I've had a great 24 hours in Austin so far. Last night we went out to "fancy barbecue" at Lambert's in the 2nd street district (right next to the warehouse district). I've never had barbecue with cloth tablecloths, napkins, and wine goblets. There was a great piano player, and we had a very good golden ale local beer (great for a beer wimp like me) Real Ale Firemans No. 4 and excellent green chili grits. I had some coffee and brown sugar rubbed and oak smoked brisket, and a great iceberg wedge salad.
I was so dog tired that I fell asleep within two minutes of arriving back at The Austin Motel. I fully intended to rest my eyes five minutes, and go across the street to the Continental Club to hear some music. I woke up fully clothed, contacts still in at 4:15. I wish I was here next week: The Knitters (John Doe, Exene, etc) are playing two nights at the Continental.
Tonight I'm off off t0 see The English Beat/The specials/Special Beat/General Public/Fine Young Cannibals at Antone's in the warehouse district. ---o0o---
Long time reader, friend for thirty-nine years, and someone who makes my year every time I get to see him [1], wrote suggesting I quit using the image of the crashed monoplane when I write about traveling, and instead use the cover of the Special Beat Service album by the English Beat. And he's right. As it happens, I and The English Beat will both be in Austin, Texas tomorrow, and we will be in the same room at Antone's. Oddly enough, it was Kev who introduced me to The English Beat, and their final album, Special Beat Service. I became a fan, and followed the careers of their offshoots and motherlodes, The Specials, General Public, and Fine Young Cannibals. And now it's all come full circle. And Kev, God bless his soul, said I should post the SBS album cover because "they all arrive safely as you always do."
Who'd have ever thought I would fly all around this world? Or that I might become discombobulated when I hadn't flown anywhere for a couple of weeks? I remember back to a time when an 84 hour bus or train trip was preferable to boarding a 'plane for a four hour flight.
I am still sorting this all out. Somehow I have moments when I miss being petrified about flying, and wonder if I haven't just been hypnotized by the Great Corporate Snake?
Anyhow, I will endeavor to write more from Austin in the next few days...and, of course, give a show report on my happy reunion with The English Beat.
Love,
Jack (boarding the 'plane for San Francisco and on to Austin in five hours)
[1] Like I did this June, when I reconnected with NYC and had a ball with Kev and our familial entourage stalking our old haunts, and new ones, in the East Village, Times Square, The Upper West Side, and Brooklyn, and marveling about the changes in us, and New York, and the world. ---o0o---
As December approaches, I am taking stock of my last year. Incredibly, in the last year, I have traversed America on 70 different airplanes. You may recall, in the early weeks of the year, I was locked in the throes of acute chronic aviophobia.
Even when I lived in New York City, and San Francisco, it was all I could muster to get on a 'plane at all once a year to travel home to Seattle. Now, I routinely take multi-legged trips all over the map, switching 'planes, and hopping on turbo-props from one airport to the next.
Only a year ago, I needed Xanax, Vallium, or any sort of phramaceutical psychic soother to get close to an aiport. And those aids were often bolstered with a bloody mary, screwdriver, or glass of wine. The weeks leading up to a flight were filled with dread, and an increasing sense of doom the closer I got to boarding the "aircraft." Today? I barely even think about it until the night before I depart. Yeah, I usually only sleep a few hours that night before, but I have become sanguine about the flights. On the 'plane, I bring a load of distractions: whatever book I am currently reading, a Nintendo DS to play games, a laptop computer (that I almost never use in flight), a sketch pad or canvas to draw on, and a notebook for stories and poems.
It mostly works. I don't even think about my stainless steel hip setting off alarms and the subsequent indignity of friskings and patdowns. It's just part of the deal now. I am extremely uneasy in flight, but I've mostly sorted it out. I'll be traveling to England and Pune, India in the next couple of months, so I shouldn't get too cocky. . .but for the moment, I've tamped down the extreme anxiety and fear of flying to a level that's at least tolerable. And oddly enough, I am happiest on a turbo-prop, flying close to the ground, with the propeller whirring about five feet from my head. What's the deal with that? ---o0o---
I've always been fascinated by poetry generators. I wrote one in the Prolog language in the 1980's and fiddled around with it forever, never able to get it quite right. This one, Rob's Amazing Poetry Generator, looks at a URL (in this case All This Is That) and comes up with a poem. Well, it's not much of a poem, but what I found fascinating was the way it grabbed snatches of this blog from two and three years ago and attempted to incorporate them into the poem. This actually makes me want to attempt to write another one. For what it's worth, here is what Rob's generator came up with:
All This song The United States of bitters; 2 07 with his nadir in Iraq and hooking it bite into a couple of America, Republicans, The Pope favoured the Pugilist Tuesday, November 24, 2007 Alien lore and others. Do a Daily News editorial called his education information, And come November 25, 2007 12:01:00 PM 0 abbr, acronym { cursor: help; : you go see diagram courtesy Tom Pennington . Cures that Aside from a Kendall Barack Obama has been serious deviations in public about something unrelated to some bad decisions that there were frequently but charming Fred wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson bonus: knockout first primary states, that is, distributed without taking another breath, from the book released yesterday I title\>\u003c/div\> \u003cb:loop u003c/ a\> \ length of America, Republicans who had unknowingly passed along with drugs, or less .Rhizoma Polygonati Odorati rhizome of without taking another breath. from acorns, manufactured by Jack Brummet at least Rudy had been ahead in this blog...
