Real Time Reviews: End of Quarter Treat Myself to East Bay Record Day (or, Screw the NCAA)

First up is Lalo Schifrin's New Fantasy, a collection of his arrangements of some classics and modern classics, in what you'd call the Bossa Nova style if you knew what the hell Bossa Nova means. Schifrin penned the score to Bullitt, which is the only soundtrack I've ever wanted to own, besides Xanadu. This original swings fast n' furious. $7.99 Amoeba Berkeley, Verve.

Now it's Mating Call by Tadd Dameron with John Coltrane. First class tunes by Mr. Dameron. Coltrane is loud and up front and maybe too well mic'ed, but no complaints for this $4.95 Prestige original, courtesy of Rasputin's.

Mose Allison’s Down Home Piano looked beat up as hell, but for $2.95 it was worth the risk. Thee Piano Man is in fine form, tearing through solid originals, but man he needs some horns. Brubeck had Desmond, and Mose could have used him here. Hissy sounds just find for three bucks. Prestige, Rasputin’s, blah blah blah.

Fleetwood Mac’s Then Play On is the only record I like by them not featuring the vocal stylings of Ms. Gold Dust Woman. Peter Green and no chicks $2.99 Amoeba Berk, Reprise. Closing My Eyes should stink, but it kinda works in a heroin-slow way. I’m waiting for Oh Well to close out side one. Nice slide work, hippy tunes, I think I should have soulseeked this.

Monk at the Blackhawk (long dead SF club) was one of the first non rock CDs I bought. No idea what happened to it, but thanks to Rasput’s I got the black vinyl for 6 bucks. Still so great, easily the best sounding live album he made, and it’s got the short break version of Epistrophy, my favorite song. Riverside label.

Side A of Rollins' Nucleus is at times a Stax-sounding blues record. Sonny's horn takes over the vox, and this surprise is kinda fun after the 'serious jazz' I've ingested. It sounds like Duck Dunn and Al Jackson keeping time, and though it's not it's good enough for me. When they do get all jazzy it's ok, but the 4/4 stuff makes it a good buy. Side B starts with slow funk, and settles in to a great cool and steady vibe. $4.95, s'nitupsaR.

The Basement Rants: Recently Discovered Partial History Concerning The Matter Of Brother JT. Authored by Sonny House, c. 2004.



Round 3 - Doomsday Rock
Brother JT adds Vibrolux to his moniker and produces this ode to the Apocalypse, which is really a mix of Other Head and Come on Down, bouncing back and forth between long psych groovers, sweet folk-rockers and messages from Beelzebub. This brings the energy back, especially with the almost funky "Comin' Out," and the positively deranged "Grok," which makes the poppier numbers sweeter, especially the glorious "Never Never" and the GBV-lengthed and highly melodic "Helicopters." I don't know what "Metemphychosis" means, but here it's a near-re-write of the Stones' "Last Time" before it dissipates into a waves of space-proggy feedback and a cacophony of voices. I could do without the occasional baritoned voice of Satan joining the preceedings, and the trippy repetition of "Optigan" may be more interesting to 15 year old boys into Terry Pratchett, but the record closes with two long psych workouts, "Take Infinity" and "The Stars are Real," that hint at some Bevis Frondesque guitars while keeping things moving and not bogged down in that single idea that can often strangle interest. Overall, a big jump up from Come on Down in energy and execution, but still too many diabolical kitchen sinks thrown into the mix for an unequivocal rave.



Round 4 - Rainy Day Fun
Probably my least favorite JT release, this provides plenty of rain and very little fun, with the notable exception of "Beginning to Smile," which is a pop stunner. Much of this suffers from the same languid approach of Come on Down, but half of the tunes sound like children's songs with Ravi Shankar guitar tunings. That might sound like heaven in the wee hours of a four foot bong party, but in the sharp light of a workday morning, it's just annoying. Of course, nobody should be listening to this during work hours, or any hours that one normally associates with upwardly mobile productive behavior, and maybe to try to evaluate it in that context is just silly (as is this whole ridiculous Sisyphussian effort, but what are we if we can't throw ourselves into the meaningless abyss now and again). But there is one other disturbing thing, which is the back picture of a very young girl in a party dress looking at what appears to be a stranded astronaut on television. Nothing there, but coupled with the lyrics to "Rider Rider" ("deep inside her") about Sally on his handlebars just creeps me out. Don't know if "Just 14" will ever sound the same again. Sorry, this fatherhood thing does stuff to you.



