September was a busy month.
I won't bore you with the details because they would bore you.
Sufficed to say, I will not be reviewing the other Douglas Adams books. I urge you to read them on your own, make up your own mind. At this point, reviewing them would just slow me down for what I want to do next. Let me get to that.
There are two posts that are in the works for sure. One is a post about my favorite band, which has reunited and is currently touring again for the first time in ten years (no St. Louis dates, suck). That will be coming soon. After that, I will write a book review. I finished Eoin Colfer's submission to the H2G2 series and have just about finished processing it enough to write about it. Expect both of those posts in the next couple of days.
I want to talk about the blog for a minute, readers. I appreciate everybody who stops by to read what I have to say, even though I may not update as frequently as you visit. I know how frustrating it is to come back to a blog you enjoy reading (and I hope you enjoy reading my blog) only to find that, once again, the deadbeat blogger hasn't updated in a day (a week, a month, several months...the list goes on). It is among the more annoying parts of the internet's culture of individualism; I am my own publisher when it comes to the blog, so I set my own deadlines and I'm very lax. Sometimes, I just get so backed up with work and other writing projects and whatever is going on in my personal life, and I neglect the blog. It's not that I don't want people stoppying by the site, it's just that it's not always at the forefront of my mind.
So, I apologize. I know I have said this before and it therefore has transitioned from reassuring to patronizing to just flat out lip service, but I will try to be more prolific on the blog.
I appreciate each individual hit I get on this site. I've been using Google Analytics for a little over a year and it always pleases me to see the number of hits I'm getting, small as they may be. It's fun to look at the map overlay and find people are visiting my blog from not just concentrated areas of family and friends, but also from places I have never been or places where I may not actually know anybody. Even if they just clicked on a link that turned up in a random search, it's nice to know I can reach people who had no idea I existed until they stumbled onto my corner of the web. I like that. And that brings me to my final point.
I have one request of you, dear readers. A small request, which will be phrased in the form of a statement of fact. I thrive on comments. Each comment I get urges me to return to the blog, clarify or enhance myself, churn out more pointless drivel for you to read while you should be working, etc. The more comments I get, the more I blog. And not just comments like, "You should blog again" or the string of comments that showed up on my last Q&A session (comments which were all in Asian characters and which I have no reason to suspect were not spam). No...thoughtful comments are great. Encouraging comments are great, too. Constructive criticism will be deleted and that person shunned. Ha! Kidding! Jokes are fun! And, well, yeah, jokes are fun. So, to run down: Comments I like include thoughtful, inspiring, encouraging, questions, constructive criticisms, suggestions for future writing projects, answers to my questions, and, um, bank account numbers w/ your mother's maiden name provided. Comments I dislike include angry criticisms, spams of any kind, suggestions that I increase the size of any of my apendages, and requests for my bank account number. You'll never get it, Mom, so stop trying.
Anyway...I hope to get a little more consistent with this blogging thing. November is coming up, and as we all know that is NaNoWriMo, and as it is the first year since 2004 that I am not enrolled in classes, I will set myself the goal of really hammering out some novel during the month of November, so you can bet I'll be easily distracted from that and probably post some musings about anything but the task at hand. So look forward to that.
Other than that, I'm all done except to say a one-day-late (as it is after midnight now, damn it all) Happy Birthday to my sister. Mo, as it is now officially the day after your birthday, you are no longer just thirty but you are in your thirties. I'm still in my twenties. But you still rock as a big sis.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Book Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
"Far out, in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy, lies a small, unregarded yellow sun," Dougals Adams' first novel opens. "Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea," it goes on, while it dawns on the reader that hey, he's talking about the Earth, and he's also talking about us.
It might also dawn on some of the more particular kinds of readers who have backgrounds in astronomy that Adams' calculations of distance are a bit off. But this is not really that big of a deal.
The tone suggests a disdain for the Earth and its inhabitants, to be sure. And it is possible that Douglas Adams himself harbored some disdain at the time it was written, a year or so prior to the publication of the book. But you have to remember that, at the time, he was a struggling writer/performer trying very hard to become the next John Cleese, but he wasn't very good at being John Cleese. So when this opening was written, for a radio series tentatively titled "The Ends of the Earth" he was feeling a little down-trodden. But the radio series, and subsequently the book, were set to change and define his life and career forever.
The book opens with an outsider's introduction to Earth, where we find Arthur Dent, a human who is unaware that his home is about to be demolished to make way for a new bypass. This action, taken by the English government, is mirrored by the fact that the galactic government, unbeknownst to the people of Earth, have made a similar decision about Earth. Enter Ford Prefect (a name which American readers may not get, because the Ford Prefect is a car that was never sold in the United States, but imagine that the name is Ford Focus and you'll get the joke made part way through the first couple chapters), an alien researcher for a guide book for interstellar travelers titled, interestingly enough, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He saves Arthur from the destruction of Earth and together, they go on an adventure across the stars.
Basically, this book is a buddy comedy about two galactic travellers, one of whom is very much in his element in space and the other who is not. Together they meet a slew of sci-fi heroes and villans while travelling to strange new worlds in very fast spaceships with technology Arther Dent has never dreamed of.
It sounds pretty cut and dried, but Douglas Adams does several things with this book which turn the whole genre on its head. To begin with, the novel opens where so many science fiction stories end (or at least threaten to end), with the destruction of the Earth. The first villains Arthur and Ford meet are not fierce evil warriors (like Star Trek's Klingons) or heavy-handed fascists (like the Empire in Star Wars) but a race of beauracrats; a branch of the galactic democratic government that takes care of making sure all the permits are in place before beginning construction of a new bypass.
This is why Douglas Adams' work is so groundbreaking. Like so much art he's holding a mirror up to reality, but in this case the mirror is a fun-house mirror with stars and spaceships in it.
The problem with the novel, though, is that while it's hilarious and thought-provoking on subjects such as God and the human condition, our main character is a person who actually does very little in the course of the story. Things happen to him or, more frequently, to the characters around him while he observes, the quintessential fish-out-of-water. The action is driven mainly by Zaphod Beeblebrox, a character identified as the former president of the galaxy who spends the novel searching for a mystical planet without any motive. His motivation, or lack thereof, is explored but never explained.
Another problem with the novel has to do with that introductory line, calling Earth utterly insignificant. It is revealed that the Earth is, in fact, a very significant planet in its own right, so significant that it is being reconstructed (that is right, reconstructed) by a race of people who originally built it as a computer with the job of calculating the missing piece to the meaning of life (having already learned the answer from a previous computer, they must build a second to calculate the question). So the Earth is very significant, but the question, or the answer depending on which way you look at it, is not resolved when you turn the back cover.
The saving grace of this, though, is that the book is based on a radio series, and the book itself only covers a part of the series. And the last line of the book indicates that there will be a second (and luckily, there is) which may resolve these issues (unluckily, it won't).
The book is full of pieces of wisdom that are both funny and accurate. "Time is an illusion," Ford Prefect tells Arthur Dent over three pints of beer apiece at noon, "lunchtime doubly so." A passage about the psychological advantage of owning a towel shows the genius of the writer at work. It is truly a sad fact that this writer was not more prolific in his too-short life. Reading this will show you just how much the world may have been robbed of.
You can find this book at any major bookseller or online. For the actual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, please contact Megadodo Publications of Ursa Minor Beta in person by hitching a lift on the next passing spaceship. Don't forget your towel.
It might also dawn on some of the more particular kinds of readers who have backgrounds in astronomy that Adams' calculations of distance are a bit off. But this is not really that big of a deal.
The tone suggests a disdain for the Earth and its inhabitants, to be sure. And it is possible that Douglas Adams himself harbored some disdain at the time it was written, a year or so prior to the publication of the book. But you have to remember that, at the time, he was a struggling writer/performer trying very hard to become the next John Cleese, but he wasn't very good at being John Cleese. So when this opening was written, for a radio series tentatively titled "The Ends of the Earth" he was feeling a little down-trodden. But the radio series, and subsequently the book, were set to change and define his life and career forever.
The book opens with an outsider's introduction to Earth, where we find Arthur Dent, a human who is unaware that his home is about to be demolished to make way for a new bypass. This action, taken by the English government, is mirrored by the fact that the galactic government, unbeknownst to the people of Earth, have made a similar decision about Earth. Enter Ford Prefect (a name which American readers may not get, because the Ford Prefect is a car that was never sold in the United States, but imagine that the name is Ford Focus and you'll get the joke made part way through the first couple chapters), an alien researcher for a guide book for interstellar travelers titled, interestingly enough, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He saves Arthur from the destruction of Earth and together, they go on an adventure across the stars.
Basically, this book is a buddy comedy about two galactic travellers, one of whom is very much in his element in space and the other who is not. Together they meet a slew of sci-fi heroes and villans while travelling to strange new worlds in very fast spaceships with technology Arther Dent has never dreamed of.
It sounds pretty cut and dried, but Douglas Adams does several things with this book which turn the whole genre on its head. To begin with, the novel opens where so many science fiction stories end (or at least threaten to end), with the destruction of the Earth. The first villains Arthur and Ford meet are not fierce evil warriors (like Star Trek's Klingons) or heavy-handed fascists (like the Empire in Star Wars) but a race of beauracrats; a branch of the galactic democratic government that takes care of making sure all the permits are in place before beginning construction of a new bypass.
This is why Douglas Adams' work is so groundbreaking. Like so much art he's holding a mirror up to reality, but in this case the mirror is a fun-house mirror with stars and spaceships in it.
The problem with the novel, though, is that while it's hilarious and thought-provoking on subjects such as God and the human condition, our main character is a person who actually does very little in the course of the story. Things happen to him or, more frequently, to the characters around him while he observes, the quintessential fish-out-of-water. The action is driven mainly by Zaphod Beeblebrox, a character identified as the former president of the galaxy who spends the novel searching for a mystical planet without any motive. His motivation, or lack thereof, is explored but never explained.
Another problem with the novel has to do with that introductory line, calling Earth utterly insignificant. It is revealed that the Earth is, in fact, a very significant planet in its own right, so significant that it is being reconstructed (that is right, reconstructed) by a race of people who originally built it as a computer with the job of calculating the missing piece to the meaning of life (having already learned the answer from a previous computer, they must build a second to calculate the question). So the Earth is very significant, but the question, or the answer depending on which way you look at it, is not resolved when you turn the back cover.
The saving grace of this, though, is that the book is based on a radio series, and the book itself only covers a part of the series. And the last line of the book indicates that there will be a second (and luckily, there is) which may resolve these issues (unluckily, it won't).
The book is full of pieces of wisdom that are both funny and accurate. "Time is an illusion," Ford Prefect tells Arthur Dent over three pints of beer apiece at noon, "lunchtime doubly so." A passage about the psychological advantage of owning a towel shows the genius of the writer at work. It is truly a sad fact that this writer was not more prolific in his too-short life. Reading this will show you just how much the world may have been robbed of.
You can find this book at any major bookseller or online. For the actual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, please contact Megadodo Publications of Ursa Minor Beta in person by hitching a lift on the next passing spaceship. Don't forget your towel.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
I Know Where My Towel Is
Warning: The post you are about to read is long, rambling, and certain to take up way more of your time than you currently have budgeted for reading this blog. You might want to tackle this one in spurts. And you're probably going to need a cup of coffee while you're at it. And a donut. In fact, get me a donut, too. Thanks.
I am going to broach a subject that I'm pretty sure I have never broached before on this platform, possibly because it seemed so redundant to anyone who knows me to for me to speak on this subject, but also because...well, no I don't really know why at all. I just, for some reason, haven't talked about this on the blog yet and I feel that, what with certain things currently in the works in the wide world outside of my own writing, I thought now is as good a time as any to do so.
What I am gradually coming to the point of is this: DNA. Not DNA as in Deoxyribonucleic acid but DNA as in Douglas Noel Adams, British humourist, scriptwriter, performer, environmentalist, atheist, tech-head, and (both most importantly and least effectively) author. I'll clarify that in a moment. This man's work has had a profound effect on my life, my sensibilities, my thoughts, and my early approach to writing. And though I have read many many books that are technically, verbally, artistically and generally better than his books, no book will ever supplant the Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the crown jewel of my book collection.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden. In fact, as recently as the year before she had been Ms. Derby (which is how I knew her anyway, because my sister had, three years before me, sat in Ms. Derby's classroom on a daily basis) but had, as many women see fit to do (thankfully my wife included, otherwise I'd likely be a shiftless bum) gotten married to a rather sensible gentleman by the name of Mr. McFadden (I am basing my assessment of his sensibility solely on the fact that he asked Ms. Derby n/k/a Mrs. McFadden to marry him). This is not the point of the story. I shall return to the beginning.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden, who had, three years previous and under her unmarried name of Ms. Derby, taught my sister in fourth grade. It was sheer luck I got her as my teacher, as there were four teachers for each grade at my elementary school (I think that's right, but it has been a number of years) and there was no system whereby you could request specific teachers (but I think if a parent asked gently enough, it could only help, which I think is why the next year, in fifth grade, I avoided a disaster my sister was not so lucky to have missed), but having seen how wonderful Ms. Derby was for my sister, my parents were thrilled for me to have Mrs. McFadden. I guess the general thought was that having gotten married would not negatively affect her teaching ability. And, thankfully, it didn't. She recognized my sense of humour, my (not to toot my own horn here) intelligence, and my skills with words. She was the first teacher I remember truly encouraging me to explore creative writing. But what was cool, looking back, was the way in which she encouraged it. She encouraged me not just to write, but also to read, which is a doctrine that each and every writing teacher I've had at any level of creative writing since has preached.
I had always been an avid reader, and had many times put pen (or, I guess back then, #2 pencil) to (wide-ruled loose leaf) paper. I was even, during fourth grade, in the midst of writing a comic book (based on the adventures of my stuffed animals) as well as a novel (called "Aliens In The Backyard") about a group of kids who get abducted by aliens in an attempt to better understand humans' fascination with baseball. These are the things I would work on when we'd have a free period, or when recess was confined to the classroom due to inclement weather. Both of these pursuits were grounded in material I was reading, not for class but for personal pleasure. I was reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (perhaps a precursor to my college days, when I took a philosophy class and read several treatises by Calvin and Hobbes?) and also the My Teacher is an Alien series. You can see how easily it was for me to write in such a genre if I was so immersed in it.
There was only one problem with my comic strip, just a tiny little one; I couldn't draw a straight line unless I were trying to draw a curved or squiggly one, and that was just the beginning of my drawing problems. Let's face it; while my wife and I are both artists, only one of us can draw, and it's not the one who's words you are reading right now (unless, at that moment, you got an e-mail from her or read one of her comments or something). And the problem with my novel was that I was ten, and had no idea how to structure a story, really. There were all kinds of POV shifts and narrative lapses and tense shifts and (as I recall I agonized over this) even an inclusion of the word dammit, which I remember at the time made me blush just to type (and, shit, now would ya fuckin' look at this damn mess?) and which I'm pretty sure I eventually removed thinking it was too risky.
Amidst all of this, though, Mrs. McFadden (ah, you thought I'd forgotten about her all ready, I'll bet) kept encouraging me to write, to draw (though once she actually saw my drawings, I think she mostly encouraged me to write), and to read, and to listen to the things happening around me. And she let me borrow a set of tapes.
These tapes were my introduction to the world of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a rather large sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. These tapes were a recording of that wholly remarkable radio series about a wholly remarkable book which was eventually then turned into a wholly remarkable book based on the radio series about a wholly remarkable book, all of which shared the same title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
At this point, let me interject more relevant past; I can remember staying up late and sneaking halfway down the stairs (and often getting caught doing so) trying to catch snippets of Doctor Who, which my parents used to watch on PBS. And in my household, Saturday nights were held sacred in that we would sit in the living room with popcorn and soda and watch the newest episode of Star Trek. The relevance of these points are as follows: 1) Being an avid Star Trek fan meant I had a foothold on the general world of science fiction (and, trust me, I grew up in the 80's and had every intention of becoming a Jedi someday) and 2) Even though I was little and didn't understand why it was funny, I understood that Doctor Who was funny in a particularly different way than most funny television I was familiar with was funny. And it wasn't just their funny accents. Also, Douglas Adams wrote scripts and was for a time the script editor for Doctor Who in 1979). Okay, background info to the background info done.
I took these tapes home and decided it would be a good idea to play them on my boom box while I tried to fall asleep (at this time, due to construction at my house, I was without a room of my own and was sleeping on the futon in the living room, so I had to keep the radio low) but this was clearly a mistake. I couldn't stop listening to it, it was that good. And it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. I would have to corroborate this story with my parents, but I am fairly sure I woke them up with my laughing. I finished the set of tapes Mrs. McFadden had given me and started them over. And again. In fact, I'd probably still be doing that if, after three weeks, she hadn't said, "Elliot, have you finished with them? I've got other things I wish to share with you."
I returned them, but told her she had to let other kids listen to them. She agreed, but warned me that not everybody would like it as much as I did. I picked out three friends I thought would get it (all of whom, by the way, did like it as much as I did) and she gave me-gasp of gasps-another set of tapes, these bearing the title The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was more of the same, and three weeks later she had to ask for them back again.
This patter continued throughout the year, though sadly no more Douglas Adams was forthcoming. I did not see the books in fourth grade (I think Mrs. McFadden thought, quite rightly, that perhaps the books were a bit more mature than the radio show, which was all ready pushing it for a fourth grader). I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth at her suggestion, but sadly I can't think of any more books she suggested I read. I know I read them all, but it was, as I said, many years ago.
Fast forward several years to seventh grade; I'm older, much less wise though I think I know everything, and I'm perusing the bookshelf in my English teacher's classroom when I happen upon something that jolts my memory.
