I was checking out the website of this guy I kind of know. It was very nice, part weblog, part other stuff. Anyway, one of the things he had on his site was annual lists that contained every book he read, movie he watched, etc, over the course of that particular year. I thought it was cool. I want to try to do something similar and figure the best way to do it will be to create monthly lists so I remember to stay on top of things.
I am a Sagittarian (see the “Dog-eared 14” post immediately below).
Anecdote
I was in my car with a woman I was trying to woo. We had spent much of the day together in a group with a common purpose and there was clearly some mutual attraction, or at least desire, but we hadn’t yet gotten to that moment when the mutual interest was made clearly known. It was late at night and we were driving through the trees [n.1]. We had just started driving and I excitedly turned to her and said: “Do you want to hear the saddest song I’ve ever heard?” [n.2] Simultaneously I reached for my iPod and started scrolling through my playlists with alacrity. [n.3]
Note 1: Not literally, of course.
Note 2: “Levi Stubbs' Tears,” by Billy Bragg. The lyrics of course, and the guitar—my God the guitar—it just rings with sadness and pain. [n.2a] [n.2b]
Note 3: She very delicately and politely laughed and said yes, but later, suggesting something a bit lighter for the moment. It was remarkably deft handling.
Note 2a: Billy Bragg is in my top-five of all time. He has a solid shot at #1.
Note 2b:Anne and I just saw the Four Tops in concert, but sadly Levi Stubbs is dead.
[Beer for this post: Dark Horse Brewing Co.’s Crooked Tree IPA]
[Music for this post: The Magnetic Fields I]
Anne and I went to see the Magnetic Fields a couple months ago (March 8) at the Harris Theater. [n.1] The show was really great, as I expected it would be. The Magnetic Fields are, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my top-five favorite bands ever. Stephin Merritt—the ukulele player, a vocalist, and the lyricist and principal songwriter for the group—is pretty much a genius. [n.2]
While I expected to love it nearly beyond compare, I was very pleased that Anne did too.
The band, and Merritt, is perhaps best known for its magnum opus 69 Love Songs, a three CD album that is one of the most remarkable achievements in music. But all of their other stuff is good too (I don’t love every single song they’ve ever done, of course, but generally it is awesome). I should create a Trent’s Favorite Magnetic Fields compilation, but until I do here’s a small list (in no particular order) of their really great stuff that you should listen to and love unless you’re soulless:
I Thought You Were My Boyfriend; I Wish I Had an Evil Twin; I Don’t Believe You; It’s Only Time; The Nun’s Litany; Seduced and Abandoned; I Think I Need a New Heart; The Book of Love; When My Boy Walks Down the Street; If You Don’t Cry; You’re My Only Home; My Only Friend; Papa Was a Rodeo [n.3]; The Way You Say Good-Night; I Shatter; Busby Berkeley Dreams; Yeah! Oh, Yeah!; The Night You Can’t Remember; I Have the Moon; and many more. [n.4]
In 2006, I saw Merritt perform with Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame) at a benefit show for 826 Seattle. They played “The Night You Can’t Remember” and “The Book of Love” along with a couple Gothic Archies songs. I loved that performance too, but it was made much less enjoyable by my fellow audience members who seemed intent at laughing at everything, even things that weren’t funny. Now, I recognize that the event was mostly funny stuff, it was meant to be a good time. OK. But I mean, watch this:
Here’s the play-by-play of the video:
[Laughing…laughing…laughing…laughing…]
Before you left your garrison
you'd had a drink, maybe two.
You don't remember Paris, Hon,
but it remembers you.
[HAHAHAHHAHA]
It's true, we flew to Paris, dear,
aboard an Army jet
the night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
[HahahHHAHAHAHAHAHaahahahaHAHHAH]
You said I was terrific,
it meant zilch to you, ah, but I
have our marriage certificate
and I'll keep it till I die.
[HAHAHAHhaahhAHHAH—oh yeah, unrequited love that a person holds dear until death—hilarious!]
You were an Army officer
and I just a Rockette
[HAHAHhahummmm—All that leg kicking, and the sense of worthlessness, damn that’s some funny shit]
the night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
No rose conveyed your sentiments,
not even a petunia,
but you've got vague presentiments
and I've got little Junior.
