Why I Love Ann Arbor

Scene: The Fleetwood, sometime around 2am.

Me (wearing a dashiki and Santa hat): You know what you should see is on iTunes? That Cat Power cover of "Space Oddity." It sounds awesome.

Matt: Yeah, it's not on any of her albums. Maybe iTunes...

Random Dude From The Next Table (turning around): You can't get it anywhere. She's coming out with a new album or EP in January and it's supposed to be on there. But right now, it's just not available.

Me: Oh.

RDFTNT: It's a Lincoln car commercial.

Me: Yeah.

Matt (smoking): ...

RDFTNT turns back to his friends.

End Scene

'Tis the Season

Forget Christmas. It's certainly nothing against Jesus, but All Hallows Eve, aka Halloween, is my favorite holiday. It's not even close.

A big reason, of course, is because of when Halloween is. I love this time of year. Everything is dying, but it looks beautiful as it dies. It reminds me of our mortality, but also of our life after death. It makes me aware of the supernatural: of the snares of the devil, but also of the souls of the saints. It puts me in touch with my own dark side, whose existence I believe is healthy and necessary to recognize, even as I hope it never gains an upper hand on me.

Above all, this is a spiritual time of year and also a reflective one. At least it is for me.

It's also a great time for zombies and blood and splattered brains and comical looking monsters and stupid teenagers getting slaughtered and everything else the world of shlocky horror movies has to offer. Last year, Dr. Cheese ran down some of his favorite Halloween flicks.

This year, I thought I might talk about some of the dark, mopey, atmospheric music I like to listen to around this time of year. Carols for Halloween, if you will. So without further ado, here are a dozen of the best albums to put you in just the right frame of mind to get your October on:

Bauhaus - Burning from the Inside (1983). The original goth rockers, Bauhaus put out several albums in the late '70s and early '80s, any of which are completely appropriate for Halloween caroling. But my favorite is probably Burning from the Inside, which, apart from the title song (which is unfortunately more than nine minutes of relative suck), is flawless. Between those opening electrifying chords of "She's in Parties" to the final mellow strumming of "Hope," there's a whole lot of awesome to savor.

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out (1982). If any album can take my brain off to some non-Euclidean city of basalt where ancient Cthulhu lies dreaming, it's The Sky's Gone Out, my second-favorite Bauhaus album. The bizarro mood conjured by these 10 songs is hard to pin down, but everything from the chanting of "We love our audience!" in "Spirit" to the plaintive cry of "The sky's gone out!" in the weirdly reggae-tinged "Exquisite Corpse" takes me back to City Club, the 1990s Detroit goth hangout, and I'm again flailing in a strobe light with all the tattoos, piercings, and mascara surging all around me. Peter Murphy's mispronunciation of "Oedipus" in "The Three Shadows Part II" is the best, too.

The Black Heart Procession - The Spell (2006). A somewhat obscure band from San Diego, these guys don't let living in a perpetually sunny and warm paradise get in the way of their ability to put together some serious mope rock. This album tends to run together after a while, but "Tangled," the title track, and "GPS" are quite distinctively good.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970). Their first album is their greatest. The cover even says "Halloween" with the creepy cloaked figure standing in front of that old stone house. Then you start playing it, and the sound of a rainstorm greets you, with a tolling bell in the background, and... well, Sabbath may be a tired old cliche in 2008, but in 1970, there was nothing else like this!

Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting (1990). I got the ways and means to New Orleans! I first noticed Concrete Blonde when this, their third album, came out, thanks to a video for the haunting single "Caroline" on MTV's 120 Minutes (wow, it's hard to remember there was a time when there was anything worth watching on MTV). Moody, dreamy, dreary, these songs made me fall in love with Johnette Napolitano's husky voice immediately... and yes, all these years later I'm still in love.