It had been three years since I had seen the title, and I remembered it mostly as a tape recording, so to find it on the shelf was exciting. I pulled it off. It was a very dog-eared copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was held together with tape and looked like it had actually seen the galaxy. I started reading it. I read it twice, three times. My English teacher (Mr. Eckert, I believe) told me to take it home, that he had his own copies at home and anyway the only books in the series he had left in the classroom were the first and the fourth and I might as well take that one, too.
Wait...the...the fourth? There are more of these books out there? I embarked on a quest (after gathering up the fourth book, entitled So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) to find all of the books. I even read the fourth one before acquiring the second and third, in the interest of reading something, anything, by Douglas Adams that I hadn't read before. I began collecting.
At it's height, I had, decidedly, too many Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books. I had the original dog-eared copy of book one I had taken from Mr. Eckert's class room, as well as the even more dilapidated book four. I had a mass market paperback set of books one through four (the fourth being identical in cover to the fourth I all ready had, the first being very different and in fact containing several typos and omissions which, I found out in much later research, resulted from the fact that the copy I had originally was a British pressing and the second one I got an American pressing of the third run, after which they finally stopped editing out all the British references they thought Americans were too dumb to get...for instance, in the American version there is a reference to a "crosswalk" while in the British version it was a "Zebra Crossing." Apparently, the American publisher thought American readers would think it was a street crossing specifically for Zebras). I had a trade paperback version of the fifth book. I had an over sized "illustrated" version of book one as well (mainly illustrated with photographs and computer-rendered landscapes, and it was quite beautiful really). I had a cloth-hardbound omnibus edition with an introduction from the author himself and an extra short story between books four and five. But that wasn't all. I obtained copies of some of DNA's other works, notably both of his Dirk Gently novels and also a strange book called Starship Titanic which was actually written by Footlighter and Monty Python alumn Terry Jones (the novel is billed as "Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic; a Novel by Terry Jones" and is based on a computer game Adams was working on, which in turn was based on a short passage of text in the third book of the Hitchhiker series called Life, The Universe and Everything which was, in turn, actually, adapted from a "Doctor Who" script treatment written by Adams titled "Doctor Who and the Cricket Men"). I could never, however, find cheap copies of Last Chance to See or The Meaning of Liff, both of which he co-wrote, the former with biologist Mark Carwardine and the latter with his friend John Lloyd (the two also worked on an updated version called The Deeper Meaning of Liff several years later which was, counter-intuitively, even harder to find).
At some point, though, I lost track of the Illustrated Guide (Jon, Zach, Will, I'm looking in your directions. Ah hell, I think Dave has it. Shit, it's in Alaska, I'll never get it back now) while my pristine new copies of books one and four dissolved into tatters quicker than books two, three and five for some reason. I lost the dust jacket to the omnibus edition. And about a year ago, I finally gave up the paperback editions of each book...except for that original dog-eared copy I pulled off the shelf in seventh grade. Also, I now have a leather bound, gold-leafed edition of the omnibus collection. It looks like a bible and I truly do treat it as a holy book. I'm strange like that.
There are gaps in that history. I started a band named "The Hitchhikers" and we had songs like "I'm Sold on Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters" because we were all really into the books. I wrote stories through high school which were at first imitations of Douglas Adams' style but gradually became my own voice, a voice which has now little of the Adams influence apparent, unless, of course, I, as I am doing now, allow it to seep in, ever so softly, to the edges of my speech, from time to time, now and again.
But the simplicity of some of his work is astounding. The idea that one need only to know where their towel is, and everything will be just fine, is a great metaphor. You just have to find what your towel is, and then find it, and know where it is at all times. My towel is writing, I guess. The day I lost the ability to write, to use my voice, I'm lost. I don't mean writer's block, oh no. Even days when I can't get word one on the page, I at least have the desire to do so, the drive, and I can muster out a little here and there and, perhaps, get the creativity flowing. I mean if I ever sit down to write and realize, "Nope. Not any more. Can't do it now, won't be able to ever again. Might as well go buy an automatic transmissioned Buick and drive with my blinker on and never remember which meal I've just eaten or where I put my damn keys that were, I swear, right here in my left pocket just a minute ago, or was that last month?
Whoa, where did I go there?
You know what I mean, though. I think. The towel; your lifeline. And maybe even your answer, or even your question to match your answer. These are things that will make sense if/when you've read the books. It nothing else, it should clear up any confusion you may have over my seeming obsession with the number forty-two.
Anyway, the point of all of this; Douglas Adams was a profound and confounding person. Ever novel he wrote was a best seller, which is a great track record, but the problem is that while ostensibly it would take him three or four years to actually write a novel, he would do most of the actual writing in the month or so before the unusually mobile deadline, which would likely have been passed and extended more times than should be allowed by law, if there were people sensible enough to make such laws. When he died in May of 2001, he was rumored to be working on what was either going to be the third Dirk Gently novel, something entirely new or, much to the delight and subsequent sadness of millions of fans who felt Mostly Harmless was a sub-par and thoroughly depressing fifth book in the series, the sixth Hitchhiker novel. He was also working on the feature film version of the original novel, which he had been working on for over twenty years (and which was finally completed in 2005, possibly the only incarnation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy we're likely to see on a big screen for many years, if ever again).
The fragments from this novel in progress (the most completed of which were quite clearly meant to be the third Dirk Gently novel) were collected alongside several letters, speeches and articles Adams had written over the years and published as The Salmon of Doubt, which had been the working title of the novel.
Over the next few weeks, I will be talking more about Douglas Adams, his effect on me, and his work. I'll do reviews of each of the books in his two series, and finish with analysis of the next bit of news I am about to drop.
As I mentioned above, many fans believed Mostly Harmless to be rather bleak, and Adams admitted as such. I, for one, have always been upset at the end of it. Each year, I re-read the series, and each year I contemplate stopping at the end of book four (some years, when I was feeling really wretched about things, I would even consider stopping at book three or book two or, chuck it all, not even starting) but each time I read all the way through. Earlier this year I was greeted with news that Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, has been selected to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker series. He has the blessings of the publisher, the estate of Douglas Adams and also Adams' widow. He even initially turned it down, fearing what he could not avoid should he accept; the wrath of the fan boy. It's like spending tax money; no matter how he does it, he'll be wrong. Yet, I will support him. I will take his book with a grain of salt. It is not the sixth book in the series by Douglas Adams. It is the first book in the series of six books not written by Douglas Adams. I can only hope it's a tenth as good as Adams himself would have made it, were he still alive today.
I have a sense, right now, of looking up, up through the words I have written at this lofty and gangly British man named Douglas Adams, standing atop the words I have written like some sort of God. I don't feel good about doing that. I don't want to elevate him that much. But it's hard not to; so much of the last, what, almost twenty years now, my life has been peppered with his words. I'm afraid I've built him up too much, but the good thing about that is, now I will never have to meet him and embarass him by being starry-eyed.
For those Hitchhiker fans who have not heard of it yet, the new novel will be called And Another Thing... and you can find out more information about it here on the official website.
That is all for now, folks. See you next time!
I am going to broach a subject that I'm pretty sure I have never broached before on this platform, possibly because it seemed so redundant to anyone who knows me to for me to speak on this subject, but also because...well, no I don't really know why at all. I just, for some reason, haven't talked about this on the blog yet and I feel that, what with certain things currently in the works in the wide world outside of my own writing, I thought now is as good a time as any to do so.
What I am gradually coming to the point of is this: DNA. Not DNA as in Deoxyribonucleic acid but DNA as in Douglas Noel Adams, British humourist, scriptwriter, performer, environmentalist, atheist, tech-head, and (both most importantly and least effectively) author. I'll clarify that in a moment. This man's work has had a profound effect on my life, my sensibilities, my thoughts, and my early approach to writing. And though I have read many many books that are technically, verbally, artistically and generally better than his books, no book will ever supplant the Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the crown jewel of my book collection.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden. In fact, as recently as the year before she had been Ms. Derby (which is how I knew her anyway, because my sister had, three years before me, sat in Ms. Derby's classroom on a daily basis) but had, as many women see fit to do (thankfully my wife included, otherwise I'd likely be a shiftless bum) gotten married to a rather sensible gentleman by the name of Mr. McFadden (I am basing my assessment of his sensibility solely on the fact that he asked Ms. Derby n/k/a Mrs. McFadden to marry him). This is not the point of the story. I shall return to the beginning.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden, who had, three years previous and under her unmarried name of Ms. Derby, taught my sister in fourth grade. It was sheer luck I got her as my teacher, as there were four teachers for each grade at my elementary school (I think that's right, but it has been a number of years) and there was no system whereby you could request specific teachers (but I think if a parent asked gently enough, it could only help, which I think is why the next year, in fifth grade, I avoided a disaster my sister was not so lucky to have missed), but having seen how wonderful Ms. Derby was for my sister, my parents were thrilled for me to have Mrs. McFadden. I guess the general thought was that having gotten married would not negatively affect her teaching ability. And, thankfully, it didn't. She recognized my sense of humour, my (not to toot my own horn here) intelligence, and my skills with words. She was the first teacher I remember truly encouraging me to explore creative writing. But what was cool, looking back, was the way in which she encouraged it. She encouraged me not just to write, but also to read, which is a doctrine that each and every writing teacher I've had at any level of creative writing since has preached.
I had always been an avid reader, and had many times put pen (or, I guess back then, #2 pencil) to (wide-ruled loose leaf) paper. I was even, during fourth grade, in the midst of writing a comic book (based on the adventures of my stuffed animals) as well as a novel (called "Aliens In The Backyard") about a group of kids who get abducted by aliens in an attempt to better understand humans' fascination with baseball. These are the things I would work on when we'd have a free period, or when recess was confined to the classroom due to inclement weather. Both of these pursuits were grounded in material I was reading, not for class but for personal pleasure. I was reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (perhaps a precursor to my college days, when I took a philosophy class and read several treatises by Calvin and Hobbes?) and also the My Teacher is an Alien series. You can see how easily it was for me to write in such a genre if I was so immersed in it.
There was only one problem with my comic strip, just a tiny little one; I couldn't draw a straight line unless I were trying to draw a curved or squiggly one, and that was just the beginning of my drawing problems. Let's face it; while my wife and I are both artists, only one of us can draw, and it's not the one who's words you are reading right now (unless, at that moment, you got an e-mail from her or read one of her comments or something). And the problem with my novel was that I was ten, and had no idea how to structure a story, really. There were all kinds of POV shifts and narrative lapses and tense shifts and (as I recall I agonized over this) even an inclusion of the word dammit, which I remember at the time made me blush just to type (and, shit, now would ya fuckin' look at this damn mess?) and which I'm pretty sure I eventually removed thinking it was too risky.
Amidst all of this, though, Mrs. McFadden (ah, you thought I'd forgotten about her all ready, I'll bet) kept encouraging me to write, to draw (though once she actually saw my drawings, I think she mostly encouraged me to write), and to read, and to listen to the things happening around me. And she let me borrow a set of tapes.
These tapes were my introduction to the world of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a rather large sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. These tapes were a recording of that wholly remarkable radio series about a wholly remarkable book which was eventually then turned into a wholly remarkable book based on the radio series about a wholly remarkable book, all of which shared the same title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
At this point, let me interject more relevant past; I can remember staying up late and sneaking halfway down the stairs (and often getting caught doing so) trying to catch snippets of Doctor Who, which my parents used to watch on PBS. And in my household, Saturday nights were held sacred in that we would sit in the living room with popcorn and soda and watch the newest episode of Star Trek. The relevance of these points are as follows: 1) Being an avid Star Trek fan meant I had a foothold on the general world of science fiction (and, trust me, I grew up in the 80's and had every intention of becoming a Jedi someday) and 2) Even though I was little and didn't understand why it was funny, I understood that Doctor Who was funny in a particularly different way than most funny television I was familiar with was funny. And it wasn't just their funny accents. Also, Douglas Adams wrote scripts and was for a time the script editor for Doctor Who in 1979). Okay, background info to the background info done.
I took these tapes home and decided it would be a good idea to play them on my boom box while I tried to fall asleep (at this time, due to construction at my house, I was without a room of my own and was sleeping on the futon in the living room, so I had to keep the radio low) but this was clearly a mistake. I couldn't stop listening to it, it was that good. And it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. I would have to corroborate this story with my parents, but I am fairly sure I woke them up with my laughing. I finished the set of tapes Mrs. McFadden had given me and started them over. And again. In fact, I'd probably still be doing that if, after three weeks, she hadn't said, "Elliot, have you finished with them? I've got other things I wish to share with you."
I returned them, but told her she had to let other kids listen to them. She agreed, but warned me that not everybody would like it as much as I did. I picked out three friends I thought would get it (all of whom, by the way, did like it as much as I did) and she gave me-gasp of gasps-another set of tapes, these bearing the title The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was more of the same, and three weeks later she had to ask for them back again.
This patter continued throughout the year, though sadly no more Douglas Adams was forthcoming. I did not see the books in fourth grade (I think Mrs. McFadden thought, quite rightly, that perhaps the books were a bit more mature than the radio show, which was all ready pushing it for a fourth grader). I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth at her suggestion, but sadly I can't think of any more books she suggested I read. I know I read them all, but it was, as I said, many years ago.
Fast forward several years to seventh grade; I'm older, much less wise though I think I know everything, and I'm perusing the bookshelf in my English teacher's classroom when I happen upon something that jolts my memory.
It had been three years since I had seen the title, and I remembered it mostly as a tape recording, so to find it on the shelf was exciting. I pulled it off. It was a very dog-eared copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was held together with tape and looked like it had actually seen the galaxy. I started reading it. I read it twice, three times. My English teacher (Mr. Eckert, I believe) told me to take it home, that he had his own copies at home and anyway the only books in the series he had left in the classroom were the first and the fourth and I might as well take that one, too.
Wait...the...the fourth? There are more of these books out there? I embarked on a quest (after gathering up the fourth book, entitled So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) to find all of the books. I even read the fourth one before acquiring the second and third, in the interest of reading something, anything, by Douglas Adams that I hadn't read before. I began collecting.
At it's height, I had, decidedly, too many Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books. I had the original dog-eared copy of book one I had taken from Mr. Eckert's class room, as well as the even more dilapidated book four. I had a mass market paperback set of books one through four (the fourth being identical in cover to the fourth I all ready had, the first being very different and in fact containing several typos and omissions which, I found out in much later research, resulted from the fact that the copy I had originally was a British pressing and the second one I got an American pressing of the third run, after which they finally stopped editing out all the British references they thought Americans were too dumb to get...for instance, in the American version there is a reference to a "crosswalk" while in the British version it was a "Zebra Crossing." Apparently, the American publisher thought American readers would think it was a street crossing specifically for Zebras). I had a trade paperback version of the fifth book. I had an over sized "illustrated" version of book one as well (mainly illustrated with photographs and computer-rendered landscapes, and it was quite beautiful really). I had a cloth-hardbound omnibus edition with an introduction from the author himself and an extra short story between books four and five. But that wasn't all. I obtained copies of some of DNA's other works, notably both of his Dirk Gently novels and also a strange book called Starship Titanic which was actually written by Footlighter and Monty Python alumn Terry Jones (the novel is billed as "Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic; a Novel by Terry Jones" and is based on a computer game Adams was working on, which in turn was based on a short passage of text in the third book of the Hitchhiker series called Life, The Universe and Everything which was, in turn, actually, adapted from a "Doctor Who" script treatment written by Adams titled "Doctor Who and the Cricket Men"). I could never, however, find cheap copies of Last Chance to See or The Meaning of Liff, both of which he co-wrote, the former with biologist Mark Carwardine and the latter with his friend John Lloyd (the two also worked on an updated version called The Deeper Meaning of Liff several years later which was, counter-intuitively, even harder to find).
At some point, though, I lost track of the Illustrated Guide (Jon, Zach, Will, I'm looking in your directions. Ah hell, I think Dave has it. Shit, it's in Alaska, I'll never get it back now) while my pristine new copies of books one and four dissolved into tatters quicker than books two, three and five for some reason. I lost the dust jacket to the omnibus edition. And about a year ago, I finally gave up the paperback editions of each book...except for that original dog-eared copy I pulled off the shelf in seventh grade. Also, I now have a leather bound, gold-leafed edition of the omnibus collection. It looks like a bible and I truly do treat it as a holy book. I'm strange like that.
There are gaps in that history. I started a band named "The Hitchhikers" and we had songs like "I'm Sold on Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters" because we were all really into the books. I wrote stories through high school which were at first imitations of Douglas Adams' style but gradually became my own voice, a voice which has now little of the Adams influence apparent, unless, of course, I, as I am doing now, allow it to seep in, ever so softly, to the edges of my speech, from time to time, now and again.
But the simplicity of some of his work is astounding. The idea that one need only to know where their towel is, and everything will be just fine, is a great metaphor. You just have to find what your towel is, and then find it, and know where it is at all times. My towel is writing, I guess. The day I lost the ability to write, to use my voice, I'm lost. I don't mean writer's block, oh no. Even days when I can't get word one on the page, I at least have the desire to do so, the drive, and I can muster out a little here and there and, perhaps, get the creativity flowing. I mean if I ever sit down to write and realize, "Nope. Not any more. Can't do it now, won't be able to ever again. Might as well go buy an automatic transmissioned Buick and drive with my blinker on and never remember which meal I've just eaten or where I put my damn keys that were, I swear, right here in my left pocket just a minute ago, or was that last month?
Whoa, where did I go there?
You know what I mean, though. I think. The towel; your lifeline. And maybe even your answer, or even your question to match your answer. These are things that will make sense if/when you've read the books. It nothing else, it should clear up any confusion you may have over my seeming obsession with the number forty-two.
