Red Chuck

Hella

So, in contrast to the previous post, last night's White Water show offered the inimitable Hella. Where Saturday night's Big Silver was even keeled and well tempered, Tuesday night's Hella was aggressively fuzzy and playfully unbalanced. Imagine Chewbacca on a free jazz binge and you get the idea of the kind of benevolent monster thrash these guys kicked out. The guitarist unleashed squalls of arthritic finger taps in counterpoint to the bassist's arrhythmic belching. Add to this theramin-ish keyboard squeals and/or the occassional 6-bit Ms Pacman melody as played by an unshaven fast forward button in blue, plastic-teethed Venetian blind sunglasses and you're getting closer to the action. But really these 3 wunderkinds only form the "H" in the band. The "ella" is the drums, a one man army with whirlwind chops and Big Foot stomps. Unamplified, he was the loudest in the room. Imagine a speed freak clear cutting Monet's Garden at Giverny and you get an idea of the destructive, manic art-energy this guy applied to his instrument. Unleashing relentless, righteous fills and flams, this dude and his tangled rhythms were the centerpiece in this glorious 4 panel squelch/clamor/growl/avalanche tableau. I was especially digging his cymbal work, paying particular attention to his buzzsaw blade ride and his rusty hubcap crash that went kerrprowwwshhh and dinkdunk respectively. So there you have it, 4 spastic muppets too "out" to make Oingo Boingo and too "new wave" for Beefheart. Unfortunately my ears can withstand a lot more than my eyes, and after 45 minutes I succumbed to all the cigarette smoke. Such a nasty habit. When will the kids ever learn? I guess I'll have to wait for Lightning Bolt to play the local oxygen bar if I ever want to see an entire set of sonic, action painting.

As a side note, I dedicate my freshest Garageband creation - Black Cloud (Batman Mix) - to all those lovely, chain-smoking, Marlboro plebes.

Big Silver

Big Silver played a terrific set Saturday night at White Water Tavern. Undoubtedly, the best set I have heard by them on that stage. Everything sounded perfectly balanced. Isaac's vocals were right up front where they should be and everyone in the band played with a relaxed confidence that was a pleasure to both witness and hear. I say all this because so often at White Water the bands battle ye olde lousy PA. Saturday was one of those great shows where everything felt right - sonic justice for the "Biggest Little Rock Band in the Nation."

It also doesn't hurt that Big Silver's new album is chock full o' incredible songs. Just listen to Berryhill Park if you need further encouragement.

Don't Giddy Up

(After galloping into the room on her invisible horse.)

Helen: It hurts when I giddy up.

Mama: Well don't giddy up.

Helen: Oh! OK Mama.

How You Celebrate Thanksgiving

My Grandfather gets the turkey at the grocery store and brings it to his house. He washes some grease off of it and then he puts it on a tray and puts it in the oven to bake. It has to bake for 20 hours, so me and my sister have to help my Grandmother bake the rest of the dinner. We make rolls and soup and pumpkin pie. Like we pour the baking powder in and we get to add a little bit of water - that's how we help. Then my Grandfather gets the turkey out of the oven and puts it on the table. Then I get to bang the spoon on the side of the pan and that tells everybody that it is done and it's time to eat. So they all come!

Flying Squirrels

Saturday morning it drizzled. Outside looked like good weather for shivering - cold, wet, and gray. Inside, we lit a fire and made a late breakfast. I drank chai tea and ate eggs scambled with basil and cream cheese plus a side of delicious, greasy Petit Jean bacon.

After breakfast, Harrison & Helen dumped all the pillows off the couch and started diving off the furniture into this make-shift landing pad. "We're the Flying Squirrels!" screamed Harrison in mid-air.

Odee

We have a funny family expression around here. I say expression. Really it's a word.

Odee.

It's an abbreviation of "O dear." It's diminutive. It's spoken softly. It signifies a small defeat. You're in trouble.

Odee.

Really the word belongs to Peter Sellers. It sounds like an Inspector Clouseau whimper. You know the scene where's he's swinging on the parallel bars. He starts singing, "I'm the pavlaver of the parallel bars. . . ' He swings higher.

And higher.

And HIGHER.

Then he dismounts.

Down a staircase.

That small sound he makes as he hangs there momentarily in the air, that whimper that escapes from his mouth just before he crashes and screams, that tiny, involuntary syllable of fear - you might say it's an audible gulp. Or you might say

Odee.

So more than "trouble," it signifies the realization of trouble. Kind of like "uh oh," but less abdominal. It squeaks more than it bellows. It's meek and, around our house, it has inherited a small world of uses.

Last night Harrison snuck downstairs after bedtime. I caught him in the pantry reaching for the Fruit Loops. "HarRISON!" I said, in a stern fatherly voice.

In response came,

Odee.

Two days ago, out of the blue, Helen threw a stuffed animal at Lucky. "Helen, why did you just throw Bunny-Bun at Lucky? HeLLenNN," again, stern and fatherly, this time really reving up the Nnns.

Her answer?

Odee.

I haven't posted anything to Red Chuck this week and there have been so many things to reveal. Harrison made honor role at school. Helen tried a carrot. Katherine lined up an interview with Kaye Gibbbons. I finished Cormac McCarthy's latest novel. That mini-stereo-amp came in the mail and it's awesome. What else did I forget to say? Oh yeah,

Odee.