The Cure - Disintegration (1989). OK, yes, there are probably many Cure albums that could go on this list. No argument here. But if you really want to get into that everything-is-dying-or-dead-and-I-might-as-well-be-too mood, Disintegration is what you want. Yes, it includes the relatively upbeat "Love Song" and "Fascination Street" but they can't save you from the relentless bummerdom of "Pictures of You," "Closedown," "Last Dance," "The Same Deep Water As You," and, of course, the title track. And a song about a Spider Man having you for dinner? Pure Halloween, bitches.

Joy Division - Closer (1980). Of course, Unknown Pleasures is great, but Joy Division's second and last album, following Ian Curtis's suicide, contains "Twenty Four Hours," and I'll fight anyone who says this isn't the coolest fucking Joy Division song. (Well, I'll make an exception for proponents of "Day of the Lords," because that's at least arguable.) Anyway, with other songs like "Atrocity Exhibition," "Isolation," and "The Eternal," you see there's no way this isn't on a list of Halloween albums.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (1982). Right, JuJu (which actually includes a song named "Halloween") is the obvious Siouxsie choice, but OMFG, have you listened to A Kiss in the Dreamhouse? This is eccentric postpunk at its absolute pinnacle. "Cascade" alone is worth several lesser albums, whether from Siouxsie or from postpunk wannabes. Following that is awesomely bizarre track after bizarrely awesome track. I'm not sure what happened to my original copy, but I've looked in used record stores to replace it and I can never find one for sale. That should tell you something.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Peepshow (1988). I'm not a big fan of this album's relatively successful single "Peek-A-Boo," but the rest of it, for no reason I can consciously pinpoint, reminds me of Ray Bradbury's best creepy short stories. Each song is like a great Uncle Ray story, terrible, wistful, beautiful, and a small piece of the mysterious mosaic that is our existence.

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland (1987). On my first trip to my beloved Ann Arbor, a friend of a friend insisted we stop at a record store (pretty sure it was the old, departed Tower Records) so he could pick up the new album from some band called the Sisters of Mercy. Who? What? We listened to it later and all I remember was thinking the singer had a weird, deep, unpleasant voice. Fast forward a few years to when my then-girlfriend got into Andrew Eldritch and his ever-changing lineup of people who could stand to work with him, and that was when I began to appreciate the Sisters' brand of gothiness. For my money, "Flood II" and "This Corrosion" are the best songs, but the whole album is worth a listen, start to finish.

The Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always (1985). If Burning from the Inside makes me think of City Club, the Sisters of Mercy's first album reminds me of 3D, a long-vanished club in Royal Oak. I think it was Tuesday nights we'd go and I'd drink one-dollar well drinks while sweating my dorky ass off on the dance floor to everything from the Sisters to Nick Cave. Again, this whole album is great, but highlights are "Black Planet," "Marian," and "Some Kind of Stranger."

Stolen Babies - There Be Squabbles Ahead (2006). I wrote about this album when it came out (and yeah, I mentioned Ray Bradbury, too, so what?), and while there are several songs on it I'm not too enthusiastic about, the rest of the gothy, heavy metal, cabaret tracks are so original and great as to have me still recommending this two years later. "Filistata," "A Year of Judges," "So Close," "Lifeless," "Tall Tales," and "Push Button" are all standouts.

The Balls Rocks Ann Arbor

Of the three times I've seen him, Tom Russell's concert at The Ark last night may have been the best one yet. He played for nearly two hours, accompanied by his guitarist/mandolinist Michael Martin, to a sadly not-even-half-full ampitheatre. But those of us who were there -- members of a secret, ultra-cool club -- made up for the rest of the world's lack of wisdom and taste by giving him a howling reception. My girlfriend, who never heard of him (like most of the world), became an immediate fan and bought a new CD of his. (Well, new CD of an old concert from 20 years ago.) And I bought this:



Tom Russell also paints stuff. This will get a nice frame and hang by a certain home bar soon.