Round 5 - Way to Go
In which our hero just says no to living room noodling and embraces the richness of full band heaviness. This is the richest, thickest and most expansive of the lot so far and the proverbial corner around which JT turns toward consistency and, dare I say it, listener-friendly gestures. "UR" opens things up aggressively with a popping bass and screeching lead freakouts, putting the throb in your deep psych needs. "Come Around" is arguably the most fully realized JT pop moment yet, with huge melodic fills and a chorus with plenty of adhesive. A totally satisfying 4 minutes for pop fans who like their candy with a twist. The title track slows down the pace and amps up the guitars again, with long wah wah knockouts over full drum workouts before JT comes back in with the falsetto, "activating plan B" and "swimming the mountain and climbing the sea." "Little Did I Know" goes after Gadnium's title of the heaviest metal not yet discovered, with everybody pounding on everything in beautiful chaotic harmony. "Throwaway" is soft and romantic, with JT proclaiming his love in a gentle ballad. Sweet. The soft interlude is short, however, as "Floating" returns to smash 'em up psych exercises, this time with great background vocals and yes, even more guitar. It just wouldn't be JT without some twisted spoken word, and on the closer, "Cloud Ten," he's confessing to "deep emotional problems," and no one who makes it through this little ditty will disagree. Can you please pass the lithium. Now, who is going to reissue that goddamned Gadnium record?



Round 6 - Maybe We Should Take Some More?
No, the title doesn't say it all, but you could argue that it does, and things slow down again, but in more of an English eccentric kinda way than a lonely man in his ramshackle Pennslyvania house way. This one loses the weight and power, and brings the playfulness and outthereness of the true experimenter. We get frogs over a pretty Kinks-like pop number ("Watcha Gonna Do?"), African tribal moon chanting ("Moon Chant,") moody 40's show tune intros ("Lassitude") and even a fuzzed out rock n roller of Original Sin-like beauty ("Child of the Sun"). Ya get a sweet lullaby ("Lullaby") that no, don't call child services, I won't be singing to the boys any time soon, potty humor ("Muff, VA"- get it?) and something that sounds like Bowie's Berlin period ("Dave's Thing"). I wasn't crazy about this at first, because the slowness of pace and the general wackiness and refusal to stick to any one style on consecutive songs can leave you numb. Or irritable. But this is a real grower, because the songs are simply more thought out and most of 'em work on their own terms, if ya give 'em half a chance. Probably too long at 18 songs, but that's the curse of the cd revolution. I wish bands would edit more fiercely, but probably deep down in their hopeful gut of guts they secretly believe that leaving that one song off just may be the kiss of success death, so throw it all against the wall and hope something sticks. The success crack doesn't apply to JT, but you know what I mean. 12 is usually plenty, and often too much. End of rant. Happy weekend.



Round 7 - Spirituals
"We cannot hide from God" runs the caption on the back of this one, right below two sweet children planting under a watchful sun, while birds fly and consciences apparently warp before the innocent will ever know what hit them. JT's continuing assault on all things organized religion finally leads him to a song cycle of his own brand of secular spirituals, an oxymoron only if you haven't been paying attention. This is his most consistent release, with each of the nine songs delivering on some level, and all of them working on their own merits. The mood is generally light, demanding you leave the dark confines of your shaded room and begin the elfin frolicking of the young, preferably in a daisyed meadow. He does take a few slightly heavier sidesteps, most notably with the traditional "Mole in the Ground," which burns the slide into a groove and then stays there long enough to put a crick in your neck if you keep bopping it up and down and all around, ya damn hippy. "Lord You Are the Wine" also looks for stone groovy land, with JT going baritone and assorted handclappers doing melodically assorted handclaps over a slow, simple fuzz guitar riff. But the emphasis here is back on melody, with no experimental sketches or ironically Beelzebubian voices coming out of the right speaker. It is just one fully realized pop tune after the next, with plenty of creative touches that add to the melodies, rather than diverting from them, like the acoustic guitar in the wonderfully sprite singalong, "Be With Us," or the flute lead intro on the stupidly catchy "Mellow." This is the perfect Sunday morning record for those looking to curb the pain by singing the praises of your own personal Jesus in whatever way possible. Godspeed you to Amoeba.



