Red Chuck

The Next Carla Azar

Happy Birthday!

Suck-o-tron

Though it sounds like a robot, Suck-o-tron is actually an alien (named Suck-o-tron because of all the suckers on its purple tentacles).

Aliens are the new subject matter for art work around here these days.

Ergo, aliens are the new robots.

Breaking the Curse of Paul Simon

For over a year now, Helen, our three year old, has been fascinated by the music of Paul Simon. So much so, that every time we're in the car, she says:

Play Paul Simon.

Often if this request is not met, she will start screaming.

This is not good. Of course, the tantrum is inexcusable but. . . come on. I like Paul Simon as much as the next guy, but if I have to listen to Rhythm of the Saints again, I'm going to scream.

Helen is resolute. It's Paul Simon or it's screaming.

I've tried making substitutions. I've tried slipping some Simon and Garfunkel into the cd player. That didn't work. I've tried playing Reggae, Bahia, and African music, thinking maybe it's Simon's bands that Helen digs. Nope.

The other evening, Helen was in my car. As usual, she issued her request:

Play Paul Simon.

I looked around. There was no Paul Simon. Not on cd. Not in person. Not anywhere.

Time to make a stand.

Me: Helen, I'm sorry. I don't have any Paul Simon. Do you want to hear something else?
Helen: No.
Me: You know, I'm getting a little tired of Paul Simon.
Helen: Why?
Me: Well, I don't know. We listen to him a lot. And as a singer, he doesn't have any. . . any attitude.
Helen: Yes Paul Simon has attitude.
Me: Not really.
Helen: Paul Simon has attitude.
Me: OK. Well, not like other singers. How about we listen to someone else?

The question hung in the air.

I held my breath.

Nothing.

No screaming.

I was amazed. Could it be possible? Could this silence mean acquiescence? Could she actually be interested in listening to someone else? Quickly I turned the stereo on. Earlier that day I'd been listening to a Graham Parker mix tape so the cassette (yeah, I still listen to cassettes) was cued to this song:

Graham Parker - Howling Wind

Me: Helen. Listen to this guy. He sings with a lot of attitude.

The song played. I drove. She listened.

No screaming.

Wow. Was this it? Was Graham Parker breaking the curse of Paul Simon? I was dying to know. The song finished.

Me: So what did you think of him?

Once again, the question seemed to hang in air. I looked in the rear view mirror. Helen was looking out the window with a thoughtful expression on her face. She appeared to be collecting her thoughts. I looked back to the road. After a few more seconds came her reply.

Helen: You're right, he really has it all.

Afterthought Reminder

Tonight the Boondogs are playing the Afterthought. I've had a flyer in my links section for a while now so you've got no excuse. Also it's an early show. We're starting at 8:30 and here's the clencher - it's a NO SMOKING show. Once again, you've got no excuse. . .

Except for that it's a school night. OK. That's a valid excuse. So here's some tardy slips (Download PDF). Just download, print, and get Jason or Indy to sign it.

And hopefully you won't be in trouble tomorrow at school or work.

Hopefully.

Girl Talk

Helen had a friend over this afternoon to play. When the friend arrived, Katherine overheard Helen say this:

After we tip-toe, skip, and twirl, we have to talk.

St Louis - Day 1

Pithy commentary now aside, our trip to St Louis was great. Last Friday we went to the City Museum which is undoubtedly the greatest kid's museum in the world. Tunnels, slides, ramps, trains, nests, ropes, sculptures. . . the place is amazing. And if all that ain't enough, City Museum is also the home of the World Aquarium, which is the home of We, the now famous $150,000 TWO HEADED ALBINO RAT SNAKE! (I think one of We's heads was sleeping when we saw him.) Terry Gilliam couldn't have designed a better museum. If you are ever in St Louis, whether you have children or not, GO TO THE CITY MUSEUM.

Also while we were inside the museum, outside it snowed! Harrison & Helen have been asking me "whenzit gonna snow? whenzit gonna snow?" all winter. Now. Finally. Snow. And unlike the light flurry we experienced here today, this snow stuck. Which to Harrison meant snow balls for both eating and throwing.