The Institute for Truth, Justice, America, Sunshine, and Puppies Presents Michigan vs. Ohio, Round 1: Music

Music uplifts, inspires, commiserates, and comforts. In fact, the ability to create -- and enjoy -- music is one of the supreme marks of our humanity, setting us firmly in a special place above the rest of the animal kingdom. Music has charms to soothe a savage breast. If music be the food of love, play on. Let's face the music and dance. Blah blah blah high-toned introduction blah blah blah.

Anyway, on behalf of the research team from the Institute for Truth, Justice, America, Sunshine, and Puppies (ITJASP), Suds & Soliloquies is proud to present, as part of Ohio State Hate Week, Michigan vs. Ohio, Round 1: Which state is musically more freaking awesome?

Because this segment of the scientific research was the most intensive and involved, and owing to the deep cultural importance of music, we've decided to tally this category by decade in order to get a fuller comparison of where the states stand. Without further ado:

1940s AND BEFORE

Michigan. Detroit is an important contributor to the development of jazz, while John Lee Hooker singlehandedly re-invents the blues. Across the state, the "Black Eden" of Idlewild plays host to a who's who of soul, gospel, blues, and jazz royalty, from Cab Calloway to Sarah Vaughn to Della Reese.

Ohio. There is no evidence music existed in the primitive mud-towns of Ohio at this time.

Science says: Michigan. Count: 1-0.

1950s

Michigan. The Motor City remains at the forefront of cutting-edge music. Detroit native Bill Haley helps invent rock and roll in 1955 with "Rock Around the Clock." R&B legend Jackie Wilson said it was "Reet Petite" (1957) while crying through his "Lonely Teardrops" (1959). Guitarist Jack Scott pioneers the rockabilly sound with "Leroy" (1957). Little Willie John releases "Fever" (1956), made famous by Peggy Lee two years later, and Hank Ballard records "The Twist" (1959), which in 1960 becomes the #1 hit of one-hit wonder Chubby Checker.

Ohio. Dean Martin. Dino. The King of Cool. He was from a border town considered part of the Pittsburgh area, but... still technically Ohio.

Science says: Ohio.
Count: 1-1.

1960s

Michigan. Detroit grabs the world by the lapels and says, "Motown, bitches!" Where do you begin? Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, the Four Tops... the list goes on. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels climb the charts with "Jenny Take a Ride!" (1965), "Little Latin Lupe Lu" (1966), and "Devil with a Blue Dress On" (1966).

Ohio. The Isley Brothers find fame with "Shout!" (1962). Rick Derringer and the McCoys record the annoying "Hang On Sloopy" (1965). 1910 Fruitgum Company aka the Ohio Express crap out the turdalicious "Yummy Yummy Yummy" (1968). Some other shitty garage bands exist throughout the state, too, or whatever.

Science says: Michigan. Count: 2-1.

1970s

Michigan. Detroit hits its stride as the epicenter of all things rock. Iggy Pop and the MC5 basically invent punk. Alice Cooper invents shock rock and goth all at once. Ted Nugent and Bob Seger own the FM airwaves and Flint's Grand Funk Railroad define the emerging "arena rock" subgenre. George Clinton and P-Funk/Parliament/Funkadelic emerge from the Motor City. Detroit garage band the Rockets also achieve huge regional success but fall just short of the big time.

Ohio. Joe Walsh and the James Gang "Walk Away" (1971). Power-pop band the Raspberries want you to "Go All the Way" (1972). Funksters the Ohio Players do the "Funky Worm" (1973) and, maybe inspired by the "Love Train" (1973) of Canton's O'Jays, ride the "Love Rollercoaster" (1976). Meh.

Science says: Michigan. Count: 3-1.

1980s

Michigan. The Romantics get in on the ground floor at MTV with their video for "What I Like About You" (1980); ditto with Dave Edwards and the Look with "We're Gonna Rock" (1981). Former Bay City/Rochester Hills resident and UMich student Madonna Ciccone defines a decade with dance pop hit after dance pop hit, sparking an awful fashion style but encouraging young women to be slutty. The Belleville Three invent techno.

