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3.2.2003
Only of interest to me, but here's the resolution update after February: 1. Read more - Finished two books in February (a sports book and Eggers' novel) and am about 1/4 through Light in August. Not doing as well as I'd like, but still... 2. See more first run movies - Only saw two in the theaters last month - The Quiet American and Intacto. And sadly, much of what's playing now I'm not interested in (except maybe The Pianist). 3. Home improvement - Well, I'm getting rid of the vermin in the attic. So that's something. 4. Reduce alcohol intake - took up the bottle again in late February. I need to give it back up because I just get hangovers too easily and I tend not to exercise or eat right with a hangover. But beer and wine are good. And so is bourbon. 5. Better diet - Lost 5 pounds in February, so that's going ok. It leads me to believe that I lost more than that in January since I was more faithful to the diet then. All I know is that people in the office have noticed - so that's not bad for two months work. 10 more pounds and I'll be where I need to be. 6. More exercise - I did fine for a few weeks, then cut back. I get back at it this week. 7. Financial stuff - Still saving a little each month. I'm too impatient with this - it takes a long time to save alot of money. SO I'll keep trying to put away some each month. 8. Better focus at work - Had a pretty good month. No complaints here. 9. Review the list monthly to check progress - done. Mark O'Connor's Hot Swing Trio As favorably reviewed by the local paper. Why O'Connor is one of the most interesting musicians around today: As for Mr. O'Connor, his horizons are even wider. Like so many of today's most challenging popular musicians, he is a polystylist who refuses to be tied down to any one genre, and there is nothing forced or self-conscious about the way in which his playing and composing have increasingly come to reflect the full spectrum of his interests. "In a sense," he said, "all I've ever been doing is trying to develop an interesting way to play the violin, a more flexible way to communicate through this wooden box. It isn't like, well, I'm going to play jazz now, or do the Nashville thing now. I always just wanted to get better, and if a new musical experience would help, I never wanted to turn it away." 3.1.2003
B.B. King - the last of the great bluesmen. Great NYT profile of King. I'm always amazed when I read of the hardships that some have to go through: At 9 Mr. King was left alone. His mother died at 25, perhaps of diabetes, and then his grandmother died. He said that a plantation owner named Floyd Cartledge and his family allowed him to live by himself on their property and earn his keep by performing house chores and milking cows.... A brief, unhappy reunion with his father — who had remarried — led Mr. King to strike out on his own at 13. He moved to Indianola, picked cotton and worked as a tractor driver on another large farm.... "I'm driving a tractor now, making $22.50 a week, and that was a big salary in the Delta at the time — $22.50 was the top," Mr. King recalled. "I was 14." But - as with many performers - one of the key elements of King's success was the fact that he was charismatic: He realized he had the charisma and personality to win people over. Audiences trusted him. He translated that later into sales of his records. He sold himself. People liked having B. B. King in front of them. He was acceptable and accepted. Check out this interesting look at one of the original crossover blues artists. The best Mr. Rodgers eulogy I've seen: I wrote about Fred for Esquire in 1998. People were always amazed when I said that Fred and I had stayed in touch after my story—that we spoke on the phone a couple of times a year and that Fred had written me well over 100 e-mails—but once you entered into Fred's life, well, there was no doubt that he would enter into yours. He was not only the kindest man I'd ever met but also one of the most fiercely disciplined, to the degree that he saw nothing but the good in other human beings. When he saw the good in me, he fixed on it, and there was a never a moment in which he didn't try to make me live up to it, by word, or by example, or, most often, by prayer. Plus, see this older article on Mr. Rodgers. These two articles beat anything written by the NYT, WaPo or the other major papers because they show that Mr. Rodgers was the real deal - what more could we have asked for? 2.28.2003