Round the Last - Hang in There, Baby
And so we come to the lastest and bestest, a perfect amalgamation of everything that's come before, punctuated by JT's defining plea, "What I do with my head is my own damn business, can I get a witness," which could be read as just more drug-addled contradiction, or a cry to the finger-waggers to put their hands back in their pockets and just let each of us live how we see fit, and yes I'm going to put some trans fatty acids in my mouth or some rainbow tabs and if that's what I need at this moment then back off, cuz to the dust we shall all return. But things start much more calmly, with JT's call for fraternity on "Brother Brother" that opens with another effective flute lead and plops us right back in the land of the lush pop hook. "Gettin' There" is another stunner, with verse, chorus and especially bridge lodging themselves firmly in your memory bank in a way that makes the end of summer feel poignant again. Things slow down with "A Little Death," a meditation on mortality and love that culminates in a long slow lead that swirls all around that 14 foot crucifix that graces the back cover. "Shine Like Me" opens with a blatant Killer's Kiss rip (How Dare He????) but then blasts into a shimmery pop chorus that demands a singalong, and that means you mr. grumpy over there in the corner. "Head Business" is the center of this minor masterpiece, and where we find the aforementioned call for the glories of acid, which takes him to the other side of beauty and love, a far better place than where you can "buy a gun at the K-Mart." And when he closes one verse with, "You're goddamned right that I say YESSSSSS," well, you're ready to load up the micro bus and get with those dancing bears, if only chemically. Heaven is a state of mind. "Let's Not and Say We Did" drops it down with grace, opening with a head-rolling bit of psych-pop, in which JT confirms some suspicions when he announces, "Let's just say I've been staying in," but this time he's inviting his friends over, and these boys can really play, so when they launch off into the extended jam that is the longest of the record, east of the sun and west of the moon, you're ready to go with them, because each solo serves the song, and not the drug's whimsy, and return will only mean another slice of that Eden of the mind. "Dry Bones" is really heavy, dude, oh yea, a one-riff monster that will put a crick in your neck if you bang for its duration. "Move On" is just gorgeous, a perfect closer (not counting the hidden track) with its chorus, "Don't you think it's time we move on," which can't help but make you ponder that, but then you realize that is exactly what JT has been doing on each record- finding the new angle, coming at it from the other side, experimenting with each and every turn so you and I receive the joy of his journeys. Amen JT, and now it's time that everybody get on board, whatever mode of transport best suits ya, if ya know what I mean, and I think you do. See you on the other side.

So ends this trip - we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Congratulations, Rein!

The Budweiser Thief
It's been almost four years since The Bicycle Thief, and enquiring minds have been wondering whether old Bob went off the deep end again, blowing any good will and cash he might have received with that masterwork on sins of the nostrils and veins. Not to worry, cuz the greatest middle-aged emo writer around is back, and lo and behold it's a return to the old with a new Thelonious Monster record, and it is one of my favorite records of the year. Apparently, the now fortysomething Monsters have stayed in touch and at least moderately friendly, and so they decided to play on that fraternal spirit and do homage to their favorite bands and put out what one would have to believe is their last record. And what a record it is, easily the most consistent thing they've ever done, and filled with highlights too numerous to name. For my money, it doesn't quite reach the emotional heights of the BT record, but you get the feeling Bob is in a better place now, and maybe the tortured can only tap that source once to deliver the kind of raw nerve aural confessionism that was that collection. So, no elephant jokes here, no Sammy Hagar mentions, and nothing about Michael Jordan. What you get instead is 15 songs with titles like "The Gun Club Song," or "The Iggy Stooge Song," which may be a reference to the style in which they play, the spirit they try to channel, or well, who knows. The result is absolutely righteous, though, with only one misstep ("The Germs Song," and hey, that only lasts about a minute). The rest are catchy and funny and rocking and all those other positive adjectives you might normally associate with a great rock and roll record. Long live the Berkeley Square!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How’s Utah?

I wasn’t sure this blog could continue to praise Killer’s Kiss without reprisal. I’ve received several emails from our far-flung readership begging us to report on the heterosexual emo underground and the burgeoning dwarf jam band phenomenon, but we table these requests in favor of ink on SF’s fearsome fivesome. KK live shows the past year have been good clean fun but I couldn’t deem them exciting. Of late I was growing complacent, and so I think was the band. Patience will out in live gigs and the reward came Friday night at the lovely Parkside.