[HhhahAhahhahmmm—Ah! Yes, a fatherless child. Ha! Man, you’re killing me.]
You said, nobody loves me,
and I said, wanna bet?
The night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
But the guy sitting directly in front of me laughed way more often than what you hear in the video. He found just about every line side-splittingly funny. I so desperately wanted to kick him in the back of the head. The crowd was also laughing loudly and obnoxiously, and often, during “The Book of Love.” What’s funny about that song? It’s lovely and beautiful, but it isn’t funny. Maybe it, like “The Night You Can’t Remember,” has a few moments where a sort of knowing, wry smile is appropriate, but not guffaws. I mean, come on. I recognize that I am not the sayer of what level of humor should or may be found in something, but come on. I also recognize that Stephin Merritt may have meant some of this stuff to be funny, but I think I’m reading it right. I think he means there to be a tinge of humor, however you quantify that, where knowing smiles are anticipated, but that’s it (at least with those two songs). At the show we just saw in March, we got to see a little insight on this point.
(I wish I wrote this right after the show so I’d have it exactly right, but this is the gist of what happened and was said) Toward the end of the first set Merritt was talking during a break between songs and he mentions how the next song is sadly appropriate, or coincidental, or something like that, referring to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Chili and I think also to the tsunami in Indonesia, and then he introduces the song as “Suddenly There’s a Tidal Wave.” Guess what happens. About a quarter of the crowed erupts in laughter. And Merritt says something like, “Why is that funny?” More laughter. “Yeah, thousands of people died. Ha ha.” Shockingly, still more laughter, albeit from far fewer people.
So, why the laughter? Is it that when people go out they just want to have a good time and laugh? Is it that they want to be in on the joke so they laugh when they think there is one (even if there isn’t)?
We saw Kaki King perform a couple nights ago and a slightly similar thing (in my mind) happened: Kaki and her band were playing “Doing the Wrong Thing” (I think, which, HA!), and toward the end the band slowly faded out and the lights were flashing about once a second with a very noticeable clicking sound. It was very clear, to me at least, that the song was not over, and given that no one really applauded, I think the bulk of the audience understood that this was part of the act, the song was still in progress. But it was quiet, the band had completely stopped playing, all that we heard was the click of the lights. At this point the guy in front of me said, not quietly, something like “What the fuck are they doing?” and shortly after that a number of other people took the opportunity to shout things to the band. Why couldn’t they let it be? Why couldn’t they endure more than eight seconds of relative, obliviously purposeful quiet before they had to start making their own noise? Why can’t people stand quiet? What are they so scared of?
I do think it is fear, of a kind. There’s fear behind those shouts, and there’s fear behind that laughter. My knee-jerk reaction when this stuff happens is to think the offenders are just jackasses. But I’m trying hard to be a more understanding person, so I’m trying hard to understand what’s behind that fear.
Note 1: The Harris Theater, by the way, is hideous. The interior of the actual theater, where the seats are, was fine, but the lobby areas and such are eye-gougingly ugly. Anne likened it to a subway station. It’s pretty clear that they were going for a modern look, but it just doesn’t work. The walls are covered with shiny white panels, the lighting is like pink and green florescent or neon stuff that is not only ugly in itself but also makes everyone in there look less attractive. It’s a nightmare.
Note 2: See him at work here. That’s a video from NPR that shows him create a song from start to finish (once you're redirected, click on the image of Merritt on the left that's marked "video").
Note 3: “Papa Was a Rodeo” always makes me think of Brokeback Mountain, something that would probably horrify everyone involved with either project.
Note 4: That’s not even counting stuff by The 6ths and the Gothic Archies, two other Stephin Merritt bands that have great stuff of their own.
I’m in the process of putting together a “mixed tape,” one that, depending on how you look at it, could be considered long overdue. But in my defense these sorts of things are not easy for me. The first “draft” is going to have easily more than 20 hours of music. I’m guessing the whole thing will take me way, way more than 40 hours to put together. If you think I’m joking, you don’t know everything about me as well as you might think you do.