Anyway, the point of all of this; Douglas Adams was a profound and confounding person. Ever novel he wrote was a best seller, which is a great track record, but the problem is that while ostensibly it would take him three or four years to actually write a novel, he would do most of the actual writing in the month or so before the unusually mobile deadline, which would likely have been passed and extended more times than should be allowed by law, if there were people sensible enough to make such laws. When he died in May of 2001, he was rumored to be working on what was either going to be the third Dirk Gently novel, something entirely new or, much to the delight and subsequent sadness of millions of fans who felt Mostly Harmless was a sub-par and thoroughly depressing fifth book in the series, the sixth Hitchhiker novel. He was also working on the feature film version of the original novel, which he had been working on for over twenty years (and which was finally completed in 2005, possibly the only incarnation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy we're likely to see on a big screen for many years, if ever again).
The fragments from this novel in progress (the most completed of which were quite clearly meant to be the third Dirk Gently novel) were collected alongside several letters, speeches and articles Adams had written over the years and published as The Salmon of Doubt, which had been the working title of the novel.
Over the next few weeks, I will be talking more about Douglas Adams, his effect on me, and his work. I'll do reviews of each of the books in his two series, and finish with analysis of the next bit of news I am about to drop.
As I mentioned above, many fans believed Mostly Harmless to be rather bleak, and Adams admitted as such. I, for one, have always been upset at the end of it. Each year, I re-read the series, and each year I contemplate stopping at the end of book four (some years, when I was feeling really wretched about things, I would even consider stopping at book three or book two or, chuck it all, not even starting) but each time I read all the way through. Earlier this year I was greeted with news that Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, has been selected to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker series. He has the blessings of the publisher, the estate of Douglas Adams and also Adams' widow. He even initially turned it down, fearing what he could not avoid should he accept; the wrath of the fan boy. It's like spending tax money; no matter how he does it, he'll be wrong. Yet, I will support him. I will take his book with a grain of salt. It is not the sixth book in the series by Douglas Adams. It is the first book in the series of six books not written by Douglas Adams. I can only hope it's a tenth as good as Adams himself would have made it, were he still alive today.
I have a sense, right now, of looking up, up through the words I have written at this lofty and gangly British man named Douglas Adams, standing atop the words I have written like some sort of God. I don't feel good about doing that. I don't want to elevate him that much. But it's hard not to; so much of the last, what, almost twenty years now, my life has been peppered with his words. I'm afraid I've built him up too much, but the good thing about that is, now I will never have to meet him and embarass him by being starry-eyed.
For those Hitchhiker fans who have not heard of it yet, the new novel will be called And Another Thing... and you can find out more information about it here on the official website.
That is all for now, folks. See you next time!
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Tess
In the interest of 1) continuing to write in spite of writer's block (no way out but to write through it, I've come to learn) and 2) continuing to garner interest from my readers, something I've been working on for the book.
===
When Bravo Little Gavroche would go on tour, it was always Ryan who would set the schedule. He'd be the one on the phone with the club managers, the other bands (or their agents, if they were big enough to have one), the hotels, anybody else I may be forgetting. He'd then give each of us an itinerary. "And," he would always stress, "this time, we have to follow it. To the last letter." That last summer we toured was no different. What was also no different was that thirty seconds into the itinerary, we were already behind.
Johnny and I were sitting in Bingo, our van. We were parked on Tamm Avenue in front of Adam's apartment. The van was loaded with drums, amps, microphones, two of Adam's guitars (one electric, one acoustic), two of Johnny's basses, two guitars of mine (an electric and an acoustic, merely for back-up purposes) and four of Ryan's guitars (two electrics, one electric/acoustic and a fretless hollow-body electric he had built himself). Johnny had picked the short straw the night before, so he sat behind the driver's seat drumming his fingers out of time with The Cure as they quietly played over the speakers. I sat next to him in the passenger seat, tapping my fingers in time. Johnny honked.
"Let's go, Adam!" he said, to himself. After a second or two Adam emerged from the two-story brick apartment building onto a second floor fire escape, a soft guitar case slung across his back, the better of his two electrics, and in his right hand an overnight bag which held enough clothes to last him the first three nights of our two month tour. Even as he made his way down the steps, Johnny honked again. This time he yelled out the window. "While we're breathing, Adam!"
The back door opened and Adam laid his guitar in and haphazardly threw his clothes in, then climbed up and shut the door. "Sorry, guys, the dishes were really stacked up, I lost track of time."
"You should have been doing laundry, let Amy do the dishes while you're gone," Johnny said, checking the mirror and rashly pulling out into the street before a Honda, which honked. The equipment shifted in the back and Adam lost his balance and fell against the back doors.
"Jesus, Johnny, take it easy," I tried. "I'd like to get out of St. Louis alive and with everything in one piece, right?"
Johnny laughed a short, evil laugh. He looked at me and his smile turned sour. He elongated his syllables. "Sorry."
"Amy doesn't do the dishes on Tuesdays." Adam had regained his balance and made his way onto the rear bench seat. "We divide up the chores."
"You two are way to fucking cutesy and domestic," Johnny said. He pulled onto the highway and in a few minutes of reverent silence (you don't talk through a live recording of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" which had just started playing after The Cure) we were at the loft, which was close enough to the brewery that it almost always smelled of hops or barley. Not that any of us minded. Ryan was waiting for us, duffel bag in hand. We pulled up in front of the building.
"Running late, I see," he said as he lifted himself in through the side door and set his bag on the ground. "For a change," he added. I looked at Johnny, who was looking at Ryan in the rear view mirror, and I turned around to look at Ryan.
"Don't blame me," Johnny said defensively."
"Nobody was," Ryan said.
"No, that's bullshit; it's always my fault and I know that, but this time it's not. Ask Adam."
Adam leaned forward. "It's true. I had to do the dishes."
Ryan shrugged and put on a pair of sunglasses. "That's fine, Adam. I forgot it was a Tuesday."
Johnny broke a rule and turned the stereo off before the end of a Bob Dylan song. "What? So uncool! Every time, no matter what excuse I have, if I'm making us run late, you jump down my throat!"
"Johnny-" Ryan tried to say, but could get no further.
"But Adam or Elliot has an excuse and it's all, 'I understand guys. It's the third Wednesday of an even numbered month during a leap year, it could happen to anybody.' How do I get that kind of credibility?"
"Be on time, almost all the time," I said. He paused. "I know, right? The treatment sounds worse than the disease." Johnny shot daggers from his eyes at each of us in turn, faced the road and turned the radio back on. He pulled away from the curb.
"Johnny," Ryan said again, "I was trying to say that it's okay, this time, because even if you had been on time, we can't leave yet. We have to go to Eddie's."
"What for?" I asked, as Johnny maneuvered the van around a left turn.
"I'm picking up Tess."
The brakes squealed lightly as Johnny came to an abrupt stop at a red light. "Tess?" Adam asked in the following silence.
"That's what I said."
"You're bringing Tess?" I asked.
"Yes."
The first time Ryan saw Tess was at Eddie's Guitars on Manchester. This was before Adam had joined the band, and Johnny did the singing. We were all there, and though all three of us saw Tess and recognized how beautiful she was, she affected Ryan in a different way. We were fifteen, maybe sixteen, only there to buy picks and strings for an upcoming show, and while Johnny and I decided to leave and get some lunch, Ryan opted to stay behind. "So we can get acquainted," he said, motioning to Tess, who was behind him at that point. He had only taken his eyes off of her long enough to acknowledge that we were leaving and to let us know he wasn't joining, then his attention was once again riveted on her. Craig, the guy at the counter, merely nodded his head at this.
"She's good looking for sure," he said. "But not to everybody. She's charmed quite a few guys come in here. Ryan's a little young, but, well, I don't know. She may be twice his age, but they do look...nice together." We agreed, but left to get lunch anyway.
Ryan kept going back, some weeks he'd be there every other day just to see her, to be with her. We started to worry. He even showed up late for practice one day. He barged in half an hour late, which was a problem back then because we used my father's basement to rehearse in, but when my father came home we had to stop. Time was precious. Ryan was excited, though.
"You guys; I wrote this song today," he said. "At Eddie's. Tess totally inspired me." This was the first time Johnny or I had heard the name. We liked it, but we liked the song even better. That was the birth of "Welcome to the Ballroom," the song which Johnny calls our panty melter and which my father referred to the week he died as a hymn for the Church of Rock.
After a month of Ryan visiting Tess at the guitar store, he came to practice one day with her. We were amazed. We needed to know why, and how he was able to manage it.
"I've just had my eye on her for a while, you know," he said later. "And I was in yesterday, and noticed somebody else eyeballing her. It was Eric, that terrible guitar player from that terrible ska band we played with at The Hi-Pointe. I wasn't going to let that happen."
We liked having her around; she had a good voice and was beautiful and somehow gave us a little credibility. If we came to a show and the manager thought we looked a little young and started trying to back out of the show, all Ryan would have to do is grab Tess. One look at her, and it was almost instant; if we had Tess with us, we were real musicians.
The problems started, though; she'd get trashed in the middle of a show and embarrass us. Once she fell apart onstage in the middle of one of the more quiet parts of the very song she had inspired. Similar things began happening when Ryan would bring her to rehearsals. The last tour she came on with us, she came completely undone onstage and we were almost asked to leave a club in Boston.
These are the points I tried to make as Johnny drove us on surface streets (which I know he had done to buy me time) towards Eddie's. Ryan would not be gainsaid.
"Look, if you look at the law of averages," Ryan said, "she's due. She's been a problem at every show she's been to in the last three years, but I've taken care of everything with that, so she should be perfectly okay this time."
"That's only sort of a good point. I could use the same argument and say that she's ruined every show she's been to in the last three years, so the law of averages states that she'll probably be a problem this time."
"I agree with the drummer," Johnny said, and we knew he was serious. Johnny never referred to us by name when discussing matters of utmost import to the band.
"Me too," Adam said. His arms were crossed in the rear seat.
Ryan looked desperately for an ally, but he had none in the van. "Come on guys." He looked up and must have noticed Johnny driving conservatively. "Hurry up; they close at five, that's in like five minutes. And I promise, this time, it will be different. Band vote?"
We nodded our agreement for the band vote. "Good. I vote yes," Ryan said.
"No," Johnny said.
"Abstain," Adam said. Ryan and I turned to look at him. Johnny joined us as he pulled to a line of stuck traffic. "What? This is a thorny issue. I love Tess, I do. I think she could be very good for the morale of the band, but she doesn't have the best track record. So abstain."
The traffic was moving again as Ryan and Adam looked to me. "Elliot?" Johnny asked, looking at the road ahead. I joined him to give myself something to look at while I contemplated which member of the band I most wanted to be murdered by that night.
"Fine. Johnny, get us to Eddie's." I heard Ryan give a triumphant "yes" under his breath. "But," I continued. "But...one slip up. One embarrassing moment. She's gone."
"Agreed," Johnny said through gritted teeth.
"Acceptable," Adam said.
"Agreed, then!" Ryan nearly shouted. He looked very pleased.
We arrived at Eddie's just before it closed. "I'll run in and get her, then we can get on the road," Ryan said, flinging the door open and jumping out. He ran into the store.
Johnny turned the music up. "Riders on the Storm" seemed to seep from the speakers and hang above our heads in the van, ominous and foreboding. A minute later, Ryan skipped happily out the door of the shop, holding tightly to Tess. Together they skipped to the back, where he opened the door for her and picked her up, set her neatly next to the other guitars. He climbed in behind her and shut the door.
"She looks so good with the brass colored strings; it matches the volume knobs. So exciting!"
"What was she in the shop for?" I finally asked.
"New pickups, adjustment on the truss rod, the trim around the edge was coming up a bit by the neck pocket, and I got the output rewired." He giggled and carefully lifted Tess out of her case.
I had to admit, as I looked at her lit from the sunlight slanting into the driver's side windows, for a forty year old hollow body electric twelve string, she was incredibly beautiful.
===
===
When Bravo Little Gavroche would go on tour, it was always Ryan who would set the schedule. He'd be the one on the phone with the club managers, the other bands (or their agents, if they were big enough to have one), the hotels, anybody else I may be forgetting. He'd then give each of us an itinerary. "And," he would always stress, "this time, we have to follow it. To the last letter." That last summer we toured was no different. What was also no different was that thirty seconds into the itinerary, we were already behind.
Johnny and I were sitting in Bingo, our van. We were parked on Tamm Avenue in front of Adam's apartment. The van was loaded with drums, amps, microphones, two of Adam's guitars (one electric, one acoustic), two of Johnny's basses, two guitars of mine (an electric and an acoustic, merely for back-up purposes) and four of Ryan's guitars (two electrics, one electric/acoustic and a fretless hollow-body electric he had built himself). Johnny had picked the short straw the night before, so he sat behind the driver's seat drumming his fingers out of time with The Cure as they quietly played over the speakers. I sat next to him in the passenger seat, tapping my fingers in time. Johnny honked.
"Let's go, Adam!" he said, to himself. After a second or two Adam emerged from the two-story brick apartment building onto a second floor fire escape, a soft guitar case slung across his back, the better of his two electrics, and in his right hand an overnight bag which held enough clothes to last him the first three nights of our two month tour. Even as he made his way down the steps, Johnny honked again. This time he yelled out the window. "While we're breathing, Adam!"
The back door opened and Adam laid his guitar in and haphazardly threw his clothes in, then climbed up and shut the door. "Sorry, guys, the dishes were really stacked up, I lost track of time."
"You should have been doing laundry, let Amy do the dishes while you're gone," Johnny said, checking the mirror and rashly pulling out into the street before a Honda, which honked. The equipment shifted in the back and Adam lost his balance and fell against the back doors.
"Jesus, Johnny, take it easy," I tried. "I'd like to get out of St. Louis alive and with everything in one piece, right?"
Johnny laughed a short, evil laugh. He looked at me and his smile turned sour. He elongated his syllables. "Sorry."
"Amy doesn't do the dishes on Tuesdays." Adam had regained his balance and made his way onto the rear bench seat. "We divide up the chores."
"You two are way to fucking cutesy and domestic," Johnny said. He pulled onto the highway and in a few minutes of reverent silence (you don't talk through a live recording of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" which had just started playing after The Cure) we were at the loft, which was close enough to the brewery that it almost always smelled of hops or barley. Not that any of us minded. Ryan was waiting for us, duffel bag in hand. We pulled up in front of the building.
"Running late, I see," he said as he lifted himself in through the side door and set his bag on the ground. "For a change," he added. I looked at Johnny, who was looking at Ryan in the rear view mirror, and I turned around to look at Ryan.
"Don't blame me," Johnny said defensively."
"Nobody was," Ryan said.
"No, that's bullshit; it's always my fault and I know that, but this time it's not. Ask Adam."
Adam leaned forward. "It's true. I had to do the dishes."
Ryan shrugged and put on a pair of sunglasses. "That's fine, Adam. I forgot it was a Tuesday."
Johnny broke a rule and turned the stereo off before the end of a Bob Dylan song. "What? So uncool! Every time, no matter what excuse I have, if I'm making us run late, you jump down my throat!"
"Johnny-" Ryan tried to say, but could get no further.
"But Adam or Elliot has an excuse and it's all, 'I understand guys. It's the third Wednesday of an even numbered month during a leap year, it could happen to anybody.' How do I get that kind of credibility?"
"Be on time, almost all the time," I said. He paused. "I know, right? The treatment sounds worse than the disease." Johnny shot daggers from his eyes at each of us in turn, faced the road and turned the radio back on. He pulled away from the curb.
"Johnny," Ryan said again, "I was trying to say that it's okay, this time, because even if you had been on time, we can't leave yet. We have to go to Eddie's."
"What for?" I asked, as Johnny maneuvered the van around a left turn.
"I'm picking up Tess."
The brakes squealed lightly as Johnny came to an abrupt stop at a red light. "Tess?" Adam asked in the following silence.
"That's what I said."
"You're bringing Tess?" I asked.
"Yes."
The first time Ryan saw Tess was at Eddie's Guitars on Manchester. This was before Adam had joined the band, and Johnny did the singing. We were all there, and though all three of us saw Tess and recognized how beautiful she was, she affected Ryan in a different way. We were fifteen, maybe sixteen, only there to buy picks and strings for an upcoming show, and while Johnny and I decided to leave and get some lunch, Ryan opted to stay behind. "So we can get acquainted," he said, motioning to Tess, who was behind him at that point. He had only taken his eyes off of her long enough to acknowledge that we were leaving and to let us know he wasn't joining, then his attention was once again riveted on her. Craig, the guy at the counter, merely nodded his head at this.
"She's good looking for sure," he said. "But not to everybody. She's charmed quite a few guys come in here. Ryan's a little young, but, well, I don't know. She may be twice his age, but they do look...nice together." We agreed, but left to get lunch anyway.
Ryan kept going back, some weeks he'd be there every other day just to see her, to be with her. We started to worry. He even showed up late for practice one day. He barged in half an hour late, which was a problem back then because we used my father's basement to rehearse in, but when my father came home we had to stop. Time was precious. Ryan was excited, though.
"You guys; I wrote this song today," he said. "At Eddie's. Tess totally inspired me." This was the first time Johnny or I had heard the name. We liked it, but we liked the song even better. That was the birth of "Welcome to the Ballroom," the song which Johnny calls our panty melter and which my father referred to the week he died as a hymn for the Church of Rock.
After a month of Ryan visiting Tess at the guitar store, he came to practice one day with her. We were amazed. We needed to know why, and how he was able to manage it.
"I've just had my eye on her for a while, you know," he said later. "And I was in yesterday, and noticed somebody else eyeballing her. It was Eric, that terrible guitar player from that terrible ska band we played with at The Hi-Pointe. I wasn't going to let that happen."
We liked having her around; she had a good voice and was beautiful and somehow gave us a little credibility. If we came to a show and the manager thought we looked a little young and started trying to back out of the show, all Ryan would have to do is grab Tess. One look at her, and it was almost instant; if we had Tess with us, we were real musicians.
The problems started, though; she'd get trashed in the middle of a show and embarrass us. Once she fell apart onstage in the middle of one of the more quiet parts of the very song she had inspired. Similar things began happening when Ryan would bring her to rehearsals. The last tour she came on with us, she came completely undone onstage and we were almost asked to leave a club in Boston.
