of videos and films in the past and now he's a successful ad director based out of Seattle. He half jokingly talked about the loveliness of Michigan, painting it as an Arcadian paradise. And he knew that “the woman of my dreams,” as he put it, would have to appreciate Michigan. I guess he found her.
Arlene G, former art department head of Warner Bros. Records, says hi. She's retired, I guess. She worked with Tibor and the band on lots of covers, special projects and display items. Always supportive and fun, she came with Anthony Keidis’ mom(!), who repeats more than once “Anthony is a good boy.”
There's a walkway through the nearby swamp which was fun to ride through on the bikes.
Our hotel is next to the Gerald Ford museum. It's a giant triangle-shaped wedge that faces the river. The Amway Plaza Hotel has a plaque outside that says it is "dedicated to the distributors of Amway products around the world."
I seem to remember from my childhood Amway products and their sales force as a kind of cult.
From my window I can see huge highways crisscrossing the city. One runs more or less along the river, cutting half of the city off from the waterfront, though there is a strip park there. But life, businesses, and foot traffic would never flow there naturally, not with acres of concrete in the way.
The rapids, at this point in the river, are not really so grand, but if a ship or barge were headed through it could have certainly been a problem. Which brings us to a momentous event in the city's history — the Great Log Jam of 1883. There is a plaque on the nearby bridge commemorating it. The lumber industry was, of course, huge at the time and the jam backed up at least 7 miles. When the logs broke lose they ripped out the city’s bridges. One by one they were destroyed by the "boiling" logs. The pride and lifeblood of the city was decimated in a single day.
The Jerry Ford museum was less of a hoot that I suspected. Reminders of the infamous NY Post headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" and Nixon's downfall replayed one more time and Ford pardoning him. It was sort of sobering.
Some interesting merch items were available for purchase: a wine bottle filled with golf tees(!); a Bush, Sr., family paper doll book (Jeb and W. are just kids in this book. Bush I appears in the front page in his underwear); and some loud commemorative socks.
A few of us go see the movie Coffee and Cigarettes on our night off. Some of the segments are funny in an intentionally uncomfortable making way — sort of like the films of Jim Jarmusch's pal Kaurismäki, the hilariously droll Finnish director.
Kaurismäki's full-length features are alternately in black-and-white or color. He says he makes the black-and-white ones for himself. The colored ones he describes as commercial. That pattern was messed up by "The Match Factory Girl," which is in color.
"Of course, it's so gloomy," he claims, "It ought to be black and white, but it's so laconic, too, that there'd be nothing to look at."
Our show is part of an arts festival that the University is putting on. We're in a lovely medium-sized theater on campus. Somehow, possibly accidentally on purpose, this festival seems to have managed to almost totally exclude the student body. That's a considerable achievement, as there are students everywhere, even though school is out. There are smattering of younger faces in the audience, but mostly it seems to be faculty or former faculty who have put on an arts festival for themselves. Well, that's OK, too, I guess. There were no ads that I could see in the music section of the local alt weekly, though the daily paper did run prominently the AP wire service article about my doings.
Taking a "casual" approach we decide to try out our alt stage outfits. The rhythm section and myself all wear striped overalls and the strings wear matching dark blue shirts and slacks. We look like refugees from Hee Haw and they look like cops. I do more talking that usual, and I introduce each band member as from a different local town, the ones with Indian names: Saginaw, Winooski . . .
We end up having a great time, and the audience, though slow to rise, eventually are on their feet and bopping around. I can see Juana and Alejandro dancing in separate aisles.
Afterward, some of us go to a local bar to witness the end of the basketball game. The Detroit Pistons win the NBA championship and the town goes nuts. There are shots of chaos in the streets and it looks like Iraq.
Daniel explains to me that the Lakers, who lost the game, were a prime example of corporate sports. They paid for the best players money could buy, but somehow a bunch of top players doesn't always gel into a team, which Detroit seems to have. So it's a kind of moral victory, too, or at least it's seen that way: the honest underdog vs. the rich, big city machine.
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