Holiday Haze

Help! Let Me Out!

Some of these folks look a bit unhappy in this here Yule Tide season.
Desperate, even.

X-Mass Impressions

Not Just Fo' Exercise

We use music for all kinds of reasons. The advent of the portable personal player, beginning with the Walkman, has allowed us to take our favs as painkiller while exercising or as boredom killer during those epochs in the doctor's waiting room. Now, of course, you can watch a movie, listen to a book, look at photos-practically anything is possible, as I said, to kill boredom and block out other people.

[The 80's Fripp stares at the two Revox machines whilst making Frippertronics. Thinking aloud, he saith: How can I further kill any commercial possibility?]

Last week, I decided to use my iPod to help alleviate the drudgery of buying groceries at Kroger. At one time, places of commerce used Musak-the musical equivalent of Valium designed to calm the consumer, to lull them into spending money in happy consumer land. While Muzak was an abomination with occasional hilarious results (hearing John Lennon's Watching the Wheels as elevator schlock), today's stores try to rev you up with Today's Most Predictable Mass Produced Country Hits. There, while pondering mayonnaise, Faith Hill will be railing away about her love life as plastic Barbie love doll. Me not care. It is torture. Soon to follow are every faux cowboy McSinger hits all designed to cause pain. This isn't background music, it's akin to a root canal.

This time I decided on some truly apocalyptic music for my mayonnaise gathering-Robert Fripp's Let the Power Fall. Somehow this music, being so off kilter from Kro-god, was perfect. Fripp's searing and wailing guitar made the grocery run seem bearable-even funny. That's my recommendation to you-play music that's entirely contrary to your environment. The results may surprise you.

People always hate others who truly do their own thing-like so rudely shutting out others with music. How dare they! We don't like when people do something different from us. It's as if we despise them from being so unselfconscious. I always get a few choice "looks" when the ear buds are in.

It's as if somehow I am an impaired, irresponsible idiot who must be tolerated by the hateful women shoppers who take this arduous task very seriously. Women, without any variance, are always the rudest, the most hateful of grocery store shoppers. Guys wonder around with blank looks; carrying a list from High Command. One woman just paused behind me (as if listening to music somehow impairs vision), stood there, waiting to see which bewildered direction I was going to take, gave me a look as she blew passed me. A great citizen, to be sure.

Rednecks have a hard time processing the need for portable technology. If they only could see how all voices, especially ones closest to you, could be silenced so easily by the entire Lin-erd Skin-erd catalog, I am convinced they would join in the fun. Until then, they judge (and have no fun).

So may your next dreary grocery run a little bit easier with your choice of psychotic music. Early Pink Floyd, some deep electronica from Dom F. Scab, Syd Barrett is always a laugh-anything weird.

Concert Review: The Blind Boys of Alabama

Last night, December 4, Charleston was treated to the Blind Boys of Alabama. If you weren't there, then do yourself a favor: hope that they return. I'm not here to do a full review, so if you wish to read about them, go here.

In short, they tore it up. They brought even notoriously sleepy Charleston audiences to their feet time and again, all on a cold Tuesday night.

And what did that was the incredible talent and musical maturity of this ensemble. They needed no fancy lights, no visuals, nothing but singing and playing. The authority and the sheer soul ripping power of the music was nothing less than spectacular.

At times, I felt like I was in a southern church, surrounded by believers, with the Glory Train parked outside waiting for us to board. I am no great believer, but when I hear these guys sing, I need no faith. I am filled with it; flooded even. You can't help it. It was that powerful. Tears flowed easily.

It supports my argument that real music needs no explanation or analysis. It transcends language, all thoughts, all barriers and reaches into those hidden and gaurded parts of our being. The place where humanity resides.

These guys are for reals. Go see them whenever, wherever you can.

Accidental Beauty

i like the haziness of these shots
they have an impressionistic quality
some of which are totally an accident
aim out the windshield while driving
and hope for the best

zero technique
no intention
the action of an instrument

John Cage spoke a lot about play when it came to composing. Non-intention was also a theme.

These last three were composed.

That mist that slowly covers these ancient, silent hills. It removes all intention. Slows the viewer down to another rhythm.

Forgotten

Out of the way places.

I like to take the long way around. It is so monotonous to rip up and down MacCorkle Avenue, joining the other mad souls jockeying for position.


In the car, I get to listen to my music, sing way out of tune and range, and enjoy some alone time.

One of the little pleasures is to really go out of your way and go down Chesterfield Avenue in KC and follow it East (or SE) until it dumps back onto MacCorkle.

Once you get past Lower Donnally, the whole feeling changes. Here telephone poles, paralleling the railroad tracks, look like they haven't been upgraded since the 1920's. Wires hang loose. It all looks forgotten and abandoned.

I'm sure the people who live along here wouldn't appreciate my assessment. Especially those who live on 57th Street SE. It's is a little "holler," despite being within KC limits. Is it just me or does the guy in the dark blue look like he's getting frisky with some corn stalks??? I won't comment on the gourd.

Then there's this house that once was really a great home. It sits all by its lonesome, looking kind of sad. Now windows are boarded up, the weeds rule and ain't nobody home.

Then there's the crown jewel of KC bars: Jocko's. I've never had the displeasure of having a drink there, but I plan on making the scence soon. Yeah. Anybody want to come get their ass kicked with me? Good times.

While I stopped to take the snap, some joker gave me the long stare. I looked at him, he stared back. A lot of local bars think themselves so "swave and dee-boner" when they have a bit of private gambling going on. Yeehah! Bet you the stakes are high. What's it cost to get in? Five dollars?

Though we needn't go far from home to see the glorious lack of sophistication so well known to designated redneck zones (or RZs to the layman). I snapped this.

I'm not sure of the message here. Any help?

All in all, I love where I live and though the "real people" live in South Hills- a place to which I aspire, but realize I will never be accepted-KC is still full of unexpected beauty, and a few laughs.

Lost and Found

Charlotte