Thanks to a fawning cover-plug for the Comets on Fire in this week’s Bay Guardian the P-side was packed with neophytes. Women without tattoos were present, a handful of minorities were spotted (shocking!), and sonny and I did not have the thinnest hair. The newcomers and the veterans then got a treat; KK opened and they played their best SF show to date.

But you already know this, thanks to Neva Chonin’s terrific KK write up in Saturday’s Chronicle. Or was that a PJ Harvey review? I can’t recall because Saturday morning, groggy and angry that there isn’t any good coffee on Clement Street a few facts coalesced; 1) Neva is a ClearChannel whore, 2) Jack in the Box tacos at 2am are a staple and, 3) Chris O is a genuine frontman for the most exciting band in the city.

KK played like the gods were going to take away their gifts if they didn’t go fuck all for the crowd. The key tune Friday was Backslider, which started off with band members playing at their own tempo. This was not planned, and before you could say Robert Fripp they brought it together, but Friday they brought it with aggression and a familiar song became new and exciting. Heads were snapping, toes tapping. The Hard for You cover was delivered as it should be, spitefully, and Hate was outstanding. Clark went a little freaky which is always good, but the O-man was the show and, dare I say in a Bob Costas lisp, raised the bar for Parkside performances. This may have had to do with either O’s brush with Greg Cartwright a few weeks ago or the beer I spilled on his shirt; either way I’m anxious for more shows because I can’t believe that anyone who saw their set Friday will pass up a chance for another go.

I’d like to end with a few kind words for Gris Gris and Comets on Fire but I must be an asshole because I didn’t care for either set. In the spirit of FOX News editorials I will say Monoshock is a better name than either Gris Gris or Comets on Fire and therefore must be a better band.

You Should Be Sinnin'
Sometimes the difference between vehicular manslaughter and arriving home without a ten year stint in the pokey is the right cassette choice. How many times have you thrown yourself into the driver's seat with a post-work head fulla hate and nothing in that case is gonna match your disgust with the human race. Well, what's kept me from a return gig at the downtown Oaktown lockdown lately is the Dirtys' You Should Be Sinnin', a monster spew of vitriol and fuckitallness that is one of the few slabs that actually matches your rage spit for fucking spit. Less a collection of songs than a rolling middle finger at everything and everyone, twenty minutes alone with the Dirtys always lets me land home safely on the couch, heart rate down to only coke-ingestion levels, rather than the previous homicidal ones. Descriptions pale, but call it blues-based rock played at hardcore speed, with all the I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude you could possible want. Bum notes and outta tune guitars actually add to the dark charm. Look, some days, the Razor and Mr. T just ain't gonna keep ya from jailtime. Next time, make the Dirtys your ride home.

Lost in Skinner's Box
Stumbling down College Ave. in the midst of a debilitating spiritual malaise- nothing sounds good, overwhelming blah the response to any stimuli, I stumbled into Pendragon and found this, in Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet: “You had to be a crank to insist on being right. Being right was largely a matter of explanations. Intellectual man had become an explaining creature. Fathers to children, wives to husbands, lecturers to listeners, experts to laymen, colleagues to colleagues, doctors to patients, man to his own soul, explained. The roots of this, the causes of the other, the source of events, the history, the structure, the reasons why. For the most part, in one ear out the other. The soul wanted what it wanted. It had its own natural knowledge. It sat unhappily on superstructures of explanation, poor bird, not knowing which way to fly.” What do you do when all the right things, the rational things, the things you are supposed to do, fall flat, with only that vague yearning, teasing, urging, and prodding, that never quite comes clean? Surrounded by so much talk, so many answers, so much certainty, and so much disappointment. The soul wants what it wants, and the crowd frowns. Wags its collective finger. Gathers to agree on the rightness of its evaluation, and then judges. In the meantime, reason cowers, acquiesces, admits its weakness, and then agrees to the proper judgments. And yet, return to Sammler: “How very heavy human life was here, in forms of bourgeois solidity. Attempted permanence was sad.” The weight of bourgeois expectations, the terror of defiance, the shame of oblivion and its requisite manifestations.. When the constant barrage of arguments, sounds, images, chatter, and white noise leaves you numb, incapable of thought or feeling, knowing that the only thing that might make you feel alive is a fist through a window that will only lead to waking up, washing off your hand, wiping up the pieces and going out into the world subdued, well, even hootch can’t quash that mother. It’s a bitch sometimes. A bumper sticker. A stacked, clichéd set of emotional responses that only B.F. Skinner could love. One little box, pulling on that same old lever, getting that pellet that just don’t do it anymore. Bring on the new conditioning, or make freedom a living reality. Sammler again: “And of course no one knew when to quit. No one made sober decent terms with death.” If only we could find the terms, and take full responsibility for them. Such a short time really, and for some of us, a good chunk is past. What to make of what’s left, and how to commit to it without worrying about being right- that’s today’s question.

