As a music journalist, seeing hundreds of shows, speaking with hundreds of music celebrities, I'm always amazed that I'm still able to be impressed by musicians. It doesn't happen as much as it used to, as the "adult" critic in me has been conditioned to be jaded and skeptical by the "cool kids" in the biz. Bump that though, I can't help it: Much of the time I'm as sparkley-eyed and grinney as the 16-year-olds crowding the stage, flailing their "MINOR" hand stamps high. I'm a total dork, and I'm okay with that. Especially when it comes to a band of the caliber of Tortoise. Maybe they're called Tortoise because they tour about as often as Giant Tortoises mate. It's been about five years since the last album release, and the fans were clearly hungry for a little turtle soup. For a Tuesday night at the Firebird in St. Louis, the turnout filled half the venue, which was more than I could say for any band or artist I'd ever seen in the place on a week night. The turnout always surprises me in this place because it is, in my opinion, one of the best rock venues in all of St. Louis. Then again, the place isn't exactly advertising itself from the road (it's about as conspicuous as an ant's ear), but anyway, I digress. For those who haven't heard Tortoise, they are a five-member experimental group that hails from Chicago. The group uses a variety of organic instruments and also electronic toys to create its vast wealth of sounds. Each member of the group comes from some other project, and somehow they all seem to piece themselves together in a way that creates a multi-layered symbiosis. Instead of egos clashing, I guess that somehow they've learned to work with each person's individual talents in a way that, for most bands, is a veritable impossibility. The stage at the Firebird held a wealth of instruments: Bass guitars, regular electric babies, two drum kits, a fantasy-inducing Moog synth, keyboards, an electronic marimba and a xylophone. As the band took tot he stage, the disjointed lot of instruments all came to life and each element had its turn in the spotlight. Jeff Parker's wicked guitar fingers send melodic waves cascading like an avalanche over the opening track. His jaw clenches and a hard grin of concentration flashes in and out as his lips draw back in time with the unrelenting rhythm. In whomps the drum kit. Not one of them, two. It comes as a pleasant surprise that Dan Bitney, not usually known for his percussion, takes up the sticks for a flashy and syncopated drum duet with John Herndon. McCombs, the bassist, takes up the keys, and that turns everything we thought about Tortoise right on its head. And that is awesome. The dizzy rockadelic frolic is brought on by a banquet of electronics (having never seen an electronic marimba, I was quite intrigued by its light-up action). Bitney and Herndon take up that and the xylophone in another duet. Herndon at one point scratches at the xylophone with the sticks like a cave man carving bones, then flips them right-side and flows right into a gorgeously bone-melting ditty on the metal. All the while, John McIntire dabbles the keys and tosses in robotic noise and "fun" stuff like dimestore beads at a MardiGras parade. Somehow with Tortoise, tacky is tasteful. That 70s cop-show, slouchy polyester vibe suddenly feels like it's en vogue; it just feels right on your skin. A guy in the crowd told me that he could "feel the music in [his] pants." If that isn't rock-tastic, I don't know what is. I'd like to say that I was fully music-critic sharp and "with it" during this show, that my brain was actively analyzing the elements 100 percent of the time, but if I said that I would be lying. I did get a little bit lost in the music for a while. The psychedelic elements whisked my brain off to another place for a few minutes before I realized what was happening. Listening to Tortoise is like hearing interpreted into music every dream you ever had--or every dream you wish that you ever had. John Herndon really snapped me back to reality with his incredible guttural drumming. After a good hour of drumming, I imagine anyone would be exhausted, but Herndon, sweat flowing off of his nose like a mini-waterfall, took it to the next level, hitting harder and faster. Whipping the music into a froth, he brought the backbeat to the foreground. I haven't seen dedication like that in years. Hats off, buddy. All the rock, wonk and jazz add up to a fantastic mystery flavor. As always, Tortoise delivers a rare treat.