Ohio. I dunno. Devo?* Psychobilly freaks the Cramps have a stopover in Akron on their way from California to New York. Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders is from Akron, too. Irritating folk lesbian Tracy Chapman begins making ears bleed with her debut in 1988. Ugh.

Science says: Michigan. Count: 4-1.

1990s

Michigan. Detroit's Sponge and East Lansing's the Verve Pipe score big with "Plowed" (1994) and "The Freshmen" (1996), respectively. The annual Detroit Electronic Music Festival/Movement/whatever-it's-called-now is established. Rappers Insane Clown Posse shower audiences with Faygo bottles and dope beats, or something.

Ohio. Guided by Voices (Dayton), Over the Rhine (Cincinnati), Nine Inch Nails (Cleveland). Kim Deal of the Pixies and the Breeders is from Dayton, and Maynard from Tool is from Ravenna.

Science says: Ohio. Count: 4-2.

2000s

Michigan. Kid Rock and Eminem of Detroit popularize white boy rap. Mt. Clemens's Uncle Kracker scores rap-country-whatever hits with "Follow Me," "In a Little While," and a cover of "Drift Away." And Andrew W.K. goes from Ann Arbor to everywhere.

Ohio. Uh. Emo lamers Hawthorne Heights? Donald Duck Macy Gray?

Science says: Push. Count: 4-2-1.

Scientific reports always have summaries and tables. This one is no exception. This table summarizes the findings from Round 1:

Table A. Musical Genres or Styles Partially or Wholly Invented in or Popularized by Artists from...

Michigan	Ohio
Blues Jazz Rock and roll Rockabilly Punk rock Shock rock Goth rock Arena rock Funk Techno (and ghettotech, etc.) White boy rap	What's a genre? Fuck Michigan.

There you have it. Science has spoken: Michigan is the musically superior state by a mile.

Next up in Michigan vs. Ohio: political figures.

* It's also scientific to have footnotes, so here's an interesting one. According to Wikipedia: "Devo's big break came in 1976 when their short film The Truth About De-Evolution won a prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival; it was then seen by David Bowie and Iggy Pop, who championed them and enabled Devo to secure a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records."

Candles in the Murder Wind

I hate to take the blame for a catastrophe, but the other day I had a sudden, random urge to listen to "Los Angeles Is Burning" by Bad Religion and so I did, about six times in a row, because it's a totally awesome song. The lyrics:

Somewhere high in the desert near a curtain of a blue
St. Anne's skirts are billowing
But down here in the city of limelight
The fans of Santa Ana are withering
And you can't deny the living is easy
If you never look behind the scenery
It's showtime for dry climes
And bedlam is dreaming of rain

Chorus:
When the hills of Los Angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze
Even the stars are ill at ease
And Los Angeles is burning

This is not a test
Of the emergency broadcast system
Where Malibu fires and radio towers
Conspire to dance again
And I cannot believe the media mecca
They're only trying to peddle reality
Catch it on primetime, story at nine
The whole world is going insane

[Chorus]

A placard reads,
"The End of Days"
Jacaranda boughs are bending in the haze

More a question than a curse:
How could hell be any worse?

The flames are stunning
The camera's running
So take warning

[Chorus]

Shortly thereafter, the hills of Los Angeles started burning. Oops! Sorry, Southern California. I had no idea that my musical tastes could affect reality, "Word Processor of the Gods"–style. But maybe Pete Carroll can smother the flames with bundles of asbestos-treated cash, or something.

Update 10/23. The awesome video for the awesome song:

Two Down, Two to Go?

Half of the Beatles are dead... or are they undead? Presenting "A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead":



(Thanks Verd.)

Wino in the House

Lately I've been grooving to this new Amy Winehouse album, Back to Black. Amy who? She's been described as a cross between Billie Holiday and Lauryn Hill, and I guess that's about right, as far as it goes.