Tape That Sound

Daddy, you better tape that sound and put it in your computer and send it to all your friends. . .

but I really don't think you guys want to hear the elaborate sequence of smacks, snarls, and gargles that our especially-at-times-like-this-does-he-appear-apopleptic dog Lucky produces in that post-meal palate-cleansing ritual that Harrison finds hilarious.

A Recipe for Frog Stew

Of course, this illustrated recipe for frog stew goes under "Food & Drink."

And Another One

That's just life. . . living. . . life is rough

said Harrison. We were talking about Ringo and Quinn and I was explaining that Quinn had passed away.

Bird Oxygen Tank

I created a new category today called "Things To Remember." This is for all the memorable Harrison and Helen sayings that we hear each day. Such as:

If I were a bird, I'd wear an oxygen tank so that I could fly up into the clouds.

which Harrison said this morning.

Helen is currently saying oooooooWWWWWwwwwAAAAAAhhhhhh because she's in time out.

Mamá

I've been thinking of my grandmother today, Edythe Wyrick, or Mamá as she was know to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Mamá passed away last Saturday. She was 90.

Today my family is gathering in the First Presybyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina for her memorial service.

Today I've taken some time to remember.

I remember Mamá's laughter. She had a wonderful sense of humor. She laughed easily at her own stories and at those of others. Even though her speech was severely affected by a stroke she suffered in her 60s, her mind stayed sharp for many years. Communication with Mamá could be difficult at times but her laughter spoke for her in ways words could not. In laughter, she was eloquent.

I remember her house at Christmas. When I was a child, we always spent Christmas eve at Mamá's house. We ran up and down the carpeted stairs, we slid in our socks on the tile and linoleum floors, we squealed and screamed til we were put to bed and then in the morning we snuck downstairs before dawn and gasped at our good fortune. These memories are filled with textures. Her white pebble rock gardens, the spongey soft beds in the guest room, the wood back chairs at the dining room table, each adorned with a picture of food from a banquet. I remember scurrying from her grumpy schnauzer Ludwig, who always snarled when children got near. I remember her hallway of wedding pictures, my aunts and uncles, all so young, and happy, and my parents too, Dad in black frame Buddy Holly spectacles cutting cake with Mom.

I remember Mamá at the beach. And now it strikes me how my memories of my grandmother exist at these polar coordinates of the calendar. In the happiest days of winter and especially in the full freedom of the summer, Mamá's prescence is inextricably entwined with these things, winter things and summer things — fishing and crabbing and surfing and swimming. She seemed always happiest at the beach, on the porch of her cottage. She loved to while away the hours on the porch in the shade. As I sit surrounded by the faint whirrs of computer fans here at work I can hear the cicadas and crickets and the hum of speed boats and the cries of gulls from the past. I am with her in these sounds. They passed through us alike. We share in that being, that past landscape, that lost season.

I know that today and tonight my family will be telling stories and sharing memories. I wish I could be with them. With my father in law's sudden illness, I have a renewed appreciation for every second we, as families, have together. As families we all participate in a collective memory. We each carry a piece in a collective story. We inform that story and in turn it imbues us. Especially at times of crisis and grief. We come together to share our story with each other. No one knows it like we do. It is our story. It makes us laugh. It makes us cry. And when we part, we continue to carry our individual pieces of this collective with us.

I especially want my brother and mother and father to know that though I am physically far away, I am with them in spirit today. I am thinking of them too as I remember Mamá.

Morning Delivery

Early November. Early morning. I'm riding in the bed of a pick up at 7am. I'm on an errand for my father-in-law, doing a job he loves to do every fall, delivering split wood for the winter to everyone in his immediate family — to his house, to his mother's house, to his sister's house, to his sister-in-law's, to my home. The sky is blue and orange. The air is cool. I feel like a kid riding in the back of the pickup. The same excitement, the same giddy thrill of moving so quickly through the cool air.

Riding this way, exposed, changes these well-travelled routes. The road moves like a river below the truck. Like a hull, the truck bed produces the same hollow metal sounds as a canoe bouncing through small waves — thunk thunk as we go over potholes in this cement tributary. But unlike water, the gray surface below us is resolute. It wouldn't give if I dove in over the side. Still, I hold these wonderful illusions for another moment - we are floating on water, I am a boy, the world is new.

The air bites. The truck's speed gives chilly teeth to it and it wakes me up. I clap my work gloves together as we stop. Time to work. Wake up. Wake up.

Cole

Tonight, Harrison said, "That Cole is a sure tough little guy."

Gladys

So today we found a home for Daisy. And though there was a moment when we all thought, "Hey, maybe we can be a 2 dog family," that moment vanished at 11:30pm Sunday when I was cleaning dog shit off the floor of Helen's room. We tried to housebreak Daisy. Really we did. And her defiance amazed. That last event was particularly telling. I let her out at 11pm that fateful night. She didn't perform. But when she came back inside it was showtime. And that was it, as far as the whole we-got-2-dogs-now dementia was concerned.

I am convinced that Beagle's can't be housebroken. Also, this has got to be the worst possible week for us to take on a new responsibility. We have enough on our plate. Furthermore, we can't exercise Daisy like she needs. She needs someone who can take her to the country. She wants to run. She wants to hunt. She wants to shit on the bucolic pine needle carpets of this, our Natural State. Daisy, we are city folk. We are glad to have met you, but we must now bid you adieu.

Daisy's new owner couldn't be nicer. He cried when he saw her. "It's Gladys," he said (Gladys very obviously being his previous Beagle). He just called again to tell us how happy both she and he are together. More tears. This time mine. For joy.