Holy Crap!

Black Bard

Quentin Tarantino has a strong feeling he was William Shakespeare in a former life.

The director feels he was born to write, because it's in his soul, and though he'd never seriously suggest he's prolific Shakespeare reincarnated, Tarantino can't rule the possibility out.

He tells GQ magazine, "I've always had a thought maybe that I might have been Shakespeare in another life.

"I don't really believe that 100 percent, and I don't really care about Shakespeare, I've never been into Shakespeare, but then people are constantly bringing up all of these qualities in my work that mirror Shakespearean tragedies and moments and themes.

"People have written lots of pieces about the parallels of my work and Shakespeare.

"I remember in the case of 'Reservoir Dogs,' writing this scene where the undercover cop is teaching Tim Roth how to be an undercover cop, and when the actors came in to rehearse it, Harvey Keitel read it, and he thought I had just taken Hamlet's speech to the players and broke it down into modern words.

"I'd never read Hamlet's speech to the players."

The moviemaker also thinks he was a black slave in America and a Japanese gentleman in former lives.

Hail Sadies

Sometimes I wake up in a pissy mood looking for a fight. Sadly, the house is dark and there's no one around. I yelled at C.W. Nevius this morning, but I was forcing it. Sometimes, there is only one thing that can stem the rising torrent of my wrath- The Country Teasers. Sometimes, they seem to be the only band that makes any sense, the only one that can dull the anger and return me to the absurd. Today, make it a Country Teasers day. I'm gonna.

Dirty Black Summer

I spent the morning reading one of the best pieces on DH Lawrence one will encounter, courtesy of the great James Wood. It's a testament to Wood's insight that now, with the vernal equinox upon us, he chooses to elevate Lawrence, a writer one must appreciate as a reader of good books. Lawrence straddles the 19th and 20th centuries with his books, and is often left off when discussing the 'best of the century', as us commoners often do. Lawrence is so good, so radical and fresh with each re-read, that I consider myself stupid for forgetting him, but of all artists that matter, that devoted life to craft, that lived the bold line, he has few if no equals. Wood's take reminds us of Lawrence oddities, his naturalist tendencies (my favorite, with Cormac McCarthy a close second), and he reminds me of what early 20th century Euro lit should have been, rather than the experimental nonsense that turns undergrads into Proust/Joyce zealots (I was one, now in remission - thank god). We have our own coal mines in the 21st century, yet we call them by different names (Wall Street, Silicon Valley), and our collective retreats into the cocoon with our iPods and satellite TVs give us little appreciation of the large world wonders within driving distance from our homes. Wood's piece also reminded one of the fear this time of year brings - though the long, bright days are here, their end is at the distant horizon. Daisy Buchanan always forgot the date of the solstice, but my favorite turn from Dickens sums nature's swift impact on our lives: "A great wind rises, and the summer is gone in a moment. We are playing in the winter twilight, dancing about the parlour." Fishing season starts April 28th - nature beware.

Once again my soothsayin' powers kickstart and land me in solid contention for an unprecedented third victory in the illustrious teacher's pool for March Madness, in which even Sisyphus can find meaning in an Old Dominion game. I'm 6th out of 85 a third of the way in, and if not for a temporary moment of cosmos fuzz in which I actually scratched out a finished product of first-thought, best-thought predictive channeling and stuck one more dog into the Final 8 (fuck you Georgia Tech, the ghost of Bobby Cremins spits in the southern wind), I would be primed for the kill. Can you say Acie Law IV? It's the second Thursday, and it's time get serious with with the Belgians and the Aggies. Come and sit next to genius- I'll buy the first.