But you guessed it, it isn't far enough. I haven't heard her first album, a smash in her native UK and apparently jazz and hip-hop–oriented, but Back to Black is all Motown, at least instrumentally speaking. The music is reminiscent of 1960s girl bands, heavy on the horns and the pathos, and Winehouse's voice is... well, you really have to hear it. Which, this being the age of the intarwebs, you can, all easy like and stuff.

At 23, she's also apparently already a legendary drunk and pothead, but -- according to our friends at CNN -- "Singer's 'debauched' image not whole story." Indeed, if she keeps her shit together, she should have a nice career ahead of her.

In other music news -- the Ann Arbor Summer Festival: OMFG. They have a killer lineup this year, and I'm going to have trouble affording and possibly finding people to go with me to all the shows I'd like to attend. Lyle Lovett and k.d. lang on one bill! Pink Martini! Big Bad Voodoo Daddy! It's so... money. Literally and figuratively. And on top of that, Morrissey's coming to the Michigan Theatre next month.

Maybe I need to take a cue from the downtown bums and start up my own panhandling "business"...

Heavenly Rooster

Tom Russell at The Ark on April 19! I am so there.

Ol' Tom can't quite hit the high notes anymore, but here's "Gallo del Cielo" from his "Hearts on the Line" DVD:

Halloween Music

It's been a while since I've talked about the free room and the cool, dumb, or bizarre stuff I find there. This time I'm going to introduce you to Stolen Babies, one of those bands who randomly attracted my attention via bizarre cover art and, yes, a strange name. In this case, I was further intrigued by the liner notes, which list band members and guest artists who play such instruments as toy accordion, glockenspiel, jaw harp, tuba, euphonium, and "unsheathed daggers." Now I had to listen to this.

Before I give my take, here's how their website describes their music: "quirky-Goth, prog-pop, metal, cabaret, punk, art-rock, thrash, industrial, and 'I don't know what the hell fun songs.'"

I'm going with "Halloween music." Perhaps it is because of the time of year, but I was hooked right away by the band's weird Gothy metal carnival sound, and I've listened to nothing but this album all day at work. In fact, the album, There Be Squabbles Ahead, is out in stores just today.

I don't know that Squabbles is something I would listen to on a regular basis, but there are some really cool and interesting songs on here, among them "Filistata," "Lifeless," and "Push Button," the video of which is cool in a Tim Burtonesque kind of way.

I couldn't help but think of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes or The October Country, beloved classics to me, when listening to these guys. But there's a down side: The singer, Dominique Persi, has a lovely voice and really can sing, but in many of the songs she lapses into this emo-metal-hardcore-grindcore-whateverthefuckcore screaming that shares a greater kinship with nails on a chalkboard than with singing. This won't bother fans of such things, but it tends to make me cringe. So, unsurprisingly, my favorites on the album are the ones where the screaming is minimal or nonexistent.

Overall, a cool find. Check out the neato video for "Push Button," see their label site, or visit their MySpace page for more songs.

Tom Russell on Letterman

Tom Russell will be the musical guest on tonight's David Letterman show, for anyone able to stay up late and curious about why I think he's da bomb. He'll be doing a song off of his new album, Love & Fear, but I don't know which one. At his concert here last month he said he hoped Dave would have him do "Stealing Electricity." I'm voting for "The Pugilist at 59," myself.

(Image so not used with permission.)

Nico Enigma

First, it was the documentary about the obscure artist. Then the one about the obscure author. And last night, to round out my trilogy of obscurity, I watched "Nico Icon," about the strange German chanteuse of "The Velvet Underground and Nico" fame. If fame is the right word.