Just now I added some Tom Petty and some Eddie Money to the draft playlist, and I want to share a couple things:
Tom Petty
Old Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers stuff is just awesome. Unfortunately, Tom Petty seems to have had totally lost his mind by the late ‘90s. I blame it on what I assume is his totally out of control drug use. I don’t know how to feel about this. Can I damn the drugs that killed his brain, and thus ruined his later musical output, when I think the drugs probably had a lot to do with his earlier production in a positive and possibly necessary way?
An aside: One of my sisters once ran into him at a gas station in the Valley and shared a joint with him. I just heard this story and for some reason feel grossly slighted for not having been told such awesome news earlier.
Here’s one of my favorite Tom Petty songs and definitely my favorite TP&tHB video:
Don’t Come Around Here No More
Eddie Money
Eddie Money is the man.
One of my sisters died a little more than 12 years ago, when she was 29. It was undoubtedly the hardest thing I’ve suffered. She really liked Eddie Money. One of the most precious memories of my childhood—of my entire life—is of watching Eddie Money and Ronnie Spector perform Take Me Home Tonight on David Letterman’s show. It aired when I was 10 or 11, but I remember it like it was a couple years ago. My sister and I were simultaneously rocking out, and also laughing hysterically at the fact that Ronnie Spector spends about half the video facing away from the camera, shaking her butt. Never ending is the butt shaking. This moment was, seriously, one of the top-five most memorable moments of my entire childhood.
When I was thinking about this, just now, I thought, “I bet that video is on YouTube.” And sure enough, it is. In a few important ways I think the Internet is ruining my life, but this is one of its magical, wonderful, amazing properties. In less than 30 seconds I was transported back to the late eighties, was instantly taken back and offered the chance to live in one of my most precious memories. YouTube, with all the ridiculous crap on it, has allowed me to relive a moment, has allowed me to relive a brief few minutes with the memory of my sister, and for that I say God bless you Internet.
(Check out Paul totally rocking the keyboards! and I’m pretty sure that’s David Sanborn on the sax—who knew?)
If I could walk on water, and if I could find some way to prove—if I could walk on water, would you believe in me? My love is so true.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
The Reality of Magnetic Fields
(They’re real. I’m really, really serial.)
One of my top-five-of-all-time bands, The Magnetic Fields, released a new album this week. It’s called Realism. On Tuesday, which apparently has been forever ordained by God or someone else powerful as new-record-release-day, I stopped by Best Buy to pick up the new record and they did not have it. Actually, they didn’t have anything by the Magnetic Fields, nothing, not even a little place card. I spent a good five minutes looking at all of the other crap in the “M” section and silently rampaged about how can they have all this crap and no Magnetic Fields. So I stopped at the next Best Buy (strangely only a mile away) and they didn’t have any Magnetic Fields either. Screw Best Buy. Their music buyer should be flogged. [n.1]
Anyhow. Here’s a bit from track 9, Seduced and Abandoned:
Seduced with a grin,
I was taken all in;
taken in sin
and in shame.
Seduced by a smile,
I walked down the aisle
then waited awhile.
No one came.
Seduced and abandoned
and baby makes two.
Baby abandoned by you.
Seduced and abandoned
and what can I do?
I think I might drink a few.
Abandoned to weep
I collapsed in a heap,
dutifully sleeping all day.
Abandoned to die
I did nothing but cry
in my one-ply négligée.
Seduced and abandoned
and baby makes two.
Baby abandoned by you.
Seduced and abandoned
and what can I do?
I think I might drink a few.
Yes, I think I might drink a few
and maybe the baby will too.
Note 1: You might wonder why I’m buying records at Best Buy anyway. Well, because they are cheap. Also, I was driving and Best Buys always have nice giant parking lots or garages. But it also probably has something to do with the fact that I can go in a Best Buy and be ignored and not care what anyone in there thinks. If I go to one of the many independent record shops in my neighborhood, which is something I’d like to do for many reasons, I inevitably feel like I’m not cool enough to be in there and that the obnoxious hipsters I’m surrounded by are judging me. There are all sorts of problems with that, but it’s the truth.