These are the points I tried to make as Johnny drove us on surface streets (which I know he had done to buy me time) towards Eddie's. Ryan would not be gainsaid.
"Look, if you look at the law of averages," Ryan said, "she's due. She's been a problem at every show she's been to in the last three years, but I've taken care of everything with that, so she should be perfectly okay this time."
"That's only sort of a good point. I could use the same argument and say that she's ruined every show she's been to in the last three years, so the law of averages states that she'll probably be a problem this time."
"I agree with the drummer," Johnny said, and we knew he was serious. Johnny never referred to us by name when discussing matters of utmost import to the band.
"Me too," Adam said. His arms were crossed in the rear seat.
Ryan looked desperately for an ally, but he had none in the van. "Come on guys." He looked up and must have noticed Johnny driving conservatively. "Hurry up; they close at five, that's in like five minutes. And I promise, this time, it will be different. Band vote?"
We nodded our agreement for the band vote. "Good. I vote yes," Ryan said.
"No," Johnny said.
"Abstain," Adam said. Ryan and I turned to look at him. Johnny joined us as he pulled to a line of stuck traffic. "What? This is a thorny issue. I love Tess, I do. I think she could be very good for the morale of the band, but she doesn't have the best track record. So abstain."
The traffic was moving again as Ryan and Adam looked to me. "Elliot?" Johnny asked, looking at the road ahead. I joined him to give myself something to look at while I contemplated which member of the band I most wanted to be murdered by that night.
"Fine. Johnny, get us to Eddie's." I heard Ryan give a triumphant "yes" under his breath. "But," I continued. "But...one slip up. One embarrassing moment. She's gone."
"Agreed," Johnny said through gritted teeth.
"Acceptable," Adam said.
"Agreed, then!" Ryan nearly shouted. He looked very pleased.
We arrived at Eddie's just before it closed. "I'll run in and get her, then we can get on the road," Ryan said, flinging the door open and jumping out. He ran into the store.
Johnny turned the music up. "Riders on the Storm" seemed to seep from the speakers and hang above our heads in the van, ominous and foreboding. A minute later, Ryan skipped happily out the door of the shop, holding tightly to Tess. Together they skipped to the back, where he opened the door for her and picked her up, set her neatly next to the other guitars. He climbed in behind her and shut the door.
"She looks so good with the brass colored strings; it matches the volume knobs. So exciting!"
"What was she in the shop for?" I finally asked.
"New pickups, adjustment on the truss rod, the trim around the edge was coming up a bit by the neck pocket, and I got the output rewired." He giggled and carefully lifted Tess out of her case.
I had to admit, as I looked at her lit from the sunlight slanting into the driver's side windows, for a forty year old hollow body electric twelve string, she was incredibly beautiful.
===
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Are We Lost Yet?
It was Gertrude Stein, supposedly, who coined the phrase "Lost Generation" to describe those men and women of the world who came of age and fought through The Great War. Of course, they're also known for living through the Great Depression and then the Second World War, some of them even making it all the way to the moon landing.
And then it was the character Tyler Durden who said of Generation X (and I'm using the movie as the quote source), "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." And he was right about them. They came of age after the tumult of the 60's, after the disaster of Vietnam. They came of age during the Cold War, during the 80's when music was either overproduced or totally raw, when yuppies were using cocaine and Reagonomics reigned.
So who are we? Are we lost?
We don't have a great war, either. Only the war on terror. In a way, I guess it's more like the Cold War than either World War; it creates global tensions and is a fight over ideologies, though not exactly political ideologies on both sides. Except it's dragging on, like Vietnam (which is a hot part of the Cold War). But whatever.
We also don't exactly have a great depression. Except, what are we in?
Like Generation X, we were made promises. But our promises seemed more realistic on the surface; we didn't all expect to become rock stars (although with reality TV and youtube it's easier than ever for some unknown to become known), but we were given a very simple recipe for success.
"Go to college, get a bachelor's degree, and when you graduate you can get a nice office job at the very least and have the life you want." Then when we started graduating, that happened. And we very easily bought houses, nice cars, giant televisions and Playstations and laptops and iPods.
But now what?
Ten per cent unemployment? I know they keep saying that we're going to hit that soon. But I have news; we're well beyond it. That unemployment rate you hear them talk about on the news, that's a number that is arrived at very carefully. Nine and a half per cent of the employable population currently receives unemployment insurance. That doesn't count the unemployed who never filed for benefits. It doesn't count the people who were laid off and applied for benefits and didn't receive them. It doesn't count the people who applied, received, and then ran out of benefits without finding a job (many of whom are in such despair they have stopped searching for jobs).
And it doesn't count the millions of college graduates who followed that simple advice of going to college, getting their bachelor's degree with the ultimate goal of gainful employment, and then were unable to get hired. You can't apply for unemployment benefits if you never had a job.
A friend of mine who graduated in May 2008 has been looking for a job since then. Last week, I went to the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens with a group of eight people, all of whom are either in college now or have graduated in the last five years. Only two of us had jobs. Two are still in school, three graduated and haven't been able to find jobs, and one was laid off five months ago and hasn't had so much as an interview in all that time.
Each time I think of the Lost Generation, I think of them gathering at cafes in Paris, drinking heavily, maybe to forget their reason for being lost. Perhaps that is what sets our generation apart from theirs; when we drink, we're hopeful. We toast, to the future. To what it may hold. We're waiting to be handed the reins, to shoulder the responsibility of running the world. Maybe we are drinking to forget. We're trying to forget the fact that while we hope someday to inherit stewartship of this planet, so few of us are in a position to even get a glimpse of what that may be like. They keep shutting us out.
I guess we'll all run to grad school, get our PhDs, and wait for the current leaders to fix things up for us. But let's not do that. We want a shot at helping. Somebody give us a chance. Otherwise, we'll be woefully underprepared to take over when those of us who have been where we want to go start leaving.
And then it was the character Tyler Durden who said of Generation X (and I'm using the movie as the quote source), "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." And he was right about them. They came of age after the tumult of the 60's, after the disaster of Vietnam. They came of age during the Cold War, during the 80's when music was either overproduced or totally raw, when yuppies were using cocaine and Reagonomics reigned.
So who are we? Are we lost?
We don't have a great war, either. Only the war on terror. In a way, I guess it's more like the Cold War than either World War; it creates global tensions and is a fight over ideologies, though not exactly political ideologies on both sides. Except it's dragging on, like Vietnam (which is a hot part of the Cold War). But whatever.
We also don't exactly have a great depression. Except, what are we in?
Like Generation X, we were made promises. But our promises seemed more realistic on the surface; we didn't all expect to become rock stars (although with reality TV and youtube it's easier than ever for some unknown to become known), but we were given a very simple recipe for success.
"Go to college, get a bachelor's degree, and when you graduate you can get a nice office job at the very least and have the life you want." Then when we started graduating, that happened. And we very easily bought houses, nice cars, giant televisions and Playstations and laptops and iPods.
But now what?
Ten per cent unemployment? I know they keep saying that we're going to hit that soon. But I have news; we're well beyond it. That unemployment rate you hear them talk about on the news, that's a number that is arrived at very carefully. Nine and a half per cent of the employable population currently receives unemployment insurance. That doesn't count the unemployed who never filed for benefits. It doesn't count the people who were laid off and applied for benefits and didn't receive them. It doesn't count the people who applied, received, and then ran out of benefits without finding a job (many of whom are in such despair they have stopped searching for jobs).
And it doesn't count the millions of college graduates who followed that simple advice of going to college, getting their bachelor's degree with the ultimate goal of gainful employment, and then were unable to get hired. You can't apply for unemployment benefits if you never had a job.
A friend of mine who graduated in May 2008 has been looking for a job since then. Last week, I went to the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens with a group of eight people, all of whom are either in college now or have graduated in the last five years. Only two of us had jobs. Two are still in school, three graduated and haven't been able to find jobs, and one was laid off five months ago and hasn't had so much as an interview in all that time.
Each time I think of the Lost Generation, I think of them gathering at cafes in Paris, drinking heavily, maybe to forget their reason for being lost. Perhaps that is what sets our generation apart from theirs; when we drink, we're hopeful. We toast, to the future. To what it may hold. We're waiting to be handed the reins, to shoulder the responsibility of running the world. Maybe we are drinking to forget. We're trying to forget the fact that while we hope someday to inherit stewartship of this planet, so few of us are in a position to even get a glimpse of what that may be like. They keep shutting us out.
I guess we'll all run to grad school, get our PhDs, and wait for the current leaders to fix things up for us. But let's not do that. We want a shot at helping. Somebody give us a chance. Otherwise, we'll be woefully underprepared to take over when those of us who have been where we want to go start leaving.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Dear Readers,
I was going to blog tonight. I had every intention to do so. But I've got a terrible sinus headache and am extremely tired. So you'll have to wait.
In the meantime, please watch this helpful video.
Thanks,
Elliot.
In the meantime, please watch this helpful video.
Thanks,
Elliot.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Whitaker Music Festival
Well, it's summer in St. Louis, which only means a deluge of many different things.
First off, there's the actual deluge of rain, which seems to appear once or twice every two weeks. Now I'm a man who loves rain, but unfortunately since I have become a homeowner rain has lost some of its charm and replaced it with uneasy woe. For instance, last summer our air conditioner was in jeopardy. Another for instance is that the original builders of our house made a slight shortcut when they built in 1958, which has resulted in a problem for us in 2009. You see, all the houses on our street were built almost identical. I say almost because certainly there are slight variations; some have two car garages while others (like our house) has what by today's standards could be considered half car garages. There are a few distinctly different rooflines, some have the floorplan that is a mirror image of ours (so that when you stand at the front door, looking in, the kitchen is on the right and the bedrooms on the left as opposed to ours, which is kitchen-left bedrooms-right), and some have the door in a slightly different spot or a square glass block front window into the entry way closet as opposed to our circular one (which is a square window on the inside but framed on the outside to be circular). But the one thing every house had in common was the stairs to the basement are in the garage.
Yes, that's right; to get to the basement of any house on my street, you have to first enter the garage, either from the garage door, the kitchen, or the doorway to the side yard. Of course, since 1958, a few of these houses have since been upgraded so that now there are stairs inside the actual house that go down in the basement, though most houses still only have the original staircase. The previous owners of our house did a slipshod remodel (and we'll leave it at that for now) that included a staircase from the living room down to the basement, which they had partially furnished into a media center/office/exercise room by putting up some drywall (which also created another pointless, unused room, a laundry room and a gross ventless 1/2 bath). But the previous owners' misguided attempts at remodelling aside, as I said the original owners made a mistake. That mistake was not putting stairs from the garage to the basement (although really guys?), but instead was in not backfilling gravel under the garage's foundation. When they then put the stairs in, they just cut a stairwell into the ground and poured cement. The upshot of this is that this summer, since we no longer have to be concerned about our air conditioning unit sliding down a hill, we can focus on the fact that water comes in along those stairs, since there is really nothing underneath them but hard clay soil.
But that's just one deluge the summer brings in St. Louis, and that is all I have to say about it now. Another deluge is the deluge of days of ninety-plus degree weather. We're nowhere near the equator or an ocean, yet our days in St. Louis are full of sweltering heat, near total humidity and heat indexes in the 110+ range. When it's 8:40 in the morning and you walk the nine yards from your front door to your car, in St. Louis it's perfectly reasonable to expect that all of that good clean feeling your cool shower gave you has been replaced by stinky, sweaty grossness. Which is a third deluge: the deluge of sweat you produce yourself simply by stepping out the door while the sun is up.
But the most promising and enjoyable deluge is the free concerts. The summer usually kicks off with the RFT Music Showcase, which isn't all free but mostly free (some places do make you pay a cover, but for the most part you're clear to enjoy some free local tunes). Then of course with Fair St. Louis (the 4th of July festival downtown) there are usually a fair number of acts that perform for free (The Oakridge Boys in 2005, perennial favorites include Cowboy Mouth of course). Several years ago, they expanded this idea into Live on the Levee, which this year includes Sonic Youth (on my wedding anniversary, no less). Last year, due to the first kind of deluge I talked about, the riverfront area was slightly less hospitable than normal (and slightly more flooded) so they moved it to Soldier's Memorial in front of City Hall and called it Live Off the Levee, but this year's looking a bit more promising.
And then, of course, there's the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens (see link below). This is a great opportunity to see the Botanical Gardens for free (usually a $5 entrance fee for residents of St. Louis City and County, $8 for out-of-towners unless you're a member) and hear some music.
Except that each time I attend the Whitaker Music Festival, I am reminded that the event is not so much about the music as it is about being in the garden and spending time with friends. All one has to do to seek confirmation is to check attendance records for the 2007 Whitaker Music Festival, which was held in the parking lot of MoBot as opposed to inside the actual garden due to construction and maintenance on the usual site. Attendance that year fell dramatically over previous years; sure, you were still free to roam the garden, but if you wanted to listen to the music you had to sit on the hot pavement. Not ideal when it already feels like your skin is boiling in the shade.
Of course, as I said above, the music isn't the reason people come to the Whitaker Festival (I am, of course, generalizing here; there are those, I am sure, who attend specifically to listen to great artists play, but as you get further from the stage the excitement level in relation to the music takes a dive). The year the festival took place in the parking lot, it made no sense to park yourself under a tree near the English Garden and consume massive amounts of wine, cheese, pita chips, hummus and grapes. If the music is happening in the parking lot, you just look like you're on a picnic and freeloading in the Garden's lush acreage. But now that it's back inside the garden, there is no reason not to put your blanket down on the ground a quarter mile away from the stage. There are speakers so you can still sort of hear the music, and you won't look silly because most of the people at the garden for the concert won't be able to see the stage.
So I have come to the conclusion that, for the average attendee, the Whitaker Music Festival isn't so much about Whitaker (full disclosure, the festival is supported by The Whitaker Foundation which was established to encourage the appreciation culture and heritage by putting art and music in parks) or even music, but about the Festival Atmosphere.
In all honesty, even after attending the July 8th performance, I had to double-check the website to know that it was the Tony Simmons Band that provided background music for my evening. But judging by appearances, most of the people who come view the music as just that; something as a background to their night out with friends. I, myself, made new friends, which is part of the festival's draw; you set your blanket (or, in my case, just your stuff as we forgot our blanket at home) down on the ground, and as strangers walk by somebody in your group recognizes a passing face or is recognized by a passing face, and suddenly your group of 3-4 has grown to 8-10. This is part of what makes Whitaker such a great event for the St. Louis summer days (not to mention its midweek placement makes it a great way to unwind and get ready for those last two days before the weekend).
The Whitaker Music Festival takes place Wednesday Nights at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, MO. This year's events began June 3 and will continue through August 5. Please consult website for schedule of artists, directions, parking and any other questions.
The Missouri Botanical Garden presents the Whitaker Music Festival
First off, there's the actual deluge of rain, which seems to appear once or twice every two weeks. Now I'm a man who loves rain, but unfortunately since I have become a homeowner rain has lost some of its charm and replaced it with uneasy woe. For instance, last summer our air conditioner was in jeopardy. Another for instance is that the original builders of our house made a slight shortcut when they built in 1958, which has resulted in a problem for us in 2009. You see, all the houses on our street were built almost identical. I say almost because certainly there are slight variations; some have two car garages while others (like our house) has what by today's standards could be considered half car garages. There are a few distinctly different rooflines, some have the floorplan that is a mirror image of ours (so that when you stand at the front door, looking in, the kitchen is on the right and the bedrooms on the left as opposed to ours, which is kitchen-left bedrooms-right), and some have the door in a slightly different spot or a square glass block front window into the entry way closet as opposed to our circular one (which is a square window on the inside but framed on the outside to be circular). But the one thing every house had in common was the stairs to the basement are in the garage.
Yes, that's right; to get to the basement of any house on my street, you have to first enter the garage, either from the garage door, the kitchen, or the doorway to the side yard. Of course, since 1958, a few of these houses have since been upgraded so that now there are stairs inside the actual house that go down in the basement, though most houses still only have the original staircase. The previous owners of our house did a slipshod remodel (and we'll leave it at that for now) that included a staircase from the living room down to the basement, which they had partially furnished into a media center/office/exercise room by putting up some drywall (which also created another pointless, unused room, a laundry room and a gross ventless 1/2 bath). But the previous owners' misguided attempts at remodelling aside, as I said the original owners made a mistake. That mistake was not putting stairs from the garage to the basement (although really guys?), but instead was in not backfilling gravel under the garage's foundation. When they then put the stairs in, they just cut a stairwell into the ground and poured cement. The upshot of this is that this summer, since we no longer have to be concerned about our air conditioning unit sliding down a hill, we can focus on the fact that water comes in along those stairs, since there is really nothing underneath them but hard clay soil.
But that's just one deluge the summer brings in St. Louis, and that is all I have to say about it now. Another deluge is the deluge of days of ninety-plus degree weather. We're nowhere near the equator or an ocean, yet our days in St. Louis are full of sweltering heat, near total humidity and heat indexes in the 110+ range. When it's 8:40 in the morning and you walk the nine yards from your front door to your car, in St. Louis it's perfectly reasonable to expect that all of that good clean feeling your cool shower gave you has been replaced by stinky, sweaty grossness. Which is a third deluge: the deluge of sweat you produce yourself simply by stepping out the door while the sun is up.
But the most promising and enjoyable deluge is the free concerts. The summer usually kicks off with the RFT Music Showcase, which isn't all free but mostly free (some places do make you pay a cover, but for the most part you're clear to enjoy some free local tunes). Then of course with Fair St. Louis (the 4th of July festival downtown) there are usually a fair number of acts that perform for free (The Oakridge Boys in 2005, perennial favorites include Cowboy Mouth of course). Several years ago, they expanded this idea into Live on the Levee, which this year includes Sonic Youth (on my wedding anniversary, no less). Last year, due to the first kind of deluge I talked about, the riverfront area was slightly less hospitable than normal (and slightly more flooded) so they moved it to Soldier's Memorial in front of City Hall and called it Live Off the Levee, but this year's looking a bit more promising.