Apparently, Sports Illustrated picks the Giants last this year, and has the Dodgers and the Angels in the Big Show. A Congestion Series, if you will. The Constipation Bowl. Why can't I even summon the disgust to mock that fading publication? Is this the least amount of Spring Training excitement the Gyros have generated in twelve years? Hey, I'm wearing my A's shirt publicly now, so steps 1 & 2 were easy. Why can't I get Johnny Lemaster off my mind?

I remember my roommate reading Max Frisch's I'm Not Stiller in college, and when I asked him what it was about, all I can recall is his pretentious tone and the stench of tuna on his breath. Well, since I'm teaching this philosophy in lit class next year, I thought I'd try the great Swiss existential novel, and let the oxymorons fall where they may. Like Kundera in his marriage of romance and deep thoughts, Frisch delivers more effectively for me on questions of identity and the quest for meaning than he does in some of the longer sections on the tumultuous relationships of two middle-aged Euro couples. But he nails the pettiness of emotion and irrationality of cruelty between two people, especially from threatened men. I'd recommend this one with reservations and throw in the nearly irrelevant fun fact that a short stretch of one narrative takes place in the fine city of Oakland, Ca.

Tom Franklin knocked Poachers and Hell at the Breach out of the proverbial writer's park, and I could not wait for the new one, Smonk. Sadly, he goes the vulgar comic route, and once you've seen possums crawling out of one set of rotting diseased intestines, you've seen 'em all. For sixty pages I was marveling at his wide array of describing a rising penis or delivering the act of love, but after awhile the slit throats and the anal vapors and the fifteen year old hooker rubbing out handies blur together into one long dirty joke. Maybe that's a tad unfair, but his first two works were scary and powerful and evocative. Maybe this was his attempt, like Dexter in Deadwood, to show off his hee haw. Didn't work for me, but maybe you dig a slimy possum. No accounting for viscous tastes.

Jay Parini's 2005 Faulkner biography is a tightly packed workmanlike effort that at 438 pages reads like a delightfully refreshing Reader's Digest version of the great man's life, and I mean that with the utmost respect. One chapter sets the personal and historical backdrop for the writing, and the next delivers the analysis and critical response to each work. You get the heroic and pathetic drinking stories, the relentless anxiety over money and the whoring in Hollywood, the young girls he just couldn't quit, and a critic who isn't afraid to rank his subject's work (no surprises, though, with the Big 4 followed by Go Down, Moses and The Hamlet and The Bear close behind). All you can do is marvel at the man's endurance, persistence and glorious production in the face of so many obstacles: critical hostility, financial shortfalls, drunk and spendthrift wife, horrific drinking binges, etc. Biography does not remove the mystery or divert your attention from the work- it raises your appreciation higher, and at the risk of matching fish breath's pomposity, it raises us all to see what a man can do when the right spirits align inside his head.

3 Links

First, an LA Times article on everyone's favorite Magical Negro (I want to start a band called Magical Negro - care to join?)

Second place is archive.org, which has thousands of public domain movies and concerts and music, all for downlading, all for your ipod. Three of my favorite movies - DOA, Fritz Lang's M, and His Girl Friday are all here.

Third is a link to a picture of Julie Christie, because we all need Julie Christie pictures in our life

Why Tony never sang

Done in the spirit of Tuna, who is sorely missed...

You may. I'm in Rockridge (Oakland).

Best,
Mike


>From: "Fost, Dan"
>To: "Michael Dabrasha"
>Subject: RE: Where neo-nomads' ideas percolate
>Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 08:43:19 -0700
>
>Thanks Mike - can we print your letter? Where do you live?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Dabrasha [mailto:m_dabrasha@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 11:48 PM
>To: Fost, Dan
>Cc: Chronicle Letters to the Editors
>Subject: Where neo-nomads' ideas percolate
>
>
>"Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of their best work
>in
>Parisian cafes."
>
>Dan,
>
>What is your source for this nonsense? Please don't print stupid, untrue
>
>adages, even in a trite piece about feckless dot.com 2.0 idiots who
>prefer
>muffins to work. Hemingway and Fitzgerald did their best work at the
>desk.
>
>
>Best,
>Mike Dabrasha

Haha!