[Soundtrack for this post: Aimee Mann’s The Forgotten Arm]
[Beer for this post: Brooklyn Brewery’s East India Pale Ale]
I was sitting at a table around the Christmas before last with Anne’s family and we were talking about Carver and his cousin Ryan playing sports. Ryan’s mom, Anne’s sister-in-law, was saying that Ryan would not be allowed to play football. I have a feeling that Anne would love to say the same thing about Carver, but it wouldn’t be true. Carver will play football, at least for a time, because I really want him to.
I played organized baseball for many years, but I never did play organized football despite talking about it a few times with my dad and my friend Chad’s parents. I was recruited heavily to play on my High School football team—my ninth grade P.E. teacher raved about my football and general physical abilities considering my size, at the time I was 205 pounds when the average guy in my class was probably 150, and I was still very quick, I have little doubt I would’ve been a monster of a fullback and linebacker—but football conflicted with Band, and I wasn’t going to give up Band for anything. There are parts of me that wonder what would’ve happened had I played football, would I have been as good as I like to think? But I also have a hard time thinking that I didn’t make the right decision; Band provided me with music, a huge amount of fun, great friends, my first love, and my first real school-centered community. I don’t see how I could’ve had it better.
So when I say I really want Carver to play football, I imagine many people will think it is the typical dad-trying-to-live-through-his-son situation. But I don’t think that’s it at all. I want Carver to play football because I love football, and I want to share that love with him. I also want him to learn to play music. If the time comes when he has to choose between music and football (or whatever), I would never begrudge him his choice. But I want him to experience both.
To me, football is the ultimate team sport, and I love it with an obsessive passion. Why would I not want to share that with my son?
Golfing with My Dad
My dad is an obsessive golfer. I enjoy golf, but it doesn’t mean that much to me. Golf, to my dad, is a very important part of his life. My dad plays at least once a week, almost every Sunday—he considers his Sunday golf rounds as “going to church.” When he started dating again after his most recent divorce he told me how he made a point to make it clear to his prospects that he plays golf every Sunday, and that every Sunday means every single Sunday, regardless of whether it is Mother’s Day, Christmas, or the apocalypse. My dad is committed to getting in his rounds. To him it is a sort of refuge, and a love.
So when he gave me a set of cut-down clubs and signed me up for youth lessons, I don’t doubt some might have taken it as is version of the typical dad-trying-to-live-through-his-son situation. But that wasn’t it at all, I know.
My dad’s dad was an excellent golfer, and my dad played with him on occasion. I imagine the time those two remarkably dissimilar men spent on the course as rare moments when they had a love in common, when they shared a pursuit. I imagine it as a time of bonding and father-son togetherness that my father appreciated deeply. So it should surprise no one that he shared the game with me at an early age. And the bonus was that he almost certainly did it with more care and love than he got from his dad.
I don’t play nearly as much as my dad does. I’ve lived in Chicago for nearly two years and I’ve played once here (granted, you can’t play half the year here, and I have played a few times while away on vacation). I don’t love golf the way my dad does, yet, at least, but that’s OK. I do enjoy playing, and playing a round with him is one of my favorite things to do, and I know it’s something he treasures dearly.
In the summer of 2005 my dad and I, along with two good friends, did a golf tour of Ireland. We spent a night in Dublin, stayed at some great hotels, drank pints of stout, and hand some great food. But it was about the golf, and the time before and after the golf, and us doing it together. Sure, we bickered a bit here and there, as anyone who has to spend 10 days with me will learn is inevitable, but it was a trip of a lifetime for both of us and it never would’ve happened with out my dad’s love of golf and his decision to share it with me.
Sherman Alexie wrote a great piece in The Stranger about keeping the Seattle SuperSonics in Seattle (which, unfortunately, didn’t happen). Much of the content of Alexie’s pitch to “save the Sonics” is worthy of its own post, but for now I’ll just share this part:
While my father was dying, he and I talked basketball. Three days before he died, my father still had enough will and character left to deride Kobe Bryant for being a rotten smallpox wound on the game of basketball.
"I know," I said. "I can't stand him."
That meant I love you, Dad.
"I still can't believe they traded Shaq instead of Kobe."