And then, of course, there's the Whitaker Music Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens (see link below). This is a great opportunity to see the Botanical Gardens for free (usually a $5 entrance fee for residents of St. Louis City and County, $8 for out-of-towners unless you're a member) and hear some music.
Except that each time I attend the Whitaker Music Festival, I am reminded that the event is not so much about the music as it is about being in the garden and spending time with friends. All one has to do to seek confirmation is to check attendance records for the 2007 Whitaker Music Festival, which was held in the parking lot of MoBot as opposed to inside the actual garden due to construction and maintenance on the usual site. Attendance that year fell dramatically over previous years; sure, you were still free to roam the garden, but if you wanted to listen to the music you had to sit on the hot pavement. Not ideal when it already feels like your skin is boiling in the shade.
Of course, as I said above, the music isn't the reason people come to the Whitaker Festival (I am, of course, generalizing here; there are those, I am sure, who attend specifically to listen to great artists play, but as you get further from the stage the excitement level in relation to the music takes a dive). The year the festival took place in the parking lot, it made no sense to park yourself under a tree near the English Garden and consume massive amounts of wine, cheese, pita chips, hummus and grapes. If the music is happening in the parking lot, you just look like you're on a picnic and freeloading in the Garden's lush acreage. But now that it's back inside the garden, there is no reason not to put your blanket down on the ground a quarter mile away from the stage. There are speakers so you can still sort of hear the music, and you won't look silly because most of the people at the garden for the concert won't be able to see the stage.
So I have come to the conclusion that, for the average attendee, the Whitaker Music Festival isn't so much about Whitaker (full disclosure, the festival is supported by The Whitaker Foundation which was established to encourage the appreciation culture and heritage by putting art and music in parks) or even music, but about the Festival Atmosphere.
In all honesty, even after attending the July 8th performance, I had to double-check the website to know that it was the Tony Simmons Band that provided background music for my evening. But judging by appearances, most of the people who come view the music as just that; something as a background to their night out with friends. I, myself, made new friends, which is part of the festival's draw; you set your blanket (or, in my case, just your stuff as we forgot our blanket at home) down on the ground, and as strangers walk by somebody in your group recognizes a passing face or is recognized by a passing face, and suddenly your group of 3-4 has grown to 8-10. This is part of what makes Whitaker such a great event for the St. Louis summer days (not to mention its midweek placement makes it a great way to unwind and get ready for those last two days before the weekend).
The Whitaker Music Festival takes place Wednesday Nights at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, MO. This year's events began June 3 and will continue through August 5. Please consult website for schedule of artists, directions, parking and any other questions.
The Missouri Botanical Garden presents the Whitaker Music Festival
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Your Questions Answered, Volume 7
It has been a long long while. We've got a lot of work to do. No time for lolly-gagging.
From Your Questions Answered, Volume 6, September 27 2008:
Lisa asked:
How is future Elliot doing?
Oh how I wish I had a better answer. Wait, I do have a better answer. Future Elliot is doing amazingly well in all aspects of his life.
From Video Blog - Semester Reading, September 28 2008:
Becca asked:
How many credits are you taking this semester?
I think it was...18? Yes, 18 fall semester.
Becca also asked:
Was that left stack just for one class?
Confession time: Those were all the books that I had ever purchased for college courses that I hadn't returned (and I kept a lot of the novels and anthologies), plus a copy of Origin of Species I had on hand and a copy of Green Eggs and Ham.
Bridget asked:
How about blogging book reports?
Book reports? I wish. Book reports would have been way easier than critical essays about Emily Bronte. Ew.
Lisa asked:
How come you get [Green Eggs and Ham] and I get The Great Gatsby?
If you look closely, you'll see Gatsby is in one of those stacks. I had to read it in high school and then again at two out of the three colleges I attended. I'm damn near sick of it.
From Coming Soon: Blogapalooza 2, October 18 2008:
Molly asked:
Why don't you just relax?
Relax? During the school year? Then I might have shut down altogether!
Bridget asked:
Did you finish reading all those books?
Don't tell my teacher, but I didn't actually finish House of Mirth. But mostly, yes, I read them all and then some.
From Tuesday Excerpt Blogapalooza 2, October 21 2008:
notawritersfather asked:
You had beer in the fridge and didn't invite me over?
Probably not, dad. Seeing as how that was a story.
From Never Mind That Blogapalooza List, October 22 2008:
Christopher G asked:
So who was the poor team that you defeated for your only win in each of the last two seasons?
It was a different team, I think, each year. But now I don't remember. Plus, I think the team has been disbanded. We were tired of losing.
From Secret Blogging, November 2 2008:
Becky (your writing teacher) asked:
And does this count as a post?
Well...I guess this proves my html skills worked. So yes, yes it does.
Molly asked:
Do you get graded on this?
Not on the blog, no. But on the fake webpage, yes. I got an A in that class, so I guess I did all right.
From Getting Older, November 16 2008:
Molly asked:
Maybe you don't remember that...eh?
I learned from the best, mom. Don't tell the good parts when you're trying to guilt people. Just let them know how tragic your life has been, and they'll want to do whatever they can for you. Let them know you were ever happy before they came into your life, and they won't come to your Blues City Deli birthday party. Ever.
From Best Thing I Learned This Semester, December 4 2008:
Abalama asked:
Isn't that the greatest movie evar?
Evar isn't a word. And it is a very fantastic film.
Abalama also asked:
You JUST NOW saw it?
Yes. I had been busy with school, you know. Most of the movies I saw from fall of 2006 to spring of 2009 were films I watched specifically for class.
Molly asked:
Does anyone listen?
What was that, mom?
From And now, More Things I Learned This Semester, December 21 2008:
Bridget asked:
What's next?
Kathy gets to find a job to support me while I write the next great American novel. Or something.
Molly asked:
Has your mother told you she's proud of you?
Yes. Thanks, mom.
From It's Coming... December 30, 2008:
Molly asked:
What's wrong with that.
I am not calling our cat "Methy." It just won't happen.
Kathy asked:
How will I ever know what Amethyst looks like?
Um...you live here. And so does she. She was just cuddling with you not half an hour ago.
From The Long Awaited (and delayed) Post, January 26 2009:
Molly asked:
What's up with that?
Database object query search not found. Error. Delete search criteria. You'll have to be more specific in future queries.
From Way Overdue, April 19 2009:
Bridget asked:
Could this play have felt different because you know you'll be graduating in a few weeks?
Maybe, although I think the main reason it felt different was that it was directed by somebody else this year, rather than by me, and so it was more humbling to be a singular part of the process, rather than a very large part. I liked being the writer more than being the writer/director.
From Something Big... May 27 2009:
Bridget asked:
What will I be reading?
Yes, that is what I asked.
Molly asked:
You wanna know what I'm reading?
Yes. That's why I asked.
From A Free Write Friday of Sorts, July 3 2009:
Becca asked:
What is this anger you speak of?
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Molly asked:
Where are the women?
Well, first off, it's mainly a story about a young man and his relationship with his father. That's one of the central pieces to this novel. Another piece to the novel is the young man's relationship with his bandmates, all of whom are, yes, men. But you have to remember a couple of things: 1) I don't think I'm very good yet at creating female characters (which is something I am working on) and 2) This is only a very off-the-cuff spontaneous writing that only reflects a very small part of what I have envisioned for this novel. Rest assured, there are female characters in the works.
Well, that about wraps it up, everyone. Hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July weekend, and here's hoping that the coming months bring happiness and hope to everybody. Please do whatever you can to help your fellow man. We're all living on this planet together. We've got to share in each others' triumphs and failures. Otherwise, we're not doing our part.
From Your Questions Answered, Volume 6, September 27 2008:
Lisa asked:
How is future Elliot doing?
Oh how I wish I had a better answer. Wait, I do have a better answer. Future Elliot is doing amazingly well in all aspects of his life.
From Video Blog - Semester Reading, September 28 2008:
Becca asked:
How many credits are you taking this semester?
I think it was...18? Yes, 18 fall semester.
Becca also asked:
Was that left stack just for one class?
Confession time: Those were all the books that I had ever purchased for college courses that I hadn't returned (and I kept a lot of the novels and anthologies), plus a copy of Origin of Species I had on hand and a copy of Green Eggs and Ham.
Bridget asked:
How about blogging book reports?
Book reports? I wish. Book reports would have been way easier than critical essays about Emily Bronte. Ew.
Lisa asked:
How come you get [Green Eggs and Ham] and I get The Great Gatsby?
If you look closely, you'll see Gatsby is in one of those stacks. I had to read it in high school and then again at two out of the three colleges I attended. I'm damn near sick of it.
From Coming Soon: Blogapalooza 2, October 18 2008:
Molly asked:
Why don't you just relax?
Relax? During the school year? Then I might have shut down altogether!
Bridget asked:
Did you finish reading all those books?
Don't tell my teacher, but I didn't actually finish House of Mirth. But mostly, yes, I read them all and then some.
From Tuesday Excerpt Blogapalooza 2, October 21 2008:
notawritersfather asked:
You had beer in the fridge and didn't invite me over?
Probably not, dad. Seeing as how that was a story.
From Never Mind That Blogapalooza List, October 22 2008:
Christopher G asked:
So who was the poor team that you defeated for your only win in each of the last two seasons?
It was a different team, I think, each year. But now I don't remember. Plus, I think the team has been disbanded. We were tired of losing.
From Secret Blogging, November 2 2008:
Becky (your writing teacher) asked:
And does this count as a post?
Well...I guess this proves my html skills worked. So yes, yes it does.
Molly asked:
Do you get graded on this?
Not on the blog, no. But on the fake webpage, yes. I got an A in that class, so I guess I did all right.
From Getting Older, November 16 2008:
Molly asked:
Maybe you don't remember that...eh?
I learned from the best, mom. Don't tell the good parts when you're trying to guilt people. Just let them know how tragic your life has been, and they'll want to do whatever they can for you. Let them know you were ever happy before they came into your life, and they won't come to your Blues City Deli birthday party. Ever.
From Best Thing I Learned This Semester, December 4 2008:
Abalama asked:
Isn't that the greatest movie evar?
Evar isn't a word. And it is a very fantastic film.
Abalama also asked:
You JUST NOW saw it?
Yes. I had been busy with school, you know. Most of the movies I saw from fall of 2006 to spring of 2009 were films I watched specifically for class.
Molly asked:
Does anyone listen?
What was that, mom?
From And now, More Things I Learned This Semester, December 21 2008:
Bridget asked:
What's next?
Kathy gets to find a job to support me while I write the next great American novel. Or something.
Molly asked:
Has your mother told you she's proud of you?
Yes. Thanks, mom.
From It's Coming... December 30, 2008:
Molly asked:
What's wrong with that.
I am not calling our cat "Methy." It just won't happen.
Kathy asked:
How will I ever know what Amethyst looks like?
Um...you live here. And so does she. She was just cuddling with you not half an hour ago.
From The Long Awaited (and delayed) Post, January 26 2009:
Molly asked:
What's up with that?
Database object query search not found. Error. Delete search criteria. You'll have to be more specific in future queries.
From Way Overdue, April 19 2009:
Bridget asked:
Could this play have felt different because you know you'll be graduating in a few weeks?
Maybe, although I think the main reason it felt different was that it was directed by somebody else this year, rather than by me, and so it was more humbling to be a singular part of the process, rather than a very large part. I liked being the writer more than being the writer/director.
From Something Big... May 27 2009:
Bridget asked:
What will I be reading?
Yes, that is what I asked.
Molly asked:
You wanna know what I'm reading?
Yes. That's why I asked.
From A Free Write Friday of Sorts, July 3 2009:
Becca asked:
What is this anger you speak of?
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Molly asked:
Where are the women?
Well, first off, it's mainly a story about a young man and his relationship with his father. That's one of the central pieces to this novel. Another piece to the novel is the young man's relationship with his bandmates, all of whom are, yes, men. But you have to remember a couple of things: 1) I don't think I'm very good yet at creating female characters (which is something I am working on) and 2) This is only a very off-the-cuff spontaneous writing that only reflects a very small part of what I have envisioned for this novel. Rest assured, there are female characters in the works.
Well, that about wraps it up, everyone. Hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July weekend, and here's hoping that the coming months bring happiness and hope to everybody. Please do whatever you can to help your fellow man. We're all living on this planet together. We've got to share in each others' triumphs and failures. Otherwise, we're not doing our part.
Friday, July 03, 2009
A Free Write Friday of Sorts...
I have not been posting, and there is a reason for that.
I have been very angry. Those who know me well, are friends with/stalk me on facebook or follow my tweets, you already know what is making me angry. For those of you in the dark, I don't want to get into it. It's been all I could think about for something like two weeks, and every time I sat down to write I couldn't, because I wanted to write for my novel and not in anger. Let us leave it at that.
As to the rumors I've been hearing through the pipeline that I have forsaken blogspot for twitter, or that I feel my art should be only used for pay, or that I'm stuck in a tunnel, or that I've gone so crazy I forgot I had a blog, or whatever other crazy rumors are out there, they're all wrong. Each and every one of them. Trust me. I've just explained myself.
First things first, before I get into the writing: a quick update. The month of June was fairly uneventful. my sister and her husband celebrated their 4th anniversary. My brother-in-law Joe got married, which meant I got to attend my second wedding of the year. The first one was a low key deal in March in Iowa. This was rather a bigger deal and took place in Puerto Rico. The trip was very nice, if I do say so myself. Very nice indeed. Of course, sunny and beautiful just about every day, and the wedding was amazingly awesome. The flight back was a terror, but we're going for the highlights and not the lowlights on our way through June.
Skip forward to this past weekend, when my old roommate Chris came to town for a Twins v. Cardinals showdown. Of course we hit up the City Museum, Ted Drewes and drank ourselves some Schlafly Pale Ale (I believe Chris went with the dry-hopped American Pale Ale here at the house, and then the regular Pale Ale at Beatnik Bob's). Good times were, indeed, had by all. I can't remember who won the baseball game, though.
Anyway, that about wraps up the update. Work is still going well, Kathy is still looking for a job (leads? leads? anyone?) but in a slightly ironic twist of fate she received word this week that the bi-monthly program guide published by the television station from which she was laid off won an award for its design, and that her name is on that award because (fancy this) she was the designer. So with that tidbit added to her resume, she can't possibly be too far from employment now!
Okay, now on to the Free Write Friday of sorts. I've been stuck writing my novel lately, as I said I wasn't exactly in the right mood. But I need to keep my head down and power through. So in the interest of doing so, I'm going to write for a little bit and do it here, on my blog, spontaneously. Well, maybe not so spontaneously, as I've been thinking about how to go about constructing my novel for about two months now, and have actually already written some down. But this is a part of the envisioned novel that exists only in my head and as a scribbled note in my composition book.
Now I know that usually, my Free Write Fridays are done via suggestion; I ask around Tuesday or Wednesday, I check comments, I pick the most creative or the one with most potential (or I sandbag it and post an anonymous suggestion myself and take off with that...wait, did I just admit that?) and on Friday write it. But instead, this time it's just going for the overarching idea in my head of the novel about the guy in a band working through the relationships and the music, and one of the more specific ways in which I was planning on presenting the idea. So we'll give it a try. Here we go.
===
July 2009
One of the most important lessons about rock 'n' roll my father taught me was the idea that a song belongs to the person who wrote it in much the same way a true story belongs to the person to whom it happened. But, he was always careful to point out, that doesn't stop others from trying to tell the story or play the song.
There are two ways to cover a song, my father used to say. Make it sound like it did on the original recording, or make it your own in some way. He made it very clear which method he preferred.
"If it's a fast song originally, try to speed it up. If the main instrument is a guitar, transpose it to piano. If it was sung with a twinge of longing, amp it up."
I had a hundred perfect examples for him the last time we had this conversation. "Dad, you know that song 'Superstar' by The Carpenters?"
"Yeah," he answered, "originally written by Delaney, Bonnie & Friends, sung by Bette Midler of all people on The Tonight Show, but made famous by The Carpenters," and he started singing it.
"Yeah, that one. The way they do it, you know, it's, you feel sad for the singer."
"'Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear' yeah, 'but you're not really here...'"
I should have stopped there, tried to talk about that song, because I knew where the conversation would end. But I went on anyway. "Well, there was a tribute album to the Carpenters, you know, back in 1994?"
"'You said you'd be coming back this way again baby...'"
"And, well, Sonic Youth did a version of it, and..."
"What do I always tell you about covering tunes?" He had stopped singing, was looking at me, had even taken his glasses off so I could see how serious he was.
"Well, it was a tribute album," I tried to stall him. "It was released ten years ago, dad, and Sonic Youth..."
"And what do I always tell you about rock 'n' roll?"
I knew his rules, the gray areas. I tried to stall a little longer, hoping to pique his curiosity enough to at least ask if he could hear what I knew he would ultimately decry as a bastardized version of one of his treasured musical masterpieces. He liked to do that, to claim all the music that came before 1976 as his own. "But dad, look, it's a tribute album, for a band that made music from 1969 until 1982."
"Eighty-three," he corrected me. I couldn't let him go any further until I had said more.
"Fine, eighty-three. They made music before and after. And the tribute isn't about a bunch of people thinking they can repackage the songs and sell them to a younger crowd, they're paying tribute to them."
He was speechless. I thought he might actually want to hear the song this time. My heart pumped in my throat. "What I wanted to say was, though, that the way Sonic Youth does it, that you don't feel sorry for the singer at all, you feel kind of, kind of creeped out. Like with The Carpenters, you feel like the guy lied to the singer just to get her into bed or something, but with Sonic Youth, you know? Not that! You feel like, like, like...you feel like there never was any actual connection between the singer of the song and the person they're singing about. You get the sense that the singer's kind of, like, a stalker or something. It's really very cool, they do what you say, they make it their own."