If you don't own Bob Seger's Ramblin' Gamblin' Man you are insane. I like this better than the bootlegs. What the hell happened to this guy? Joel Selvin just reviewed his concert, which ensures he must still be doing his Like A Cock schtick.

http://www.robertchristgau.com/

You Come and Go Like a Pop Song [Goldenvoice, 1999]Thelonious Monster's feckless leader explains what happened to his teeth ("Cereal Song," "Boy at a Bus Stop"). ***

California Clam Chowder [Lakeshore, 2004]Not as peaky as beautiful fuckup Bob Forrest's Bicycle Thief comeback five years ago. If the brief "The Germs Song" is ugly and chaotic and the briefer "The Beck Song" disses the post-folkie and his haircut, titles like "The Bob Dylan Song" and "The Iggy Stooge Song" are less evocative than implied. As for "The Elton John Song"--well, Elton should cover it, because Forrest needs the money. Throughout this out-of-nowhere record, he and his relaxed band ride an emotional openness and tuneful ease that some pop schemer should convert into accounts receivable. Forrest is glad to be alive because staying that way has been kind of hard. The loveliest of his many lovely moments reaches out in near-tears solidarity to a sad, sexy, solitary salesclerk who wasn't so lucky. Why it's called "The Big Star Song" I don't know or care. A-

Who is great in art is not necessarily great in life, so the cliche reports. Dostoyevsky is our poster boy. Disagreeable, broke, irascible, drunk, angry and relentlessly unpleasant and aggressively righteous, why wouldn't he be my hero? Just finished The Brothers Karamazov and the occasional digressive plot jumps aside, it is the masterpiece they'd have you believe, those unctuous holders of cultural elite cards in the lower lower Manhattan of a Californian's nightmares. I don't know what else I can do in the Dosty sweepstakes- the only taunter is Volume Five of Joseph Frank's biography, a hundred pages down from a year ago and 700 to go. How a man that looks like Frank could have managed 800 final pages is a mystery for monkeys and Shakespeare- the man is a barely breathing skull. But what a skull! What an achievement! I haven't counted but my god- it might be 3000 pages by now, and without gossip or trivia, but with a keen and sustained analytical eye. It's a modern miracle, far greater than Lazarus or the '75 Warriors. The sheer swish of the man's critical faculties could blow Bradley's biases out his ears like a tornado purging a Cherokee tent town. Author and critic are serious motherfuckers- us critters picking at new variations of fried calimari in the Oakland night are nitpickers and placeholders and peanut gallery nobodies. These are the real brothers, the ones you don't want at your Graduate table but who deliver for you in the early morn and in the hours when the white noise blanketing consciousness threatens your harmony. Dostoyevsky will threaten that promise of future quiet but with intellectual, not aural, discordancy. Enter the dialectic, and resist the mad proselytizer if you dare.

Orange for Holland, Hup Hup, Oranje! Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam is a workmanlike overview of the two murders that threaten Holland's smug self-righteousness. I didn't learn a whole lot, but I've been following this shit. If you haven't and you're curious about yet another angle on the Euros and Islam question, you could do worse. Two gruesome political assassinations in a few years has opened the door to previously repressed questions about the place of immigrants in Dutch society, and it has forced the country to confront difficult questions about its own definitions of tolerance and what multiculturalism really means and how far they're willing to go to both encourage and fund such a Holland. What happens when a country's self-definition runs into ugly realities that force it to lower its national nose and stare into the orange mirror? Will it overreact and throw the brown men out? Will it cling to old illusions and press forward with open borders and open coffers for all? Or will it find some medium that more realistically addresses cultural, financial and political necessities?

The Sharks won a game on Sunday against their arch nemesis, the Dallas Stars. They are now 6-12 in their last 18 games and are clinging to the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Do not argue with me- this is the worst collective Bay Area sporting era since I've been around, and that's 1969, fuckface.

I watched Memento for the third time last night and it still holds up. Heartworn Highways, a 1975 documentary without commentary about country upcomers like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and David Allan Coe, was also worth 90 minutes, but it didn't hold that blowing candle to last year's TVZ doc, Be Here to Love Me. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and leave the woman at the spa. I'd say four Moylan's Hopsickles ought to ease you through, and you'll be buying all his stuff after you peel your bawling face off the vinyl couch. Highest rec, gents, for Be Here To Love Me. Send me the bill if you don't dig it. I'll pay you in Damnation, Belgian style, patio time, preferably before noon.