That meant I love you, too, Son.
Of course, no matter how much I hate Kobe, I still love to watch him play. He's a ferocious poet on the court. And I most especially love to watch him lose.
I hate Kobe like other people hate the New York Yankees. And, man, it feels good to hate like that because I won't start any wars because of it. I get to hate without fear of violence.
And my father hated Kobe like that, too.
When I look back at my relationship with my father, when I put a narrative to it, I realize that every plot point, every surprise, and every tender and/or painful moment has something to do with basketball.
My father was a great basketball player. I was a very good small-town hoopster but I couldn't beat him one-on-one until I was 16 years old.
And I have never felt better or worse than the day I finally defeated my father.
My father haunts every basketball game.
In every round I play with my dad, Great shot, Bud, and Nice putt! means I love you, Dad. And when he’s gone my father will, without a doubt, haunt every round of golf I ever play. And that’s a great and beautiful thing.
[Soundtrack for this post: Ray LaMontagne’s Trouble]
I saw Ray LaMontagne perform last week. He was awesome, as usual. He mentioned how he was on Elvis Costello’s TV show Spectacle. He said that Elvis said Allison was a song that still resonates with people, and that Elvis suggested that Jolene was a song of Ray’s that might have the same qualities. Ray then played Jolene and I came close to tearing up.
Jolene
Jolene is almost certainly in my High Fidelity -like “top five songs of all time,” and it has a shot at being #1 with a bullet. I’m obsessed with lyrics, so most of what affects my opinion of a song is what the words say. I love many of Ray’s songs, but there’s something about the storytelling quality of Jolene that really does it for me. Take Shelter as an example in contrast: a great song, a song I love and is Anne’s and my “song,” so to speak, I love it, it is beautiful, but I don’t see anything when I hear it. Jolene is different.
With Jolene I can see the coatless man, smoking his cigarettes. I can see his pain. As with many songs, I insert myself in the role of the protagonist. I am Jolene’s man. I can see the picture of Jolene holding a picture of me, it’s cracked and faded from spending so much time in the pocket of my blue jeans—I can see it in my filthy, cracked, and shaking hands. I can see myself and feel the pain of the man who has woken in the ditch, with booze in his hair and blood on his lips. I know exactly what he means when he says a man needs a nine-pound hammer or a woman like Jolene. It’s a magnificent song about love and loss. I love it so much I easily forgive the mispronunciation of Spokane, which is saying something.
Maybe it’s the mention of eastern Washington, or the drug use and boozing of what I assume is a blue collar man, or the name Ray, but the song reminds me of Raymond Carver and his stories of working class love, drug use, and drinking.
Something about it makes me want to be the strung-out drunk who wakes up in a ditch with booze in his hair and blood on his lips—something about the pain on display that can’t be ignored, a pain that shows up in such an obvious and devastating way. It’s a physical manifestation of feeling, even if AA would say what he’s trying to do is not feel. [n.1]
But of course I can’t be the Jolene man now. I have a wife and a kid. I can’t be coked out and passing out in ditches, coatless. I now have responsibilities that affect others. But I’ve felt that way for the last dozen years.
My parents lost a child in 1997, one of my sisters, and it was undoubtedly the hardest thing either of them have ever had to deal with. I determined that they, my mom in particular, could never handle another blow like that. Which means that I have to do what I can to stay alive, for them, and now for Carver too.
Suicide
I have no problem with suicide. I used to. I used to think that it was a cop-out, a way for the weak to avoid struggle. But I don’t feel that way anymore.
I am not a religious man, and am pretty dubious when it comes to any sort of afterlife. So if someone’s life sucks and causes him nothing but pain, I don’t see why he should be chastised for calling it quits a little early. Maybe that’s hard on the people that get left behind, but that’s their problem. Staying alive for the sake of others is a strange idea in at least one way: if you hate life and want to die, why do they so want you to live to suffer more pain? Can their wants be anything other than selfish? [n.2]
Regardless of what I said in that last paragraph, I am one who will always do what I can to live for others. I want to live for me too, but I also want to live for my family. The idea of my son growing up without his father is something that I can’t even think about without nearly gagging with disgust. And I am not willing to take responsibility for my parents losing another child.