Using the blog about the life of my friend Philip Kendall, it came up with this one:
In hand, over and this was crawling across this is not jokes, all of him fight once, although they camped out the last time. you put them and did have a guy name. u003d\\\>\ navMessage\\> \u003c/data:name\was discussing literacy, with some time with the teachers loved his death Milo nicknamed him in LL both the courage to Bellingham. college girls, and whenever anyone we decided to ride a whistle. I would suggest popcorn, Story Kevin Curran would respond with Hobart when Dad pulled up, again, What are wasting your game. ---o0o---
Jeri Kehn has been busy on the campaign trail once again. This week, we find her pressing the flesh and posing for photo ops in four different states. That wrinkly guy in the upper left hand corner is ex-Senator Fred Thompson, who is running for office, or something.
Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft is unquestionably the nuttiest song The Carpenters ever recorded. . .so out there it qualifies as an Alien Lore entry on All This Is That. Aside from Sun Ra, not a lot of modern music has focused on "visitors" alien lore, or close encounters, and for the clean-cut mainstream Carpenters to perform this song was, even in those wacky times, a real mind-f***er!
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft is a song by Klaatu, originally released in 1976. It was covered by the Carpenters with a crew of 160 musicians.
John Woloschuk, a member of Klaatu and one of the song's composers, said: The idea for this track was suggested by an actual event that is described in The Flying Saucer Reader, a book by Jay David published in 1967. In March 1953 an organization known as the "International Flying Saucer Bureau" sent a bulletin to all its members urging them to participate in an experiment termed "World Contact Day" whereby, at a predetermined date and time, they would attempt to collectively send out a telepathic message to visitors from outer space. The message began with the words..."Calling occupants of interplanetary craft!"
Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
In your mind you have capacities you know To telepath messages through the vast unknown Please close your eyes and concentrate With every thought you think Upon the recitation we're about to sing
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft Calling occupants of interplanetary craft Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft
You've been observing our earth And we'd like to make a contact with you We are your friends
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft Calling occupants of interplanetary ultra emissaries
We've been observing your earth And one night we'll make a contact with you
We are your friends Calling occupants of interplanetary quite extraordinary craft
And please come in pace we beseech you (Only of love we will teach you) Our earth may never survive (So don't come we beg you) Please interstellar policemen Won't you give us a sign give us a sign that we've reached you
With your mind you have ability to form And transmit thought energy far beyond the norm You close your eyes, you concentrate, together that's the way To send a message we declare World Contact Day
Calling occupants of interplanetary craft Calling occupants of interplanetary craft Calling occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft
Calling occupants Calling occupants Calling occupants of interplanetary, anti-adversary craft
If you're a regular reader, you know we think The Mayor of 9/11, Rudolph Giuliani, is not specifically the best choice for President of the United States of America. Far from it. From the Republican column, we would even give the nod to that dingbat Dennis Kucinich, or the plodding but charming Fred Thompson (bonus: knockout first lady) before we'd give the nod to Rudy. If I was a Republican I'd probably vote for Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney. Note: I've only voted for two republicans in my entire life, and I'd be glad to do it again if they could just quit sounding like, well, Nazis,toothless hillbillies, imbeciles, reactionary toads , whores to the establishment, Republicans.
Giuliani unquestionably has done some good in his life. He completely turned around the town I lived in for five years (NYC), and as a federal prosecutor, he broke the strangle-hold of the mob on NYC and elsewhere. But then there were other problems, with his trigger-happy police, who seemed to feel like they had a standing shoot to kill order on anyone who breached the peace, or with his personal life where he felt no compunction about housing his girlfriend and wife and children in Gracey Mansion at the same time. And then, at his nadir in public opinion as he was about to leave office, 9/11 happened, and he walked around with a hardhat and megaphone issuing sound bites to a ravenous press, and he was suddenly transmogrified into an expert on Islam, terrorism, and national security. The policemen and women and the firefighters do not agree. And neither apparently do many other people. Under this logic, I should probably be the police commissioner of New York City, since I was mugged three times while I lived there.
"On Sept. 16, 1992, the police in New York City held a rally that spun out of control. The cops wanted a new collective-bargaining agreement, and they were angry at Mayor David Dinkins for proposing a civilian review board and for refusing to issue patrolmen 9mm guns. More than a few of them tipsy or drunk, the cops jumped on cars near city hall and blocked traffic near the Brooklyn Bridge. According to some witnesses, they waved placards crudely mocking Mayor Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York, on racial grounds, while at the same time chanting "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!" to welcome Rudy Giuliani, the crime-busting former U.S. attorney who had arrived in their midst to shore up his political base.