It's hard to know what to make of a woman attractive enough to become a model who hated both modeling and her own attractiveness. Whose singing voice was atrocious and yet sometimes oddly hypnotizing. Whose Bohemianism went so far as to include hooking her own young son on heroin. Yet it's undeniable that it's just such details that make her story intriguing and compelling. It's also easy to see how she would have influenced all those black trenchcoat–wearing Goth kids. She was Goth before Goth was Goth.

Released in 1995, the documentary features interviews with the folks who knew her, including her son, Ari, and lots of footage of her modeling, acting, singing, and even being interviewed. The number of other famous people with whom she mingled reads like a who's-who of 1960s and 70s pop culture: Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, Federico Fellini, Jackson Browne, Iggy Pop, and so on.

She died in 1988, years of heroin addiction having wasted her body, though the proximate cause of her death was a bicycle accident. In the end, her life was as bizarre and mysterious as the songs that she wrote. From "The Line" (also known as "Saeta"):

At a crossing of the line
Everything you need is mine
Everything is a big vision
A decision must be signed

A given voice
A given choice
A losing limit centerpoint
A given voice
A given choice
A losing limit centerpoint
I would give them all they need
Everything they know and read
But they must cross the line
The line

It's Music Meme Time!

Ian over at Fried Rice Thoughts was "tagged" for one of those blogger meme things ("List seven songs you are into right now") that people pass around like so much, uh, gas. (Incidentally, I had been pronouncing it with a short e, like the French word for "same," but apparently it's pronounced MEEM. Who knew? Ok, everyone but me.)

Anyway, I started to respond with my seven songs in the comments section of Ian's blog, then realized that my response completely overlapped with a post I was going to do here about a new CD I stumbled across at work, "Raw Vision: The Tom Russell Band, 1984-1994."

I've written about Tom Russell in this space before. His last CD, "Hotwalker," which I also purloined from work, is pretty bizarre but also strangely compelling. If I smoked pot, this would be a common soundtrack choice. So when I saw another CD from Russell last week, I eagerly snapped it up. And I've been listening to it constantly ever since. It is, as the name implies, a compilation album of some earlier songs. And it is all songs this time, no midgets narrating or archival recordings of Charles Bukowski reading poems.

Russell, in addition to being a sterling songwriter, has an arresting and earthy voice, at turns smooth and soothing or cracked and raucous. As for what the music itself is, as Russell says in the liner notes, it was "country rock" 20 years ago and it's "Americana" now, with maybe a dozen other names along the way. "Alt country" is another label that might apply. It can be a little hard to classify some of this stuff, but steel guitars and Southwestern flair often figure into it.

I even played the CD for my friend Matt, not exactly a country music buff, and he agreed it was good. And naturally, I was thrilled to discover Russell would be playing in Ann Arbor at the end of March. A friend is trying to hook us up with free tickets, but I'll go even if I have to, like, actually pay.

At any rate, all of the seven songs I'm "into" right now come from "Raw Vision":

1. Home Before Dark: This is probably the rockiest country rock song on the album. It's definitely air-guitar worthy.

2. Purgatory Road: I'm a sucker for any song that artfully combines sex, Catholic girls, and "wild asparagus." (Keep your dumb-ass priest jokes to yourself, thank you.)

3. Heart of Hearts: A more conventional love song, but Russell's voice makes it more moving than it probably has a right to be.

4. Gallo del Cielo: This is a ballad in the tradition of Marty Robbins (who I also like) about a man trying to win enough money from cockfighting to buy back the land some dirty bastard stole from his father. (Gallo del Cielo = Rooster of Heaven, the name of the, er, title cock.)

5. Spanish Burgundy: "And I drank until I slept / And I slept until I dreamed / And in my dreams her lips did taste of Spanish burgundy."

6. Hurricane Season: This odd tune is the awesomest song in the whole collection, with a lyric that just absolutely, totally, perfectly encapsulates the theme of my crappy novel-in-progress, whose current working title also happens to be Hurricane Season. What a weird coincidence. Oh, the lyric? "God protects the drunks and the adulterers / And He drowns everyone who says their prayers."