Perhaps the movie Fight Club's scene where Pitt and Norton raid the liposuction clinic's rear dumpsters for bags of human lard to be delicately repackaged into flavored body products isn't so far fetched these days. With the world growing ever larger, and the people's rear ends in proportion to the exponential explosion of the population, people are finding fairly creative ways to get rid of the excess blub. One particularly enterprising Beverly Hills doc used patient fat, converting it into a bio-fuel for his vehicle. Innovative, ingenious even, but unfortunately too risky to be put into place. I do wonder, however: How much fat does it take to fuel one vehicle? Wow, I could totally imagine what life would be like if the world took such ideas seriously. Something like that could lead to an entire industry of couch potatos, or "fat farmers", who sit around, gorging on ice cream and bon bons for months while watching their 800 channels on a sunken divan. Then, when sufficiently "ripe," they turn a profit on the sucked-out cells for four bucks a pound, turning the lazy American stereotype into a brilliant entrepreneur. Wild. I even came across a website for a Dutch organization that claimed to offer free liposuction to people, then converted the fat into baked goods for starving people. It at first appeared far-fetched, but the site that I investigated appeared legitimate. However, I have been unable to relocate the site, and the Dutch are known for their pranks, so I'm not quite certain that this was not just a beat-all take-em-to-the-cleaners. If not, the bioethics issues are the size of the cookies at Diddy Riese...
It's funny how history repeats itself over and over. It makes me think that perhaps history and human experience is just a series oflogarithmic patterns, bound to repeat sooner or later. Perhaps it is, or perhaps we, as humans, naturally gravitate toward certain highs and lows. Who knows? I always find it immensely fascinating whenever I locate a person in history who has been through almost the exact same scenario that I'm currently facing on personal scale. Recently I came upon the bio of Gene Kelly, not very disputably one of the most talented entertainers the United States has ever seen. Sifting through the details of his early years before MGM fame and glitz, I discovered that a 17-year-old Kelly originally set out to study journalism (parallel exhibit A) at Pennsylvania State College. Because of economic conditions at the time (1929), Kelly quit his studies in order to find a more stable position to make ends meet (parallel exhibit B). In 1930, his family opened a dance studio, where he taught while eventually going back to school and earning a BA (family business parallel exhibit C). He actually enrolled in law school (consideration of a law degree parallel exhibit D), but dropped out after two months to pursue dance teaching and choreography. Finally,in 1937, he moved to New York City to pursue his dreams and expand on his natural given talents (moving to a big city parallel exhibit E). The life of Gene Kelly not only draws personal parallels for me, but also for others facing economic and career hardships at this time. It's an inspiring history lesson for people today. So a person's career of choice is facing a slump, uncertainty, or even complete elimination from the viable marketplace; that doesn't mean that a person cannot make a go at a fabulous career. Now is the time to ramp up the creativity, perhaps, to explore our other talents and natural gifts. You never know where it could lead. You may one day be dancing in roller skates, eh, Gene?
For trying to do something environmentally sound, I get burned. My resume/news show website, www.maglama.com is currently down. I decided to switch to a new hosting service that used wind energy to power its servers, and now am faced with a lengthy domain transfer that could take up to five days. Right. Just before I skipperdeedee off to find my fame and fortune in Los Angeles (or at least find someone who will take a shine to my skills). How annoying. I am now going to try to squash everything into a file and likely create resume multimedia CDs for the event (inevitably) that I can't get the site functional in time. Plus, I will have my Maglama YouTube, the measley thing that it is at the moment, as well. Ughughughughugh...