After leaving the museum. Katherine drove us to Fitz's for lunch. I navigated. Our route took us along the northern and western edges of Forest Park. Seeing all those mansions brushed with snow struck a Brahmin chord with me. Though there's nothing particularly Oriental about these homes, something about their wide, stone facades and their green tile roofs, something about each building's quiet countenance made me think of them as square-jawed Buddhas sitting patiently through this wintry storm. The snow's touch both further dignified and pacified these solemn neighborhoods. And for a brief moment the world hushed. Even Harrison and Helen seemed to be holding their breath in the backseat as we drove through this architecturally impressive part of town.

After lunch I ducked quickly into a record store across the street from Fitz's for some brief browsing. Whenever I'm in a new town I try to hit a record store, even though I still don't have a turntable working at home. One of these days. Until then, I'm content to flip through the bins and search for impossible to find treasures - like Black Vinyl Shoes or anything put out by Ze Records or Twisted Village.

After lunch it was off to the St Louis Science Center. The kids took turns running on a large, wheel/threadmill in the lobby before heading to the dinosaur exhibit. Once in the exhibit, Harrison warned me not to look the giant animatronic T-Rex in the eye or it might get me. After this exhibit, Helen and I cut out. She was getting tired and kept asking to go back to the hotel (thank goodness. . . I hate to admit it but Science Museums are starting to get on my nerves). So Harrison & Katherine soldiered on for another hour and then met back up with us for dinner. We found a child-friendly Italian restaurant around the corner from where we were staying and it was spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

Travelling with small children has lots of ups and downs. I wouldn't trade seeing their excitement and joy for anything. But travelling with picky eaters like ours is a challenge. During dinner, I couldn't help staring longingly out of the window of the pasta shack where we were eating. Why? Because directly across the street was an amazing looking sushi restaurant. It was called the Sub Zero Vodka Bar. And obviously sushi is not their only speciality. O Futomaki! O Martini! So close yet so far away. Even though it was just a street width away, the Sub Zero Vodka bar might as well have been in Siberia, because there was no way this group was getting anywhere near it. We did find a Ben & Jerry's after dinner, which helped ease my distress somewhat. After ice cream it was back to the hotel for bedtime and there ended our first full day in St Louis.

Buggin at the St Louis Zoo

Though I'm sure this is the last photograph relatives, grandparents, and friends want to see from our trip to St Louis, I just couldn't resist. (Please excuse the annoying shadows in this photograph - they couldn't be helped.) So then, what's so interesting about a 1970s-ish illustration of downtown St Louis? Not much really, unless you are drawn to kitschy art like me, but wait. . . let's put this in its context. This illustration is part of an innocent looking, interactive, educational display at the St Louis Zoo. Interactive in that you look at the picture, read a caption, and then slide a panel next to the picture to reveal. . . Yikes! (mouse over the picture) There's that same 1970s-ish illustration of St Louis only now. . . now St Louis looks as if it's been dipped in brown gravy! Make that, dried brown gravy. But that's not gravy folks. That's an artist's depiction of human waste. And more to the point, that's what every city would look like if we lived in a World Without Insects. OoooHaaaHaaaHaaa (that's my evil laugh, in case you were wondering). See the city caked with crud? See the poo dripping off the arch? See the uninhabitable wasteland? That's right kids, insects are the only thing keeping our society from devolving into a putrid, hellish, sludge bowl. Remember that. And thanks for visiting!

(Now is it just me or is that drawing kind of weird? And I'm not just talking about the poor draftsmanship. Also, I don't think they are intentionally going for a kitschy, let's-play-up-the-midnight-sci-fi-horror-movie look with this stuff. The message seems sincere though humorously flawed. Thus I rant. . .)