I had just contradicted myself, and I knew it; after trying to convince my father that Sonic Youth had not usurped the song, had paid tribute to The Carpenters, I then told him flat out they had made it their own. And he caught me.
"I thought you said it was a tribute."
"It is, but..."
"That's not a very nice tribute, huh? Changing the meaning of their song?" And that was that.
"Nobody should ever be allowed to cover a song," he said to me, and I mouthed along with the next part of his statement; "except for Joe Cocker." I rolled my eyes. "And," he continued, "speak of the devil, Mad Dogs and Englishmen covered the tune before anybody else. Delaney, Mad Dogs, Bette Midler, Cher, some Australian lady, then The Carpenters. Maybe this Sonic band's paying tribute to somebody else, and they shouldn't be."
Because Rock 'n' Roll, I knew, attained perfection in 1976 with Led Zeppelin's release of "Achilles' Last Stand."
This was just the last of many conversations I had with my father about covering music. I asked him when I first started my band if we should play some Rolling Stones tunes, and he said no. "Not unless you intend on dressing up like them, looking like them, and playing only their music, and call yourselves The Ruby Tuesdays or something like that. Be a tribute band. You're no Joe Cocker."
To be honest, though, there were three kinds of bands that could play rock 'n' roll cover tunes, and my father acknowledged all three of them: Joe Cocker (not really a kind of band, but he goes on the list), tribute bands and wedding bands. And there is a reason they go in that order, too. Joe Cocker is the ultimate, because according to my father Joe Cocker is creating art from the remnants of previously shattered art (and what shattered that art? I'll let you know when I find the answer). Tribute bands fall next because they are providing a service that is like but not equal to the service provided by bands and artists who have passed this world and entered the crowded venues of Rock heaven. Wedding bands go last because they provide a very basic service which is always better than hiring a DJ but nonetheless nothing to get excited about.
These rules only ever applied to rock 'n' roll, though, never to any other kind of music, at least according to my father. Together, he and I had spent every Christmas since I was thirteen playing in a community orchestra together. My first year out of college, the band wasn't touring for various reasons and so I joined my father full time with the orchestra. He played timpani, I played whatever other percussion instruments needed to be played, and one night after playing some Holst and Mahler I asked him about the rules.
"If we're going to open with Mahler, dad, shouldn't we stick with Mahler? I mean, unless you're at a wedding gig, you wouldn't open with 'Twist and Shout' and then go on to 'Misty Mountain Hop' now would you?" We were packing up the music and still standing on the stage while the audience dispersed.
"You probably wouldn't play 'Misty Mountain Hop' at a wedding anyway," he answered, "but you're right. Only, this is different. Nobody in our audience ever got a chance to see Mahler. You can't run down to the record store about buy a recording of Mahler conducting himself, you know. He wrote it down so that others may play it. So much of the enjoyment of classical music isn't happening out there," and he waved toward the seats in the auditorium, "but up here, with the musicians. Rock, you know, the enjoyment...there's a lot of it up on stage, but even more of it out there. And out there, they want to see what they hear. They don't want to see Blood Sweat and Tears playing 'Stairway to Heaven.' Give 'em 'Spinning Wheel,' give 'em 'Lucretia MacEvil.'"
My father's first Christmas without his own father came upon all of us suddenly. My grandfather had died in February, but when December 15th came everyone in the family realized how different this year would be. Grandpa always played his tuba at an event called "Tuba Christmas" in one of the malls in town every year, up until the year before he died, and there it was, Tuba Christmas, upon us. We had almost forgotten about it, until one night there we were, rehearsing for the orchestra's holiday concert, and one of the tuba players mentioned it in passing. Of course. Tuba Christmas.
We called all of my father's brothers, even the ones we never talked to in Alabama, and invited them all up to come see Tuba Christmas one last time. Only the ones who were still in St. Louis came. So on a Saturday afternoon, we went to the Galleria and picked out a spot to watch and listen to all the tubas. We sat. We watched. We listened. I was the only one of my cousins to show up, but then for some reason Grandpa Schulz had always seemed especially fond of me over his other grandsons. While others would get a card with a five dollar bill for their birthdays, sent in the mail no matter how close they lived, Grandpa would always come down and visit with me, take me to a movie, usually war films or flicks about baseball. We sat for a long time, even after the tubas had all been packed up and hauled off. We were trading stories, and my father was telling all about the last camping trip before Robert, the oldest brother, moved out on his own. He told the whole story, and we laughed at the right spots, except for my uncle James, the second youngest.
When the story was over, James frowned. "Gerald, that's not how it happened. We weren't lost in the woods for six hours, it was more like half an hour. And it only rained for the whole day one of the days we were there. And dad had spare gas, he didn't use Robert's whiskey to fuel the boat, he just threatened to."
"Maybe you're right," my father said, after a silence. Robert sat, grinning, not willing or wanting to settle the matter of what happened to his whiskey.
"I am right," James said. "And it wasn't the sixty-two Pontiac anymore, it was the sixty-five. Remember, Dale had totalled the sixty-two on his seventeenth birthday?"
"That, you're right about," Robert chimed in. "It was the sixty-five. The Bonneville. Maroon."
When all was said and done that day, my father and I got back into his car to head home. "Why does James always insist on contradicting you?" I asked.
"What, about the story?" I nodded. "He's right. About the time lost, the rain, the whiskey. Dad's not around, James feels like he should correct history. But sometimes, you know, when you cover a song, you gotta change it a little. Make it your own." He turned the radio on, perhaps somehow knowing that Joe Cocker's version of "The Letter" would be on the classic hit station. "Besides, your uncle James has never been able to change it up that way. He's in a wedding band."
===
A little (very) disjointed, but remember, this only existed as a sliver of an idea in my head when I started. But the important thing is that I kept my head down and powered through. I've made an important step. Yay!
No promises about blogging. You can follow me on twitter, though!
Happy 4th of July everyone!
I have been very angry. Those who know me well, are friends with/stalk me on facebook or follow my tweets, you already know what is making me angry. For those of you in the dark, I don't want to get into it. It's been all I could think about for something like two weeks, and every time I sat down to write I couldn't, because I wanted to write for my novel and not in anger. Let us leave it at that.
As to the rumors I've been hearing through the pipeline that I have forsaken blogspot for twitter, or that I feel my art should be only used for pay, or that I'm stuck in a tunnel, or that I've gone so crazy I forgot I had a blog, or whatever other crazy rumors are out there, they're all wrong. Each and every one of them. Trust me. I've just explained myself.
First things first, before I get into the writing: a quick update. The month of June was fairly uneventful. my sister and her husband celebrated their 4th anniversary. My brother-in-law Joe got married, which meant I got to attend my second wedding of the year. The first one was a low key deal in March in Iowa. This was rather a bigger deal and took place in Puerto Rico. The trip was very nice, if I do say so myself. Very nice indeed. Of course, sunny and beautiful just about every day, and the wedding was amazingly awesome. The flight back was a terror, but we're going for the highlights and not the lowlights on our way through June.
Skip forward to this past weekend, when my old roommate Chris came to town for a Twins v. Cardinals showdown. Of course we hit up the City Museum, Ted Drewes and drank ourselves some Schlafly Pale Ale (I believe Chris went with the dry-hopped American Pale Ale here at the house, and then the regular Pale Ale at Beatnik Bob's). Good times were, indeed, had by all. I can't remember who won the baseball game, though.
Anyway, that about wraps up the update. Work is still going well, Kathy is still looking for a job (leads? leads? anyone?) but in a slightly ironic twist of fate she received word this week that the bi-monthly program guide published by the television station from which she was laid off won an award for its design, and that her name is on that award because (fancy this) she was the designer. So with that tidbit added to her resume, she can't possibly be too far from employment now!
Okay, now on to the Free Write Friday of sorts. I've been stuck writing my novel lately, as I said I wasn't exactly in the right mood. But I need to keep my head down and power through. So in the interest of doing so, I'm going to write for a little bit and do it here, on my blog, spontaneously. Well, maybe not so spontaneously, as I've been thinking about how to go about constructing my novel for about two months now, and have actually already written some down. But this is a part of the envisioned novel that exists only in my head and as a scribbled note in my composition book.
Now I know that usually, my Free Write Fridays are done via suggestion; I ask around Tuesday or Wednesday, I check comments, I pick the most creative or the one with most potential (or I sandbag it and post an anonymous suggestion myself and take off with that...wait, did I just admit that?) and on Friday write it. But instead, this time it's just going for the overarching idea in my head of the novel about the guy in a band working through the relationships and the music, and one of the more specific ways in which I was planning on presenting the idea. So we'll give it a try. Here we go.
===
July 2009
One of the most important lessons about rock 'n' roll my father taught me was the idea that a song belongs to the person who wrote it in much the same way a true story belongs to the person to whom it happened. But, he was always careful to point out, that doesn't stop others from trying to tell the story or play the song.
There are two ways to cover a song, my father used to say. Make it sound like it did on the original recording, or make it your own in some way. He made it very clear which method he preferred.
"If it's a fast song originally, try to speed it up. If the main instrument is a guitar, transpose it to piano. If it was sung with a twinge of longing, amp it up."
I had a hundred perfect examples for him the last time we had this conversation. "Dad, you know that song 'Superstar' by The Carpenters?"
"Yeah," he answered, "originally written by Delaney, Bonnie & Friends, sung by Bette Midler of all people on The Tonight Show, but made famous by The Carpenters," and he started singing it.
"Yeah, that one. The way they do it, you know, it's, you feel sad for the singer."
"'Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear' yeah, 'but you're not really here...'"
I should have stopped there, tried to talk about that song, because I knew where the conversation would end. But I went on anyway. "Well, there was a tribute album to the Carpenters, you know, back in 1994?"
"'You said you'd be coming back this way again baby...'"
"And, well, Sonic Youth did a version of it, and..."
"What do I always tell you about covering tunes?" He had stopped singing, was looking at me, had even taken his glasses off so I could see how serious he was.
"Well, it was a tribute album," I tried to stall him. "It was released ten years ago, dad, and Sonic Youth..."
"And what do I always tell you about rock 'n' roll?"
I knew his rules, the gray areas. I tried to stall a little longer, hoping to pique his curiosity enough to at least ask if he could hear what I knew he would ultimately decry as a bastardized version of one of his treasured musical masterpieces. He liked to do that, to claim all the music that came before 1976 as his own. "But dad, look, it's a tribute album, for a band that made music from 1969 until 1982."
"Eighty-three," he corrected me. I couldn't let him go any further until I had said more.
"Fine, eighty-three. They made music before and after. And the tribute isn't about a bunch of people thinking they can repackage the songs and sell them to a younger crowd, they're paying tribute to them."
He was speechless. I thought he might actually want to hear the song this time. My heart pumped in my throat. "What I wanted to say was, though, that the way Sonic Youth does it, that you don't feel sorry for the singer at all, you feel kind of, kind of creeped out. Like with The Carpenters, you feel like the guy lied to the singer just to get her into bed or something, but with Sonic Youth, you know? Not that! You feel like, like, like...you feel like there never was any actual connection between the singer of the song and the person they're singing about. You get the sense that the singer's kind of, like, a stalker or something. It's really very cool, they do what you say, they make it their own."
I had just contradicted myself, and I knew it; after trying to convince my father that Sonic Youth had not usurped the song, had paid tribute to The Carpenters, I then told him flat out they had made it their own. And he caught me.
"I thought you said it was a tribute."
"It is, but..."
"That's not a very nice tribute, huh? Changing the meaning of their song?" And that was that.
"Nobody should ever be allowed to cover a song," he said to me, and I mouthed along with the next part of his statement; "except for Joe Cocker." I rolled my eyes. "And," he continued, "speak of the devil, Mad Dogs and Englishmen covered the tune before anybody else. Delaney, Mad Dogs, Bette Midler, Cher, some Australian lady, then The Carpenters. Maybe this Sonic band's paying tribute to somebody else, and they shouldn't be."
Because Rock 'n' Roll, I knew, attained perfection in 1976 with Led Zeppelin's release of "Achilles' Last Stand."
This was just the last of many conversations I had with my father about covering music. I asked him when I first started my band if we should play some Rolling Stones tunes, and he said no. "Not unless you intend on dressing up like them, looking like them, and playing only their music, and call yourselves The Ruby Tuesdays or something like that. Be a tribute band. You're no Joe Cocker."
To be honest, though, there were three kinds of bands that could play rock 'n' roll cover tunes, and my father acknowledged all three of them: Joe Cocker (not really a kind of band, but he goes on the list), tribute bands and wedding bands. And there is a reason they go in that order, too. Joe Cocker is the ultimate, because according to my father Joe Cocker is creating art from the remnants of previously shattered art (and what shattered that art? I'll let you know when I find the answer). Tribute bands fall next because they are providing a service that is like but not equal to the service provided by bands and artists who have passed this world and entered the crowded venues of Rock heaven. Wedding bands go last because they provide a very basic service which is always better than hiring a DJ but nonetheless nothing to get excited about.
These rules only ever applied to rock 'n' roll, though, never to any other kind of music, at least according to my father. Together, he and I had spent every Christmas since I was thirteen playing in a community orchestra together. My first year out of college, the band wasn't touring for various reasons and so I joined my father full time with the orchestra. He played timpani, I played whatever other percussion instruments needed to be played, and one night after playing some Holst and Mahler I asked him about the rules.
"If we're going to open with Mahler, dad, shouldn't we stick with Mahler? I mean, unless you're at a wedding gig, you wouldn't open with 'Twist and Shout' and then go on to 'Misty Mountain Hop' now would you?" We were packing up the music and still standing on the stage while the audience dispersed.
"You probably wouldn't play 'Misty Mountain Hop' at a wedding anyway," he answered, "but you're right. Only, this is different. Nobody in our audience ever got a chance to see Mahler. You can't run down to the record store about buy a recording of Mahler conducting himself, you know. He wrote it down so that others may play it. So much of the enjoyment of classical music isn't happening out there," and he waved toward the seats in the auditorium, "but up here, with the musicians. Rock, you know, the enjoyment...there's a lot of it up on stage, but even more of it out there. And out there, they want to see what they hear. They don't want to see Blood Sweat and Tears playing 'Stairway to Heaven.' Give 'em 'Spinning Wheel,' give 'em 'Lucretia MacEvil.'"
My father's first Christmas without his own father came upon all of us suddenly. My grandfather had died in February, but when December 15th came everyone in the family realized how different this year would be. Grandpa always played his tuba at an event called "Tuba Christmas" in one of the malls in town every year, up until the year before he died, and there it was, Tuba Christmas, upon us. We had almost forgotten about it, until one night there we were, rehearsing for the orchestra's holiday concert, and one of the tuba players mentioned it in passing. Of course. Tuba Christmas.
We called all of my father's brothers, even the ones we never talked to in Alabama, and invited them all up to come see Tuba Christmas one last time. Only the ones who were still in St. Louis came. So on a Saturday afternoon, we went to the Galleria and picked out a spot to watch and listen to all the tubas. We sat. We watched. We listened. I was the only one of my cousins to show up, but then for some reason Grandpa Schulz had always seemed especially fond of me over his other grandsons. While others would get a card with a five dollar bill for their birthdays, sent in the mail no matter how close they lived, Grandpa would always come down and visit with me, take me to a movie, usually war films or flicks about baseball. We sat for a long time, even after the tubas had all been packed up and hauled off. We were trading stories, and my father was telling all about the last camping trip before Robert, the oldest brother, moved out on his own. He told the whole story, and we laughed at the right spots, except for my uncle James, the second youngest.
When the story was over, James frowned. "Gerald, that's not how it happened. We weren't lost in the woods for six hours, it was more like half an hour. And it only rained for the whole day one of the days we were there. And dad had spare gas, he didn't use Robert's whiskey to fuel the boat, he just threatened to."
"Maybe you're right," my father said, after a silence. Robert sat, grinning, not willing or wanting to settle the matter of what happened to his whiskey.
"I am right," James said. "And it wasn't the sixty-two Pontiac anymore, it was the sixty-five. Remember, Dale had totalled the sixty-two on his seventeenth birthday?"
"That, you're right about," Robert chimed in. "It was the sixty-five. The Bonneville. Maroon."
When all was said and done that day, my father and I got back into his car to head home. "Why does James always insist on contradicting you?" I asked.
"What, about the story?" I nodded. "He's right. About the time lost, the rain, the whiskey. Dad's not around, James feels like he should correct history. But sometimes, you know, when you cover a song, you gotta change it a little. Make it your own." He turned the radio on, perhaps somehow knowing that Joe Cocker's version of "The Letter" would be on the classic hit station. "Besides, your uncle James has never been able to change it up that way. He's in a wedding band."
===
A little (very) disjointed, but remember, this only existed as a sliver of an idea in my head when I started. But the important thing is that I kept my head down and powered through. I've made an important step. Yay!
No promises about blogging. You can follow me on twitter, though!
Happy 4th of July everyone!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Something Big...
...is in the works.
It's got to do with Rock 'n' Roll, Pontiacs, and father-son relationships.
Just know that I have recently watched American Graffiti, and also watched and read High Fidelity so I am on a bit of a Rock kick. Also, I am promising myself to own a nice component stereo system with a turntable by the end of the year so that I can listen to all the records I bought in my teens (I know that makes me sound old, but I really did buy a bunch of used records in my teens because they were cheaper than CDs and my parents have a working record player).
This project is based on the short story "Before Rock Attained Perfection" which in turn was a top-to-bottom rewrite of "North For Salvation" (from which you can read an excerpt here). It will incorporate aspects of both stories, and in fact much of "Before Rock" will be within this work, just not altogether, and a lot of "North for Salvation" may be salvaged and reintroduced as a chapter.