7. Oil Field Girls: This is an unreleased demo that shows what Russell can do with just an acoustic guitar and a little percussion. His lyrics and voice really make this one. Plus, it's the only song I know that mentions Old Peculier. "They walk the strip / Like painted shadows / Cursing the night / When man was born."

There are a few songs about veterans and steelworkers and whatever that I'm not quite as enthusiastic about, but otherwise this collection is more proof Tom Russell deserves to be more widely known. On the other hand, I'm kind of glad he's not, since then he probably wouldn't be playing at the Ark for $20.

Weird Scenes Inside the Free Room

Some interesting finds today.

The first is a CD called "Hotwalker" by Tom Russell. It's hard to explain, but it's a mix of music and narration that weaves a sort of patchwork tale about Beat-era America, and it includes readings from Bukowski, Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, and others. It would definitely be the perfect soundtrack for the next absinthe night at chez yours truly. "Little Jack Horton," one of the narrators, was a carny midget and drinking buddy of Bukowski's and he delivers a denouement that cracked me up so much I'll quote it in its entirety, even though it's not nearly as funny without his helium-voiced inflections:

This is Little Jack Horton. I'm just putting a coda or an end thing on this piece from my own thoughts in mind. America. I always it thought it was our America, as much as anybody else's, you know. Circus people and carnival freaks, prisoners and musicmakers, musicians, troubadours, minstrels, hobos, poets, and such. We can't let this goddam country go down to politicians and corporate madmen and college professors and media people, running it over and ruining it all. It's ours; it's our goddam country. We built the midway, didn't we? And we make the music that goes on the midway, from sea to shining goddam sea. You know, goddammit, Ronald Reagan dies recently and they fly the flag half-mast. Well, did they fly it half-mast for Ray Charles? Did they fly it half-mast for Johnny Cash? Declare a national holiday? Yet these people -- like, you know, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams -- these people moved and changed the daily lives of more people than these goddam politicians, who are just grifters and scum. We wouldn't even let them on the goddam midway. So let's now praise the real American heroes, the ones with the heart, soul, and character to change things for the good here. And leave the goddam politicians out of it, from sea to shining goddam sea. One nation under God, and Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Ray Charles, goddammit. Little Jack Horton, half-drunk on some very bad wine, saying, "So long, partner, and we'll see you on the midway!"

(Little Jack has since passed on.)

The other interesting, but anti-climactic in terms of this post, item is a DVD of a TV project by Krzysztof Kieslowski (of "Trois Couleurs" fame) called "The Decalogue." It's apparently 10 short films, each of which treats one of the commandments. (The DVD I snagged, unfortunately, is only the first three in the series.)

It's a Psychobilly Freakout

The Reverend predictably rocked the house last night. I was first in line at the door, and some dude who was also attending by himself was second. When we got inside, I proposed to him that we hang out together so that if one of us needed to get a beer or go to the john we wouldn't lose our primo spot near the stage. It worked out well; this dude -- his name was Andy -- and I put away two pitchers and several bottles of beerge while rocking out to the full-custom gospel sounds.

Of course the Rev has many songs I've never heard, and he played a fair number of them. And while they didn't do my favorite, "Liquor, Beer, and Wine," there were many quality psychobilly hits, including:

• I Can't Surf
  
• Wiggle Stick
  
• Loco Gringos Like a Party
  
• Psychobilly Freakout
  
• Spend a Night in the Box
  
• It's Martini Time

As much as the Rev rocked, the highlight of my evening was when some chick, trying to get past me, reached down and grabbed my wangdoodle. I don't know if it was accidental or intentional, but either way, it was pretty weird.

The Rev at the Pig

The Reverend Horton Heat is playing the Blind Pig tomorrow night (Thursday), but of course I don't know anyone cool enough to go with me. Jerks. Well, since it's only three blocks from my apartment, I reckon I'll go myself anyway -- if the show hasn't/doesn't sold/sell out.