I photographed these pictures in the Insectarium at the St Louis Zoo on Saturday. And I guess the argument could be made that if you are hanging out in a place called an "insectarium" then you are bound to see some weird stuff. Point taken. But how many poorly-executed post-apolcalyptic imaginings of a World Without Insects does the St Louis Zoo need? I ask this because the Insectarium played host to several such cutely morbid, artistic renderings of how horrible a World Without Insects would be. And yeah I get the point. Insects are weird and scary. Yes they are. But not as weird and scary as a World Without Insects. Damn! That would be terrifying. We're talking Mad Max terrifying. Actually if we take the illustrations literally we're talking Mad Max in-a-hardened-caca-wasteland terrifying. Why? Because insects help break down waste. Without insects, we'd be neck deep in shit. OK. Given. I guess. But what sort of message am I supposed to relate to my kids about this picture? That's right, son. If it weren't for insects, we'd be wandering a lawless, barren world, populated by motorcycle-riding cannibals and. . . let's see what the captions says here. . . um. . . a lot of excrement. . . No, not eggs-ament, excrement. . . You know, poo poo. . . OK. . . stop laughing. . . alright, move along. . . let's see what those dung beetles are doing over there. Like I said, the reason this caught my attention was because this wasn't the only visual demonstration to make this point. On one wall there's the aforementioned silly-slidy-door-picture-thingy while on another there's a video loop riffing on the same, future-doom theme. (This loop is also very funny in its own right. The first image in the video is a verdant pasture bisected by a creek - oh, how beautiful, one should think. A butterfly and a man in a beekeeper outfit also appear in the pasture, very obviously pasted onto the scene - Awww life. First the butterfly dissolves - signifying the apocalyptic demise of all insects, gulp. Following that, the beekeeper dissolves - duh, no bugs, no guys in white, bug catcher suits. And then - OH MY GOD - everything dissolves - SUDDEN REALIZATION - THE BUG SUIT MAN SYMBOLIZES HUMANITY - leaving nothing but a desert where once a verdant meadow stood - IT'S ALL GONE, ITS ALL GONE!!!) Yeah, so the video was also a hilarious little demented vignette. And really they should have taken the whole Eden-to-Badlands montage to the extreme. Why not follow the pasture-to-desert dissolve with a desert-to-negative-image-of-desert dissolve. Add an ominous, John Carpenter synthesizer drone to that final edit and you could really scare the pants off some little kids. Which begs the point, what are we trying to accomplish here? Oh yeah, get people to imagine a World Without Insects. Yeah, once again, I get the point. Nice dystopian scare tactics. Who's in charge here? Aldous Huxley? Or Vincent Price?

For more information about the St Louis Zoo, the Insectarium at the St Louis Zoo, or The Horrifying Potentialities That Await Us In A Future Devoid Of Insect Life, please visit wwww.stlzoo.com.

Disclaimer: I, the author, do not find the extinction of any life form to be humorous. I do, on the other hand, find bad art to be humorous. But just because I find bad art to be humorous doesn't mean that I hope one day it will be extinct. I don't hope anything will be extinct (except the Republican Party) but I guess that's besides the point.

Hotel / Sage Advice

We're staying here. Today is rainy and gray so we're off to the museums. Harrison & Helen are excited about the hotel. Helen was so excited she didn't go to sleep until 11 last night. Of course she woke up at 6.

The drive yesterday was fine. The kids had these sage words of advice for the modern traveller:

Harrison: Whatever you do, don't read the map upside down!

Helen: Remember, don't go potty in your pants.

Thanks guys.

Sign Reader

Yesterday Katherine took the kids to Two Rivers Park for a hike. At the beginning of the hiking trail there's a little sign with the trail's name and some other information. Harrison walked up to it and pointed. In a tone that implied just-what-I-suspected, he said, "Yep, Poisonous Snakes, Coyotes, and Crocodiles."

Poached Scrambled Eggs

I made these eggs this morning from a recipe in the New York Times Magazine. The eggs are fluffy and light. I put them on biscuits with Boar's Head ham - sauceless eggs Benedict - it was mad delicious!

4 large eggs
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (optional)
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper.

1. Crack each egg into a medium-mesh sieve (or narrow-slotted spoon), letting the thin white drain away. Transfer the remaining yolk and white to a small bowl. Beat the eggs vigorously with a fork for 20 seconds.

2. Set a medium saucepan filled with 4 inches of water over moderate heat. Put a strainer in the sink. When the water is at a low boil, add a few large pinches of salt, then stir in a clockwise direction to create a whirlpool. Pour the eggs into the moving water, cover the pot and count to 20.

3. Turn off the heat and uncover the pot. The eggs should be floating on the surface in ribbons. While holding back the eggs with a spoon, pour off most of the water over the strainer. Gently slide the eggs into the strainer and press them lightly to expel any excess liquid.