"It is not clear Giuliani knew exactly what he was getting himself into—he later denied that he did—but video shows him wildly gesticulating and shouting a profanity-laced diatribe against Dinkins. The next day the New York newspapers were sharply critical of Giuliani (a Daily News editorial called his behavior "shameful"), and Dinkins, years later, accused him of trying to stir up "white cops to riot." At the time, Giuliani refused to back down or apologize for his remarks, saying only: "I had four uncles who were cops. So maybe I was more emotional than I usually am." Giuliani's performance that day lost African-American voters, some permanently, but it guaranteed the informal backing of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the policemen's union, which helped him get elected mayor in 1993."
There were three drive-ins in Kent, but we mainly went to one, because it was cheap. The El Rancho was our high school choice to see spaghetti westerns, scary movies like I Saw What You Did And I Know Who You Are, and monster movies like The Blob, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Day The Earth Stood Still, or Billie Jack, Charles Bronson, and Clint Eastwood movies, or sometimes R-rated potboilers by Russ Meyers, like The Stewardesses, or the memorable Wife Swappers.
There were two other drive-ins in Kent: The Midway, on West Hill, which still exists, albeit as a swap meet location (the screen has long been dead), and the Valley Drive-in (which closed in the last two years). The El Rancho opened the year after I was born.
The fantastic marquee out front showed a gigantic cowboy on the range, cooking bacon in a cast iron skillet over a campfire. At $3.50 a carload, so you could see a movie for about seventy-five cents. Lining the street in front of the drive in were a row of stately Lombardy poplars. The El Rancho was torn down in 1975, but there among the concrete tilt-up warehouses and strip malls, a few of those poplars still exist, in between buildings and warehouses.
Drive-ins close every year at a quickening pace, but in this state (Washington) a few remain:
Samish Twin Drive-In Theatre Bellingham
Auto Vue Theatre Colville
Dayton Drive-in Theater Dayton
Puget Park Drive-In Everett
Your Drive In Theatre Longview
Rodeo Tri Drive-In Theatre Port Orchard
Blue Fox Drive-in Theater Oak Harbor
River-Vue Drive-In Pasco
Skyline Drive-In Theatre Shelton (with an actual Indian totem pole at the entrance)
Wheel-In Motor Movie Port Townsend
Vue Dale Drive In Theatre Wenatchee
Country Drive In Theatre Yakima
one of the two murals in front of the theatre
An aerial view of the El Rancho before it was demolished
I don't talk or write much about Joe Biden for President, because, regrettably, he can't win. But if we chose who might actually make the best President--like a Bill Clinton with a stronger moral compass--Senator Biden would win hands down. Even his fellow candidates (opponents is not the right word...aren't we looking for the best and brightest as opposed to the most marketable?) seem to agree:
When I was growing up, the drive-in theatre was a cheap place for families to go. I remember the El Rancho drive-in in Kent, Wash., for many years charged $3.50 for "a carload."
Even back in 1960, the ads at the drive-in seemed corny. Here are some choice gems from the late 50's and early 60's.
The Pope is about to overhaul the Vatican to enforce a return to traditional music.
Now that the Pope has reintroduced the Latin Tridentine Mass, he wants His church to go back to the Gregorian chant and baroque sacred music. In an speech to bishops and priests at St. Peter's Basilica, he said the church needs "continuity with tradition" in their prayers and music.
He referred to "the time of St Gregory the Great", the pope for whom the Gregorian chant is named. The Gregorian chant has become the prevalent form of singing by the new choir director of St Peter's, Father Pierre Paul.
The Pope has also ended the tradition, started by John Paul II, of having a choir drawn from churches all over the world, to sing Mass in St Peter's.
The International Church Music Review recently criticised the choir, saying: "The singers wanted to overshout each other, they were frequently out of tune, the sound uneven, the conducting without any artistic power, the organ and organ playing like in a second-rank country parish church."
Monsignor Valentin MiserachsGrau, the director of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, which trains church musicians, said that there had been serious "deviations" in the performance of sacred music. "How far we are from the true spirit of sacred music. How can we stand it that such a wave of inconsistent, arrogant and ridiculous profanities have so easily gained a stamp of approval in our celebrations?"
The Pope favoured the idea of a watchdog for church music when he was the cardinal in charge of safeguarding Catholic doctrine.
According to my friend Daryle Conners, who produced a documentary on The Vatican, Cardinal Ratzinger, as he was known then, was referred to as Darth Vader by Vatican insiders. I believe it! I wonder if anyone has even had the heart to tell Pope Darth that in America we have such perversions as folk-rock masses? Or that I have heard folk music, gamelon, rock and roll, and jazz in the sacred confines of his sanctuaries in the states? ---o0o---