That's right, a chapter. As in, chapter of a novel or novella. I've got a lot of good ideas brewing for this, and it will be nice after having an entire semester devoted to writing for the stage to work on this for the summer. Not that I'm putting my bard-style quill down just yet, I want to polish up Still Life and send it to some festivals and contests (it really is about the most complete thing I've ever written I think), but that shouldn't take me more than a week, but as I said I'm coming off a semester where all of my creative writing went into Still Life and rewrites of Spice.
Speaking of Spice, I promise that within the next week, I will post the video. I have been lazy in that regard while I've been working hard finishing up school and working as much as I can before my vacation in mid-June.
I know, I know, a vacation now? With Kathy still unemployed (yes, Kathy is still unemployed)? Well, we paid for our plane tickets in December, and we're splitting the hotel room with my brother-in-law, and we can't miss it because how often is there a family wedding in Puerto Rico? Only, like, one in ten people get married in Puerto Rico (the percentage is much higher for those who, you know, live there...) so we can't miss it. Plus, it's our first real vacation together since our honeymoon. When we went to New York City two years ago, it was only a vacation for me. And weekend trips don't count as vacations. They're just little road trips.
Anyway, keep checking back here for updates on any and all situations. Again, look here in a week or so for the video of Spice and everybody please have a happy and safe summer.
But before you go, what will you be reading this summer? Something new? An old favorite? Nothing? A classic you've somehow missed all these years? That book you were supposed to have read in your Sophomore year American Lit class but just checked sparknotes and scraped a B- on the paper and vowed to read it eventually? Let me know in the comments!
It's got to do with Rock 'n' Roll, Pontiacs, and father-son relationships.
Just know that I have recently watched American Graffiti, and also watched and read High Fidelity so I am on a bit of a Rock kick. Also, I am promising myself to own a nice component stereo system with a turntable by the end of the year so that I can listen to all the records I bought in my teens (I know that makes me sound old, but I really did buy a bunch of used records in my teens because they were cheaper than CDs and my parents have a working record player).
This project is based on the short story "Before Rock Attained Perfection" which in turn was a top-to-bottom rewrite of "North For Salvation" (from which you can read an excerpt here). It will incorporate aspects of both stories, and in fact much of "Before Rock" will be within this work, just not altogether, and a lot of "North for Salvation" may be salvaged and reintroduced as a chapter.
That's right, a chapter. As in, chapter of a novel or novella. I've got a lot of good ideas brewing for this, and it will be nice after having an entire semester devoted to writing for the stage to work on this for the summer. Not that I'm putting my bard-style quill down just yet, I want to polish up Still Life and send it to some festivals and contests (it really is about the most complete thing I've ever written I think), but that shouldn't take me more than a week, but as I said I'm coming off a semester where all of my creative writing went into Still Life and rewrites of Spice.
Speaking of Spice, I promise that within the next week, I will post the video. I have been lazy in that regard while I've been working hard finishing up school and working as much as I can before my vacation in mid-June.
I know, I know, a vacation now? With Kathy still unemployed (yes, Kathy is still unemployed)? Well, we paid for our plane tickets in December, and we're splitting the hotel room with my brother-in-law, and we can't miss it because how often is there a family wedding in Puerto Rico? Only, like, one in ten people get married in Puerto Rico (the percentage is much higher for those who, you know, live there...) so we can't miss it. Plus, it's our first real vacation together since our honeymoon. When we went to New York City two years ago, it was only a vacation for me. And weekend trips don't count as vacations. They're just little road trips.
Anyway, keep checking back here for updates on any and all situations. Again, look here in a week or so for the video of Spice and everybody please have a happy and safe summer.
But before you go, what will you be reading this summer? Something new? An old favorite? Nothing? A classic you've somehow missed all these years? That book you were supposed to have read in your Sophomore year American Lit class but just checked sparknotes and scraped a B- on the paper and vowed to read it eventually? Let me know in the comments!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Way Overdue
I apologize. I've been busier than I've ever been. Trying to squeeze as much money out of my job as I can, trying to do all of my homework, trying to spend time with my friends and family. Something had to fall by the wayside. Something had to take not just a backseat, but a spot in the trunk, next to my bottle of windshield washer fluid and the golf clubs that were supposed to be used as props in one of the plays at this year's Surfacing, but which never made it into the theatre for whatever reason. And that something was my blog. And it's unfair to you, my readers, for me to have done that.
I haven't been totally silent, though. I have been twittering quite a bit. If you've come here at all and paid attention to the twitter feed at right (----->), you'd notice how active I've been there. You could put all of those together to form one post.
Sadly, for those who have been watching the blog only for information, I hate to say that you missed Surfacing, only because I never posted about it. That's been my biggest screw up. I really am upset at myself for that. If you're friends with me on Facebook or follow me on twitter, again, you probably heard all about it. Or if you saw me in person any time over the last few weeks. It was basically all I could think of/talk about.
Not that this helps, but there will be videos posted. Again, it's not the same.
This year's Surfacing was incredible, though. I told the cast and director of my show today that this was the best experience I've had in theatre, and I meant that. All the shows I was a part of growing up, in high school, community theatre, last year's Surfacing...all good, some great. But this year was different. I don't know why. I feel closer this year to my cast, even though I spent more time last year. I didn't have to direct this year; maybe that's the difference. I want to thank my director, Mac, for taking my play and trimming the fat from the script. I'm sure you're aware, readers, of how verbose I can sometimes be. I'd like to thank Madeline, the Assistant Director, for doing everything that I would have not thought of if I had been left in control, like organizing props backstage beforehand. I want to thank Max, Christina and Dexter for their portrayals of (respectively) Chris, Janette and Kai. I wrote these parts with certain things in mind, but you each interpreted them in your own way, and brought something new and exciting and awesome to the table.
I have never understood the phrase "Just the writer" in theatre. Until this weekend. I was humbled, but in a good way. Lines that I wrote were getting laughs. Sure, some of them were written to get laughs. Others were delivered in a way I didn't think when I wrote them. I thought, "this line should go here" and put it there. I never thought they would get a laugh. And they did. It was very interesting. I could have sat there with a scorecard and divied up the laughs as they came; that one goes to me for clever writing, that one goes to Mac for clever directing, and this one goes to Dexter for clever delivery. It probably would have come out even.
Anyway, back to my apology. I can't say that you'll be inundated with updates. You know that won't happen. But don't give up on me. I graduate in three weeks. Expect a doozy of an update sometime thereafter. Okay? And please, feel free to drop me a comment any time. Encouraging ones are always appreciated. Snarky ones are likely to be returned at a later date with extra snark attached. Sort of like an interest bearing deposit. Ye be warned.
I haven't been totally silent, though. I have been twittering quite a bit. If you've come here at all and paid attention to the twitter feed at right (----->), you'd notice how active I've been there. You could put all of those together to form one post.
Sadly, for those who have been watching the blog only for information, I hate to say that you missed Surfacing, only because I never posted about it. That's been my biggest screw up. I really am upset at myself for that. If you're friends with me on Facebook or follow me on twitter, again, you probably heard all about it. Or if you saw me in person any time over the last few weeks. It was basically all I could think of/talk about.
Not that this helps, but there will be videos posted. Again, it's not the same.
This year's Surfacing was incredible, though. I told the cast and director of my show today that this was the best experience I've had in theatre, and I meant that. All the shows I was a part of growing up, in high school, community theatre, last year's Surfacing...all good, some great. But this year was different. I don't know why. I feel closer this year to my cast, even though I spent more time last year. I didn't have to direct this year; maybe that's the difference. I want to thank my director, Mac, for taking my play and trimming the fat from the script. I'm sure you're aware, readers, of how verbose I can sometimes be. I'd like to thank Madeline, the Assistant Director, for doing everything that I would have not thought of if I had been left in control, like organizing props backstage beforehand. I want to thank Max, Christina and Dexter for their portrayals of (respectively) Chris, Janette and Kai. I wrote these parts with certain things in mind, but you each interpreted them in your own way, and brought something new and exciting and awesome to the table.
I have never understood the phrase "Just the writer" in theatre. Until this weekend. I was humbled, but in a good way. Lines that I wrote were getting laughs. Sure, some of them were written to get laughs. Others were delivered in a way I didn't think when I wrote them. I thought, "this line should go here" and put it there. I never thought they would get a laugh. And they did. It was very interesting. I could have sat there with a scorecard and divied up the laughs as they came; that one goes to me for clever writing, that one goes to Mac for clever directing, and this one goes to Dexter for clever delivery. It probably would have come out even.
Anyway, back to my apology. I can't say that you'll be inundated with updates. You know that won't happen. But don't give up on me. I graduate in three weeks. Expect a doozy of an update sometime thereafter. Okay? And please, feel free to drop me a comment any time. Encouraging ones are always appreciated. Snarky ones are likely to be returned at a later date with extra snark attached. Sort of like an interest bearing deposit. Ye be warned.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Update
Okay, time for the update.
Let me start off talking about the bad news, then work my way to the good news. I find that's the nicest way to do things to you, my reader, who may also have bad news and may want to read some good news.
First and foremost: Kathy was laid off from KETC Channel 9 on February 27th. Everybody knows somebody who's been laid off now, I think. Now I live with somebody who has been laid off.
This has actually been kind of a blow to us, as you can imagine. Looking at our monthly income pre lay-off, I'd say Kathy brought in around 60% of the money. Sometimes, my paychecks would be bigger, but you have to remember that Kathy paid for our health and dental insurance out of her paycheck, and that she also had money taken out and put into a 403(b) (which is a 401(k) but for non-profits). So this impacts us in huge ways.
Suddenly, we can't even afford the four boxes of Girl Scout cookies we ordered. We're conserving milk and baking potatoes we might have thrown out a year ago (I know the grammar of that sentence is confusing; obviously we're not eating potatoes we've had since last year). We're skimming the ads for great deals and coupons and changing habits. We used to buy Oberweis milk, and now we're back to store brand plastic gallons. Instead of meat from the deli, we're getting pre-packaged processed meat. And we're struggling.
Kathy got a severance package. Meager. Two weeks' pay. So one paycheck. Not only have we already gotten that check, we've already spent most of it. Covering our mortgage payment.
We've called our cell phone provider and knocked ourselves down to bare-bones service, and cut that bill almost in half. We're cancelling home phone service but not sacrificing internet (I can't live without it in school, and Kathy needs to pick up some freelance work and also can't be without it). We never had cable or satellite. With Kathy driving less, we're saving money on gas. However, I'm taking long trips a lot for work. Why? Because if I take a long trip, I get reimbursed for a portion of the mileage. Generally, the reimbursed amount more than covers the gas for the trip, so that's extra money in the paycheck. But in the meantime, I need to spend money on the gas to get me places. We don't have any magazine subscriptions, cancelled our Post Dispatch delivery months ago. Car payments, student loan payments, and credit card payments? We used to pay beyond the minimum every month, in an effort to pay them down. Now, we're down to minimum payments on all of them, which saves us money in the here and now I know but will cost us more in interest in the long run. But it's the here and now that matters. Unfortunately, we added extra charges to our insurance bill; we signed up for catastrophic through our home/auto provider. Just in case of emergency. I have to tell you, I don't like to think about me driving around all day without health insurance.
Also unfortunate is our mortgage bill. With the fall in the housing market, the equity we expected to have after three and a half years has vanished, and we're under water by about $6000 on our mortgage. With no down payment, we've been paying Primary Mortgage Insurance every month along with the standard interest/principal/escrow. We've tried several times to get this removed, because it would save us money. We have never even been late with a payment, let alone missed one. But our mortgage servicer refuses to work with us.
The stimulus bill has been passed. There are provisions for home owners. I don't know all the details; despite the fact that I am on spring break, I am no less busy, working as hard as I can this week to put in a full week or more, to help make ends meet. So I don't know what all the details are. But I thought there was supposed to be something about helping home owners who are facing financial hardship.
So we called our mortgage servicer, told them that one of us was recently laid off, and we need some of that financial hardship assistance. They told us they could not offer it to us, because since Kathy was laid-off, we are now spending more in a month than we are making. And I'm thinking, isn't that the definition of financial hardship? I was at a banquet tonight (more on that later). The M.C. was a banker. She told a joke. "The banks have money to loan. They just won't loan it to you unless you can prove that you're rich enough not to need it." Lots of people laughed. Kathy and I didn't. Mo & Kevin sort of laughed, then sighed. They're currently selling their house and moving into a new one.
So that's the picture. We're not sure what we're doing. Kathy has her Mary Kay Business so if you need any cosmetics, please buy from her. I know she would appreciate it. Also, as mentioned above, she is picking up any freelance design jobs you may have (no website as of yet; coming soon though). So if you have any loose graphic design jobs you need taken care of, drop me a line and I'll put you in contact with her. I can't do much more than I am doing; full time employee, full time student, full time writer. Kathy is, of course, seeking full time employment.
The announcement comes now. Though it's not set in stone. This is a likely scenario: Kathy will continue to seek a career in the St. Louis area for another month or so. If nothing comes to fruition, she will begin seeking a career in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. And we will put our house up on the market. Despite being under water on the mortgage (according to St. Louis County assessments, the mortgage company, et al), I believe we could get a fair price for our home if it came down to it. After graduation (and more on that later, too), we'd likely be moving up to the Twin Cities, provided both of us can find work. We have a good support network of friends and family here in St. Louis, but we have a similar network in Minneapolis. We know our way around up there. But again, that's if Kathy can't find a career in St. Louis. If she does find one, we'll be staying here. So, if you're in StL or MSP, please keep your ear to the ground.
Moving away from the doom and gloom of the financiapocalypse, I'd like to move on to the idea that my Karma has a flat tire. I must mention Kathy getting laid-off again, because that's part of how I came to this conclusion.
A few weeks ago, I was driving my car and heard a flapping noise and found the handling had suddenly gone a little wonky. It was a flat tire. Passenger side rear. But, hey, you know, that happens. I changed the tire (thanking the good people at Volkswagen for a standard full-size spare) and admitted that it was time to replace my tires anyway. So, I got them replaced. But just the rear ones, mind, the front ones are relatively new. However, the price of the tires I had on the front went up. Significantly. So I got a comparable set for less. But I like all of my tires to match; I'm weird like that. I kept thinking I should have sprung for the more expensive tires. And two days later, Kathy got laid off. And last Friday, a week after this, Kathy called me in tears; reality had sunk in, she had visited channel nine to pick up some things for her portfolio and had to be escorted out of the building, like she's some crazed security risk, and then as she was on her way out to run an errand, her car wouldn't start. And then this morning, first thing that happened to me on my way to work was I got a flat tire. Passenger side rear. Big old fat old shiny sharp metal f*ck you right in the tread. So once again, thank you Volkswagen, for providing a full size spare.
I've been thinking a lot about this full size spare as a metaphor. Like Kathy losing her job is a flat tire, and it's no big deal. But driving on a donut isn't exactly great. You can't move as fast. You can't go as far. You have to get that regular sized tire back on ASAP. Actually, driving with a donut tire is a big impetus for getting that thing into the tire shop quickly. The only thing that was really driving me to get the car into the shop the first time was that because the spare doesn't have the VW hubcap, the car looked uneven. But now, this time, I want to get it fixed right away. Because there's really not much worse than driving around without a spare tire. No insurance. No crutch. Nothing to bridge the gap.
Okay. Now on to more pleasant thoughts. My father was awarded Teacher of the Year at his high school by the Lemay Chamber of Commerce. It's a pretty sweat deal, when you get right down to it. He's taught at Hancock Place High School for sixteen years (is that right? Maybe seventeen...) and has built the music program into one with a reputation. They may not have the biggest band, and they may not have the best band, but they've got (in my opinion) the best band director. Congratulations, Dad!
Also, I've been working on a play called Still Life, which is based on a piece of artwork by Belgian Artist Wim Delvoye entitled Tim. I heard about it on NPR (read the story here) and was, honestly, disgusted. Immediately, I began writing a play about it for Surfacing. I originally envisioned it as a comedy, but the more I thought about it, the less funny it was becoming. And also, the more I thought about it, the more ambitious it started to sound. I wrote half of a scene and abandoned the project as having too much scope.
But then this semester, taking what will be my last undergraduate level creative writing workshop, I got to thinking about it some more. The scope still seemed too big. But I thought, well, give it a try. So I wrote the second half of the first scene and then a second scene. People responded well. I hit a wall. I could not write any more. It sat at two scenes and 14 pages for a month. And then I burst through the wall. I think I decided it was time either to become the writer I wanted to be or hang up my typing fingers.
I didn't hang up.
Peers in my playwriting class have praised it. And the teacher compared it to GB Shaw. That's actually partially why I got blocked. It was like, "Shaw is a master. How could I compete?" But I read part of Pygmalion. And I realized that Shaw is a master. A genius. Don't be scared. It's a compliment. I realized I don't have to be the next GB Shaw. All I have to do is be the first Elliot M. Rauscher.
Anyway, sorry for the novella update. I'll try to be better in the future. To those who read my blog on a feed or a reader, you may want to swing by the actual website and check out my twitter feed on the right hand side. Or, you know, if you twitter, you could follow me there. It's much easier to update. I'll be using twitter to share links, short thoughts, and writing/surfacing progress updates.
And now, the following GB Shaw quotes to ponder:
"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman."
"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education."
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
"An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country."
With that last one being the most ironic because I have just blogged all about my personal life, let me introduce you to another American I know. His name is Andy, he's a fellow Webster Gorlock and friend. He's a good kid. He plays music, writes, and rides his bicycle. Sound familiar yet? Go check out his blog.
Let me start off talking about the bad news, then work my way to the good news. I find that's the nicest way to do things to you, my reader, who may also have bad news and may want to read some good news.
First and foremost: Kathy was laid off from KETC Channel 9 on February 27th. Everybody knows somebody who's been laid off now, I think. Now I live with somebody who has been laid off.