4. Scoop the eggs into bowls, drizzle with olive oil if desired and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. (Variations: Serve with butter; smoked paprika; piment d'Espelette; or a spoonful of crème fraîche and a dollop of caviar.) Serves 2. Adapted from Daniel Patterson.

Sweat Suit Walking

A gray sweat suit power walked through my neighborhod yesterday. After faux-jogging down the sidewalk backwards, it stopped in the park for Tai Chi. At least I think it was Tai Chi. One arm up, one arm down, one leg up, pivot at the waist, backflip. It was free form Tai Chi. I watched in amazement from my front stoop. Noticing Gray Sweat Suit taking a break, I cautiously approached.

Conversation With Gray Sweat Suit

Me: Excuse me.
Gray Sweat Suit (GuSS): Yes?
Me: Hi. Can I talk to you for a second?
GuSS: Sure.
Me: So what were you just doing?
GuSS: Exercise.
Me: Of course, of course. I see you doing that all the time. But that was amazing.
GuSS: Yes. Thank you. I've had a lot of practice. Exercise is what I do best.
ME: I have to say, you seem to have expanded your repetoire over the years. And I'm not just talking about that gymnastics routine just now. I mean, you're not just exercising anymore. You're socializing. You're going out to lunch, you're making it to casual Fridays at work, you're even rocking out on late night talk shows. So when I saw you out here all alone I thought this would be a good time to ask: what up, Gray Sweat Suit?
GuSS: What can I say, people like me. I'm practical, comfortable, dependable, easily washable. You know, what's not to like. And in my case, acceptance has lead to privelge. Finally I'm making a name for myself.
Me: But you've been at this such a long time. Why now?
GuSS: I don't know. Why not? The way I see it, I've always been in, its just. . . no one really noticed.
Me: Wow. interesting. So what do you think? Are you ever going to be out of style?
GuSS: Never.
Me: Never?
GuSS: Never.
ME: But you've had some steep competition over the years. Velour, for instance. Need I say more?
GuSS: Velour has gotten pretencious. Fickle too. You can't count on Velour.
Me: OK. Well then what do you say to the Velvet Sweat Suit. And while we're at it, what exactly are you made of exactly?
GuSS. What I'm made of isn't the point. I could be Velour. I could be Velvet. What I am is Cotton Blend. But more than anything I am Gray. Velour and Velvet don't do Gray. Only I can really pull off Gray.
Me: Wow. I think I'm starting to see your point. It's all still a little Gray though.
GuSS: You're not funny.
Me: I know.

After that Gray Sweat Suit said goodbye and jogged out of the park. This time it did the Rocky Balboa thing - jabbing and ducking from an invisible opponent while running. This looked a little funny since Gray Sweat Suit has no hands. But I wasn't laughing. Gray Sweat Suit kicks ass.

Thoughts on Derek Bailey + An Appreciation of Untamed Dissonance

Because I took a break from browsing the internet during the holidays, I missed reading the news that Derek Bailey passed away on December 23rd. Respectfully this week I've been listening to Saisoro and Music & Dance, two of several Bailey discs I own. I am continually awestruck by the vibrant, bracing music this man created. Bailey is the most curious and inventive guitar player I have ever heard. His technique is both brittle and brutal, delicate and demented, wooly and evanscescent. His improvisations challenge description. Cross-cut koto music with cubist rainfall. Invert thrash compacted be-bop doodles in a fun-house, puddle-punched mirror. Crystallize skronk. And that just goes for his electric guitar work. On acoustic you'll hear him stretching gossamer gut-string micro-atonalities from furious 6-string glissandi. (Williams, I think this is what Ribot was trying to achieve that night you saw him rubbing his guitar with an inflated balloon.) Intense, absurd, frightening, comical, heretical, organic, eclectic, Brechtian - in his most inspired moments Bailey sounds like a mechanical insect with typebar legs scurrying wildly across an amplified bed of gravel. And yeah, I mean that as a compliment.