I had a discussion with a psychiatrist a few weeks ago about suicide. I had explained to her how I had basically led a rather charmed life, loaded with opportunities (relatively). She asked why I thought I might be so unhappy considering that I just said I was lucky in the life department, and I responded, I shit you not, by saying “Well, people are complicated.” As if she needed to be told. I then went on to talk about David Foster Wallace.
Dave Wallace was a writer of massive acclaim and much (relative) celebrity. He was also wicked smart, to the extent where I have no problem conceding that he was way, way, way smarter than me, which is not something I concede very often. He also had a history of depression. Dave Wallace was famous, brilliant, incredibly talented, had a rather large cult-like following that undoubtedly included beautiful groupies who would do his every bidding, had a very desirable teaching gig at a fancy liberal arts college that required little more than he be himself, et cetera, et cetera. And in September of 2008 he hanged himself with a belt from his back porch. [n.3]
The psychiatrist’s question, which was undoubtedly asked more to see how I would respond rather than in an attempt to be unpuzzled, applies to Dave Wallace at least as much as it does to me (almost certainly much more so). I don’t think I have a better answer than “People are complicated.” Depression is complicated too.
Note 1: Or so I’ve been told.
Note 2: This is true, if it is at all, only when the suicide is well considered; a teenager blowing his brains out because a girlfriend dumped him is a different matter.
Note 3: In David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus, Infinite Jest, there’s a scene where one of the students at the tennis academy where much of the story takes place confesses his obsession with having his picture show up in tennis magazines. The sweat-licking [n.3a] guru to whom he is confessing basically ruins his dream by telling him that people who get that fame do not really enjoy it, and in the end their horror becomes a fear of the day when they no longer show up in magazines. Some have speculated that Wallace was working hard to surpass Infinite Jest but that he recognized there was a real chance that he never would. Need I elaborate?
My first concert ever was Santana at the Universal Amphitheater just outside of Los Angeles. I was seven or eight years old. I went with my friend Chad and his parents. At that point I could recognize Black Magic Woman or Oye Como Va, but I didn’t know much more than that about Santana.
I had a very good time at the show—it was very exciting. But there are only two memories from that show that have survived the test of time. In no particular order:
Santana, in case you’re weird and don’t know, is a talented guitar player—he can play a mean solo. Memory number one is Chad’s dad, immediately parroted by Chad and me, yelling something along the lines of “Blow up your amp!” Chad and I later noticed smoke rising from the neck of Carlos’s guitar. I cannot effectively relay the excitement we felt upon seeing this smoke, as we elbowed each other and marveled about how Santana’s guitar playing was so awesome and fierce that his guitar was smoldering and about to combust. To say I was somewhat let down when I realized that Santana simply stored his lit cigarettes between the strings of his guitar’s headstock would be an understatement.
Let’s just say, without incriminating anyone, that at this point I knew what marijuana was and what it smelled like. There was a ridiculous amount of marijuana smoking going on at this Santana show. Memory number two is this: As we’re enjoying the show, Chad and I notice this gargantuan joint making its way around the row in front of us. This was an absolutely colossal joint, like the one from that scene in Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke. It was the size of a medium banana, both in length and girth (without the curve). So this joint is getting passed around. Eventually it makes its way to the lady sitting next to me. She takes a hit and then—keep in mind I’m seven or eight years old—gives it to me. I’m dumbfounded, so I give it to Chad. This is the image that will stay with me for as long as I exist: tiny little Chad in his denim jacket with the Corvette patch, holding this massive joint—his fingers don’t make it all the way around the monster J—looking at me with this “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” look on his face. Then…then Chad tries to pass it to his MOM, who is horrified and probably had a mental seizure right then. Chad ends up giving it back to me, and I give it back to the lady next to me.
I will forever treasure my first concert experience. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Grothe.
Why I Hate Santana
He unleashed Rob Thomas’s “Smooth” on the world, which became arguably the most popular song in Billboard charting history. I loathe Smooth. Mood, moon, cool, and groove, do not rhyme with smooth. Maybe they’re assonant rhymes, but I hate it nonetheless.