RIP Otha Turner Known for his homemade fife and his barbecued goat and music picnic, he only reached a somewhat wide audience of late: Turner was nearly cast in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Coen Brothers, who considered him for the role of the blind prophet. His music kicks off Gangs of New York as a prelude to the opening fight sequence. He was also a subject for photographer Annie Leibovitz and is featured in the book Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey. and appeared some years back on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. That TV show - its host, Fred Rogers, died Thursday - influenced North Mississippi Allstars' leader Luther Dickinson, who would go on to produce Turner's two albums. "That's where Luther first saw him," says musician father Jim Dickinson. "He was just a kid. I told Luther, 'That man lives right down the street.' " As is noted on the North Mississippi All-Stars website: At ninety-one, Otha Turner is a tradition unto himself, the living embodiment of a rare, Deep-South strain of the blues the fife-and-marching-drumband-dating back to the Civil War and rich with echoes of Mother Africa. On Everybody Hollarin' Goat,"a collection of field recordings made on his Mississippi farm, Turner and his Rising Star Fife and Drum Band rock like a nineteenth-century P-Funk, making exhilarating rhythm poetry out of rudimentary tools and ancient, buoyant soul." Otha Turner is one of the last true Mississippi blues men. He lives in Gravel, Springs, up yonder from the late, great, Junior Kimbrough. Othar is 92 years old and the last living master of the cane fife. His Rising Star Fife and Drum Band consists of his daughter and grandson on snare drums and cousin on bass drum. Their music is pure funk and earth. When you hear them play, it's hard to believe you are months from the Millennium. Though Mr. Turner's music likely didn't connect much with young audiences, it was a link to the past and was one of the few concrete links we had with 19th century music. RIP Mr. Turner.
It seems that ESPN had a long feature on the retirement of Patrick Ewing's number. Think they'll do the same for David Robinson - a better player who actually won a championship? And who avoided having to testify at the Gold Club trial - unlike Ewing? Too bad Robinson didn't play on the East Coast. Better guy. Better player. Less recognition. I guess he can flash his ring at Ewing, Mourning and the rest of the chumps who get props for playing 2nd (or 3d, or 4th or worse) fiddle to MJ in the 90s. 2.27.2003
Hey...know what's worse than having squirrels in your attic? Yep. Rats. Tree rats, or some such thing. Hang out in trees and attics. Mine apparently. You think I'm getting any sleep until the traps are set tomorrow? Trapper dude could've set his price at absurd levels and I wouldn't have blinked...can't put a price on a rat free home. I feel quesy typing this. 2.25.2003
Stuff that's been going on: - Busy weekend with friends in town. Went to the pro tennis tournament and was more amused by the people watching than the tennis playing (was surprisingly unimpressed by Andy Roddick). Is wearing a warm-up suit to a tennis match like taking a baseball glove to a game? Because it ain't a good look. We ended up eating at this place (link is a local review) which is a converted beauty shop with many of the old accessories incorporated into the restaurant. Quirky, but what I had - scallops - was really good. - We got about one inch of snow and ice Monday night, so - predictably - people were driving poorly and random stuff didn't open (and I still have a full garbage can in front of my house - damn city workers). More expected tonight, so we'll see what happens. - I have a squirrel in my attic. So I'm not sleeping much 'cause I keep thinking about that little fucker. It's so creepy when you hear his little feet creeping around up there. I've got a "catch and release" dude coming out tomorrow to give me an estimate and (hopefully) trap him/her so he/she can prance around the countryside. - Movie-wise, wasn't a big fan of Signs, though Night's got some Hitchcock moves (if he'd just do a tarditional suspense and sut out alot of the crap, I bet I'd like it) But didn't like Mel Gibson or either of the kids (they were "movie kids" - they didn't seem real - and exactly how many Culkin kids are there anyway?). Full Frontal was better than I expected, but it wasn't great. I liked so many of the actors though - Catherine Keener, David Hyde Pierce, David Duchovny, Blair Underwood, et al. I took it as a satire, so maybe I had a better impression of it than others did. OK. I'm gonna try to go to bed and not get too freaked out my the damn squirrel running around above me. 2.24.2003