For me, the appeal of Derek Bailey is two-fold. First and foremost, he worked at the extreme edges of the guitar, both literally and figuratively. From the nut down to the bridge, Bailey played the entire instrument. Through scratches, tugs, and plucks, he created a language on and around the fretboard that was wholly his own. Wait. "Language" may be a tad inappropriate when describing the work of a player know for a neo-primitive, free improvisational style. Bailey's instrumental voice is anything but grammatical. If this is language, it is a mad jumble of words. His solos speak in imaginative, dissonant clusters. Within these expressions, augmented chords and harmonic overtones bunch together in frantic phrases. Bailey's guitar playing re-enacts a writer crumbling up a sheet of paper more than it does a writer closing a sentence with a neat black dot. Radical atonality, klangfarbenmelodie, call it what you will, Bailey's sonic markings are unmistakable.

The second thing valuable about Bailey is his prodigious output. With a documented sessionography running from 1965 to 2004, he worked hard. There's a great deal of material to hear, if you can find it. Most of it exists on obscure European labels, making Bailey's discography extremely desirable from a collector's standpoint. Also he played with just about everyone - Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, Han Bennink, Keiji Haino, Gavin Bryars, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke - the list goes on and on. But what really intrigues me as both a guitar player and a collector is a series of improvisations he released in 1973 called the Incus Taps.

From what I understand, the packaging of the "Incus Taps" were sort of a marketing gimmick. Initially Bailey released this series of solo improvisations in a reel to reel format. He custom labeled the boxes and literally made them to order. The idea was to highlight the spontaneity of these improvisations while also getting his music out in a cost efficient manner. No, I don't have any of these on reel. I wish I did. I do own the cd reissue put out by the organ of Corti label. The recordings are amazing - dry, angular, solo-guitar miniatures, punctuated by eerie harmonic chirps as well as daunting improv-chord flappings. They are weird, airy, and voluble, "out" with a brainy, bird-like, erratic energy, alternately spastic and poetic in their flights.

At the same time, the "Incus Taps" sound confessional. These are bedroom recordings - intimate, quirky, and personnal (also a little muffled) - and thus they feel, for lack of a better word, honest. Like diary entries, these recordings document a specific time and a place, an exact moment in the artist's development, an exhalation of musical thought caught on the glassy magnetic face of analog tape. It's one thing to hear Bailey reacting as a musician to other musicians but it's another thing entirley to hear him play solo. The "Incus Taps" showcase free musical expression in an incredibly private setting, making it a notably discreet product by a wildly unorthodox musician.

So thank you Derek Bailey for your music. Your guitar spoke in broken tongues. Your recordings captured dissonant spirits. Your legacy lives on.

Bird Brain

The worm is saying, "Well it sure is easy being a bird brain."

The triangle pointing at the worm is a bird beak.

Kaye Gibbons

Katherine's interview with Kaye Gibbons is now online. In Rediscovering Ellen Foster, Katherine and Kaye talk about Dr. Phil, Diet Coke, and, oh yeah, Kaye's new novel, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster.

Smoke

Checking in on Loose Canon today I discovered that he's in Pakistan! The only other information I could find about his trip was this post from December 6 about volunteering for earthquake relief. Poking around some more, I found this link to current weather conditions in Pakistan, where today they are experiencing smoke. Wow. My thoughts go out to him. He's a brave and compassionate individual. Here's to a successful trip and to seeing him safely back home.

Go Skip Go

I don't know if you noticed but Skip Dahlgren just performed a flawless station identification break at a quarter to one o'clock today on KUAR. His air break also included todays weather as well as tomorrow's forecast. All this, like I said, flawless. This is definitely a first time experience for me as a listener. I'm not trying to poke fun at the man, either. I enjoy his breaks because they are loose and unpredictable. I've been having the same fun with Carl Kassell who also seems to be slipping up a lot lately. I know. Its a tough job. It's live, right? So the pressure is on. As announcer you also have got to be watching the clock. And reading. Man. I'd be fumbling all over the place. . . ruffling papers. . . "Um. . . the time is. . . wait, the temperature is. . . CRIKEY. . . gulp. . . OK. . . help. . um. . . now. . . er. . . back to Day to Day." But Skip is THE MAN when it comes to fumbles. I mean, its like EVERYTIME. The ON AIR sign lights up at KUAR and there's Skip, "the temperature is now. . . um. . . err. . . (long pause)." So bravo today, Skip. You nailed it. Good job. Love ya. . . ahem. . . man. . . I mean. . . dude. . . er/um . . . sir.

Remember This T-Shirt?