Neglecting my blog has become a bad habit that I need to overcome. I have been busy working on several video projects, articles, reviews and profiles, and have actually been pouring my heart and soul out on personal blogs in light of this depressing economic times. Frankly, I haven't had much emotional energy for this sort of commentatorship. Sure, I'll chew the fat about it over coffee with an intellectually elevated colleague or friend, but formulating ideas that I think are worth something in writing takes a lot out of a person. Besides, most of my other spare time is taken up by scouring online ads for full time work. Speaking of online job ads, leave it to scammers to take full advantage that every other human being in this country is looking for work. Via Craigslist especially, I will apply to a position, only to receive an email shortly thereafter prompting me to follow a link to "complete my application online." Perhaps some of these sorts of human resource websites are legitimate, but somehow I doubt it. Somehow I wonder if it's all a ploy to get people's addresses, phone numbers and other such information. To me, it seems like quite a hassel to go through to get people's info, but you never know. Anything's possible in this day and age. I have yet to find any significant "buyer beware" articles online regarding this sort of thing. However, when someone I don't know directs me to an unfamiliar link and asks me to put in my information, I have every right, as a web-savvy consumer, to be wary. It's taxing on the mind and emotions to constantly be looking over one's digitized shoulder, but nowadays, with the free-wheeling information exchange of the Internet, we have no choice. I feel increasingly pained for those individuals who lived through the era of handshakes and heartfelt promises. The Harold Hills were few and far between, and a man or woman's word was just as good as signatures and certificates. Now we practically have to require a blood test for every transaction. And, thanks to people like Bernie Madoff, our trust in friends, colleagues and business people is in even more of a shambles. It disgusts me that scammers prey on people's emotions and seek to kick them while they are down. One recent scamming ring would call elderly folks pretending to be their grandchildren, claiming to be stranded in a foreign country needing money to get home. It's crazy what these people will do. I've heard of some shameful phishing scams in my life, but this one was probably one of the worst. We'll never be able to avoid these scams completely. A sucker is born every minute, as they say. People will run to the broken back window and forget about the front door. Here's a good site that offers SOME hints on avoiding these crazy schemes online: http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/sucker.html. Also, if you haven't already, check out www.snopes.com for information on chain emails, fake giveaways, and other stories that sound too surreal to be true (usually they are).
A number of topics concerning women have arisen in the news as of late: some pleasant, some not so pleasant.
Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is a pleasant story. Not only is she the arguably first Hispanic (Justice Benjamin Cardozo in the 1930s was thought to have Hispanic blood), but she is the third woman. Although she will likely sympathize with the left point of view while serving with the court, Sotomayor is no pantywaste. As a judge, she's hard as granite and lionness aggressive. She will give the other seasoned justices a hard kick in their robed backsides. For all that's worth, methinks she is a good choice, the best of both the female perspective and upholding the law. As all of Hollywood would say, work it, Girl.
Not-so-pleasant are the number of female murderers in the news as of late. According to the Bureau of Statistics, women account for 14 % of all violent crimes. I wonder what that will be the next time that gets calculated. Among the disturbing acts are the crimes where women murder their own children or the children of neighbors, however, most disturbing are the numbers of women who attempt to steal babies from other women by cutting the babies out of the wombs of pregnant women. I cannot imagine anything more horrifying. What may be even more horrifying, perhaps, are the possibilities of women getting away with these murders and raising the children as their own. I shudder to think...
At any rate, I thought that I would weigh in here as I have been grossly neglecting my blog in favor of video production and also attempting to find a full time gig in the world. Keep the faith.
Recently, I came across an article in the New York Times regarding large families living in motels, and was again struck by the thought that perhaps America needs to reexamine the dogmatic idea that bigger is better when it comes to family planning. In one case, the article mentions a couple, the husband who had worked at Target and the wife who had worked at Petco, having lost both of their jobs within months of each other. They have three children, and just added another baby to the family. Perhaps it's my upbringing, but common sense tells me that having lots of children without being able to afford to take care of them isn't a very good idea. However, thousands of low income families insist on bringing such "joy" into the world, straining government and charitable organizations that offer support for each child born superfluously outside of the family budget.
Lisa Belkin of the New York Times asked the question: How many is too many? We, as a society, have yet to determine that number. Scientists say that we should only replace ourselves in order to avoid further leeching resources from the Earth. That means, in essence, every couple should have just two children. Furthermore, considering the cost in this modern day to raise a child, most low income families cannot really afford to have more than one. Yet, somehow more keep coming.
I am not blaming all of the motel families, some of whom were legitimately well-planned from homes with decent earnings and just fell victims of circumstance, but I am saying that perhaps we need to provide better information within our educational system not only regarding the responsibility of having children, but the cost as well. In this economy, our entire way of life will have to be re-examined, and family size is just one aspect that I suspect will come under scrutiny.