How to write a Grammy's article - Bill Simmons: For this year's show, everyone's worried about musicians using this platform to protest the war. Not me. I love when entertainers take themselves too seriously. Isn't that why we watch these shows in the first place?... John Mayer has the Sports Gal and Veronica in a trance. I wish I could come back in my next life as a sensitive guitarist who makes weird facial expressions -- the world would be my oyster. Don't you just hate these guys? They're like those guys who can randomly sit down and play the piano at any bar -- you just can't compete with them under any circumstances.... John Mayer wins the Grammy for "Best Male Vocal," as the Sports Gal says "Boy, he's really cute." I wish some female singer would come strutting out with the biggest breasts imaginable right now. Where's Mariah Carey when you need her?... Our first anti-war comment of the night -- as well as the quote of the night, and possibly the year -- from the immortal Fred Durst: "I think we're all in agreeance that this war should go away as soon as possible." (Right on, Fred. We're all in agreeance. And if things fall apart, I guess we're all headed to Bolivian.)... Highlight of the night: Erykah Badu (with a giant afro) trying to read cue cards, screwing up, saying, "I knew I should have gone to rehearsal," as a horrified B.B. King looks on, inexplicably waving to the crowd, then finishing her cue card reading, but going one line too far and reading the word "APPLAUSE." Words can't possibly do that sequence justice. A solid 98 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale. As usual, Simmons takes the stars about as seriously as they should be taken. Now, here's how not to write a Grammy's column, by the reliably bad Virginia Heffernan at Slate: It was a night of unabashedly easy listening. Set off against the familiar awards-show swaths of feathery Ramada-lobby blue and violet décor, a polite but sad audience sat through a repressed ceremony, at which the soothing Norah Jones won practically everything that wasn't reserved for men... Performers had been gagged from protesting the war, and showmanship at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards seemed by extension to be generally inhibited.... But it was Fred Durst's geeky violation of the gag order that really established consensus: "I hope we're all in agreeance that this war should go away as soon as possible." Yes, we are. Heffernan seems to be under the mistaken belief that the Grammy's actually matter (and what Fred Durst says matters!). She looks for repression and censorship and finds it where she can while Simmons finds the humor that always exists at these events.
Great article on barbecue. An excerpt: A few months ago, on a trip through Salt Lake City, a friend took me to his favorite taqueria — Piedras Negras.... When we arrived in Salt Lake, I was deathly hungry, and I expected nothing short of a pork miracle. But though my friend had appetized me, he had not prepared me for what was about to unfold. We pulled into a tiny strip of storefronts advertising imported goods, pawned goods, and Piedras Negras — auspicious signs in my book. Conspicuous cleanliness draws energy from the preparation, where it’s better applied, which is why the best barbecue is often to be had out of old gas stations or cotton houses or abandoned International Houses of Pancakes and the like. This gritty little strip seemed to have its priorities straight, and by the time we touched the door, the smell confirmed my suspicions — faint hints of smoke, the aroma of corn, air of cilantro, and the steamy smell of meat that’s just reached a legal temperature. The menu had an admirable simplicity. When ordering tacos you would choose your meat, which would come pulled or lightly shredded in a corn tortilla. A tray of salsas and other dressings would be provided separately. You had only to consider whether you wanted your pork in the form of carnitas (pulled) or pastor (marinated) or in chile verde, whether you wanted your beef barbacoa (shredded) or carne asada, or if you had a taste for tripa (intestine) or seso (brain). When my carnitas arrived, I was transported. These tacos contained some of the best pork I have ever had — ever. So soft, succulent, and with a little chipotle salsa, as smoky as any shoulder sandwich I’d eaten back in Alabama. And only $1.25 a taco. The scales fell from my eyes. Like the author, I'm pretty open to different types of 'q, so I liked the article. 2.20.2003
I've been busy with work and having computer problems at home, so the lack of posting is for a reason. I intended to see The Bicycle Thief at a local art museum tonight, but I didn't get out of work until just before it started. I think I'll regret missing it, but some things are out of your control, I guess. There's always renting it from netflix, I guess. Other than that, I'm exhausted and going to sleep. Here are some links that I've checked out lately: - Atlantic profile of Wynton Marsalis |
