Damo Suzuki’s Network

Just saw Damo Suzuki in Brooklyn, in a room the size of my living room. Rhythmic, melodic, hypnotic, meditative, loud, constant, varying, alive, awesome.

More about Ms. Jackson

I’ve only seen Ms. Jackson twice but they are kicking my ass! Go see them (Fridays at the Magnet Theater in NYC.)

The last show was merely 3 of the 5 women, and each one of them was in nearly every skit- 45 minutes of continuous improv, and amazing… Such a thrill to watch them, slowly, stare at each other, size the other one up, and then start something. Last show featured:

• a weird, possibly adulterous situation with a math teacher losing his edge
• Don Rickles’ ex-wife
• a trio of mobsters, the main mobster who is afraid of technology
• a 9 year old girl who had been waiting that long for a name from her mom.

I’m sorry - should go on, but what is really amazing is the slowness of them. The deliberateness and the drawn-out-ness. These scenes go on for 5-10 minutes and get deeper and deeper and funnier and funnier… Amazing!

Best line:
“Why are you hesitating?”
“…I always hesitate before the best decision of my life…”

Ok, go see them!

John Lahr’s speech on Comedy and Revenge

Verbatim notes taken while listening to John Lahr’s speech about COMEDY AND REVENGE.

Speaking of the old comedians of the beginning of the industrial age:

They were LOSERS in the land of plenty. Desperation fed their urgency.

They had no economic security. They were restless, had no education…

They were punished by the possibility of being told they were equal but having no way to each achieve it.

They became their own capital.

And they mocked the sources that oppressed them

They were physically unattractive
– comedy like American life is about conquest
– the clowns enacted the infantile wish to prevail

Listen to the show here

Billy Joyce, RIP

My mother’s father died this month. Billy Ray Joyce- a terrific guy. A thin, wirey strong man with great hair who liked to talk more than most other things. Claimed to be 1/16 Cherokee. Born in Oklahoma, most of his life spent in either Witchita KS or Joplin MO. His stint in WWII was spent mostly in Algeria, where he layed down tar and built runways for Allied planes. Got Asthma as a result but the 40 years smoking didn’t help either.Visited every state in the union in his RV (except HI.) Spent years nursing his wife - my grandmother- through Alzheimer’s disease. This picture of him with the beard he took himself, soon after my grandmother’s death. The beard was his way of grieving. He was a good guy.

Donald Phelps’ Covering Ground

I’m pleased to say I’ve tracked down Mr. Phelps’ terrific earlier book of essays, Covering Ground. His language is such a wonderful tangle of metaphor and triangulation: he’s always trying to describe what it is a work does. These essays consist mostly of commentary on literature, from IB Singer to Collodi’s Pinocchio, to the usual handful of writers and authors I’ve never heard of. He writes about Doc Savage and William F. Buckley with equal depth and curiousity. Also, pornography and losing his own teeth.

I bounce between reading more of Reading the Funnies and thumbing through this. In the meantime, I post this to fire your imagination and maybe credit cards- go find it online. It can be found for only a handful of bucks easily.

Iraqi comedians - Hurry Up, He’s Dead

My friend Myla told me a couple weeks back about an Iraqi comedian, Saad Khalifa, trying to find some satire in the mess over there. His show, “Hurry Up He’s Dead” is about the last Iraqi standing in the year 2017.

Comedians that can still satirize as their community is up in flames are saints; god bless them. The Daily Show approaches that saintliness a couple times a year, maybe, when things are particularly absurd and spooky and bizarre- Cheney shooting his friend in the chest being the most memorable example. When the real world is so completely nuts, and every jane, joe and muhammed is fully aware of it, the people who can exorcise it, wrangle it and truly articulate it are doing a holy service. When Satire is all that makes sense.

These Cheney incidents are just a taste of what that must be like. It’s the clowns who have lived through the Serbia-Bosnia hostilities, or these guys in Iraq who deserve a special place in heaven.

When Myla told me that this comedian had been shot in Iraq, my heart sank. Research proved it was not Khalifa, but a co-star of his on another show, “Caricature.” The executed comedian’s name was Waad Hassan.

Whatever; it’s one artist bringing levity to a grave situation too many.

I wrote this to my friend: I have no problem feeling more hurt over the deaths of my tribesmen (comedians, artists, whatever.) The world needs them. The sorrows of losing average men, women and children is profound too, but as human beings we have to contexualize, and compartmentalize the world. I can understand the death of this man; it’s more difficult for me to make the leap to “average Iraqi”. This hurts more.