This has actually been kind of a blow to us, as you can imagine. Looking at our monthly income pre lay-off, I'd say Kathy brought in around 60% of the money. Sometimes, my paychecks would be bigger, but you have to remember that Kathy paid for our health and dental insurance out of her paycheck, and that she also had money taken out and put into a 403(b) (which is a 401(k) but for non-profits). So this impacts us in huge ways.
Suddenly, we can't even afford the four boxes of Girl Scout cookies we ordered. We're conserving milk and baking potatoes we might have thrown out a year ago (I know the grammar of that sentence is confusing; obviously we're not eating potatoes we've had since last year). We're skimming the ads for great deals and coupons and changing habits. We used to buy Oberweis milk, and now we're back to store brand plastic gallons. Instead of meat from the deli, we're getting pre-packaged processed meat. And we're struggling.
Kathy got a severance package. Meager. Two weeks' pay. So one paycheck. Not only have we already gotten that check, we've already spent most of it. Covering our mortgage payment.
We've called our cell phone provider and knocked ourselves down to bare-bones service, and cut that bill almost in half. We're cancelling home phone service but not sacrificing internet (I can't live without it in school, and Kathy needs to pick up some freelance work and also can't be without it). We never had cable or satellite. With Kathy driving less, we're saving money on gas. However, I'm taking long trips a lot for work. Why? Because if I take a long trip, I get reimbursed for a portion of the mileage. Generally, the reimbursed amount more than covers the gas for the trip, so that's extra money in the paycheck. But in the meantime, I need to spend money on the gas to get me places. We don't have any magazine subscriptions, cancelled our Post Dispatch delivery months ago. Car payments, student loan payments, and credit card payments? We used to pay beyond the minimum every month, in an effort to pay them down. Now, we're down to minimum payments on all of them, which saves us money in the here and now I know but will cost us more in interest in the long run. But it's the here and now that matters. Unfortunately, we added extra charges to our insurance bill; we signed up for catastrophic through our home/auto provider. Just in case of emergency. I have to tell you, I don't like to think about me driving around all day without health insurance.
Also unfortunate is our mortgage bill. With the fall in the housing market, the equity we expected to have after three and a half years has vanished, and we're under water by about $6000 on our mortgage. With no down payment, we've been paying Primary Mortgage Insurance every month along with the standard interest/principal/escrow. We've tried several times to get this removed, because it would save us money. We have never even been late with a payment, let alone missed one. But our mortgage servicer refuses to work with us.
The stimulus bill has been passed. There are provisions for home owners. I don't know all the details; despite the fact that I am on spring break, I am no less busy, working as hard as I can this week to put in a full week or more, to help make ends meet. So I don't know what all the details are. But I thought there was supposed to be something about helping home owners who are facing financial hardship.
So we called our mortgage servicer, told them that one of us was recently laid off, and we need some of that financial hardship assistance. They told us they could not offer it to us, because since Kathy was laid-off, we are now spending more in a month than we are making. And I'm thinking, isn't that the definition of financial hardship? I was at a banquet tonight (more on that later). The M.C. was a banker. She told a joke. "The banks have money to loan. They just won't loan it to you unless you can prove that you're rich enough not to need it." Lots of people laughed. Kathy and I didn't. Mo & Kevin sort of laughed, then sighed. They're currently selling their house and moving into a new one.
So that's the picture. We're not sure what we're doing. Kathy has her Mary Kay Business so if you need any cosmetics, please buy from her. I know she would appreciate it. Also, as mentioned above, she is picking up any freelance design jobs you may have (no website as of yet; coming soon though). So if you have any loose graphic design jobs you need taken care of, drop me a line and I'll put you in contact with her. I can't do much more than I am doing; full time employee, full time student, full time writer. Kathy is, of course, seeking full time employment.
The announcement comes now. Though it's not set in stone. This is a likely scenario: Kathy will continue to seek a career in the St. Louis area for another month or so. If nothing comes to fruition, she will begin seeking a career in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. And we will put our house up on the market. Despite being under water on the mortgage (according to St. Louis County assessments, the mortgage company, et al), I believe we could get a fair price for our home if it came down to it. After graduation (and more on that later, too), we'd likely be moving up to the Twin Cities, provided both of us can find work. We have a good support network of friends and family here in St. Louis, but we have a similar network in Minneapolis. We know our way around up there. But again, that's if Kathy can't find a career in St. Louis. If she does find one, we'll be staying here. So, if you're in StL or MSP, please keep your ear to the ground.
Moving away from the doom and gloom of the financiapocalypse, I'd like to move on to the idea that my Karma has a flat tire. I must mention Kathy getting laid-off again, because that's part of how I came to this conclusion.
A few weeks ago, I was driving my car and heard a flapping noise and found the handling had suddenly gone a little wonky. It was a flat tire. Passenger side rear. But, hey, you know, that happens. I changed the tire (thanking the good people at Volkswagen for a standard full-size spare) and admitted that it was time to replace my tires anyway. So, I got them replaced. But just the rear ones, mind, the front ones are relatively new. However, the price of the tires I had on the front went up. Significantly. So I got a comparable set for less. But I like all of my tires to match; I'm weird like that. I kept thinking I should have sprung for the more expensive tires. And two days later, Kathy got laid off. And last Friday, a week after this, Kathy called me in tears; reality had sunk in, she had visited channel nine to pick up some things for her portfolio and had to be escorted out of the building, like she's some crazed security risk, and then as she was on her way out to run an errand, her car wouldn't start. And then this morning, first thing that happened to me on my way to work was I got a flat tire. Passenger side rear. Big old fat old shiny sharp metal f*ck you right in the tread. So once again, thank you Volkswagen, for providing a full size spare.
I've been thinking a lot about this full size spare as a metaphor. Like Kathy losing her job is a flat tire, and it's no big deal. But driving on a donut isn't exactly great. You can't move as fast. You can't go as far. You have to get that regular sized tire back on ASAP. Actually, driving with a donut tire is a big impetus for getting that thing into the tire shop quickly. The only thing that was really driving me to get the car into the shop the first time was that because the spare doesn't have the VW hubcap, the car looked uneven. But now, this time, I want to get it fixed right away. Because there's really not much worse than driving around without a spare tire. No insurance. No crutch. Nothing to bridge the gap.
Okay. Now on to more pleasant thoughts. My father was awarded Teacher of the Year at his high school by the Lemay Chamber of Commerce. It's a pretty sweat deal, when you get right down to it. He's taught at Hancock Place High School for sixteen years (is that right? Maybe seventeen...) and has built the music program into one with a reputation. They may not have the biggest band, and they may not have the best band, but they've got (in my opinion) the best band director. Congratulations, Dad!
Also, I've been working on a play called Still Life, which is based on a piece of artwork by Belgian Artist Wim Delvoye entitled Tim. I heard about it on NPR (read the story here) and was, honestly, disgusted. Immediately, I began writing a play about it for Surfacing. I originally envisioned it as a comedy, but the more I thought about it, the less funny it was becoming. And also, the more I thought about it, the more ambitious it started to sound. I wrote half of a scene and abandoned the project as having too much scope.
But then this semester, taking what will be my last undergraduate level creative writing workshop, I got to thinking about it some more. The scope still seemed too big. But I thought, well, give it a try. So I wrote the second half of the first scene and then a second scene. People responded well. I hit a wall. I could not write any more. It sat at two scenes and 14 pages for a month. And then I burst through the wall. I think I decided it was time either to become the writer I wanted to be or hang up my typing fingers.
I didn't hang up.
Peers in my playwriting class have praised it. And the teacher compared it to GB Shaw. That's actually partially why I got blocked. It was like, "Shaw is a master. How could I compete?" But I read part of Pygmalion. And I realized that Shaw is a master. A genius. Don't be scared. It's a compliment. I realized I don't have to be the next GB Shaw. All I have to do is be the first Elliot M. Rauscher.
Anyway, sorry for the novella update. I'll try to be better in the future. To those who read my blog on a feed or a reader, you may want to swing by the actual website and check out my twitter feed on the right hand side. Or, you know, if you twitter, you could follow me there. It's much easier to update. I'll be using twitter to share links, short thoughts, and writing/surfacing progress updates.
And now, the following GB Shaw quotes to ponder:
"A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman."
"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education."
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
"An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country."
With that last one being the most ironic because I have just blogged all about my personal life, let me introduce you to another American I know. His name is Andy, he's a fellow Webster Gorlock and friend. He's a good kid. He plays music, writes, and rides his bicycle. Sound familiar yet? Go check out his blog.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Not the Update, but Something I've been thinking about.
I saw Watchmen this weekend (along with most of America) and I liked it. More on why later.
My buddy Chris just posted a link to this blog, which I read with interest. Go read it now.
Thank you. Now read my response.
For those of us who have not read the novel (but who really really want to), I think the film was intriguing. I did not go in expecting a superhero film. And the narrative is extremely character driven, which is not what American audiences like. American audiences like explosions and good guys who are good and bad guys who are bad. Although, this is bound to change.
As America came out of the Great Depression and entered WWII, there emerged a new film genre which we now call Film Noir. Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity. Films where the good guys weren't all that good. They created their own morality. I think we're going to be seeing a lot more movies with this kind of tone. I'm not talking about the lovable criminals of the late 90's/early 2000's (remakes of Oceans 11, Italian Job, Thomas Crown Affair). You know, bad guys we wanted to win. And of course after 9/11, we were inundated with films that were very Patriotic in tone, specifically Spider-Man (which I thoroughly enjoyed, don't get me wrong), which included the scene of New Yorkers shouting at the Green Goblin to "leave him alone" and "take on the whole city." Now is a time when we will start seeing films take on shades of gray.
When you get down to it, writer Alan Moore's declaration that he won't see this film is just downright ridiculous. While admitting that I haven't read the novel, I have read a bit on the structure of it, and have gleaned a lot of information from friends who have read it. And, also, as I've been told the film is almost a panel-for-panel recreation of the novel (obviously not true, but fairly true), I can say that much of what the graphic novel did was use the kind of narrative structure used in Hard Boiled detective fiction and the stylistic chiaroscuro that film noir became so popular for (which, oddly enough, was borrowed from comic books back in the 40's). So adapting Watchmen to the screen just brings it all full circle and back again, so to speak.
So why, you may ask, did I like Watchmen? For the same reason I liked Pixar's The Incredibles: The idea that heroes walk among us. In fact, I'm going to guess that the initial driving plot point of The Incredibles (superheroes forced into obscurity due to a public angry and afraid of them) was likely borrowed from Watchmen. When you get down to it, most superhero stories you can come up with will have some sort of nod to another superhero story. In fact, take a look at my new guilty-pleasure TV show Heroes. The whole thing smacks of plot points derived from X-Men, The Justice League, Watchmen...the list goes on.
So why did I like Watchmen? Even though it's not about real people, the people are believable. They're flawed. They may be superhuman, but they're human. That's what I liked about Heroes versus a television show like all the nine thousand variations of Law & Order (note no link here): the characters on Heroes may have unbelievable abilities, but they behave in believable ways. Maybe unpredictable ways sometimes, but unpredictable in a good way. Much like the characters in Watchmen. They have extensive depth to them. Each is different.
But in reality, the only reason I liked Watchmen is because of Jackie Earl Haley. I mean, come on! He played Moocher in the Academy Award winning Breaking Away (and also in the very short lived television series of the same name).
My buddy Chris just posted a link to this blog, which I read with interest. Go read it now.
Thank you. Now read my response.
For those of us who have not read the novel (but who really really want to), I think the film was intriguing. I did not go in expecting a superhero film. And the narrative is extremely character driven, which is not what American audiences like. American audiences like explosions and good guys who are good and bad guys who are bad. Although, this is bound to change.
As America came out of the Great Depression and entered WWII, there emerged a new film genre which we now call Film Noir. Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity. Films where the good guys weren't all that good. They created their own morality. I think we're going to be seeing a lot more movies with this kind of tone. I'm not talking about the lovable criminals of the late 90's/early 2000's (remakes of Oceans 11, Italian Job, Thomas Crown Affair). You know, bad guys we wanted to win. And of course after 9/11, we were inundated with films that were very Patriotic in tone, specifically Spider-Man (which I thoroughly enjoyed, don't get me wrong), which included the scene of New Yorkers shouting at the Green Goblin to "leave him alone" and "take on the whole city." Now is a time when we will start seeing films take on shades of gray.
When you get down to it, writer Alan Moore's declaration that he won't see this film is just downright ridiculous. While admitting that I haven't read the novel, I have read a bit on the structure of it, and have gleaned a lot of information from friends who have read it. And, also, as I've been told the film is almost a panel-for-panel recreation of the novel (obviously not true, but fairly true), I can say that much of what the graphic novel did was use the kind of narrative structure used in Hard Boiled detective fiction and the stylistic chiaroscuro that film noir became so popular for (which, oddly enough, was borrowed from comic books back in the 40's). So adapting Watchmen to the screen just brings it all full circle and back again, so to speak.
So why, you may ask, did I like Watchmen? For the same reason I liked Pixar's The Incredibles: The idea that heroes walk among us. In fact, I'm going to guess that the initial driving plot point of The Incredibles (superheroes forced into obscurity due to a public angry and afraid of them) was likely borrowed from Watchmen. When you get down to it, most superhero stories you can come up with will have some sort of nod to another superhero story. In fact, take a look at my new guilty-pleasure TV show Heroes. The whole thing smacks of plot points derived from X-Men, The Justice League, Watchmen...the list goes on.
So why did I like Watchmen? Even though it's not about real people, the people are believable. They're flawed. They may be superhuman, but they're human. That's what I liked about Heroes versus a television show like all the nine thousand variations of Law & Order (note no link here): the characters on Heroes may have unbelievable abilities, but they behave in believable ways. Maybe unpredictable ways sometimes, but unpredictable in a good way. Much like the characters in Watchmen. They have extensive depth to them. Each is different.
But in reality, the only reason I liked Watchmen is because of Jackie Earl Haley. I mean, come on! He played Moocher in the Academy Award winning Breaking Away (and also in the very short lived television series of the same name).
I'm now on twitter.
Follow me at twitter.com/emr042
Or just check here and read my twitter feed in my sidebar.
Twitter will be easier to update than the blog. And it'll help keep the blog about writing while I update you with life information on my twitter.
Stay tuned for a major update this week, as I am on Spring Break.
Follow me at twitter.com/emr042
Or just check here and read my twitter feed in my sidebar.
Twitter will be easier to update than the blog. And it'll help keep the blog about writing while I update you with life information on my twitter.
Stay tuned for a major update this week, as I am on Spring Break.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Dear Readers...
Every so often, I'll get a comment on my blog that deserves a public response.
This is just such a case.
bridget said...
This has been on here so long that it needs to be renamed "Re-tale".
Well, here is my very public response to that:
ZING!
This is just such a case.
bridget said...
This has been on here so long that it needs to be renamed "Re-tale".
Well, here is my very public response to that:
ZING!
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Retail
It's long, so I don't expect everyone to read the whole thing, but I just took a look at this article over at Gizmodo.com about Circuit City employees, and found it actually a bit hard to get through.
The financiapocalypse is taking down many victims, from faceless corporations to the grunts with faces who work for them. Now, Target seems to be doing okay, better than Circuit City, but nothing is certain right now. And while I am glad I don't work in retail anymore, I found parts of this article resonating with me, with the part of me that does miss working there. Because with any job, your co-workers become your friends. And I spent four years working there, making friends. Sure, a lot of them were, like me, just passing through on their way to graduation, to other pursuits. But just as many of them have given a significant portion of their lives to working at Target, and will stay loyal because for all of the bitching and complaining we all did, it's a good company to work for (case in point, when my father-in-law had a heart attack, I called in and hadn't gotten much beyond "heart attack" before my HR person said, "Take as much time as you need, we can cover you. Go be with family." Or my uncle, who worked for corporate, and how wonderful they were with adoption assistance). And regardless, lifetime employee or summer job employee, they're friends. I spent a great deal of time with them. I miss them at times.
So keep that in mind as you troll the going-out-of-business sales for sweet deals. You might be getting a sweet deal, but the people who are helping you are getting a raw deal. They had very little to do with the company going under. And if they seem upset, surly, or whatever, just remember; they can see the writing on the wall. They don't imagine a pink slip is looming, they know it's coming down towards them. Once they sell the last digital camera, they're out of work. They sign up for unemployment benefits and wonder how to pay bills next month. Please, be nice to them. We could all stand to be nice to each other now, in the coming months, in the coming years, and from now on until forever.
The financiapocalypse is taking down many victims, from faceless corporations to the grunts with faces who work for them. Now, Target seems to be doing okay, better than Circuit City, but nothing is certain right now. And while I am glad I don't work in retail anymore, I found parts of this article resonating with me, with the part of me that does miss working there. Because with any job, your co-workers become your friends. And I spent four years working there, making friends. Sure, a lot of them were, like me, just passing through on their way to graduation, to other pursuits. But just as many of them have given a significant portion of their lives to working at Target, and will stay loyal because for all of the bitching and complaining we all did, it's a good company to work for (case in point, when my father-in-law had a heart attack, I called in and hadn't gotten much beyond "heart attack" before my HR person said, "Take as much time as you need, we can cover you. Go be with family." Or my uncle, who worked for corporate, and how wonderful they were with adoption assistance). And regardless, lifetime employee or summer job employee, they're friends. I spent a great deal of time with them. I miss them at times.
So keep that in mind as you troll the going-out-of-business sales for sweet deals. You might be getting a sweet deal, but the people who are helping you are getting a raw deal. They had very little to do with the company going under. And if they seem upset, surly, or whatever, just remember; they can see the writing on the wall. They don't imagine a pink slip is looming, they know it's coming down towards them. Once they sell the last digital camera, they're out of work. They sign up for unemployment benefits and wonder how to pay bills next month. Please, be nice to them. We could all stand to be nice to each other now, in the coming months, in the coming years, and from now on until forever.
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