Mourn this saint and pray for the safety of his remaining compatriots in satire and sanity:

Seattle Times Article
Herald-Tribune Article

Turtles Can Fly

Leela says that you should scrap your childish desire for horror movies and see real horror movies like Turtles Can Fly by Kurdish director Bahman Gobadi. Read her much more articulate posting about it.

Read more about Bahman Gobadi here

Michelle’s opening!

Friday was my student Michelle’s opening for FLIES, her art
extravaganza exploring her fly characters in all imaginable media:

paint, drawings, stickers, photos, and animation! Look at these people
riveted by the animation. Go flies and bravo Michelle!

The Boise Jumpers Took The World!

Hey- The Boise Idaho Jump Roping Team took the world championship!!!

Check them out at http://www.summerwindskippers.org

What I did on the internet instead of donating money to rebuild the Gulf Coast, or aiding refugees in Lebanon, or anything that would contribute in some way to the betterment of the world volume 1: Billy Squier

Instead, I spent two hours downloading and rockin out to Billy Squier.

I remember being 14 and being at my friend Steve’s house and for whatever reason he asked me who my favorite band or musician was. Like, when push comes to show, name ONE.

He was sure I’d say Billy Joel but I said another Billy: Billy Squier and his jaw dropped. I still think of that reaction today- often, in fact. Screw it!

Billy Squier basically took blues (read: “butt”) riffs, wrote loud, formulaic songs on top and sang the hell out of them. Listening to a few of these songs today, I’m still impressed by how great his voice is. He really belts these things out. He’s a loud, breathy second-rate Robert Plant. Awesome.

His records were perfect for dancing around in your room at 14, belting the hell out of these things. The lyrics were stupid and formulaic, and resonated only if you believed you had something to be gained by devoting your time to “rockin.”

“Make me guilty of love in the first degree” hardly sounds sexy, enticing or criminal, does it?

I remember hearing on USA network’s NIGHT FLIGHT (which basically saved my life by the way- I saw Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush there for the first time. PBS’s “Alive from Off Center” followed to continue the rescue) that Billy blamed a dip in his career on the director of this video. He might be right.

But he could have NOT dressed himself in those pink shirts. He didn’t have to dress like a new member of a Jenny Craig gym. He didn’t have to hump the floor. He could have just strangled his Telecaster like he was ejaculating all over the stage; now there’s a good rocker.

I’m fascinated by a couple moments in this video, One in particular at about 1:14: the way his mouth moves, he draws breath, he gathers the juices in his mouth, washes them around the inside before belting the first occurrence of the refrain, “Take Me in your Arms.” It’s weird and sexy. All the crawling around on the floor was supposed to be, but wasn’t.

The album this is from (”Signs of Life”) was produced by Bat Out Of Hell’s Jim Steinman, and had more keyboards than usual, and frankly it was a really moving album in places. I was surprised by how much all this stuff still grabbed me. (”She’s a Runner” (apparently written about a skateboard queen in L.A.) is terrific.) It’s the forcefulness of it all. The conviction, the dedication to “rockin’” (in the pink, New Wave 80s) that is totally tangible and exciting..

Billy still plays- he’s touring with Ringo Starr’s band right now. I bet he’s a great performer, active, loud, excitable.

He’s still got integrity. Look to these two exchanges from a recent interview:

Q. You’ve been asked to appear on “Where-are-they-now” shows but turned them down.

A.Without a second thought. I think those things are horrifying. These are desperate people. I’m not trying to cast aspersions, but I would like to hold onto whatever integrity I still have.

Q.In hindsight, what was the worst thing about the ’80s?

A.MTV! It completely changed the face of music. For me, music is this incredibly cerebral trip. You turn on the radio or put on a record, and it’s your song, it’s what you see. When MTV came along, you didn’t have your story anymore

He did a stripped down guitar-and-vocals only album in 1998 that featured of all things, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River.” **I’ve never heard this. Downloads -legal or otherwise- are hard to find.

Enjoy and be sure to

**A final note. I was having dinner with Roxanne and her dad in 1994, and we were talking about Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album. Rox and I were both surprised that her left-brain, eggheady, linquist father was a huge fan. “Can you guess what my favorite song on it is?” I guessed “River” in 2 seconds and was right. What clearer, simpler emotional statement is there than ” I wish I could run away…”?